"I don't hate the little apartment. Ever since falling in love with you, it feels like a token of love from you to me."

"You bought it yourself!" Ning Wan immediately retorted. "I never gave you any such love token!"

"Yes, but even though I bought it, you found the property for me. Plus even if it doesn't count as a love token, wouldn't your Gartier ring count? You've even given me a ring. I'm already thirty, and if I hadn't been wearing a ring, I might have been known to be single in the community. Our community's matchmaking group is quite powerful, but because you had me wear a wedding ring, I lost my opportunity to be single. Don't you think you should compensate me for that? On top of that, you misled Auntie Xiao about my sexual orientation, didn't you?"

He had just been talking about how he had lost the chance to find a partner through matchmaking because he wore a wedding ring, so how did Auntie Xiao get pulled into this?

"Auntie Xiao is so much older than you! Do you still regret losing the opportunity to be with her? Wasn't it you who asked me to solve the problem of her pursuit?"

"That's true, but you misled Auntie Xiao about my orientation. If I were serious about it, it could even be called slander. But that doesn't matter, I don't mind. Just as long as you make it up to me."

"As for why I don't live in the Yuelan apartment, it's not that I dislike it. Think about it calmly. In the future, when you marry me and have both a lakeside villa and the Yuelan apartment, what would you do? Which would you choose as our home after marriage?”

Ning Wan was completely led astray by Fu Zheng's train of thought. She reflexively analyzed calmly - indeed, if she had a big villa near the lake, she would never give it up for a second-hand apartment in Yuelan. It was indeed not that she disdained the second-hand housing here, but simply that because her standard of living had improved, she was no longer willing to live exactly how she had before. After all, why would anyone mistreat themselves?

"Oh, and in addition to the villa next to the lake, I also have a villa in the suburbs by a large forest where we can have picnics there. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. You can even fly kites there. I also just got a place right on the beach the next city over, where you can go out to sea in the evenings. Watching the sunset from the water is lovely, and you can catch fish right on the deck and cook them immediately. They're super fresh and so delicious... I wonder which you would like better?”

Ning Wan was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't even react to any of this, instead absently replying, "At the one on the beach, would we be cooking the fish over a grill? With a bit of pepper and the like? I've heard that tastes amazing... But aren’t houses by the sea more humid? Are the walls prone to getting moldy?"

"No, they're treated to be humidity-proof. But if you get tired of the beach, we could go on a weekend getaway. There are plenty of other ways to cook ocean fish, and I could learn to cook whatever you liked."

…

By the time Ning Wan finally came back to her senses, she was already seriously discussing methods of cooking fish with Fu Zheng...

Damn him, this fellow Fu Zheng was truly insidious! Knowing that she was greedy for money, villas and delicious things, he had played a trick on her!

No! Ning Wan shook off all these things in her mind and calmed back down.

He was handsome, rich, and had a big villa, all of which was very good, but... after careful thought, Ning Wan said sincerely, "But I can't afford to support you. So you'd better forget about me raising you.”

Let's not even mention that she couldn't afford to support Fu Zheng monetarily, she was so embarrassed to remember how she had brazenly bragged about raising him that her scalp felt numb...

However, Fu Zheng smiled. "No worries, you can definitely afford me. I don't eat much - your home-cooked food is more than enough. I don't need to eat imported cherries, it's all the same to me if you buy discounted cherries from Shandong. And if you still think I cost too much, I'll just eat a little less. You'll always have a bowl of rice at home, won't you? But if you don't, just half a bowl will do. I don't mind eating just a little.”

"Yes, yes. But you lied." Crossing her arms, Ning Wan observed him carefully, deliberately not expressing her opinion, "Now you should first explain yourself - besides your identity, did you lie to me about anything else?”

"Gao Yuan and I are classmates and get along quite well. He's actually quite a good person."

"Oh? Is that why he acts like that toward you?"

"You've misunderstood. Gao Yuan is actually quite a normal guy." Fu Zheng pursed his lips and stabbed Gao Yuan in the back to prove his innocence, saying, "He looks like the kind of person who would be very strict, but the one who's actually strict is his wife. He's absolutely henpecked. She checks his phone every day, and even though he makes quite a lot of money, it's all handed over to her. He gets very little as an allowance and will sometimes even ask me if he can borrow money. The house was bought for his wife before marriage, and only her name is on it, so if he does anything inappropriate, he's the one who would have to leave..."

"..."

Sex-hungry, perverted Gao Yuan was actually henpecked?

Bah, he had never been a pervert at all!

Ning Wan thought about her previous misunderstandings and occasional verbal confrontations with Gao Yuan and drooped. "Partner Gao is in charge of human resources, including salary, benefits and leave. I..."

"Don't worry about it. Gao Yuan isn't the sort of person who would retaliate against an employee. He has quite a big heart." Fu Zheng paused. "In fact, you can even call Gao Yuan upright, passionate, fair, hard-working, and devoted to his family; responsible, devoted to his wife, dedicated to his work, and sincere; a man who detests evil and has never used an unspoken rule..."

"Why are you trying to do by saying so many good things about Gao Yuan?" Ning Wan asked, confused. "Is it that he's not the one who's creeping on you, but you who's creeping on him?"

He had obviously stabbed Gao Yuan in the back earlier, so why was he praising the man like crazy now? Ning Wan just couldn't keep up with this rhythm...

Fu Zheng averted his eyes and cleared his throat. "Actually, Gao Yuan has very high standards for friends. Birds of a feather flock together, and the two of us are pretty close, so from his character, one can also infer the true character of his friends."

Aha... so as it turns out, the point wasn't about flattering Gao Yuan at all. This man was just trying to portray himself as having a noble character...

Ning Wan was both amused and annoyed. "Now that I think back on it, I feel like I must really have been very gullible. Why did I even trust you so much in the first place? I should really change my personality and be more vigilant in the future..."

"Just be yourself. If you want to see the world through rose-coloured glasses, then do so however you like."

Then wouldn't she be scammed to death? Ning Wan jibed inwardly. Had Fu Zheng not deceived her enough to let her grow a brain?

However, the deceiver himself did not realize this, but just looked at Ning Wan seriously. "I used to be really worried that you were too gullible, and hoped that you would change, but now I feel like you don't need to. So long as I'm here with you, you can just be yourself. I'll be there as your support. Believe in whoever you want to trust in, do whatever you think is right, and leave the rest to me."

At this point, even though he was still maintaining a calm and composed attitude, you could hear the nervousness in Fu Zheng's tone that he was trying to cover up. "All I need is for you to be my girlfriend."

Uneasily, he said, "I promise you that in the future, I will never again lie to you about anything. What I did before was truly thoughtless of me."

"But actually, I don't regret not having been candid about my identity when we first met."

? ? ? This... Ning Wan just couldn't keep up with Fu Zheng's logic. Wasn't this just humbly admitting your mistakes and then refusing to correct them? Had this man actually just said that out loud? Did he really want her to fall in love with him or not?

"Because I don't want to lie to you again, I'm telling you the truth now. If you gave me the chance to do this all over again, I would do exactly the same." Fu Zheng looked into her eyes, "If you had known I was a partner from the beginning, it would have been impossible for me to get to know you, and impossible for you to become familiar with me, am I right?”

"Even taking the risk of being rejected by you if I confess later, at least there would be huge benefits if I managed to succeed - that is, you might be willing to forgive me and stay with me. If I had never hidden my true identity from you at all, although there would be no risk, there would also be no profit - you wouldn't even have considered me, and you might be dating some rash fellow like Chen Shuo right now."

Chen Shuo? What did this have to do with Chen Shuo?

Ning Wan was simply dumbfounded. But she did have to admit that Fu Zheng was right in his analysis of their personalities. If Fu Zheng had appeared in his capacity as a high-ranking employee right from the start, Ning Wan would never have treated him the way she had. Had she eaten the heart of a bear or the gallbladder of a leopard, to dare to sleep with her boss?

She didn't realize that the man in front of her was first-class at persuasion - after having listened, she actually felt like there was nothing wrong with his logic?

"It's just like investment - high risk, high return. When a person is too eager for the return, their desire trumps everything else and they would rather take the risk. But for most people, what they want from an investment is money. What I wanted was different, but in essence the principle is the same."

"Although I did indeed lie to you, I didn't defraud you of either money or sex. Since this fraud had no purpose, it should not even be considered a crime, since there were no bad intentions.”

Ning Wan was quite shocked by this genius logic. "You haven't defrauded me of money? What about the tens of thousands of yuan I lent you for an apartment? Pay me back! And interest on top of that!"

"I signed an IOU with every intention of paying it back, so could that be considered defrauding you of money? If you would like, I'll pay you interest on the appreciation of the apartment in proportion to the amount of money you lent me. Then it would be considered a joint investment. "

"Fine, fine, even if you didn't defraud me of any money, are you still denying that you did so of sex???"

"I didn't," Fu Zheng insisted, holding his head high. "I fooled you into having sex with me. Right at the critical moment, I confessed. I spurned temptation. I kept to a bottom line, even at the cost of my own body."

"..."

Fu Zheng implied, "You know, it's actually not good for a man to suddenly stop at that point."

Is that so... even harming yourself... How very amazing...

Ning Wan cleared her throat and put on a cold and serious appearance. "Is that everything you wanted to say?"

"En." Fu Zheng lowered his voice. "There's one last thing I want to say - I concealed my identity and misled you into thinking that my family was poor, but the things you bought me, your kindness toward me, I don’t feel like they were cheap, and I won't throw them away. Because they were the best that you could afford, and your care and friendship for me can't be measured by price. It was precisely because you didn't know my identity that this care was so pure. You were kind to me not because I was your boss, not because I was a senior partner, not because of my family or my background, but just because I was myself."

"You have a mature sense of right and wrong and a clear distinction between love and hate. You've taught me a lot and made me realize that in the past, I was narrow-minded and conceited. Because of you, I've come to see many things differently at a foundational level. To put it more melodramatically, you've perfected me, so this version of me now should belong to you.”

"Before you, I don't feel superior, because all I have is money. Money is the emptiest thing there is, while you have a shining soul."

"Now, this version of me really wants to belong to you." He gazed at her seriously, "I'm incredibly sorry. Can you forgive and accept me as I am now?"