Chapter 128: Unusual!

At 7:00 AM, following yesterday’s routine, Wang Zheng returned home carrying breakfast buns from Old Li’s shop. Too lazy to come up with another excuse, he simply changed his clothes and sat at the dining table to eat.

"Went out to buy us buns again?" Bai Bing’s voice drifted from the kitchen. While phrased as a question, her tone was biting and dripping with sarcasm, grating on the ears.

"What, you don't want to eat them?" Wang Zheng countered. Seeing Bai Bing, she seemed calmer than usual, though her words still carried a heavy scent of gunpowder.

Bai Bing let out a cold laugh. Even with a door between them and Wang Zheng unable to see her expression, he knew she was deeply agitated—and that it had everything to do with him.

"Ignorance is bliss; why trouble yourself?" Wang Zheng said indifferently.

Bai Bing started to retort, but seeing Su Xue and Chu Jun emerge from their rooms, she swallowed her words. She stared blankly at the frying pan, lost in thought. Moments later, the smell of acrid smoke snapped her back to reality; the egg pancake in the pan had turned to charcoal.

She turned off the heat.

She had been making breakfast for this household for nearly a month, not to mention countless dinners. But never before had she scorched a pancake. For someone who prided herself on being a master cook, this was a humiliating failure.

She was distracted; something was weighing on her mind.

At the office, Bai Bing remained unusually quiet and detached, to the point of being unsettling. Had she been rattled into a stupor? She faced Wang Zheng, her gaze inscrutable.

"Snap!" Wang Zheng clicked his fingers in front of her. Bai Bing finally snapped out of it, looking at him with complex eyes.

"Good news: the spy situation is resolved," Wang Zheng said with a smile, placing two identical platinum rings on the desk.

Liao Tong had been completely subdued by Wang Zheng and had confessed everything, from how she became a spy to her exposure. As Wang Zheng suspected, she only delivered intelligence to one person and had no idea who she was really serving. She simply submitted the data, and money was automatically deposited into her secret account.

Wang Zheng was already prepared to take down Liao Tong’s handler during the next delivery.

Bai Bing shifted her gaze to the rings on the table and picked them up. They were indeed identical. However, it seemed the spy matter wasn't what was haunting her; her lack of interest was evident. She gave a faint nod, said "Oh," and placed the rings back down.

"You!" Wang Zheng leaned in, staring into her eyes. "Are you constipated? Why the sour face all morning?"

In the past, Bai Bing would have exploded at such a comment, but today, she didn't seem to care.

*Boring,* Wang Zheng thought. But just as he turned to leave, Bai Bing stood up and slammed her hands onto the desk.

"Bang!" The loud noise startled him.

"What did you actually do last night?" she demanded, her voice icy as she glared at him.

Wang Zheng paused. Was this why she had been acting so strange all morning? He considered using the "buying buns" excuse again, but realized she clearly knew he hadn't been in his room all night. Her sharp, piercing gaze confirmed his suspicion.

"I went to handle the spy matter," he said.

"Who is the spy?" she pressed. "Since it's finished, you can tell me now, right?"

Wang Zheng rubbed his nose. The matter was resolved, but in a way she wouldn't understand. To him, "resolved" meant the spy was now his asset; to her, it meant the spy was dead. If he told her it was Liao Tong, she would never let the investigation go, and that would cause major complications.

"I can't tell you who it is. Just know that it’s been handled," he said, adopting a stern tone. "I'm telling you this as your senior."

Bai Bing scoffed. To her, this was clearly just a flimsy excuse for him to go out and chase women. As she walked toward the door, she paused and said over her shoulder, "If you want to chase women, just do it. Why use a spy as a cover? The traffic cameras recorded you speeding all night. Do you want me to transfer the footage to your computer? If I’m not mistaken, that was Liao Tong. I should have known."

With that, she left.

Lin Xiaolei entered just as Bai Bing departed, looking confused by the cold atmosphere. "What’s wrong with Ms. Bai?"

"Menopause, probably," Wang Zheng replied coolly. "What brings you here, Ms. Lin?"

"I’m heading to the tea plantation with Lin Xuan to sign contracts for the next season. I’ll be back by three or four. I need you to keep an eye on things while I'm away. Can you do that?" Lin Xiaolei asked with a rare, gentle smile.

"Rest assured, I’ve got it covered."

"I'm off, then. Bye."

Wang Zheng leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. Women were easy to handle, but the tension between them was a nightmare.

By 5:30 PM, Bai Bing had still not returned. Wang Zheng, having waited for her for half an hour—a record-breaking feat—finally decided he was done waiting. He started his car, forgetting to drop off Lin Xuan, and drove straight to the television station instead, forcing her to take a taxi home.

*What is wrong with me?* he wondered, shaking his head to clear the fog, and walked into the media center.

Despite everything she had been through—a night that felt like a brush with death and a rebirth—Liao Tong was at her post, commanding the news team like a general. This was her battlefield.

Wang Zheng’s arrival didn't go unnoticed; he was a regular here, and being Lin Xuan's brother, he was well-liked.

But today was destined to be a shock.

Wang Zheng walked up to Liao Tong, wrapped an arm around her waist in front of everyone, and kissed her passionately. The entire room froze in stunned silence.

Su Xue’s brother... and Liao Tong... were kissing?