The CEO’s Substitute Wife Is A Genius
Chapter 247: Exposing Each Other, Testing: Will You Turn from Hate to Love Me?

Chapter 247: Chapter 247: Exposing Each Other, Testing: Will You Turn from Hate to Love Me?

In the hotel room at that moment, Jiang Man was bombarded with calls from the old lady and Lu Xuemei.

All she did was have her period, yet her family acted as if she were sitting the month.

"Manman, don’t wash your hair in these two days, washing it will give you a headache," Lu Xuemei said with concern.

Jiang Man merely responded.

What a coincidence, she had just washed it last night...

"Also... you young folks tend to go wild... try to restrain yourselves these days... do not do that..."

Lu Xuemei lowered her voice as she spoke these words.

However, Jiang Man had the speakerphone on, so Lu Xingzhou, who was reading on the sofa nearby, heard everything.

The two exchanged glances, their expressions instantly becoming awkward.

Last night, the two of them...

But at that time, her period had not yet started.

"Manman, just order Zhou’er to buy whatever you want to eat; just direct him casually,"

The old lady added a line then.

Jiang Man replied with laughter: "Okay."

After hanging up the phone, the old lady and Lu Xuemei exchanged glances and sighed in unison.

Well, no luck this month either.

"Mom, you can be at ease; Manman is only 20 years old, getting pregnant should be easy."

"Zhao Huai’s capability is not up to the mark, it’s unclear whether Xingzhou and Manman have taken any safety measures."

"It will happen, it will," Lu Xuemei patted her mother’s shoulder.

She fully understood her mother’s eagerness to hold a great-grandchild.

"Ah, just mentioning it worries me. With Zhendong’s current situation, how am I supposed to face his family if I were to go down there?"

"Children have their own blessings, Mom, relax."

...

"Achoo~" In the hotel room, Jiang Man sneezed.

"Are you cold?" Lu Xingzhou put down his book and glanced over at the girl leaning on the bed.

"Not cold," Jiang Man shook her head, jokingly said, "Maybe someone is cursing me?"

"If you’re tired, take a nap. I’ll be here all day," Lu Xingzhou said softly, then looked down at his book, his gaze focused.

Jiang Man turned to look at him, hesitated, but eventually said: "Okay."

If it had been earlier, she would have cooly told him to do whatever he needed to do.

But today she was unusually tolerant, feeling that such quiet companionship was quite pleasant: mutually non-intrusive, yet aware of each other’s breath.

This feeling was peculiar, like the calm after the rain, sitting on a wooden chair under the eaves, sniffing the fragrance of the soil, waiting for a rainbow to rise.

Quiet, free, and comfortable.

Lu Xingzhou read a paperback, while Jiang Man played with her phone.

When she opened Weibo, she naturally checked the trending topics of the day.

Lucky her!

When the three characters ’Lu Xingzhou’ suddenly eclipsed a slew of celebrities, dominating the hotness scale, she couldn’t help but click on it.

Entered Harvard at 17, completed both MBA and DBA within four years, a lifetime honorary professor at Harvard, one of Harvard’s top 100 influential figures, a leading figure in the Department of Finance, chairman of the Global Finance Association.

Looking at the long string of titles, Jiang Man was nothing but shocked.

She had entered Harvard at 13, then too young to care about proving herself to anyone else.

Back then, she had looked down on all the notable figures at the school and had no interest in getting to know them.

That is precisely why she had missed many gossips about Lu Xingzhou.

"So it was you, LEO?" Jiang Man glanced at the man who was engrossed in his book.

The cover was all in English; he was reading "The Wealth of Nations."

Lu Xingzhou ’mm-hmmed" without looking up.

He was LEO Lu, wasn’t that globally known?

Jiang Man’s eyes sparkled, and this time, it was her gaze that couldn’t look away.

When Lu Xingzhou was 17, she was only 7 and still in her home country.

At that time, her foster father’s business had just started to succeed, while her health was always poor, leading her to stay in hospitals for years.

By the time she went abroad and arrived at Harvard, Lu Xingzhou was already 23, having returned home to take over the Lu Corporation.

Great, their life paths seemed to overlap, yet they perfectly missed each other.

"Have you visited your alma mater over the years?" she couldn’t help but ask, curious.

Lu Xingzhou finally looked up, "Alma mater? Why the sudden question?"

Jiang Man shook her phone in her hand, unable to resist a chuckle, "Isn’t it clear in what you posted? Uncle, I didn’t expect you to be so competitive. Bei Ling just revealed graduating from Harvard, he hardly ever boasts about his educational background."

"Hmm?" Lu Xingzhou was confused, put down his book, walked over to Jiang Man, and took her phone.

When he saw the lengthy discourse about his Harvard days, he was speechless.

A corner of his mouth twitched, "That wasn’t me who posted it."

He wasn’t one to show off, even if he truly had the capability, he wouldn’t just talk about it but would prove it through actions.

"Hmm," Jiang Man wasn’t too caught up on whether or not the bragging articles were his idea, but instead expressed with interest, "Answer the previous question."

"Every three years, I go to Harvard to give a speech." As he said this, Lu Xingzhou’s eyes twinkled, and when they shifted to Jiang Man’s face, they shone brilliantly.

"Had you never noticed me before?" he asked tentatively.

Since Jiang Man had studied at Harvard for a few years, they must have crossed paths.

Jiang Man raised an eyebrow and suddenly laughed.

In her second year of consecutive Master’s and Ph.D. studies, the school was buzzing for a while about LEO Lu coming to give a lecture.

The school had opened up course registration a month beforehand, and by the first day’s morning, the seats were snapped up.

Back then, she inexplicably felt challenged by this LEO Lu and vowed to surpass him in a few years!

"Were you ever pranked? During a lecture, finding your computer hacked, rendering the lesson plan you prepared useless, having to improvise for the whole session?"

"You?" Lu Xingzhou’s pupils shrank, and he suddenly realized.

So, the person who had hacked his computer back then was his future wife?

When the computer crashed at that moment, it had been a black screen in front of his eyes, and he had cursed that wretched hacker for a good while.

"How do you know?" The two exchanged cryptic hints.

Jiang Man didn’t want to reveal that she was the Harvard genius Man Lisite, so he wouldn’t expose her.

"Oh, just saw it on the news. It was on the entertainment weekly." Jiang Man lied offhandedly.

"Is that so?" Lu Xingzhou’s eyes gleamed with amusement, his smile filled with indulgence.

So, he and Jiang Man had intersected that early on.

He really wanted to know why she had hacked his computer back then.

"Later, the university couldn’t figure it out either, said it was done by a very skilled hacker. Help me analyze it, why would she want to hack my computer?" Lu Xingzhou smiled faintly, staring intently at Jiang Man.

Jiang Man lowered her gaze, recalling her spirited self at that time, truly a bit reckless.

Why? Just wanted to see Lu Xingzhou lose face in front of the students, to knock him off his pedestal.

She shook her head, thinking of how naughty she had been back then.

She, as a person, was never absolutely good or evil, often moving in the gray areas.

"I think the hacker must have been jealous of you," Jiang Man laughed, casually revealing her motivation from back then.

"Jealous?" Lu Xingzhou found these words both familiar and strange, "How could a hacker be jealous when our fields are different?"

"Jealous of your strength, strength is the original sin." Jiang Man said calmly.

This was also why she had so many little villains around her nowadays, the stronger you are, the weaker they feel, which inevitably leads to jealousy and resentment.

"That’s quite a unique perspective," Lu Xingzhou’s smile deepened in his eyes.

He handed the phone back to Jiang Man, then suddenly leaned over.

Their eyes met, breaths intertwined, mere inches apart.

"I really want to know, that hacker who was jealous of me back then, will she one day turn from black to fan, fall in love with me?"