Xu Lize returned from City B on Tuesday noon.
The newly negotiated project was progressing smoothly. After Xu Lize came back, he gave the team half a day off, and then directly asked Zhao Rui to drive him back to Wutong No. 1.
When he got back to the villa, the housekeeping aunt was tidying up the kitchen. She was very surprised when she saw Xu Lize.
"Mr. Xu... Have you... had lunch?"
Xu Lize nodded. His eyes swept around the living room, and he asked the aunt, "Miss Su isn't at home?"
"Miss Su was halfway through her lunch when she received a phone call and rushed out in a hurry." The aunt said, pointing to the soup in the pot. "Since you're back, I'll keep this chicken soup. I'll add a baby bok choy to it for dinner..."
But Xu Lize's attention wasn't on the food. He directly interrupted the aunt's rambling and asked, "Did Miss Su go out after receiving a call from the hospital?"
Xu Lize's first reaction was that something had happened to Su Yang's mother.
But unexpectedly, the aunt shook her head. "Miss Su received a call from a classmate."
In a small classroom on the first floor of the campus - style teaching building of University A, Su Yang and Song Haolin were sitting side by side at a table. There was a laptop on the table, and the screen showed a post on the school forum website.
The title was very eye - catching - "The Working School Beauty of the Literature Department Has Caught the Eye of the Cold - faced Deputy Director. Is It True Love or a Scandalous Deal?"
The post was uploaded on the forum at exactly 8 a.m. After half a day of fermentation, the click - through rate had skyrocketed, and it had been staying at the top of the forum homepage in red.
There was not a single word in the main body of the post. Only six photos of different clarity were posted, all of Su Yang and Feng Zhiyu.
There was a photo of the two smiling and walking side by side into the restaurant entrance, one of Feng Zhiyu opening the door for Su Yang when they were leaving the private room, one of Su Yang with her head down while Feng Zhiyu was patting her on the shoulder, and one of the two standing close together in the restaurant corridor...
There was also a video link of more than ten seconds below the photos. The pixel was not clear. It was obvious that the person who took this video was sitting quite far away and had specifically zoomed in the camera.
The video had taken out of context Feng Zhiyu's action of pulling Su Yang to one side. It was out of context and really made people wonder.
Su Yang calmly finished reading the post, then turned to Song Haolin and asked, "Senior, when was Teacher Feng called to the principal's office?"
"Before lunch, around 11 a.m.," Song Haolin looked at his watch. "Logically, it's already been more than an hour. I guess they've finished the questioning over there."
"Senior, do you know anyone in the Computer Science Department?" Su Yang asked again.
Song Haolin glanced at her. "You want to investigate this?"
Su Yang pointed to a photo of her and Feng Zhiyu hugging on the screen and said, "This one is obviously a PS composite. The clarity was deliberately lowered, so it looks very real. This already constitutes slander and defamation. I definitely have to investigate this!"
"I checked the ID for you when I saw the post this morning. But this ID is newly registered and there are no traces at all. It's obviously on purpose."
Su Yang frowned, with a strong look of displeasure in her eyes.
"So checking the ID is useless. We must check the IP address. This kind of scandalous rumor on campus is very eye - catching. But whether someone wants to frame me or it's just a prank, they shouldn't have dragged Teacher Feng into this. It's really too much!"
Song Haolin continued, "Don't worry about this. If the school leaders want to investigate, I and the other senior sisters can testify for you. It wasn't just you and Teacher Feng at that dinner. We were all there."
Su Yang nodded. "There must be surveillance in the restaurant. It hasn't been many days yet, so the surveillance video should not have been overwritten. We can ask the boss to replay the video. Teacher Feng pulled me there to prevent me from bumping into the waiter who was delivering the food."
Su Yang never expected that she would be involved in such a strange thing so close to graduation.
When Song Haolin called her at noon, she thought he was joking with her at first. It was not until she came to school after reading the post that she realized that someone really wanted to spread rumors about her behind her back.
In the meantime, she called Feng Zhiyu twice, but both times he hung up on her.
It was not until she met Song Haolin that Su Yang found out that Feng Zhiyu had been called to the principal's office by the principal.
Su Yang suddenly felt an indescribable feeling in her heart. It wasn't that she was afraid of the investigation because of a guilty conscience. It was just that sometimes she understood the power of gossiping tongues.
Just like, He Juan back then...
Suddenly, Su Yang's phone vibrated.
She thought it was Feng Zhiyu calling her back, but when she picked it up, she saw that it was actually Xu Lize.
"Where are you?" Xu Lize asked straightforwardly.
"I'm at school," Su Yang replied.
"Busy with something?"
"...... Not really," Su Yang answered vaguely.
"Then wait for me at school. I'll pick you up and then we'll go to the hospital together," Xu Lize suddenly gave an order.
Su Yang was stunned. After saying hello to Song Haolin, she ran out of the classroom. She found an empty stairwell corner and asked Xu Lize, "What are you going to the hospital with me for?"
"To visit your mother with you. And, you haven't forgotten that we're going to get our marriage certificate tomorrow, have you?" Xu Lize's voice sounded a bit colder.
Su Yang quickly said, "Of course not. I've already prepared my household register."
"Since that's the case, I think you should understand that although we're not having a wedding, the fact that we're going to get our marriage certificate tomorrow is legal. You're getting married, such a big thing. Aren't you going to tell your mother? Or aren't you going to introduce me to your mother?"
Su Yang was speechless at Xu Lize's reasonable interrogation.
"I thought..." she stammered. "I thought our marriage was just a cooperation. You said there would be no wedding. I thought you might be..."
"There's no wedding because it's urgent and unnecessary, but this marriage is valid. Su Yang, you have to be clear that from tomorrow on, I will be your legal husband, and you will be my legal wife, not some... cousin!"
Su Yang was stunned.
She really wanted to refute Xu Lize that she had lied to the housekeeping aunt only because she was really confused about her own identity and didn't want to make things difficult for Xu Lize on her own initiative. That was why she had casually said that she was his cousin when the aunt asked about their relationship.
But at this moment, Song Haolin's voice came from behind Su Yang.
"Su Yang, Teacher Feng called me. He's going to the restaurant in Building No. 1. He asked us to go there and find him now."
Hearing this, Su Yang didn't have the mind to continue explaining to Xu Lize. She just hurriedly said to him, "I have something to deal with first. I'll call you back after I'm done."
Xu Lize on the other end of the phone didn't even have time to say "Okay" before he couldn't hear Su Yang's voice anymore.
Looking at the darkened phone screen, General Manager Xu was stunned for a few seconds.
The last person who dared to hang up on his phone like this seemed to have been sent by him to build roads in Africa!