Chapter 139 - Payback

No one knows how much Xiu Mei wished for the ground to swallow her up at that time. Seeing her reflection on the camera, she wanted to fool herself to believe that it was just an edited image of her or there was some kind of filter that makes you look like you have some weird bug bites on your skin or something.

Unfortunately, the reality is harsh.

Xiu Mei buried her face on her palms. She cannot look at herself anymore at all. Not when thinking about how she paraded at the office for an hour after exiting Lu Chen's office. And when her assistant looked at her grinning while throwing her a knowing look. And the snickers she ignored when she unconcernedly held hands with Lu Chen when they were going home.

All the actions she has been doing for the past few hours are dawning on her.

WHAT.THE.FUDGE.

How would she even go to work and have the face to see her coworkers?!

The urge to suddenly ignore and fight with Lu Chen felt stronger than ever. This guy, he didn't even tell me that she looked…. so inappropriate.

Wait…

She remembered how many times Lu Chen glanced at her back in the car. She thought that he was just being silly after they've made up so she didn't think much about it. But now…

It seems like that guy is asking for a beating!!

How can he not even point it out to her back in the car? At least, she wouldn't be suspecting him for deliberately doing this to her right?

She couldn't even count on her assistant for pointing out this kind of thing for her. Heck, she was the type to tease her and remembered it for a long time.

But Lu Chen! He could've pointed it out to her back when they were still on the top floor. With how red and exposed he planted the hickeys, he would've surely known that her collared blouse wouldn't be enough to hide it all, right?

Damn, why did she suddenly feel like she was being scammed?

"Here's an ointment for the bite, Mom." Lu Qiang handed her a tube of medicine.

While she wallowed for her lost image, her son grabbed the medicine box he kept at one corner of his room and gave the ointment to his mother to use for the mosquito bites on her neck.

He innocently and curiously gazed at the bites on her neck, wondering whether it was really done by a mosquito. Because that's how his bite looked like when he was bitten and he rubbed on it a bit hard, scraping his skin off.

He worriedly thought. Is his father not taking care of his mother at the office? Is their office in such a bad shape that Mom had to suffer from numerous mosquito bites?

His father is so disappointing ah. How can he let her mother suffer like this?

Xiu Mei gratefully accepted the medicine and entered the bathroom. Seeing her whole reflection on the window, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Aside from the hickeys that bastard Lu Chen planted on her neck, she wasn't sure if it was the lighting or not but she thinks that her lips look like it was swelling a little bit too?

"Cunning bastard." She cursed under her breath as she grumpily applied the ointment on her neck. Looks like she needs to get her lips iced as well.

Then her eyes wandered on the box that Lu Qiang gave to her.

"Hmm…" She hummed. After her eyes lingered on that little present, she stared at her reflection on the mirror. Her lips curling up into a smirk.

Well, it won't hurt to get a little payback, right?

After that, Xiu Mei quickly changed into a turtleneck knitted sweater in an attempt to hide the marks on her neck. As soon as she got into the kitchen, she saw Lu Chen and Lu Qiang taking out the ingredients from the refrigerator. Noticing her presence, Lu Chen smiled gently at her.

He placed back the cabbage on the counter and approached her direction while staring hard at her rather warm attire. Right now, she could easily recognize where he was looking at all this time.

Seems like this guy really did plan it all along.

Holding out her apron for her, Lu Chen patiently waited for her to step closer to him so he could tie it for her.

Xiu Mei glared at him, reaching out to pinch his waist.

"Bastard." She whispered loud enough for him to hear.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted."

She slapped his arm, clearly annoyed by his antics. Look at this guy asking for a beating. Is he planning to annoy her to death?

Though irritated, she still stepped closer to him and allowed him to tie the apron around her waist. The three of them started preparing the dinner for the night.

A few days after, Xiu Mei finally received the confirmation of her appointment with Doctor Lee. She felt nervous, yet she felt even more determined to push through with it. This may be the only chance and new clue left so they could find out who wanted her kidnapped.

Lu Shao who was also sent away to trace the source of the bloodied gifts that they have been receiving at the company finally found some good news.

"I didn't find anything on the footage but we did pick up something interesting when we watched it frame by frame."

In the study, Lu Shao opened his laptop and showed a screen with four different videos on them. He pointed at the video on the upper right and explained it.

"Looking at the time stamp right here, it says that nobody was seen entering our floor before Xiu Mei's assistant arrived. But on the lower part video, we can see some similarities in the positions of the potted plants right here." He pointed the potted plant collection decorating their floor just beside the glass windows.

She looked closely at the videos and realized that he was right. The position of the leaves in the first camera and the third camera was the same. Which was weird since the first camera is installed with the view from the entrance of the elevator. While the third video was position across the room, which was in the completely opposite direction of the first camera. It was installed and angled to see which people are entering the door to the President's office.

Then after Lu Shao fast-forwarded it, the gift suddenly appeared on her assistant's table.

"Was the footage cut off?"

"Rather than cut off, it was most likely overridden with an earlier video. This is definitely planned."

"Then what's the thing that you found out?"

Lu Shao changed what was flashing on the laptop screen into a word doc.u.ment.

"Then this is what I found out about the shifts of the cleaners that we hired for the whole building. Since they're the third party, we usually don't keep track of their schedules and who cleans the top floor. I remembered that they're usually the ones who would water the potted plants from time to time so I took a look at it and found this."

"Why that woman?" She asked after seeing a woman's face that she had never seen before.

"She was just recently hired and weirdly enough, she was suddenly called the day before for cleaning which wasn't on her original schedule."

"Then what's the weird part? I mean, couldn't it be just someone simply chipping in to take over her shift like maybe he's sick or something?"

"But this woman doesn't have the clearance to clean the top floor. If ever someone needs to take over the shift for that day, then a different person would've been chosen instead of the newbie."

Xiu Mei nodded in agreement after thinking about it. He's right. He does have a good point on that one.

"Then?"

"Oh, this same woman resigned two days ago and booked some tickets with the destination outside of the country."

"So she's fleeing?"

"That's what we think too. We're thinking if we should stop her from leaving the country for interrogation?"

"But this is circ.u.mstantial evidence. We can't just detain someone just because it's the Lu Corporation who asked for it. That's illegal."

"Then we'll devise a plan to make her stay longer here or delay her flight?"

"I think that's better to do that instead of forcibly grabbing her for an interrogation." Xiu Mei agreed on the alternative suggestion Lu Shao offered.

"Is she the only strong candidate we have as to whom who may have done this?"

"Not really, we have a couple more who we also suspect but this woman was the oddest and most suspicious one out of them all so we're digging about her first."

"Hmmm, then what about continuing with the same authorized cleaners on the top floor?"

Lu Chen and Lu Shao looked at her.

"If the same thing happens again, then wouldn't that give us a clearer picture? Like if she's moving only for herself or she has an accomplice that's helping her as well."