Chapter 296 - The door of an apartment

Xiao Lei nodded. Once she was done changing and makeup, she walked out with a frown. 

When Han Ye saw her, his heart skipped a beat, and his lips parted slightly, especially when he saw her red lips. She had put on fake eyelashes and drawn eyeliners, which was something that she usually hated to do, and these things combined to make her eyes bigger and s.e.xier than before. 

"Han Ye?" Xiao Lei called out when she noticed that Han Ye was staring at her like an idiot. 

He coughed slightly before saying, "Erm... I haven't seen you put on such makeup for a long time." 

Xiao Lei looked at the mirror on the vanity table as she mumbled, "I don't really have any occasions to put makeup on."

"You don't really need it..."

Upon hearing his remark, she looked at him with a brow raised, to which he shrugged and said, "You look beautiful as it is, but I do enjoy looking at a different you from time to time."

"So what do I look like now?" she asked while standing there with her arms folded. 

Han Ye stared at her for a long while. He wanted to say "a goddess", but in the end, he smirked and said, "A s.e.xy powerful woman."

He then added in a playful tone, "You know what, I better send you to work today. With the way you look, you might cause a traffic accident."

When she heard his words, her face turned red, and she could even feel the heat filling up her face. Thankfully, she had her foundation and blusher on; otherwise, she would have looked like a tomato. She quickly mumbled a reply, "Do whatever you want."

"Damn it, Han Ye... When did you learn how to compliment girls like that?" she thought as she abruptly turned over and pretended to look at the boxes of jewelry that he bought for her as well. She wanted to pay him, but when he said, "It was President Du who asked me to bring them over...", she could not continue to push it. 

It was hard to fight against DX, especially when he was so adamant about doing things. Just the unpaid leave itself took much of her effort. She actually played the "damsel in stress" role by filling her eyes with fake tears. Xiao Lei figured she might as well practice her acting skills whenever she could. She did not know if DX believed her, but she got what she wanted in the end, so all was good. 

Xiao Lei was putting on a pair of stud diamond earrings with thin sparkly chains dangling from it when she noticed that Han Ye was on the phone again. He was still sitting on her bed with his legs crossed, and Xiao Lei could not help but think, "He has quite a pair of long legs..."

She looked back at her own reflection as she thought, "I wonder if my crying skills would work on him... Probably would... On second thought, maybe I shouldn't do it. Knowing him, he would end up crying as well." 

While Xiao Lei was thinking about random things, unknown to her, Han Ye was actually taking sneak photos of her. Over the last few weeks, he had been really careful not to overstep the boundaries. At the moment, they were just friends, and Han Ye was still trying his best to talk to Xiao Zhihao. On a few occasions, him, Lu Ziyan, and Tian Le would order takeaways and bring them over to Xiao Lei's place. 

Unfortunately, even though Xiao Zhihao had gone back to being the kind, friendly him before the funeral, he was still quite frosty whenever Han Ye tried to speak to him. The teenager would talk to Lu Ziyan and Tian Le politely, but Han Ye would always get a glare or an obtrusive answer. 

Xiao Lei would always apologize in private on Xiao Zhihao's behalf, but Han Ye always smiled and said, "At least, that's one more word than the previous time we talked." 

To him, every extra word was worth the pain of being glared at.

Han Ye put the latest photos of Xiao Lei in a folder titled "Work-Private", and while he was doing so, his eyes landed on the folder titled "Work-Men". He stared at the second folder for a long time before sighing softly. The folder was encrypted, and after typing in a six-digit password, he pulled out a photo. 

Han Ye frowned as he looked at the photo of Xiao Zhihao standing outside the door of an apartment. When he looked through the other photos, they were mostly of Xiao Zhihao standing outside the same door but wearing different clothes. 

"Zhihao is still stubbornly waiting for Murong Yu to return," Han Ye thought. In order to protect Xiao Zhihao, Han Ye had been placing men around the teenage boy, and every day, his men would send him a report detailing Xiao Zhihao's whereabouts. 

And the contents of those reports were mostly the same. Xiao Zhihao paced outside Murong Yu's old office. There were days when Xiao Zhihao told his mother that he was staying late at school in order to study, only to end up at Murong Yu's old rented apartment. According to his men's report, Xiao Zhihao would sit outside Murong Yu's old apartment and read, looking extremely pitiful. 

"How much weight did Murong Yu have in Zhihao's heart?" Han Ye sighed softly as he placed his phone back into his pocket and looked up at Xiao Lei, who was almost 99% ready. When she glanced over at him and saw that he was staring at her, she merely blushed and pretended that she had to adjust the straps on her heels. 

Han Ye smiled and did not say anything. He did not disclose the fact that Xiao Zhihao had been visiting Murong Yu's old apartment to Xiao Lei because he did not want to worry her. He could still vividly recall how afraid and angry she was when she realized that Murong Yu was under their nose the whole time and had been mingling with her son.

Han Ye did not wish to put her through unnecessary worry anymore. Murong Yu had disappeared after that afternoon at the track field, and the man worked fast. At the period that he and Xiao Lei were trying to talk to Xiao Zhihao, the man managed to clear most of the evidence. His room at the school as well as his old apartment were cleared out before Han Ye's men arrived.  

However, he had been meaning to talk to Xiao Zhihao about it. If only he knew how to talk to the teenager... Not only did he need to create a one-to-one opportunity with Xiao Zhihao, but he also had to get the boy to talk to him calmly. Both seemed impossible at the moment.

"Ok, I'm ready..." Xiao Lei's voice took Han Ye's attention away from the matter. "Are you sure you can drop me off?" she asked. "You have to go to a meeting later, right? Don't you need to prepare for it?"

Han Ye nodded. "Unlike someone, I did all my preparations early on. The meeting place is not that far from the movie site. I can get there quickly."

"Eh?" She thought for a moment before asking, "I thought the meeting place is on the other side of the city?"

Before she did her handover, she was the one who handled his appointments, so she still knew what his schedule would be like for the next two weeks.

He shrugged. "The director I'm meeting wanted to eat at that particular restaurant."

Truth was, he had set everything up so that it would be much more convenient for him. Han Ye had given the director a call, he kept talking about this restaurant until it piqued the director's interest and thankfully, the latter asked to change the meeting location.

This was an important meeting. If DX knew, he might kill Han Ye for it, so it was better to hide the truth from everyone else. 

Picking up her sling bag, he said with a smile, "Let's go now. Time to show the world who Xiao Xiao Lei is..."