His wife's pregnancy bump disappeared, and Mr. Huo was going crazy missing her.

"Next Monday."

Chen Ke placed a document on the desk in front of him: "This is the list of personnel sent by Ronghua Law Firm. Please take a look."

Huo Yanbei extracted Qiao Mian's personnel information from the four documents.

Her personal information is very simple.

It matches the information I found before.

I checked the ID number several times.

That's not Awu's ID number.

If a person changes their name, their ID number will remain the same.

So, Qiao Mian really isn't A Wu?

After a few seconds of deep thought, he placed the documents heavily on the table and ordered, "Send someone to Shanghai to investigate the orphanage where Qiao Mian is staying."

"Yes."

Chen Ke let out a soft sigh.

It seems that President Huo still finds Qiao Mian's identity questionable.

Mentioning Qiao Mian, he seemed to recall something and reported to his supervisor: "However, Chairman Wen probably misunderstood, thinking that you value Attorney Qiao highly and promoted her to team leader."

"unimportant."

The important thing is that he wants her to stay by his side.

He wanted to verify it himself.

Thinking of this, I looked down and glanced at WeChat.

I still haven't accepted your friend request.

He found Qiao Mian's WeChat account again.

Click on the profile picture.

It is a hand-drawn picture.

The image is very abstract.

It is vaguely visible that it is the back view of an adult leading three children.

It doesn't look like an online image.

It looks like a child's doodle.

Huo Yanbei narrowed his eyes slightly.

Did she have a child with her good-for-nothing boyfriend?

……

night.

After taking a shower, Qiao Mian returned to her bedroom.

I picked up my phone and noticed a WeChat friend request.

When I saw the other person's WeChat profile picture, I was so startled that my hand trembled and I almost dropped my phone.

She looked at it again in disbelief.

It's Huo Yanbei.

He asked to add her as a friend...

The reason she recognized him at a glance was because his profile picture was a photo she had secretly taken of him.

She was not happy living in the Huo family at that time.

She came from a poor family, and no one in the Huo family liked her.

Looking into her eyes was like looking at a beggar who had broken into your home.

Even though she bears the surname Huo and is nominally a young lady of the Huo family, Huo Yanbei's younger sister.

But in the Huo family, even the servants could bully her at will.

Thinking she couldn't hear, they mocked her to her face, calling her a little mute, a fat girl, a bucket, a pig...

But she never told Huo Yanbei about these grievances, because at that time, he was caught up in the struggle for succession, and every step he took in the Huo family was like walking on thin ice.

Even if I told him, he wouldn't do anything.

Huo Yanbei is profit-driven and ambitious.

In order to ascend to the throne, he endured humiliation and compromise despite his cold-blooded and ruthless nature.

They can give up everything.

Including marriage.

And her too.

On one occasion, while Huo Yanbei was away on a business trip, she moved back to her school dormitory.

Huo Yanbei was furious when he found out.

He went back to the school that very night to find her.

That night, in a corner of the basketball equipment room, he punished her fiercely and forcefully.

He was still fast asleep the next morning.

She secretly took a picture of him.

Actually, their faces weren't captured in the photos.

That day, he was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head.

It almost completely covered his face.

Only the stray hairs falling across her forehead, the tip of her high nose, and her long, thick eyelashes were visible.

Looking at the photo alone, you can't tell it's him.

She asked him if she could use it as her WeChat profile picture.

He coldly refused.

But he casually changed it to his own WeChat profile picture...

Those fragmented memories flashed clearly through my mind.

Qiao Mian stared at the friend request and decisively clicked "reject".

……

Imperial View Villas.

After Huo Yanbei entered the room, he took off his suit jacket and draped it over his arm. Just as he was about to go upstairs, Zhang Ma heard the noise and came out of the room wearing her coat.

Seeing Huo Yanbei, she was somewhat surprised, "Young Master, you haven't been back for some time."

Huo Yanbei gave a faint "hmm".

"Let me go upstairs and tidy up your bedroom."

"No need."

"Oh……"

Zhang Ma gathered her clothes and went back into the house.

After Huo Yanbei went upstairs, he went straight to the study.

The study is spacious and has a separate bedroom.

Huo Yanbei went in, casually hung his suit jacket on a hanger, opened the wardrobe, and took out a set of pajamas to change into.

While washing up, I inadvertently caught a glimpse of the faded bloodstain on my chin.

Thinking of the woman's flushed face when she was angry that day, his thin lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

No woman has ever dared to lay a hand on him.

"Qiao Mian..."

He snorted coldly.

After lying in bed, I opened WeChat again and saw that my friend request had been rejected. My face immediately fell.

Frustrated, I tossed my phone onto the bedside table, closed my eyes, and dozed off for a while.

He had a dream.

I dreamt that once when he returned from a business trip, the first thing he did was go to the school to pick up A-Wu.

Before we even got to the hotel, we did it in the car on the roadside.

That night was a new experience for the two of them.

A-Wu's long hair spread out like seaweed on the gleaming black seat, and her delicate skin was even whiter than the moonlight outside the window.

Her eyes were misty and watery, and her cheeks were rosy.

Her soft, delicate breaths drove him wilder with each encounter.

He had a fetish for that.

Awu's fair wrists were marked with deep red marks from the leather belt.

Awu cried.

As he reached out to wipe away her tears, Ah Wu's face gradually merged and overlapped with that of another woman.

Finally, it transformed into Qiao Mian's face.

She looked at him, her voice soft and weak, yet tinged with a hint of resentment: "Brother Yanbei, why didn't you save me?"

"Brother Yanbei, it hurts so much..."

"Brother Yanbei, don't leave me in the fire..."

Each question, laced with sobs, pierced Huo Yanbei's heart like an icicle.

He suddenly opened his eyes and sat up in bed.

His forehead was covered in a fine layer of sweat, and the corners of his eyes were tinged with a scarlet hue.

He scratched his head hard, sat for a while with his hand on his forehead, then leaned against the headboard, lit a cigarette, and put it in his mouth.

He must be crazy to dream about that woman!

After finishing his cigarette, he threw back the covers and went to the bathroom.

Even after taking a cold shower, the heat in my body did not subside at all.

After coming out of the bathroom, I went to the desk in the outer room and sat down.

He took out a book on criminal law from the drawer.

Upon opening the cover, a photograph was found tucked inside the title page.

The photo is one that Huo Wu took when he was studying at Peking University.

That day, she wore two loose braids.

Wearing black-rimmed glasses and a blue dress, she stood on the playground.

He was holding several books in his arms.

The afterglow of the setting sun made her fair face appear radiantly red.

She is waiting for him.

At that time, he had only been back in the Huo family for a short time, and his grandfather forbade him to be with A-Wu.

The two of them would go on dates either to the basketball equipment room at school, or to a hotel or the company.

But he prefers the basketball equipment room.

Ah Wu was very afraid.

It was that kind of fear that made you tremble all over.

At that time, he didn't understand why she was so afraid of the equipment room...

He never asked.

They only felt excited and thrilled.

His fingertips traced the girl's face in the photo again and again, and his breathing grew heavier and heavier.

Thirty minutes later.

Huo Yanbei threw the dirty underwear directly into the trash can and went to the bathroom to take a shower again.