On How To Defeat Dr. Qing Leng Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Can’t Be Called Even

Over the next few days, Pei Yan canceled all unnecessary social engagements. He mobilized significant connections and resources, not only launching a deep investigation into Zhao Hua and Fan Qingzhi but also extending his reach into the internal personnel relations and project review mechanisms within the Institute of Geological Sciences.

He intended to use the rules to destroy those who didn’t follow them.

Meanwhile, at the Institute of Geological Sciences.

Wen Yelan walked into the office almost exactly on time. He kept his head down, trying to avoid eye contact with colleagues, and walked straight to his desk.

Despite his best efforts to hide it, his pale complexion and the faint blue shadows under his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. More importantly, his mind repeatedly replayed the scene from Pei Yan’s apartment yesterday—

Pei Yan’s hand, angry yet ultimately gentle, resting on his head, the ambiguous phrase “we’ll settle the score slowly,” and Pei Yan’s smiling gaze as he leaned against the doorframe when Wen Yelan left…

All of it left him in turmoil.

It wasn’t that Wen Yelan had never liked men; he had, back in college. But at that time, everyone called him a pervert, disgusting. Even his ex-boyfriend had told him, word for word,

‘Wen Yelan, you’re truly disgusting. Men and men are impossible.’

Someone like Pei Yan surely wouldn’t take such a perverse feeling seriously…

“Yelan, morning.” Fan Qingzhi’s voice, carrying its usual gentle smile, rang out.

Wen Yelan’s body stiffened almost imperceptibly. He didn’t look up, only mumbled a low “Morning,” and opened his computer.

Fan Qingzhi seemed to be in excellent spirits and didn’t mind his coldness. Instead, she walked over holding her water cup, her tone laced with concern: “You don’t look well. Did you not rest properly yesterday? About the project… don’t take it too hard. CEO Zhao and the others made a comprehensive decision. There will be plenty of other opportunities.”

Her words sounded like comfort, but in reality, every sentence was a jab at Wen Yelan’s heart.

Wen Yelan’s fingers, poised over the keyboard, paused for a moment, his fingertips slightly white. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm, and offered no response.

Fan Qingzhi saw his unyielding demeanor, and a flicker of displeasure crossed her eyes, quickly replaced by triumph. She smiled, swayed her hips, and returned to her seat. The project was hers anyway; no matter how unwilling Wen Yelan was, he could only accept his fate.

The entire morning, Wen Yelan tried to immerse himself in work, but his efficiency was extremely low. The surrounding whispers seemed more frequent than usual, and the glances directed at him carried various complex meanings—sympathy, pity, schadenfreude, and even a hint of vague contempt, as if saying, “See? What good is being aloof? You still lost to someone who knows how to play the game.”

This invisible pressure made it almost impossible for him to breathe. Wen Yelan didn’t know when or how Pei Yan would help him.

He couldn’t help but wonder, what would Pei Yan do? Pei Yan had spoken with a confidence that suggested complete control. He said, “Wait for the show.” What kind of show? Would it affect him? Wen Yelan didn’t want the already complicated academic environment to be stirred up because of him, and he certainly didn’t want to become the subject of gossip about using connections to advance. This anxiety was worse than when he was waiting for the review results.

A few days passed, and the institute remained calm. Fan Qingzhi was still riding high, occasionally casting glances that held a subtle mix of pity and superiority. Colleagues seemed to have tacitly accepted the outcome and stopped discussing it much. Wen Yelan almost began to believe that Pei Yan’s words that day were just a momentary comfort, or perhaps the rich young master had already forgotten about this “small matter.”

Until one rainy afternoon.

The normally quiet office corridor was suddenly pierced by a sharp female voice.

“Where is Fan Qingzhi?! Tell that vixen to get out here!”

The voice was loud, furious, and carried the unique brazenness and recklessness of a common market woman. Everyone on the floor was startled, poking their heads out of their offices.

Wen Yelan was checking a sample list. His movement froze at the sound, and a strange tightness gripped his heart.

A middle-aged woman, dressed in expensive but slightly gaudy fur and carrying a limited-edition handbag, stormed into their office area. Her well-maintained face was distorted by anger, and her gaze swept like a knife over every stunned face.

“Who is Fan Qingzhi?! Are you too scared to face what you did? How capable were you when you were seducing someone else’s husband?!”

The Institute of Geological Sciences security guards rushed over but were blocked by the woman’s bodyguards.

Seeing the crowd grow, the woman’s voice grew louder, almost a roar: “Zhao Hua! I am Zhao Hua’s wife! Today, I’m going to tear apart that shameless little tramp!”

Zhao Hua’s wife?! Wen Yelan understood instantly. He subconsciously looked toward Fan Qingzhi’s desk.

Fan Qingzhi had clearly heard the commotion too; her face instantly went white. She scrambled to her feet, trying to slip away from the other side, but was inadvertently blocked by several colleagues who had rushed over to watch the spectacle.

Zhao Hua’s wife was sharp-eyed and immediately locked onto her: “It’s you! Fan Qingzhi! I recognize you! That time at the entrance, you were in Zhao Hua’s car!”

She rushed over, pointing at Fan Qingzhi’s nose and cursing: “You shameless thing! What low-down methods you’ll use for a project! Eating and drinking wasn’t enough, you wanted to sleep with him too, right? You think you can climb to the top by crawling into bed? I’m telling you, no way!”

Fan Qingzhi was startled and furious, trembling all over: “You… you’re slandering me! Who… who slept with him! CEO Zhao and I only had normal work discussions!”

“Work discussions? Discussions that led to the bed?” Zhao Hua’s wife sneered: “I checked the transfer records! What’s with the money he transferred to your mother? A loan? Who are you trying to fool! Was that hush money or payment for sex?!”

Her words grew increasingly vulgar and unbearable. The surroundings erupted in an uproar; colleagues exchanged complex glances. The previous rumors about Fan Qingzhi’s overly close relationship with Representative Zhao now seemed confirmed by this sudden drama.

All color drained from Fan Qingzhi’s face. Her lips trembled. She tried to refute, but her lack of confidence made her incoherent: “You… you’re talking nonsense! This is defamation! I’ll sue you!”

“Sue me? Go ahead and sue!” Zhao Hua’s wife suddenly pulled a stack of photos from her handbag and slammed them onto the desk in front of Fan Qingzhi: “Look! This is your ‘work discussion’! Hugging and flirting! That heartless Zhao Hua dared to hide this from me! If I hadn’t checked his phone, I would have been completely fooled by you, you little temptress!”

The photos scattered, looking like surveillance screenshots. Although the resolution wasn’t high, Zhao Hua and Fan Qingzhi were clearly identifiable, engaging in intimate behavior in non-public settings. One photo, in dim lighting, showed two intertwined figures.

The evidence was undeniable.

The office fell completely silent, leaving only Fan Qingzhi’s heavy breathing and Zhao Hua’s wife’s relentless cursing. Fan Qingzhi looked at the photos, her eyes filled with despair, her body swaying. The image she had painstakingly cultivated, the flawless scheme she thought she had executed, was publicly shredded in this moment.

The scene was completely out of control. Wen Yelan sat in the corner, feeling cold all over, his blood seemingly frozen. He watched Fan Qingzhi, who had been polished and confident just minutes ago but was now utterly disgraced and speechless, listening to the shocked or contemptuous whispers around him. His heart felt tightly squeezed by an invisible hand; a sense of suffocation washed over him.

It was Pei Yan.

It had to be him.

Only such a simple, crude, direct, yet precisely lethal method could so quickly tear open all the pretense and expose the most shameful truth nakedly to the light. No mercy, no room for maneuver.

Wen Yelan’s fingers were icy cold; he could even feel a slight tremor in his fingertips. He remembered the children in his neighborhood who used to bully him when he was young, but back then, his parents always told him coldly: “We can’t afford to offend people like that. That’s Young Master Wang. Just endure it, and it will pass. Don’t interfere with your brother’s upward mobility.”

But his brother’s mobility involved helping those people bully him…

Pei Yan had retrieved the project for him, using the most “elegant” method, making him a clean, detached beneficiary. But he wasn’t happy at all. He only felt a chilling coldness deep in his bones.

Pei Yan’s world, like those people’s, was something he couldn’t understand or bear.

He abruptly stood up. In the midst of the chaos, he kept his head down and quickly left the suffocating place. Behind him, the sounds of Fan Qingzhi’s crying, Mrs. Zhao’s angry curses, and the leaders’ attempts to calm the situation mixed together like an absurd farce.

Sure enough, that afternoon, news spread through the institute.

The Moonlight Foundation headquarters was furious. They immediately halted project funding and demanded that the Institute of Geological Sciences immediately investigate the matter and re-evaluate the project leader candidate. Zhao Hua was suspended pending investigation, and Fan Qingzhi’s reputation was ruined. She was called in by the institute leaders for a discussion; the subsequent outcome was self-evident.

The entire institute was shrouded in a strange atmosphere. The previous flattery and envy directed at Fan Qingzhi instantly turned into backbiting and drawing a clear line. And the previous sympathy or confusion toward Wen Yelan quietly shifted into a complex scrutiny—after all, anyone with eyes could see that the project, after all the twists and turns, could only be legitimately taken over by Wen Yelan, who was previously recognized as the most academically capable among the younger generation.

But no one would connect this incident to Wen Yelan. He remained the silent, aloof, and somewhat unsociable Dr. Wen. In everyone’s eyes, he was simply lucky; when the snipe and the clam fought, the fisherman profited.

Only Wen Yelan himself knew the turbulent undercurrents behind this luck.

The institute handled things quickly. That afternoon, Wen Yelan received the formal project approval notice, his mood as complex as an overturned spice rack.

The project was back, in a way he had never imagined—clean, decisive, and even more unassailable than if he had won purely on merit. His reputation was not damaged in the slightest; on the contrary, his image as a “victim” and a scholar of “true ability” earned him more respect.

Pei Yan had done it. He had truly retrieved the project beautifully, and, as he had promised, without letting Wen Yelan be tainted by any scandal. All the blame was precisely aimed at Zhao Hua and Fan Qingzhi. Wen Yelan was merely the scholar who was finally treated justly in this storm.

“Called it even?” Wen Yelan smiled bitterly in his heart. He realized how naive and ridiculous his initial attempt to draw a line had been.

How could things ever be called even between him and Pei Yan?