Chapter 61: Meeting at the Coffee Shop 2

Timidly raising her head, Lin Qingya looked at the gentle, comforting smile Cheng Minghao directed at her.

A warm feeling spread in Lin Qingya’s heart.

She bit her red lips lightly, then explained:

“They asked me… asked me to meet with them tonight to talk. Do you want me to go? I don’t want you to know what we talked about, I…”

Cheng Minghao frowned, then relaxed and asked:

“Is it related to your secret?”

Cheng Minghao had long noticed Lin Qingya’s oddness, and even their former high school classmate Xiao Pang had said Lin Qingya had issues.

Although Cheng Minghao would occasionally indulge in wild suspicions, in the end, he would always shake his head and laugh it off.

Or perhaps, he chose to ignore, overlook, and bury it.

“Mm… mm!”

Lin Qingya hesitated at first, then nodded vigorously.

Cheng Minghao was a smart person.

He quickly guessed that there was a secret she didn’t want him to know.

Lin Qingya also knew Cheng Minghao was aware she had a little secret, and respected her privacy.

Without this tolerance, even if they liked each other, perhaps they couldn’t have come together.

Lin Qingya would have been forced to face the truth, forced to feel disgusted with herself, thinking she was that kind of strange, difficult person.

Seeing Lin Qingya nod, Cheng Minghao hesitated in his heart and asked:

“Do you need help? Is it safe? They shouldn’t… do anything to you, right?”

“I… don’t know, I don’t know anything.”

Lin Qingya closed her eyes slightly, letting Cheng Minghao hold her hands.

She couldn’t help but clench her hands tightly, her eyes and face filled with the pain.

“I’ll take you there? Then wait outside… wait outside for you? Don’t worry, if anything happens, just shout, I’ll appear in front of you right away. If nothing happens… I won’t know your secret either.”

Cheng Minghao said seriously.

If Lin Qingya thought it necessary to go, then she naturally wanted to go.

If Lin Qingya thought it unnecessary, then she wouldn’t go.

Everyone was an adult with their own judgment.

Cheng Minghao admitted he didn’t have enough information, so he didn’t rush to make the decision for her.

Hearing Cheng Minghao’s words, Lin Qingya hesitated, her body slightly tense, then…

She exhaled, nodded, and explained:

“Alright, then you take me there, and wait outside.”

“Mm!”

Cheng Minghao nodded with a smile, giving Lin Qingya a hug to face the challenge ahead.

One might even think it was Lin Qingya meeting family, meeting parents, not Cheng Minghao.

Originally, it was Cheng Minghao who should decide whether to recognize family, and it should have been Cheng Minghao who felt uneasy and full of thoughts.

Now with Lin Qingya doing this, it seemed as if she suddenly encountered relatives, facing an uncertain, conflicted decision.

The two went downstairs, and under the dim streetlight, they walked hand in hand along the street to the left.

As they walked, Cheng Minghao asked,“Where are we going?”

Lin Qingya hesitated, then explained,“I left a number, let me ask. Wait a moment.”

As she spoke, Lin Qingya released Cheng Minghao’s right hand from her left, put her right hand in her pocket, then took out her phone to search for the number.

“Doo doo~”

After a while, the call connected.

“Hello, where are we meeting? I have time now.”

Lin Qingya asked.

A woman on the other end replied,“Somewhere close by. I saw a café as I passed today, it’s just…”

She said “close by”, but Lin Qingya still got in a taxi with Cheng Minghao and went to a more distant place to meet.

Inside the café.

“Hello, what coffee would you like?”

A male waiter smiled at Lin Qingya.

Cheng Minghao stayed outside the café, not following her in.

Now, on the second floor in a private room, Lin Qingya replied,“The same as her.”

Lin Qingya glossed over the difficulty of choosing coffee.

“Alright.”

The male waiter left with a smile.

After the waiter left and made sure the door was closed, Lin Qingya looked down at the time displayed on her phone.

She and Cheng Minghao had agreed: if she didn’t call him within five minutes, it meant she might be in trouble or danger, and he should come in to help.

As she calculated the time in her mind, three minutes had passed since just now.

Two more minutes, and she would call to confirm her safety.

Thinking this, Lin Qingya asked the woman across from her,“What do you want? What are your demands?”

Hearing Lin Qingya’s question, the woman only smiled.

She explained,“Let me introduce myself first. My name is Cheng Cheng. You can call me Orange. Girls like to call me that. As for our demands…”

“Or rather, our Proprietor and Main Branch’s demand is for Cheng Minghao to acknowledge his ancestry and inherit the Inheritance. There’s an annual dividend, he gets a spot, and just waits to receive money. Isn’t that great?”

“What Inheritance? You want a Puppet, right?”

Lin Qingya asked bluntly.

Cheng Cheng on the opposite side froze for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

“That’s right, but whether he’s a Puppet or not, to you…”

“Other than getting an extra sum of money every year… is there any other difference?”

Cheng Cheng asked.

“Yes.”

Lin Qingya nodded seriously.

“There are unknown Risks, and why does it have to be Cheng Minghao in that position? Just because he’s an orphan outside, with no parents or relatives, and easier for you to control?”

“No Risk.”

The woman shook her head and explained,“This is still the country. Right now, because of special circumstances, a person with the appropriate Identity is needed in the right position. It just makes things easier for us to do properly.”

“May I ask, what exactly do you do, and what are the Identities of Cheng Minghao’s biological father and mother?”

Lin Qingya asked.

Cheng Cheng opposite her smiled and explained,“We’re just in business. Didn’t Cheng Minghao want to join the army before? But the family background was unclean, right? We checked. Our family has never touched politics, only business.”

She continued,“As for his birth parents… that’s not important, they’re dead. For some other reasons, we needed him to fill a position to help us with business interests.”

“So… Cheng Minghao is like a hot commodity?”

Lin Qingya asked.

“Mm… yes!”

The woman nodded.

“So maybe other Sub-branches will come to you for help. But we found you first, so regarding your secret, we can help you hide it so others won’t find it.

That’s our advantage, and the reason for you to cooperate with us to persuade Cheng Minghao to join our side.”

“…”

Lin Qingya was silent, then after thinking for a while, spoke,“Did you ask for his opinion?”

The woman opposite paused, then asked in return,“You didn’t ask?”

“…Mm~ Got it, so he didn’t agree. Then I…”

Lin Qingya frowned.

Cheng Minghao himself was unwilling, wanting only a peaceful, ordinary life moving forward.

But these people insisted on disrupting their peace.

Her secret was also likely under their control.

She didn’t know how it was discovered, but…

Lin Qingya frowned, unable to figure out exactly how her secret had been leaked.

If she had to consider possible leaks…

After practicing self-decompression methods she learned from a psychologist, she had torn the paper into tiny pieces and thrown them into a trash bag full of Chef’s Trash Bag.

Could it be because she didn’t burn the paper, so it was found by someone with ill intentions?

How unlucky could she get?