When Will My Childhood Sweetheart Marry Me?-Chapter 247: Mind More Agile Than Body

"If it really is Yuan Chong, what could his motive be? We haven’t crossed paths with him before," Jiang Shuyao closed her suitcase and, taking off her shoes, sat upright on the bed, ready to seriously analyze Yuan Chong.

The night outside the window was thickening as Pei Yan lazily walked over to draw the curtains and returned to hold her in his arms.

The air conditioning was on, and the two of them, wrapped together, weren’t hot—just in a slightly odd position.

She looked up at him. "What are you doing? We haven’t finished talking about serious matters yet."

"We can still talk like this." Pei Yan loosened his embrace slightly, giving her some room to move, "Do you remember the company that sponsored last year’s coding competition?"

Of course, she remembered.

It was because Lu Chen’s team had first sold the patent that she had made a point to scout out the venue early on the day of the competition.

It was an auditing firm, quite famous locally, though it had begun to decline in recent years. In the internet age, many traditional practices had been phased out, and that financial encryption system must have been a strategic adjustment made by the audit firm, forced by their circumstances.

She didn’t understand the specifics, just out of curiosity, she had casually searched online and gathered some basic information about the company.

Jiang Shuyao finished sharing everything she knew, met by a prolonged silence from Pei Yan.

He seemed to be pondering while also appearing somewhat distracted.

Under the light, his eyes were downcast, showing a hint of tiredness.

He couldn’t have fallen asleep, could he?

Jiang Shuyao raised her hand to wave it in front of his eyes, which he grabbed with his hand.

His dark gaze fell on her.

"Princess."

"Hmm?"

Pei Yan pulled out a slight smile. "You’re pressing down on it."

?

Who?

Jiang Shuyao stared at him, bewildered.

After a little while, she slowly started to feel the warmth at the back of her neck.

"..." She didn’t say anything, just silently adjusted her position.

Originally, she was leaning against his chest, but as his pajamas were too slippery, her head ended up sliding down to the crook of his thigh.

Jiang Shuyao turned her face away. "Why do you guys always like to wear silk? Aren’t cotton ones good?"

Just now, Pei Yan had been unwittingly stirred by her accidental actions.

She was clever, quickly shifting the topic to the pajamas.

Pei Yan lazily looked down at her. "Other than me, which other guy have you seen wearing pajamas?"

My dad.

Of course, under Ms. Zhu’s supervision, Old Jiang didn’t get to wear silk either.

Jiang Shuyao said with a glowing smile, "In romance novels, the male leads always wear black silk robes and pajamas, it’s too brainwashing."

Pei Yan raised an eyebrow. "You still read novels?"

"Just occasionally, to relax."

Mainly due to her two roommates’ influence, Fang Wei was addicted to mystery thrillers, while He Shumiao was madly in love with overbearing CEO romances, constantly murmuring in her ear about which book’s male lead was fervently pursuing his wife to the crematorium, which was about a male secondary character surpassing the primary, and what the latest trend was in the rebirth of group-favored heroines.

Being a girl, Jiang Shuyao always felt somewhat out of place.

She glanced at a few books and discovered the principle of real silk as the standard configuration.

Pei Yan seemed interested in her reading novels, casually playing with her fingers and asking, "What do you usually read? Tell me about it."

"Don’t you mean the audit company though? What then?" Jiang Shuyao still thought it was important to stick to the main topic.

She needed to catch a flight early in the morning and had to sleep early that night.

If he didn’t continue, she was almost falling asleep.

Unable to resist, Jiang Shuyao yawned, her moist eyes more enticing under the light.

In the latter part of the conversation, somebody was clearly not satisfied with just chatting.

Pei Yan looked at her innocent and pure face, feeling an itch in his heart, and with a flip, he pinned her down.

His sudden move frightened Jiang Shuyao so much that her drowsiness vanished.

Before she could speak, Pei Yan had already held her in his arms, slowly picking up the previous topic.

"If it was just poor management, the shareholders wouldn’t be so eager to sell. In fact, the audit company faced an internal financial crisis that disrupted their capital chain even before they began planning the deployment of the encryption system, even earlier than last year."

Jiang Shuyao tried hard to digest the content of his words.

"Do you mean the audit company’s senior management wanted to sell the company?"

"Yes, unfortunately, it wasn’t going smoothly." Pei Yan’s hand moved to Jiang Shuyao’s neck, his slender fingers tracing down her slightly open collar.

"Back then, they connected with a Sino-foreign joint venture, but because the other party was harsh in pushing down the price, they negotiated for a whole half year and never reached an agreement.

Then one after another, more than a dozen companies offered even lower bids. Out of desperation, the audit company started laying off employees to cut costs dramatically, including the encrypted system collaboration with Capital Institute of Technology, which they believed could be a part of future added value."

Pei Yan paused, "Such transactions rely on mutual consent. Princess, if it were you, would you buy that common encryption system available everywhere for decoration at home?"

His touch stirred a tingling sensation on Jiang Shuyao’s skin.

She struggled to speak, "...Since it’s a very ordinary encryption system, why would the audit company go through all the trouble to collaborate with Ligong University instead of just buying an existing one?"

"You make a good point." Pei Yan smiled and complimented her, "Princess, your mind is much more agile than your body."

Jiang Shuyao glared at him, speechless.

"No worries, I have plenty of patience, and there’s always a way to keep your operating system in sync with your computational system." Pei Yan laughed, his chest trembling.

His blatant teasing plunged the conversation into a confusing whirl of ambiguity.

She turned over, turning her face away, not wanting to look at him anymore.

She muttered, "So the rumors about Ligong University’s professors privately bribing sponsors aren’t unfounded."

Just for a system, was it worth it for a distinguished professor to tarnish their reputation?

She couldn’t figure it out.

Not everyone in the world is like Old Man Jiang, dedicated solely to academic research, valuing reputation above anything else, contented to diligently work on scientific research in a laboratory on a fixed salary.

Greed is human nature, it’s not inherently wrong.

But the biggest difference lies in one’s moral boundaries.

Jiang Shuyao thought about Lu Chen saying he was used to implant data-stealing malware in the encryption system. The person he mentioned undoubtedly lacked morals and, putting it more severely, had even broken the law.

Afterward, she often pondered what would have happened if Pei Yan hadn’t noticed the anomalies in the code, and the system had been successfully integrated into the audit company’s server, leading to what consequences for a company on the brink of bankruptcy.

Or another possibility, if the manipulation behind the scenes had failed, the audit company had discovered it and filed a complaint, what severe legal punishment would Lu Chen, as the project’s core person in charge, have faced?

Either scenario wasn’t as impressive as Pei Yan’s decision at that moment.