Chapter 285: Chapter 285: Public Humiliation!
Lin Qi looked at Maeve, her eyebrows slightly raised: “Coincidentally, I also know a female coworker. This coworker, you see, harbors a crush on her boss, pursuing him without success. But I can understand that! Water flows to the lowest point and people strive to climb higher—everyone wants to grab onto a higher branch. It’s human nature. However, she didn’t even register in his sight. Once, during a drinking event, her boss got drunk, and she helped him to a hotel and booked a room. That very night, nothing happened, but guess what?”
Colleagues glanced at Lin Qi and then at Maeve.
Lin Qi’s words were laden with strong insinuations, barely short of calling names!
Who can’t throw hints and implications?!
Lin Qi continued, “Before long, rumors started spreading throughout the company about this female coworker and her boss sleeping in the same room. Now tell me, who spread these rumors? Such lowly tactics for climbing up the ranks, it’s really disgusting! They say it’s only a thin veil between a woman chasing a man, but is it not too ugly to chase someone so shamelessly, face all licked up? Could this count as workplace harassment?”
Maeve turned green as soon as she heard it!
She slammed her hand on the table and stood up, pointing and glaring at Lin Qi: “Lin Qi, what do you mean by that?”
Lin Qi responded indifferently: “Ms. Mia, don’t take it personally! I wasn’t even talking about you. Why such a big reaction?”
Maeve’s face turned even greener.
She was at a loss for words.
Lin Qi gave a small laugh and then lowered her head to busily attend to her own work.
Maeve, naturally unwilling to concede, suddenly pressed on: “Lin Qi, there’s no need to hide it anymore! The news about your pregnancy has already spread!”
Lin Qi, holding her pen, twirled it around her finger.
She lifted her head leisurely and retorted, “Is pregnancy illegal?”
Maeve was left speechless.
Lin Qi leaned back in her chair: “So what if I’m pregnant? Is it against the law? Can you call the police to arrest me?”
Maeve said: “You’re still trying to argue! Didn’t you state in your employment report that you’re single?! How could you be pregnant if you’re single?! Where exactly does the baby in your belly come from?”
Lin Qi replied, “On a resume, there are usually three options: single, married, divorced. I’m divorced, so theoretically, I can check divorced or single—that’s my freedom, my right. But I never said I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Maeve was struck speechless once again.
She then sneered coldly: “You say you have a boyfriend, how many? You don’t have several boyfriends at the same time, do you?”
Her words were an obvious dig at Lin Qi, implying she slept her way up the ranks and was being kept by several men.
Lin Qi curved her lips into a smile, remaining calm: “Even if I have seven or eight boyfriends, is it illegal? Even if I married eight men at the same time, as long as I don’t register it, is it a crime?”
Maeve froze: “Of course, it’s a crime! It’s bigamy!”
Lin Qi chuckled: “I haven’t registered a marriage, so how can it be bigamy? Whom I marry and how many people I marry, it’s my freedom. Moreover, you claim I have several boyfriends, do you have evidence? Without evidence, this is slander.”
The two engaged in a verbal fencing match.
But Maeve was repeatedly defeated.
She clenched her teeth in frustration, unwilling to give in: “Lin Qi, you’re shameless! You can even turn black into white.”
Lin Qi replied: “I’m merely telling the truth. I do have a steady boyfriend now, and we’re discussing marriage. As for my pregnancy, it’s my personal privacy. I don’t know who disclosed it to you, but I don’t intend to pursue the matter. After all, is being pregnant something shameful?”
Maeve retorted: “Shotgun weddings are not something to be proud of!”
Lin Qi countered: “Not being able to get married when impregnated is the real shame. Ms. Mia, don’t you have a crush on President Qi? Even if you got pregnant with President Qi’s child, he wouldn’t marry you. Isn’t that the most embarrassing thing?”
Maeve’s face blushed, then turned purple with rage, her anger showing: “You think I’m as shameless as you?”
Lin Qi covered her mouth in feigned surprise: “Aren’t you shameless enough? Spreading rumors about you and President Qi sleeping together—if I hadn’t asked President Qi yesterday, and he hadn’t said it was all a lie, I might have believed it was true.”
“I…” Maeve’s eyes widened, and she stammered, sounding guilty, “I didn’t spread such things! I don’t know who’s making up these stories!”
The colleagues looked at each other: “So it was just a rumor…”
“If President Qi hadn’t clarified, I would really think there was something between Ms. Mia and him…”
“So Ms. Mia and President Qi are really innocent…”
“Then who started this rumor?”
Everyone turned their gaze towards Maeve.
Maeve, with a face pale as iron, defended herself: “It really wasn’t me who spread it!”
Lin Qi provocatively asked: “It wasn’t you who spread it, so was it President Qi?”
Maeve forced an explanation: “Maybe someone saw me and President Qi entering the hotel and started talking nonsense…”
Lin Qi replied: “President Qi was drunk, so it wasn’t your turn to send him to the hotel to take care of him all night. Or are you hoping to turn cooked rice into raw rice?”
Maeve bit back: “I did not!”
Her face reddened and paled, feeling as if Lin Qi had mercilessly torn off her fig leaf!
This Lin Qi, so articulate and eloquent!
Even though she was the one unmarried and pregnant, the one who should feel disgraced, how did it suddenly turn out that she became the center of criticism?
Lin Qi shook her head: “Ms. Mia, you don’t have to worry about my personal affairs.”
She picked up her training notes and left the office to attend her training class.
Maeve, fists clenched in fury, began to cry as soon as Lin Qi left, her head buried in her desk.
Her colleagues comforted her: “Ms. Mia, why would you take such a woman’s words to heart?”
“Exactly. Don’t listen to her!”
“We don’t believe that you were the one spreading rumors!”
“That’s right! Now that the rumors about you and President Qi have been cleared up, it’s a good thing!”
Zhou Xiaoying was intently reviewing financial reports, but couldn’t help being distracted, seeing Maeve trying to challenge Lin Qi and ending up humiliated in public, she sneered: “Mind your own business. She’s pregnant, what’s it to you?”
Maeve raised her head, speaking fiercely: “I don’t want such a person to corrupt the atmosphere of our project team!”
Zhou Xiaoying replied: “Pregnancy is a woman’s freedom, having children is a celebration. How come it turned into an unfounded accusation in your mouth?”
Maeve said: “Don’t be fooled by her! What steady boyfriend, I say, she’s just a relationship kept by the higher-ups placed in the project team! She must be a higher-up’s lover!”
Everyone looked shocked.
Zhou Xiaoying glared at her: “How dare you speak such words! If the higher-ups hear this, you’ll have to face the consequences.”
Maeve replied: “You were the one who recruited her into your team, right? I see, birds of a feather flock together!”