“Seventeen years of time, and you have finally become Mrs. Shen.”

Fang Qian stared at the caption for a long while. When she spoke, her voice was stuttering, “Did… did Mr. Shen post this?”

How could someone as cold, ascetic, and seemingly unapproachable as Mr. Shen actually post this kind of public display of affection on his Moments?

“Of course, this screenshot was taken directly by someone from Mr. Shen’s former team,” as if feeling that Fang Qian’s disbelief insulted their credibility, the colleague emphasized solemnly, “It’s absolutely real. Besides, we don’t have the guts to fabricate something like this.”

Although Shen Zhi had left the company, his current status was even more elevated—he was directly in charge of a hundred-billion-level listed company. Besides, Director Ji was still in the company; who would have the courage to make a joke out of these two?

Fang Qian immediately shook her head, “I don’t disbelieve you, I’m just too shocked.”

“Right, right? When I saw this, I couldn’t help asking the person next to me if the sun definitely rose from the east today!”

“Who isn’t shocked? I was so busy I was going crazy, then my phone kept ringing, so I just picked it up to take a glance. Who knew I’d end up eating this kind of gossip?”

“Didn’t Director Ji always dislike Mr. Shen?”

“I also heard they were rivals? Last year, when Mr. Shen got promoted to Managing Director and Director Ji didn’t, didn’t she smash things in her office out of anger?”

Hearing this, Fang Qian felt it was necessary to clarify for her boss. She raised her hand to state, “She didn’t smash anything. Director Ji really didn’t smash anything in her office.”

Of course, being angry was certainly real.

It seemed she had even cursed Mr. Shen a few times.

Suddenly, Fang Qian’s eyes widened and she hastily covered her mouth. Back then, didn’t she also curse Mr. Shen together with her boss? At that time, to show she was standing on the same front line as her boss, even though she felt Mr. Shen’s promotion to Managing Director was definitely earned through his own ability rather than underhanded means as Ji Ran described, she had still spoken against her conscience just to flatter Ji Ran.

Ahhhhh!

Sure enough, one shouldn’t go against their conscience; even God couldn’t stand it and was punishing her now.

Now her boss and Mr. Shen had become husband and wife. Would her boss remember that she had cursed Mr. Shen? Fang Qian had originally been immersed in shock over the two of them, but now she directly sank into despair over her future career prospects.

“Even if she didn’t smash anything, she must have been very upset. Anyway, Director Ji definitely hated Mr. Shen.”

Even though the group of people was usually so busy they were worked like cattle, gathering in the break room to eat gossip today was still thoroughly enjoyable. Especially since the gossip was about the people they cared about most.

Shen Zhi kept his private life extremely well-hidden. Previously, let alone within their company, even people from other companies coveted him.

Some people had even privately claimed that they would get him sooner or later.

The more he concealed his private life, the more everyone wanted to know. Otherwise, rumors of a deceased “white moonlight” wouldn’t have spread earlier. Of course, this version of the rumor only made many women in investment banking feel even more favorable toward him.

Just think about it: a man at the peak of his life, with both wealth and looks, was willing to give up the entire forest and stay single just for the girl in his heart.

No matter how formidable that white moonlight was, there were always those who refused to believe in bad odds and wanted to challenge it, believing they could become the red rose that defeated the white moonlight.

“Let me tell you something secretly. Previously, when they worked on a project and collaborated with an accounting firm in the neighboring building, guess what happened? A young girl in the other party’s team directly slipped a room card to Mr. Shen.”

“That bold?”

“What’s so bold about that? You know that rich heiress who recently went public with a male star, right? Back then, she took a liking to Mr. Shen. Not only did she chase him to our company herself, but she even had her father approach our big boss to make Mr. Shen have dinner with her.”

Fang Qian looked completely bewildered. Why didn’t she know about any of these things?

With a face full of breakdown, she said, “How come I’ve never heard of any of this?”

“Oh, back then, Director Ji and Mr. Shen seemed to have such a bad relationship. Who would dare tell you these things?” A girl nearby held a cup of coffee and took a casual sip.

Fang Qian, “…”

So what did that mean? Had she been ostracized by everyone else before?

However, everyone’s focus at the moment was on Shen Zhi and Ji Ran. Two people who seemed so hostile had gotten married? It wasn’t even dating—they went straight to marriage.

This was like throwing a depth charge directly into the water, blowing up the whole pond.

Let alone the people standing in the break room right now, practically everyone in the company knew by now.

Work in investment banking was indeed busy, but there was still time for gossip when it arose. Otherwise, how could those posts about investment banking executives cheating with glamorous female subordinates go viral across the entire internet before?

Some things were just not discussed openly by everyone.

This time, the reaction was simply too massive, and everything was being discussed out in the open.

Ji Ran had been reviewing documents all along. The project she was leading this time was an investment in a community e-commerce platform. Compared to other e-commerce platforms, this one focused deeply on user experience sharing.

Ji Ran had picked out this platform from numerous projects at a single glance.

For a large company like Gaotong Securities, they received countless business plans from entrepreneurs every day, all eager to use their wisdom and ability to raise a sufficient amount of capital.

As one of the directors in the direct investment department of Gaotong Securities, Ji Ran’s job was to dig out true pearls from these projects.

If one could discover a unicorn company in its early stages, the rate of return could easily be a hundredfold.

While Ji Ran was busy, the phone placed on her desk began to vibrate.

At first, she paid no attention to it, but the phone kept ringing. So she reached out to feel around for it. Since her eyes were still fixed on the documents in her hand, she searched for quite a while before grabbing the phone.

It turned out to be a call from Wen Qianxia.

Ever since Ji Ran reconnected with Wen Qianxia, they felt a bit distant at first, but once Wen Qianxia revealed her true nature, the barrier between them rapidly dissolved.

Even Wen Qianxia herself said that it felt as if they had known each other for a very long time.

“Ranran, you and Shen Zhi are trending on Weibo,” Wen Qianxia said anxiously.

Ji Ran was a bit dazed. She froze for a moment and asked in a low voice, “What? Trending?”

She had a Weibo account too, but she rarely posted on it.

As for Weibo trending topics, weren’t those for celebrities to show off and compete with one another? What did it have to do with an ordinary person like her?

Wen Qianxia blurted out, “Your Mr. Shen posted a moment on WeChat, and somehow it got leaked. Now the trending topic for the two of you has surged straight up from forty-something.”

Wen Qianxia loved browsing trending topics, because she recently took a liking to a young male star.

A period fantasy drama had aired this summer, and after this traffic star completely blew up, he entered screen-dominating mode. Wen Qianxia was busy every day either voting, boosting rankings, or buying things for her darling.

Whenever she had free time every day, she would browse Weibo and flip through the trending list.

Who knew that when she opened the trending list today, everything was fine near the top, but when she scrolled down, she suddenly saw two familiar names.

Shen Zhi, Ji Ran.

Side by side, a pair of names that looked exceptionally harmonious.

At first, Wen Qianxia thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but when she clicked in, the very first thing she saw was that screenshot—the marriage certificates of the two were completely exposed.

When the marriage certificates had just been issued, Wen Qianxia had already seen them.

However, that was a photo Ji Ran had taken for her to see, whereas this photo was actually scraped from Shen Zhi’s WeChat Moments.

As Wen Qianxia explained, Ji Ran was quite shocked. She quickly exited WeChat, found the Weibo app in a corner of her phone that hadn’t been used for who knows how long, opened it, and flipped to the trending topics.

Unexpectedly, she found their names sitting at ninth place.

In such a short time, the trending topic had rushed straight from forty-something into the top ten.

She clicked into the trending topic, and the post under the first marketing account already had over ten thousand retweets.

“Did I just fall out of love right after falling in love? Just a few days ago, I was following news about Hengchi Group every day, and now someone tells me my husband is already taken?”

“This certificate photo is way too handsome. Male god, you wearing a white shirt is the best-looking I’ve ever seen.”

“Haha, am I the only one who wants to know who this woman is?”

“Here it comes, insider breaking news: Ji Ran, 27 years old, graduated from Princeton University in the US, youngest Managing Director at Gaotong Securities. Most importantly, her family has deep pockets too.”

“Girls, give up. The male god will only belong to a goddess. With her looks, education, and family background, what do you have to compete with?”

“Sister upstairs, stop talking, it hurts my heart.”

Fortunately, most of the comments were good-natured teasing, without anything particularly excessive. Thus, after looking at it for a while, Ji Ran reopened WeChat. Busy until now, she hadn’t known Shen Zhi had posted such a Moment.

When she tapped on Shen Zhi’s avatar and saw the first update, she sat quietly at her desk.

Seventeen years.

Ji Ran suddenly realized there seemed to be a subtle fate between them. From the time she and Shen Zhi met as children to their separation and up to now, it happened to be exactly seventeen years.

And she had returned to their former seventeen-year-old selves.

Discovering the secret that he had been loving her all along.

The seventeen-year-old youths also possessed the most beautiful and pure affection.

Even Ji Ran herself had to admit at this moment that fate was truly generous to them, granting them the chance to rediscover everything.

Everything.

A minute later, Ji Ran’s Moments also uploaded an update:

“For our meeting seventeen years ago, thank you for being willing to love me all along, my Mr. Shen.”

The news of Ji Ran and Shen Zhi’s marriage also blew up across all of Gaotong Securities. After all, to outsiders, this was merely a well-matched, heavenly couple finally tying the knot.

However, the entire staff of Gaotong Securities was completely bewildered.

Weren’t they supposed to be rivals?

Weren’t they supposed to be sworn enemies who had no private contact?

Yet no matter how much everyone sighed in amazement, blessings were still due. In the afternoon, when Ji Ran entered the meeting room holding her materials for a meeting, a sudden burst of exceptionally intense applause rang out.

She herself was a bit dazed.

Fortunately, Fang Qian immediately clarified, “Director Ji, congratulations on your marriage.”

“That’s right, Director Ji, when can we get your wedding candy?”

“Director Ji, can we have some wedding wine?”

Someone suddenly muttered again from nowhere, “May you give birth to a precious baby soon.”

The entire meeting room burst into loud laughter. Ji Ran couldn’t help but shake her head and say in a low voice, “Stop fooling around.”

However, everyone remained relentless. Ji Ran finally couldn’t help saying, “Alright, alright, there will be wedding candy, and there will be wedding wine. So can we hold our meeting first now?”

The moment she finished speaking, everyone broke into heavy applause again.

Today, she didn’t bother to work overtime. Just as Ji Ran packed her things, she received a call from Shen Zhi.

“You’re downstairs?” Hearing him say he was downstairs, Ji Ran was genuinely surprised. After all, during this recent period, he was either busy until eleven or twelve at night before returning, or out on business trips.

Hengchi Group was a vast business empire; if he wanted to get the hang of it in a short time, he could only stack up hours.

Therefore, when he said he was downstairs at her company, Ji Ran experienced a moment of unbelievable surprise.

She no longer cared about anything else and went downstairs holding her bag.

Arriving at the ground floor lobby, she saw Shen Zhi standing there with his head slightly lowered, checking his phone. When Gaotong Securities employees passed by him, they even took the initiative to greet him.

As Ji Ran walked over, he happened to slide his phone into his pocket and look up, reaching out to hold her hand the instant he saw her.

“You’re here,” Shen Zhi held her palm, his warm hand applying gentle pressure.

Ji Ran saw quite a few people around looking toward them. Shen Zhi was considered a celebrity in this building after all; everyone knew Mr. Shen of Gaotong Securities was an absolute heartthrob.

There were quite a few CEOs and directors in this building, but for someone to hold such a high position while having these looks, he was truly the only one.

Compared to those middle-aged men whose suits couldn’t hide their beer bellies, the young girls’ gazes were naturally drawn to Shen Zhi.

Ji Ran said in a low voice, “You could have just waited for me in the car.”

“You didn’t want me to come over?” Shen Zhi asked in a low voice upon hearing her tone.

Ji Ran immediately shook her head and said softly, “I was just afraid a lot of people would crowd around to watch you.”

She knew he was very low-profile. Back at Gaotong Securities, he had turned down financial media interviews whenever possible; otherwise, with his looks, it would have been impossible for him to become famous only now.

Who knew Shen Zhi would slowly look at her and say with a light smile, “I just want everyone to know that you are my wife.”

Ji Ran, “…”

Faced with his childish declaration, Ji Ran suddenly burst into laughter.

In the next second, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him directly on the lips. Her dark eyes sparkled with burning light, “Mm, I also want the whole world to know that you are mine.”