CH 16

Coincidentally, Zhou Qingbai’s phone and Pei You’s phone were the same model, both new models released last year. They were placed side by side, looking surprisingly harmonious with different colors.

Pei You held his chopsticks, glancing from left to right, and then back at his own phone, feeling that something was off.

“No ghosting allowed?” Pei You asked, somewhat slow to catch on. “With whom?”

“Who else?” Zhou Qingbai raised his eyebrows high and said righteously, “With me, of course.”

A puzzled expression appeared on Pei You’s face.

Sensing his thoughts from his expression, Zhou Qingbai leaned sideways and said persuasively, “You see, you are now learning the right way to date, right?”

Pei You nodded.

“So, you need practice material.” Zhou Qingbai had a well-organized logic. “The problem is, you need to learn all these in order to find a partner. You don’t have a boyfriend to practice with, right?”

Clear and logical, so Pei You nodded again.

“So,” Zhou Qingbai said with a raised eyebrow, “I will personally be your teaching material. How about that? Other teachers wouldn’t be as dedicated as me, right?”

“No,” Pei You hesitated, “but, isn’t this… a little unusual?”

Pei You couldn’t exactly pinpoint what felt off, but he just felt that this teaching method was too strange, making him feel a bit uneasy.

“or……” Zhou Qingbai elongated his tone and asked, “Do you have other teaching materials?”

No, Pei You thought.

So, Pei You was easily convinced by Zhou Qingbai’s well-organized and objective logic and found his suggestion reasonable.

Though he didn’t understand how it was, he didn’t reject the proposal and simply accepted it.

Seeing Pei You relax, Zhou Qingbai gave him an approving look and then took out an icy cola can from a bag, placing it flat on the table and rolling it to Pei You with two fingers.

“A small reward,” Zhou Qingbai said, “consider it like a gold star.”

The aluminum can of cola was covered in cold water droplets, and as it touched Pei You’s little finger, it brought a cool and refreshing feeling.

Pei You subconsciously grabbed the can and prevented it from rolling further.

In the afternoon, Zhou Qingbai didn’t go back to sleep. Instead, he stayed in his little area and dealt with company affairs.

The secretary brought his laptop and office documents, a bit more than usual, so Zhou Qingbai couldn’t fit them on his lap. He dragged a chair forward and occupied a corner of the conference table.

Pei You noticed him from the corner of his eye and moved aside, making space for him.

Zhou Qingbai said a low “thank you” and then reached over the table to put something on the armrest of Pei You’s chair. Pei You lowered his head to see that it was a lollipop.

Pei You: “…”

Zhou Qingbai pulled the chair close to the table, lazily leaned against the backrest, and took a casual look at the data on Pei You’s computer.

He looked openly without any sense of sneaking around—after all, that was all internal data from Qingshan, and Zhou Cangshan asked him to learn from Pei You.

Qingshan’s finances were clear and straightforward, with no need for excessive scrutiny. Pei You’s work was coming to an end, and he was doing the final data verification.

Zhou Qingbai, bored, scanned through the data, not remembering much. However, he was suddenly drawn to a line of red-bolded text.

“High-risk…” Zhou Qingbai murmured, pointing at the data on the screen, and asked, “What’s this about?”

“It’s a subsidiary company of Qingshan,” Pei You said. “Dongjiang Engineering. They have consistently failed to submit their financial reports, and I suspect there’s a problem.”

“Oh…” Zhou Qingbai drawled and leaned against the chair back, smiling, “The general manager is Liu Xin. I know him.”

His tone carried a subtle understanding, surprising Pei You.

“How do you know him?” Pei You asked.

Previously, he had discussed that person with Zhou Cangshan, and from Zhou Cangshan’s tone, it was apparent that he was unfamiliar with him. But Zhou Qingbai, who usually paid no attention to company affairs, seemed to know Liu Xin better than Zhou Cangshan.

“It was a few years ago. He came to Qingshan to report on something,” Zhou Qingbai said while performing magic tricks, pulling out a pack of melon seeds from his coat. He cracked them open while speaking, “Afterward, he invited me to have a meal.”

“He invited you to a meal?” Pei You was puzzled, “Didn’t he invite your brother?”

Liu Xin had taken over the company only about five years ago. Zhou Qingbai was about twenty-four or twenty-five at that time. Although Pei You didn’t know what position he held in the company but  based on his understanding of Zhou Qingbai from the short time they spent together, he could almost confirm that Zhou Qingbai didn’t hold any significant position during that time.

“How could he?” Zhou Qingbai gave him a look and placed the melon seed shells into a small pile on the table. He said, “My brother is always upright and incorruptible, unlike me. So he naturally looked for me.”

Pei You understood what he meant.

Zhou Qingbai said. “He was extremely polite to me at that time, so polite that it felt a bit fake, so I didn’t develop a deep friendship with him.”

Zhou Qingbai wasn’t interested in company affairs, but he had an unusual intuition when it came to people. He mostly followed his instincts in making friends—getting closer to those he felt comfortable with and staying away from those he disliked. This instinct resulted in not having many friends, but the quality of his friendships were good.

“Your intuition is accurate,” Pei You said. “I reviewed the annual reports submitted by Dongjiang from the previous years. They appeared a mess, but in reality, it’s not just a matter of messy accounts.”

“What else?” Zhou Qingbai asked.

While Zhou Qingbai was sensitive to people, he wasn’t adept at understanding numbers. At best, he could recognize issues in their reports’ terms and clauses, but anything more in-depth was beyond him.

“it’s impossible for their annual losses and profits to be nearly the same every year,” Pei You said. “In each of their submitted financial reports, the results are perfectly rounded whole numbers, earning neither a cent more nor a cent less, and occasionally even showing slight losses. Normal financial reports wouldn’t have such coincidental numbers, so I suspect that they are fabricating their accounts.”

Pei You paused and continued, ” I suspect they embezzle public funds.”