242 Celebration

"Lihua! I already told you to be as low-key as possible. We cannot afford to antagonize Zhuo Jingren right now!" Mu Huang said, his face cold and rigid as he eyed his daughter.

"I don't see any problems. I will have it fixed by tomorrow," Mu Lihua answered calmly. "And I will visit President Zhuo to discuss things with him personally."

"Discuss? Can you even talk to him? His secretary has been telling me that he is not available for a meeting!"

"That's because you have been kissing his *ss all this time!" Mu Lihua countered. The thing that she hates most about this father of hers is his lack of principles. Mu Huang is a two faced person who loves to curry favor with everyone just to expand his connections. He is a coward who always avoids confrontation. Okay, if she's being kind she'd say that he would rather use diplomacy and would choose to talk to his rivals and compromise.

This is where Mu Lihua was different from her father. She likes to challenge herself and she wants to succeed without being subservient to the plans of others.

"I really don't understand. Lihua… I have raised you well. Why don't you listen to me for once? I know you are smart enough to know that we cannot afford to offend him. I don't understand why you did it." Mu Huang sat across his daughter, sighing heavily. All he wanted was to avoid a direct confrontation with Zhuo Jingren. Mu Huang was sure that the latter would not let them go because of He Xinlan.

"It was just a business decision," she answered. She didn't want to reveal her plans to her own father as she still wasn't completely confident that her plan would work out. "Anyway, I will see him tonight at dinner."

Mu Huang narrowed his eyes on his daughter. "You got hold of his schedule?" When his daughter did not answer him, he continued with a panicked expression,  "President Zhuo has always loved his privacy. If you do this, you will only earn his ire."

"I can handle it." Mu Lihua wanted to say that she doesn't have a choice, but she knew that she couldn't say that in front of her father. "I still have a meeting. Please leave. I will visit you and mother- wait, is she back from Germany?"

"No, she decided to stop by to see her relatives in Europe."

"Oh," Mu Lihua nodded as she watched her father leaver with a sullen expression on his face. Mu Lihua then clenched her jaw as she thought about Qi Xia and the sinister look in his eyes as he mentioned what they did to Mu Qingling. She needed to dispose of that man. She could not afford to let this happen again in the future.

Mu Lihua closed her eyes as she thought about what had happened to her own sister. She took a deep breath and exhaled slow and loud as memories flowed through her mind. Months ago, someone released a scandal about Mu Qingling. It not only ruined her reputation, it shamed the whole Mu Family. This left Mu Lihua furious and fuming with anger. She would not let anyone brand her as 'the sl*t's sister'.

So she asked Qi Xia for help. Mu Lihua and Qi Xia were quite close as they were once classmates. When Mu Lihua asked Qi Xia to help her deal with Mu Qingling, he immediately agreed with the condition that she invests in his business. All Mu Lihua wanted was to make sure that Mu Qingling would not come back to China. She and Qi Xia schemed to get Mu Qingling's naked photos. Once they had her photos in hand, they told her that they would send them to her school abroad if she even thought about coming  back to China ever again.

Of course, this devastated Mu Qingling. All she had left was her school in Europe, and Mu Lihua threatened her to take that away from her as well. Mu Qingling instantly agreed not to come back to China. She even signed a document stating that she would not accept anything from the Mu Family's inheritance, and furthermore, she pledged to give everything to her sister to compensate for the embarrassment that she had caused her.

Now that Mu Lihua has thought about everything  she regretted calling Qi Xia at that time. After the scandal was released online, Mu Lihua panicked and called the first person that she could think of and that was Qi Xia. Now she is regretting ever asking for the man's help. She always knew that Qi Xia was a scheming man and yet she still asked for his help. How foolish.

Mu Lihua looked at her watch and realized that it was already lunchtime. According to Qi Xia, he will be seeing Lily today at lunch. Moreover, Qi Xia also asked for some paparazzi to secretly take pictures of them eating together to create a few rumors. He was sure that this would eventually divert the public's attention towards Lily and him.

Of course, they had no idea that Lily had already foreseen the occurrence of this 'accidental' meeting. It was not a guess, but something that she concluded after learning that Mr. Wang, Qi Xia's uncle, had scheduled for a lunch meeting today. They've already signed the contract, so Lily did not see any other reason for Mr. Wang to contact her as she'd already put Mr. Rossi in charge of this project.

"President Zhuo… I…" Qi Xia's eyes widened as he looked at Lily, who was sitting next to Zhuo Jingren. He'd just arrived at the private restaurant in a good mood as he thought that his plan would succeed this time. Who would have thought that Zhuo Jingren would accompany Lily today?

"Mr. Qi? I was not expecting you here. Is this another coincidence?" Lily smiled at him.

"Oh. I am here on behalf of my uncle," he said, as his expression returned to its usual coldness. He never expected Zhuo Jingren's presence but this did not mean that he would fail. "I was not expecting that you would bring another person here. This was supposed to be a private meeting," he said, his fingers tightening on the bouquet of flowers in his hand.

Lily feigned ignorance, "Really? I thought this was a celebration for the successful signing of the contract?" Before she could utter another word, Zhuo Jingren had already butted in.

"It is pretty normal for businessmen to bring other businessmen to celebrations like this. This is to broaden our network as we interact with one another, so it's pretty normal for my wife to bring me along," Zhuo Jingren said in a cold tone. "Since you are already here, come… sit down so we can start the celebration."