Chapter 61: I Have a Favor to Ask of You Too

The atmosphere in the office was bizarre. President Wang's face was ashen, yet his eyes flickered with eager anticipation.

Finally, unable to restrain himself any longer, he suddenly turned around and strode toward the desk!

Just as he bent down to pick up those few scraps of wasted paper, I let out a disdainful, quiet chuckle.

Hearing my voice, Wang Qinghong's body froze, unable to move an inch.

He had already realized that by doing this, he was essentially admitting that he and the cleaning lady had just been engaged in an unspeakable act!

I settled back onto the sofa and said to Wang Qinghong, "Don't bother wasting your effort, President Wang. If you want people not to know, you shouldn't have done it in the first place. As long as you've done something, it will always leave traces, none of which can escape my eyes!"

Wang Qinghong straightened up, turned to look at me, and then walked over step by step to sit down opposite me.

He looked at me with despair in his eyes, gave a bitter smile, and said, "Because I was in a rush to go prep the conference hall, today was the only time I didn't have her tidy up. I never expected to get caught by you!

I've hidden it for so many years without anyone knowing, only to have it seen through by you at a single glance. This must be fate!"

I shook my head and told him, "President Wang, to think you are a hospital president, someone who ought to be a firm believer in science, yet here you are talking to me about fate. Don't you find yourself ridiculous?"

Wang Qinghong didn't smile. He stared straight at me and asked, "How did you figure it out?"

I put on my glasses and smiled faintly, "Even if I told you, you might not believe it. Right now, isn't President Wang's primary concern how to handle the impending divorce lawsuit with Jin Shuiyun?"

Wang Qinghong's face fell. He shook his head and said, "It doesn't matter anymore, as long as I can get away from that woman! The worst that can happen is that I lose this position as president, and I'll just start over somewhere else!

If possible, please cut Sister Mei some slack. She is a woman who has had a hard life.

All these years, she has quietly given of herself for my sake without asking for a thing. She is the only real victim here!"

Looking at him with some perplexity, I said, "President Wang, I don't mean to mock you, I simply don't understand.

With your status and standing, you could have any kind of woman you wanted, right?

There are plenty of young and beautiful women in the hospital. As long as you beckon, wouldn't they come running at your command?

Given how cautious you are—to have been able to hide this affair with the cleaning lady for so many years without leaving any obvious handles for others—why on earth would you choose such an old and ordinary woman..."

Wang Qinghong leaned back, his expression calm as he said, "Because she is obedient."

"Huh?" I was slightly taken aback, failing to catch his meaning.

With a self-deprecating smile, Wang Qinghong said, "When I married Jin Shuiyun back then, everyone was envious.

I was just a poor kid from the countryside who managed to marry a wealthy, powerful city girl. It was truly like the ancestral graves smoking with auspicious vapor and a crow turning into a phoenix!

Yet none of them knew how the hell I've managed to survive all these years!"

Looking at this sophisticated, rational, and refined senior intellectual turning red in the face and neck as he cursed, I couldn't help but find it somewhat humorous.

Wang Qinghong said through clenched teeth, "Her entire family looked down on me, never treating me like a human being!

Even that woman Jin Shuiyun, though nominally my wife, treated me in private as anything but a husband.

She deleted every single woman from my contacts list. Whenever any female colleague spoke a few extra words to me, she would interrogate our relationship like an inquisitor, regardless of how many people were around!

She would even hire private detectives like you to tail me and investigate my every move!

Because she felt that everything I had today was a gift from her, she acted like an absolute monarch at home, ordering me about and treating me like a servant.

At the slightest hint of displeasure, she would beat and curse me. I've lost count of how many times she threw me out in the middle of the night!

None of her parents are any better either; at our wedding, they didn't even allow my parents to sit at their table! Even when my father passed away, they didn't..."

Wang Qinghong's eyes reddened, and he choked up, unable to continue.

Sympathizing with him to a degree, I offered a bitter smile and asked, "So you found an ordinary woman like this as a mistress just to punish yourself? Or were you deliberately trying to anger Jin Shuiyun?"

Wang Qinghong gently shook his head and smiled softly, "Young man, you don't understand! In your eyes, Sister Mei has nothing going for her and lacks any standout qualities.

Yet to me, she is the very image of what a wife should be: gentle, virtuous, modest, and hardworking.

Most importantly, she is so obedient, so submissive! No matter what you want, she agrees. She submits to you wholeheartedly, solely for the purpose of making you happy."

I looked at him and asked, "So, are you divorcing Jin Shuiyun just to marry her?"

"She won't marry me!" Wang Qinghong sighed, looking disappointed. "She can't abandon the man at home! Although that man used to treat her poorly, ever since he was paralyzed from a fall at a construction site, Sister Mei has steadfastly cared for him without ever leaving his side.

In fact, even if that man weren't in the picture, Sister Mei still wouldn't marry me.

She's told me before that the disparity in our social standing is too great, and if we were to end up together, people would laugh at us.

As long as she could have this chapter with me, she was already entirely content!"

I fell silent. After a moment, I stood up and said to Wang Qinghong,

"President Wang, I do have one other matter to attend to today with you.

A friend of mine has his son hospitalized in the oncology inpatient department, and I want to have him discharged today.

If I encounter any trouble, I'd appreciate it if President Wang could step in and smooth things over. Is that all right?"

Wang Qinghong looked at me with a bewildered expression. Seeing that I was about to leave, he asked somewhat anxiously, "Wait, what exactly do you mean? Are you just going to leave like this?"

I smiled at him and replied, "What, do you expect me to stay for dinner?

President Wang, since I've taken on this case, I will see it through to the end properly.

That's a matter of respect for my profession.

Therefore, I will report the truth about President Wang having a mistress to Jin Shuiyun.

However, since your goal isn't to contest her assets, I already know how to frame and handle the report."

A look of gratitude surfaced on Wang Qinghong's face, but he furrowed his brows almost immediately and asked me, "What about that patient you mentioned?"

I waved a hand and said, "President Wang should go to your meeting first. We can't clear this up in a couple of sentences right now, but I do hope you can help me out with this favor."

As I turned and walked out of the president's office, Chen Yinan materialized from somewhere. Once we stepped into the elevator, he smiled and said to me,

"Second Boss, I don't think this case of ours can be closed now. It'll be hard to explain to our client! President Wang turns out to be a pristine, noble-hearted gentleman whom even the cleaning lady praises!"

I let out a sigh and told him, "Old Chen, the case can be closed; President Wang does indeed have a mistress. She's none other than the cleaning lady you were chatting with just now!"

Chen Yinan burst out laughing and said, "Second Boss, you can be quite the comedian sometimes!

Actually, this is fine too. Don't go around wearing such a stern face all day. Being so cynical and deadpan at such a young age isn't good for your development!"

"Get lost!" I scolded him irritably. "I'm not joking with you! I'll fill you in with the details back at the office. For now, let's grab the items we bought from the car and go check on Xiaowen."

After calling Zhao Shangde to find out Xiaowen's ward, Chen Yinan and I each pushed open the door carrying a large bag of nutritional supplements.

At the sight of the little fellow lying in the hospital bed, my heart gave a sharp tug, and the smile I had just mustered vanished entirely.

In just a single night, the boy's once-vibrant eyes had filled with a dullness that had no business belonging to a child of his age, and his entire body lay frozen and lifeless as he stared blankly out the window.