Chapter 215 - An eerie doppelganger

To his relief, the young woman nodded. "She's inside. I think she's about to come out."

"Thanks." Han Ye smiled at her before stepping aside to let the young woman walk away.

He waited until he saw Xiao Lei walk out of the ladies' room with an empty champagne glass. 

"What are you doing outside the ladies' room?" Xiao Lei asked curiously. "Are you a... pervert?" 

He rolled his eyes at her and said, "I was worried about you. I saw... Anyway, what took you so long? And why didn't you answer your phone?" 

She blushed and hissed in a low voice, "I was using the toilet and it's on vibrate!"

"What's the point of having a phone if it's constantly on vibrate?" he asked while glaring at her. 

She stuck her tongue out at him. She put her phone on vibrate since earlier because she did not want to embarrass him. She was worried that her phone might ring when they talked to the big shots at the party. 

Seeing that she was quiet, Han Ye cleared his throat before saying, "I'm not angry with you or anything. I was worried, alright. Did anything happen earlier?"  

Xiao Lei then hesitated for a moment before continuing, "I met Mr. Fan Shaohang earlier, and he wanted to talk to me about something."

"What?" he asked out of curiosity. 

She shrugged. "He wanted to ask me to go to a quieter place with him, but I don't think that's appropriate, so I rejected him."

She then showed Han Ye the empty glass. "He said that I reminded him of someone, and he said that the person used to love champagne and he thought I might like it as well."

It was her mother's favorite alcohol, and Xiao Lei could still remember watching her mother drinking champagne with her father as they talked at night. When she was still living in this mansion, Xiao Lei's bedroom faced the garden, and whenever she could not sleep at night, she would look out at the garden. Occasionally, she would see her parents snuggled up against each other with a glass of champagne in their hands. 

At times, they would even sit quietly at the huge garden swing until morning. Xiao Lei had caught them sleeping on the swing more than once before.   

As Xiao Lei looked at the champagne glass, she could not help but smile slightly. 

However, Han Ye frowned as he looked at the empty champagne glass. "You didn't drink it, did you?"

Xiao Lei looked around. When she noticed that there was no one around them, she shook her head. "I might not be highly educated, but I still know what I shouldn't drink. Don't worry, I poured them away at the sink earlier."

"Good..." 

A man walked past them to go to the men's room, and Han Ye waited he went into the men's room before saying in a low voice, "I saw you with him earlier, and I thought... I thought you might not be able to handle it."

"Why wouldn't I?" Xiao Lei asked. "He's just another man." 

Obviously, Han Ye could not tell her his real thoughts, so he shrugged and joked, "I thought you might say something stupid and embarrass me."

She glared at him and gave him the empty champagne glass roughly. "I'm not that stupid!" 

Fan Shaohang was extremely pushy earlier, and she could tell that he suspected something, but she remained calm. Once she told herself that she was no longer a child, she managed to calm down and face the man properly. 

Her memory of Fan Shaohang was hazy at best, but she remembered that he was someone that her father trusted. But given how her father also trusted Fan Chuan, Xiao Lei was reluctant to believe in Fan Shaohang. 

She deflected all his attempts to try and get to know more about her past and kept everything strictly professional. 

"Did he say anything else?" Han Ye asked as he held the champagne glass. 

She shrugged. "Nothing much. He left after a while."

To Xiao Lei's confusion, Han Ye sighed in relief. 

She felt that he had been acting weird lately, being overly nice to her at times, then being mean to her for no reason, as if he was compensating for being too nice to her. Of course, she wasn't complaining since it made him even more interesting to hang out with than before... But still... It was confusing. 

At one moment, he was her serious boss, and at the next moment, he was just Han Ye.

Han Ye glanced at his watch for a while before saying, "Alright then. Let's go back. I think another 30 minutes more and we can leave."

"We don't have to stay until late?"

Han Ye shook his head. "Not unless you want to, but normally, for this kind of event, President Du would only stay for a while. We've already talked to most of the important figures, and we have talked to the host as well. So, all the customary things have been done."

Han Ye came here to just warn the Fan Family and to slowly integrate Xiao Lei back into the entertainment world. He could care less if any of the Fan Family could recognize her, but if they did, and he hoped they did, he wanted them to have sleepless nights thinking about whether Xiao Lei was the one they tried to kill off many years ago.

Xiao Lei nodded. Her feet were already killing her, so she would be happy to go back to the hotel and change into something more comfortable. 

They went back to the crowd. Whenever someone passed Xiao Lei a drink, Han Ye would take a drink from her and say, "She's actually here to learn. And I'd prefer her to be sober while learning."

If someone said, "Oh, come on, Mr. Han, it's a party. Just let her enjoy herself." 

For that, Han Ye would smile and reply, "If President Du were here, do you think he would let me off if I were to let her drink while working?"

DX was notoriously famous for being strict with his employees, especially the new hires. When Han Ye first worked for him, he was not allowed to drink at parties, and if he wanted to drink, he had to make sure that he would not make any mistakes if President Du asked him any questions later on. 

Hence, when Han Ye said that, everyone else merely nodded and accepted his reasoning. 

After a while, Han Ye was ready to leave. He had stayed for the appropriate amount of time, and if they were to depart now, it would not be viewed as rude.

As per custom, he took Xiao Lei with him to go see Fan Chuan so that they could thank him for the party before leaving. It was a matter of courtesy, and despite how unwilling they were to be respectful toward him, they still had to do it because they were here as the representatives of DX.  

However, when they were near Fan Chuan, suddenly, a woman, who was talking to Fan Chuan and Fan Xiyue, pointed toward Xiao Lei and said, "She's the one, President Fan."

Xiao Lei's eyes went wide when she saw the woman pointing at her. 

The woman, who was dressed in a white dress, walked over and pointed at Xiao Lei as she accused in a loud voice, "I'm sure she took it! I saw her enter the ladies' room after me." 

"What did I do?" Xiao Lei asked in a curious voice. Instead of being angry, she was more interested in knowing what she supposedly did. 

"You stole my necklace!" 

Xiao Lei raised a brow out of amus.e.m.e.nt. She recognized this woman. This was the woman she bumped into right before she met Fan Shaohang. Xiao Lei searched through her memory, and if she was correct, this woman did not have her necklace on earlier. 

"What necklace?" Xiao Lei asked in confusion. 

"I accidentally left my necklace in the ladies' room earlier, and you entered after me." 

"There's another woman inside as well," Han Ye said as he looked at the woman who was standing in front of Xiao Lei with an annoyed expression. 

He looked around the room, and when he saw the young woman talking to the young man and a group of people, he pointed toward them. "That's her."

He then glanced at the woman in the white dress and asked, "How can you accuse my assistant just like that? Is she someone who you can accuse anytime you want?"

The woman looked at Han Ye. She then exchanged glances with Fan Xiyue who was standing beside her father. 

Fan Xiyue stepped forward and said, "Please don't get angry, Mr. Han. I'm sure Mrs. Lim doesn't mean anything bad by it. She was just upset because that's her favorite necklace."

She then glanced at Xiao Lei. This was the first time she looked at Xiao Lei carefully, and she was surprised because Xiao Lei looked like her late aunt. At first, she even thought that Xiao Lei might be her long-lost cousin. However, she had to tell herself that her cousin was dead and had been dead for a long time.

If anything, Xiao Lei was probably an eerie doppelganger, which would be plausible.  

Xiao Lei ignored her glances. 

"That doesn't give her a right to malign my assistant," Han Ye said in an annoyed tone.

Both Xiao Lei and Han Ye exchanged a glance as they thought, "This was obviously a trap!"