Chapter 90: The Weekend’s Work and a Sneaky Confrontation

Over the entire weekend, Zhou Ruoyu stayed home, meticulously revising her proposal over and over. Occasionally, she’d play with her phone, or… well, send a WeChat message to her nemesis, just to exchange a few awkward lines. That way, the guy couldn’t claim she never contacted him, using that as an excuse to ask her out.

Hmm… but it seemed that whether she proactively messaged Gu Jiachen or not, he would always come up with some excuse to date her. Ahem… sometimes he didn’t even need an excuse, after all, she was just his kept canary.

Looking at it that way, proactively chatting with Gu Jiachen was utterly useless. Sob… on top of that, she’d get pestered and harassed for ages. The black-haired, straight long-tressed little loli dealt with it with tears, growing more and more irritable.

Finally, Monday arrived. Zhou Ruoyu could use the excuse of being busy with work to fend off Gu Jiachen. She got up early, prepared all her competition materials: sketches, proposals, design notes. This time, she even made digital copies of every file, backed them up, and added watermarks!

There was no way they’d be stolen again!

Carrying these items, Zhou Ruoyu left home early, not even bothering with breakfast. She headed straight to the Long Yu Art Department, waited for the young lady who had been collecting competition entries to start work, and personally handed over her materials. She watched as the serious young lady placed them among the other entries. Only then did she feel at ease and returned to the Planning Department.

Sitting at her workstation, Zhou Ruoyu first glanced at Ling Bo, who had also arrived. The other girl glanced back at her, a trace of disdain in her eyes, before lightly averting her gaze.

Beside Ling Bo stood a girl with a baseball cap pulled low, sunglasses, and a black mask. Zhou Ruoyu couldn’t tell who it was, but she didn’t pay much attention. After all, she didn’t know many people in the Planning Department. So she just focused on her own work, still doing information gathering. Ling Bo wouldn’t assign her anything new for now, anyway.

The atmosphere in the department was unusually awkward. Some colleagues who didn’t know what was going on were curious why Zhou Ruoyu and Ling Bo suddenly weren’t talking. Had they had a fight?

But Ling Bo didn’t care much about their gossip. She turned to Gu Xue, who was disguised, and whispered nervously:

“What do I do? Didn’t you say Zhou Ruoyu would quit soon? Her staying here is bad for me… What if someone asks her how we fell out…”

“Oh, stop worrying!” Gu Xue frowned and lowered her voice. “You submitted your design first. If she says you stole it, just insist she copied you. Huh… Besides, how could she leave so quickly? Even if she resigns, she has to wait for approval, right? And if you haven’t dealt her a hard enough blow, she might not want to leave. At most, she’ll just ignore you.”

“Tsk… That’s not what you said before! And no matter how you explain it, people will still have doubts. If I hadn’t listened to you saying Zhou Ruoyu would leave soon, I would never have taken this job. I’ve already hit her hard enough! She was crying in the bathroom that day!”

Ling Bo complained indignantly to Gu Xue. The young miss Gu seemed to have lost patience. Well, who knew? Even if she and Ling Bo dealt Zhou Ruoyu a harsh blow, the girl would probably be comforted after a weekend of dating her dad.

No, that won’t do. She needed to twist the knife.

Gu Xue lowered her head in thought for a moment, then came up with an idea. She turned and instructed Ling Bo directly:

“I’ll pull some strings and make sure your earlier submission gets third prize. Having an award is enough; don’t go overboard. Then, at the award ceremony, you privately chat up that little green tea, taunt her fiercely, and completely crush her spirit!”

“This… okay, okay!”

Ling Bo hesitated briefly at Gu Xue’s words. But after a moment, she raised her head and glanced at Zhou Ruoyu’s figure. A sense of guilt-born hostility rose in her heart. Afraid of being exposed, afraid of retaliation, she had no choice but to act first under Gu Xue’s coercion.

So she nodded firmly. Gu Xue immediately left to pull strings, leaving Ling Bo alone. Bored, she squinted at Zhou Ruoyu and suddenly noticed the black-haired little loli seemed to be working on something on her computer. Looking closer, she was actually using a drawing tablet!

Something’s off… Very, very off!

Thus, determined not to let her guard down for a single moment, Ling Bo silently crept up beside Zhou Ruoyu and craned her neck to peek. But Zhou Ruoyu, who was actually copying a document, suddenly felt a surge of murderous intent and quickly pressed the boss key…

The computer screen turned into the desktop wallpaper. Ling Bo found nothing and felt a bit awkward. Zhou Ruoyu turned and glared at her.

Then she muttered:

“What are you sneaking up on me for? Tsk… Truly a rat.”

A rat?

Hearing this assessment, Ling Bo’s face flushed. Perhaps because the accusation hit her guilty conscience, or because the metaphor was too vivid and accurate. Either way, Ling Bo glared back at Zhou Ruoyu in fury, then lowered her voice and sneered:

“Heh, Zhou Ruoyu… Looks like you’re working hard, huh? What, did you use the weekend to secretly make another design and beg someone to submit it? Tsk tsk… Why bother? Something rushed out in two days—you don’t actually think you’ll win, do you? In my opinion, you’d be better off taking two days to rest and have fun~ What’s the rush? No matter what, you won’t beat my work.”

“Yours?” Zhou Ruoyu twitched the corner of her mouth helplessly, then shook her head and shot back with a bitter smile:

“Fine, if you say it’s yours, then it’s yours. Anyway, it’s just trash. If you like it, I’ll give it to you~! Huh, you’re right. Redesigning was really tiring for me. But resting isn’t a good way to ease my mood. After thinking it over, the only way to feel better is to personally defeat you, a thief, in this fashion design competition!”

The black-haired, straight long-tressed little loli squinted, her bold declaration making Ling Bo inexplicably uneasy.

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