The Heiress's Game

Gu Zhenxing heard the news in the conference room.

His secretary, Xu Bingjun, had been with him for thirty years. Old Xu had a special skill—no matter how important something was, he would always speak in a flat tone, as if he were reading a weather forecast.

"Mr. Gu, there's a problem with Ms. Zhu's social media account."

Gu Zhenxing took off his reading glasses and took the phone.

The screen displayed rows of comments that had been liked and pushed to the top. The language wasn't too vulgar, but it was extremely sarcastic—"The painter? He's probably painting how he got to where he is."

"Find out who's backing her up." "I hate these kinds of people who pretend to be innocent."

Xu Bingjun carefully chose his words, saying, "Several of the accounts that posted were Ningweier fans."

Ningville himself did not directly participate in the match.

But she posted a status update with a picture of the steering wheel of her Cullinan, and the caption read, "Some people rely on their abilities, some rely on sleeping. It's all the same path; choose for yourself."

The comments section was filled with praise.

Gu Zhenxing returned the phone to Xu Bingjun and remained silent for two seconds.

"Take the hype down. Remove the articles that shouldn't have appeared. Tell Ms. Zhu that it was my fault for not handling things promptly."

Xu Bingjun nodded, turned around, and went out to make a phone call.

Gu Zhenxing put his reading glasses back on, picked up the pen on the table, signed two characters on the document, and then put it down.

He recalled the time at the art exhibition when Julie stood in front of a painting explaining her creative concept to him—halfway through her explanation, she suddenly burst out laughing and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Gu, I was too serious."

He picked up his phone and sent Julie a message himself.

"Ms. Zhu, those things online have upset you. It was my child who was being unreasonable. I've already had someone handle it. I'll treat you to dinner another day to apologize."

A few minutes later, Julie's reply came in.

"Mr. Gu, you're too kind. It's normal for children to act impulsively, and I won't hold it against them. Besides, we're good friends despite our age difference, and I have nothing to hide."

Then another message came in.

"Actually, as a painter, especially a female painter, I have seen far too many of these criticisms."

Back in Paris, someone once told me to my face that I got to where I am by virtue of my looks. I replied, "You think too highly of me. If I really had that kind of talent, would I be here eating instant noodles and mixing paint every day?"

Then I sent a meme of a little person, a cat laughing, with the caption "Super good mentality".

Gu Zhenxing stared at the cat and laughed for a long time. He rarely used emojis; his phone only had the system default ones saved.

But he felt the cat was so lifelike that he could imagine Julie's expression when she sent it—pursed lips, eyes crinkled, chin slightly raised, as if she had just won a battle she didn't even care about.

"You're quite optimistic," he replied.

"What can I do if I can't figure it out? I've been drawing for so many years to get to where I am today, it's not like I got here because of other people's words."

Julie's response came quickly: "Like this trip back to the US, someone offered millions to buy one of my paintings. Was it because of the gossip? No, it's because I paint well. People who let their talent speak for itself don't care about these things."

She mentioned that auction. Gu Zhenxing certainly knew about that auction—he himself was the mysterious buyer who "bought the painting for tens of millions."

But Julie didn't know that. To this day, she still believes her painting was chosen by a collector she's never met. Now, she uses this to prove that she "doesn't care about criticism," every word radiating an unwavering confidence in her abilities.

Gu Zhenxing looked at the line of text and suddenly felt a little guilty, but more than that, he was intrigued.

Throughout his life, too many people have deliberately pandered to him after they learned his identity, but Julie was unaware of this.

She simply regarded him as an elder who was interested in art and with whom she could have meaningful conversations.

"Let's not talk about this anymore," Julie posted another message.

"We haven't finished discussing the financial logic behind Emperor Yongle's relocation of the capital yet. You said the compilation of the Yongle Encyclopedia was a cultural project, but I said it was a political project. Mr. Gu, aren't you being too lenient with Emperor Yongle?"

Gu Zhen laughed so hard he took off his reading glasses. An assistant passing by outside the conference room paused upon hearing the laughter—Gu Zhen laughing out loud in the middle of a meeting was even rarer than a raise.

"Political projects also need cultural packaging," he said, his typing speed clearly lagging behind his desire to speak.

"The relocation of the capital itself is the biggest political issue. I went back and looked at the book you mentioned last time. Your point of view is reasonable, but you overlooked the cost variables of changing the canal transport to the sea route."

"I didn't overlook it! That's exactly what I wrote in my thesis. You wait, I'll find it for you."

She sent me a screenshot of the paper, with handwritten annotations in the margins. The handwriting was round, but the strokes were clearly defined.

Gu Zhenxing zoomed in on the image and read it word by word. Among the annotations was a sentence that read, "This inference is not rigorous and needs to be verified," next to which was a crying face.

His thumb hovered over the crying face for a moment, then continued tracing downwards.

They discussed everything from the relocation of the capital to the theory of the Tang-Song transition, and from the theory of the Tang-Song transition to the trade structure of the Maritime Silk Road.

Julie studied history, and when she quotes classical texts, she doesn't need to look them up; she can do it effortlessly. Occasionally, she'll even say, "This scholar was later proven wrong because new bamboo slips were unearthed"—she keeps up with the latest developments in academia.

Gu Zhenxing was a history buff when he was young, but in recent years there have been fewer and fewer people who can talk to him about these things.

When discussing history at dinner parties, others would simply agree with him; Ning Limei would listen with a smile and nod, never arguing. But Julie would argue.

She said, "Your viewpoint is outdated; new archaeological discoveries have overturned it," speaking with conviction, and then sent him a bunch of links to academic papers.

Gu Zhenxing wasn't annoyed by the rebuttal; instead, he found it refreshing. It had been far too long since anyone had dared to contradict him in his position.

The sky outside the window changed from gray-blue to inky black, and the people outside the conference room had long since left work.

Xu Bingjun came in and brought in a third cup of tea, but Gu Zhenxing waved his hand, signaling him to leave first.

The light from the phone screen illuminated his face, making the nasolabial folds of his 67-year-old face appear deeper than usual under the cold white light, but his eyes shone brightly, unlike someone who had been sitting in a conference room all day.

Julie sent him a voice message. He opened it, and it was her voice, with the faint sound of a brush hitting a bucket in the background.

"Mr. Gu, do you know that the little bit of conversation I had with you today was more useful than a month of my time in Paris?"

I used to think that all this historical knowledge was only useful for writing papers, but then you told me that Emperor Yongle's fiscal policies could be applied to modern business management—I suddenly feel that I didn't waste my time studying this.

After she finished speaking, she laughed. It wasn't the kind of laugh that comes from a social setting; it was a genuine laugh, like someone who had suddenly found an unexpected gift while walking down the street.

"It's getting late, you should rest." Gu Zhenxing typed this line, then deleted it and changed it to: "It's getting late, Miss Zhu, please rest early. Let's chat again next time."

After thinking for a moment, he added, "I'll have my secretary find the financial data regarding the relocation of the capital and send it to you."

After sending the message, he leaned back in his chair and watched the "typing" message flash a few times on the screen.

In the end, it became a "Goodnight" emoji, still the same cat, this time sleeping under the covers.

Gu Zhenxing put down his phone and leaned back in his chair.

The meeting room was empty, with half-signed documents spread out on the long table, and the city lights outside the floor-to-ceiling windows blending together.

His neck was a little sore, but his mind was unusually clear. He remembered what Julie had said at the art exhibition.

"Paintings are for those who want to see them; those who don't want to see them can simply turn them off."

His phone rang again. He thought it was Julie, but when he picked it up, he found it was a message from Xu Bingjun about the progress of the matter: the hype had died down and the related posts were being deleted. He replied with "Okay," and then subconsciously clicked into Julie's Moments again.

She posted a new status update, a close-up of a palette with paint squeezed out crookedly, accompanied by only one sentence.

"I had a great chat tonight, I feel ten years younger."

Gu Zhenxing looked at the line of text, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

He didn't realize he was laughing. He felt the word "young" was very accurate—there was something about Julie that he had never seen in anyone else.

She wasn't as dazzling as Su Wanning, nor as gentle and calm as Ning Limei, nor as shrewd and proper as Wang Manyun.

It's a kind of relaxation where when you're with her, you don't have to think about who you are, play your part, or put on airs. She's independent, so independent that she doesn't need anything from him at all.

She was so energetic that she would draw crying faces in the annotations of her papers.

You'll never get tired of chatting with her, because you never know what she'll say next.

He thought of Ning Limei. Ning Limei never contradicted him. For twenty-three years, she always nodded with a smile and said that Old Gu was right.

He used to think that was gentleness, consideration, and a woman's deepest tolerance for a man. Now he's suddenly not so sure what it is.

The thought flashed through his mind for less than a second before he suppressed it.

He turned off his phone, stood up, and picked up his suit jacket draped over the back of the chair.

As he walked out of the conference room, the motion-sensor lights in the corridor turned on one by one, casting a long shadow on the marble floor.

He made up his mind. Next time they met, he would tell Julie that he was the one who actually bought the painting.