The eleventh scoop: what gossip? Eleven bites...

Ye Mo: "...I'm not really connected to anyone!"

She looked at Secretary Huang and suddenly asked, "Secretary Huang, are you getting married?"

Secretary Huang froze, not understanding why she would suddenly ask that question.

"I have no plans to get married at the moment," she answered Ye Mo's question anyway, shaking her head. "Right now, I just want to focus on my career!"

At that, however, Ye Mo frowned and said with an air of mystery, "Huh? Then why did my divination tell me that happy news is just around the corner for you, Secretary Huang, and that you're about to walk down the aisle with someone?"

Secretary Huang looked bewildered. "...What?"

Chapter 11: The eleventh scoop: what gossip? Eleven bites...

Secretary Huang truly was a professional secretary. Even after hearing Ye Mo talk like a fortune-telling charlatan, she was only bewildered for a moment before regaining her composure.

"...Miss Ye, you must be joking," she said with a smile.

Ye Mo smiled. "I'm not joking. I'm serious."

She moved closer to Secretary Huang and said in a thoroughly charlatan-like tone, "My divination tells me that happy news is just around the corner for you, and that you're discussing marriage with someone. Unfortunately, though! Alas..."

Ye Mo suddenly let out a long, quiet sigh, her tone turning regretful.

Her words piqued Secretary Huang's curiosity, and she could not help asking, "Unfortunately what?"

Ye Mo replied, "Unfortunately, you've entrusted yourself to the wrong person. Not only is he not a worthy partner, he's even deceived you about a great many things..."

"Is that so?" Secretary Huang smiled, her tone regretful. "Then it seems my luck isn't very good."

Ye Mo raised her brows slightly and said with certainty, "You don't believe me. You think I'm joking?"

Secretary Huang pressed her lips together. "You're reading too much into it..."

Ye Mo smiled and remarked, "Your words don't match your heart."

"But your reaction is perfectly normal." Ye Mo was not angry. "If someone suddenly ran up to me one day and said they'd divined that I'd met the wrong person, I wouldn't believe them either!"

Secretary Huang looked embarrassed. "Miss Ye..."

"But I still hope you'll believe me!" Ye Mo said, staring straight at her. "Because everything I'm saying is true!"

"If you don't believe me..."

Ye Mo thought for a moment. "I can tell you a few more things to convince you. For instance, you met your current partner on a blind date. His surname is Hong, and his name is Hong Tao, right?"

When she saw Secretary Huang's expression turn stunned, Ye Mo knew she had hit the mark.

"How do you know all this?" Secretary Huang found it unbelievable.

She was certain she had never mentioned the blind date to anyone at the company. Besides, this was her first time meeting Ye Mo, so there was even less reason for the other woman to know these private matters.

Yet she had indeed heard the familiar name "Hong Tao" from her lips.

Secretary Huang was feeling rather confused.

"Didn't I tell you? I divined it." Ye Mo said this without blushing or missing a breath, looking thoroughly convincing.

"I even know that a distant aunt of yours introduced the two of you..." She looked at Secretary Huang. "After everything I've told you, surely you should believe me now?"

Secretary Huang's reason told her that fortune-telling was not to be trusted, but everything Ye Mo had said was spot-on, and she had no need to deceive her...

After a few seconds of silence, Secretary Huang asked Ye Mo, "You said he's not a worthy partner for me, and that he's deceived me about a great many things... What has he lied to me about?"

Secretary Huang thought Hong Tao might have deceived her about some of his circumstances. After all, the circumstances he had presented were so good that she had already had her doubts.

But no matter how Secretary Huang thought about it, she could never have imagined that "Hong Tao" was not actually the person she had met on the blind date.

"...The real Hong Tao is that man's younger maternal cousin. He's now so seriously ill that he can't get out of bed. His family wants to trick you into marrying into their family first, so that even if Hong Tao dies, he'll have a wife." Ye Mo carefully explained the family's scheme to Secretary Huang.

The family was terrified that "Hong Tao" would be lonely underground after his death, so even though they knew he was about to die, they still wanted to find a bride to marry into the family.

Secretary Huang had been unlucky enough to become their target.

What Ye Mo had said struck Secretary Huang as utterly absurd and surreal. She wanted to say that Ye Mo was making it all up, but she also knew full well that the other woman had no reason to deceive her with a lie that would fall apart at a single poke.

When Ye Mo finished, she looked at her and said, "If you don't believe me, you can go to room 809 on the eighth floor of the inpatient building at Fourth Hospital. Hong Tao is staying in that ward!"

Secretary Huang took a deep breath. "I understand... I'll go to the place you mentioned and check."

She looked at Ye Mo and said, "Whatever the case, thank you for telling me all this, Miss Ye!"

Seeing how sincere and earnest she was, Ye Mo could not help smiling. "As long as you don't think I'm spouting nonsense... Oh, right!"

She changed the subject and asked Secretary Huang with a touch of nosiness, "Secretary Huang, how long have you been working with my eldest brother?"

Secretary Huang picked up on the key point in her words and asked in surprise, "Eldest brother? The general manager is your eldest brother, Miss Ye? You're his younger sister?"

"Can't you tell?" Ye Mo touched her face. "I thought I looked a little like him..."

Secretary Huang studied Ye Mo's face carefully. A few seconds later, she nodded. "There is a resemblance. I simply hadn't considered that possibility, and besides..."

Besides, as far as she knew, the general manager only had one younger sister: Ye Baozhu. Secretary Huang had met her before, and she was definitely not the same person as Ye Mo standing before her.

Ye Mo explained, "There are some reasons behind it, but in any case, I really am his younger sister. We were born to the same mother!"

Ye Mo had no intention of using this matter to win sympathy, so she only said a few brief words before naturally changing the subject and talking about other things.

"...Let's end the company tour here!"

After walking around, Ye Mo had more or less satisfied her curiosity about big companies. She thought that if she had successfully gone to high school and then university back then, perhaps she would now be like Secretary Huang and the others, working at a big company like the Ye Corporation as an office worker.

Of course, that was only one hypothetical "if."

Ye Mo said, "Now that we're done wandering around, it's time to get down to business!"

Business?

Secretary Huang looked at her questioningly.

Ye Mo said, "Secretary Huang, sorry for the trouble, but please take me to see those potted money trees at the company that have withered!"

Although Secretary Huang did not know why Ye Mo wanted to see the money trees, she recalled the general manager's instruction to cooperate with everything Miss Ye did. She nodded and said, "All right. Please follow me."

Their company had money trees on every floor, placed in different locations depending on the layout. On the floor where Ye Mo and Secretary Huang currently were, the money tree stood by the elevators.

Secretary Huang knew the company's money trees like the back of her hand. "This money tree started showing signs of withering last week. By now, all its leaves have fallen off..."

Ye Mo leaned closer to look and reached out to touch the soil in the pot. She found that it was still damp. Clearly, even now, someone was still watering it.

"Has anyone dug into it to look inside?" she asked.

Secretary Huang shook her head. "There's a method to how the company's money trees are positioned. We're afraid that fiddling with them carelessly might ruin our wealth luck!"

The corner of Ye Mo's mouth twitched at that, and she could not help saying, "When I said earlier that I could tell fortunes, you didn't believe a word of it, Secretary Huang. But now that we're talking about wealth luck, you believe it without a shadow of doubt..."

"..." Secretary Huang immediately looked embarrassed, then said, "Better to believe it exists than to believe it doesn't. Besides, this counts as part of the Ye Corporation's corporate culture."

"The Ye Corporation's corporate culture?" Ye Mo asked. "Superstition?"

Secretary Huang: "..." Is it really all right to talk about your own family's company like that?