On the eleventh day, Qin Moling returned from his business trip abroad.
He landed in Beijing at four in the morning and went back to the villa only to take a shower. He didn’t even take time to sleep.
It was already late May, and Jian Hang still hasn’t returned from her business trip. The figure he gave her remained unopened on the bedside table. Aunt Geng knew it was from him, so she deliberately didn’t put it away in the cloakroom.
Today was Saturday. After breakfast, Qin Moling went to the company as usual.
Summer was the peak sales season for all Lemeng’s products, and there were many things to deal with.
Lemeng has more than a dozen products, but only the carbonated drinks of the Fourth Division have mediocre sales. It even fell 2% compared with the same period last year.
The position of the Fourth Division’s General Manager was still vacant.
The company executives didn’t know what Qin Moling was thinking and what kind of medicine was in the gourd1.
Even Zhong Yanyue couldn’t understand Qin Moling. It had been more than a month since Yu Ming officially resigned. In the past month, there has been no movement from Qin Moling. She asked about it in a roundabout way, but she didn’t learn anything.
On the way to the company, Qin Moling leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to rest, suffering from jet lag.
Not even ten minutes later, he was woken up by the vibrating sound of his cell phone.
Before seeing the phone screen, his first reaction was that something had happened to Jian Hang. When he saw the name on the screen, he instantly lost the desire to open it.
After waking up for a few seconds, Qin Moling checked the message.
Qin Xing asked him: [“How come you can’t even accommodate one small figure! If I have one game figure, it doesn’t mean I’ll get addicted to playing, okay??”]
[I received a gift from Third Brother Jiang today. I saw it was too expensive, so I didn’t want to take it. But Third Brother Jiang said that you took the figure he originally got for me and replaced it with a watch.]
How much was the little figure worth? The watch his older cousin gave him had several zeros more at the end when compared to the figure.
Of course, Qin Xing also liked watches, but he regretted not even seeing that out-of-print figure.
He wasn’t fast enough to grab that figure when it first came out, and now he finally had a chance to make up for his regret—but his older cousin interfered.
Who could bear this?
Third Brother Jiang was, of course, Jiang Shenghe.
Qin Moling took away the figure, but half a month later, he asked Secretary Gao to send a watch to Jiang Shenghe’s office.
Qin Xing went to his office for business today, and Jiang Shenghe gave him the birthday gift while he was there.
Qin Xing thought that Qin Moling took the figure away because he was afraid that he would be addicted to games. He would never have imagined that his cousin had taken his limited-edition figure to coax his wife.
Qin Moling: [Play less games!]
Qin Xing understood intellectually that his older cousin was doing it for his own good, but he didn’t accept it emotionally. He tried to negotiate matters his older cousin: [“Give me the figure as a birthday gift next year.”]
Qin Moling was completely selfish: [I disposed of it long ago.]
Qin Xing: [!!!]
His older cousin could really do such a crazy thing.
Qin Moling did not reply anymore.
… …
The car drove into Lemeng’s underground parking lot, stopped, and Qin Moling got out.
Coincidentally, Zhong Yanyue’s car also drove in.
They both got into his special elevator.
Zhong Yanyue had been thinking about the position of General Manager of the Fourth Division on the way here. When she saw him in person, she followed him and asked, “You didn’t like any of the people recommended to you by the headhunter?”
“No,” Qin Moling said.
Zhong Yanyue suggested, “It is better to compete internally.”
Qin Moling turned his head to look at her and asked her bluntly, “Do you want to compete for the position?”
Zhong Yanyue had no intention of hiding her ambition when she gave her suggestion. She smiled and said generously, “If I said that I didn’t want to be a Division GM, but only wanted to remain the Deputy GM of the Second Division, you wouldn’t believe it. “
The Second Division where she worked had the best-selling products among all of Lemeng’s many products and was also the richest among the four divisions—but this did not prevent her from thinking of becoming the big boss of another Division.
Qin Moling has not yet thought about what to do with the vacant position of Fourth Division General Manager. There were too many problems left over from before. Right now, the Fourth Division Deputy General Manager was in charge of the work, and there was no need to rush. “Let’s talk about it later.”
Zhong Yanyue didn’t say anything more. Even if it was opened for internal competition, he would still need time to think about it, and he could not decide immediately.
She knew the depth of the water2 in the Fourth Division—there were well-connected people working there and very few capable ones. If they refused to obey, an ordinary person would not be able to control them.
But she still wanted to give it a try.
Her relationship was gone, and she wanted to focus on her career.
When the elevator reached the floor where her office was located, Zhong Yanyue nodded slightly and walked out of the elevator.
Qin Moling arrived at the office, expecting Jian Hang to have gotten up and having breakfast at this time.
[I’m back. If you have anything to ask me, you don’t have to worry about the time difference anymore.]
Jian Hang: [Okay.]
She was already sitting in the conference room. For today’s tripartite meeting, she came over in advance to wait for Zhong Yanfei, the person in charge of Party A. Some details need to be confirmed with Zhong Yanfei before the meeting.
[You should take care of the jet lag.]
Qin Moling: [Not at home, at the company.]
He didn’t even bother to rest after getting off the plane. He thought that she would at least be a little concerned.
Jian Hang: [Then you are busy.]
Qin Moling: “…”
Jian Hang added another sentence: [Pay attention to rest.]
Four words were enough. Qin Moling: [Yeah.]
… …
At noon, Qin Moling received a call from Old Madam Qin. The place where the wedding photos would be taken has finally been decided, so they wanted Qin Moling to take a look at the list.
There was a total of eight scenic spots—selected by the collective efforts of Old Madam Qin, her daughter-in-law, and Chen Yu.
The old madam’s idea was very simple: Jian Hang and Qin Moling had no relationship foundation, and they were both busy at work. This business trip of Jian Hang alone already lasted for more than a month. What kind of relationship could withstand such torment?
So, in the guise of a wedding photo shoot, the two can travel together and spend more time together. Travel was the best way to create good feelings.
“I think all eight places are good,” Old Madam Qin said. “Different scenery will produce different styles of photography. You may find it troublesome, but all girls like these kind of things. You should try your best to satisfy Xiao Hang.”
Old Madam Qin originally had no hope that he would actively cooperate. Unexpectedly, Qin Moling said “Hmm” and then said, “Then the first stop is Santorini.”
Old Madam Qin was overjoyed, “When are you free?”
Qin Moling looked through his work schedule and found that the next two months were so full that he really had no time to take wedding photos.
After thinking for a moment, he said to the phone, “Let Jian Hang decide, I can do it any day.”
Marriage First, Love Later translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
T/N: Since ancient times, the gourd has been used to carry medicine and is, thus, associated with healers and Chinese medicine. One of the Eight Immortals, Tie Gui Li, is said to carry a gourd with an elixir that can cure all ills. And of course, mere mortals (the ordinary commoners) can’t know what kind of medicine was in the gourd.
Bonus fact: I didn’t know that the gourd (container) is actually dried, hollowed-out gourd (the vegetable). I thought the container had that distinctive narrow-waisted shape and so took the name of the plant.
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Chapter 31.1 — Stay In The Same Room
Chapter 31.2 — Stay In The Same Room
Chapter 31.3 — Stay In The Same Room
WHITE MOONLIGHT TRANSLATIONS 
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