Delicate Beauty in the Palm : Chapter 12 - Be Good and Wait for Me
Chapter 12: Be Good and Wait for Me
Chen Die looked at him.
She took a deep breath. “Mr. Wen.”
Wen Liang raised an eyebrow lazily. “Hmm?”
“…” Chen Die resisted the urge to roll her eyes and calmly said, “It was wrong of me to hit someone at school. Sorry for making a scene in front of you.”
“No need to apologize to me. That guy was indeed in the wrong,” Wen Liang said as he stood up.
…Then why didn’t you say that earlier?
I already apologized, and now you're just throwing this out after the fact—what kind of performance art is this?
Wen Liang leaned forward slightly and raised his hand.
Chen Die instinctively widened her eyes and took a step back.
But he merely plucked a stray strand of black hair from her shoulder, his cool fingertips grazing her cheek for a brief moment.
His movement was so natural, almost like a senior figure from the working world showing casual care to a student.
The dean waved a hand. “Alright, Chen Die, you can go now. If you want to be an actress in the future, you better learn to control your emotions.”
“Got it. Thanks, Dean.”
After speaking, Chen Die turned and walked out of the auditorium.
The graduation assembly had ended a while ago, and the entire hall was now empty.
Before Wen Liang had turned to leave earlier, he had leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Wait for me outside for a bit.”
Chen Die rolled her eyes.
Wait for what?
She didn’t linger for even a second and walked straight out of the building.
Zhu Qicong was standing by the car. When he saw her, he called out, “Miss Chen.”
Chen Die stopped, squinting slightly in the bright sunlight. Her brows furrowed as she looked over. “What is it?”
Zhu Qicong handed her a file. “This is for you.”
“Wen Liang will be out soon. Just give it to him yourself—I have things to do.”
“This was specifically for you,” Zhu Qicong explained calmly. “It’s about Xu Zhiran falsifying his GPA and failing his courses.”
Chen Die froze, blinking slowly. She took the file from his hands, untied the string, and opened it.
Inside were three neatly arranged A4 pages, clearly documenting how Xu Zhiran’s GPA had suddenly jumped 80 ranks in his final year. Even more damning, two of his core required courses had been initially marked as failed but were later altered in the system to an ‘Excellent’ grade.
She opened her mouth slightly. “When did Wen Liang ask you to look into this?”
“About an hour and a half ago.”
The last page even contained a mess of backend coding details, listing the IP address and exact pathway where the grades had been tampered with.
“How did you even find this out?”
Zhu Qicong gave a modest nod. “I have a master's degree in computer science—just happened to be my field of expertise.”
“......”
As Chen Die was still going through the file, Wen Liang came out. He lazily draped an arm around her waist and whispered, “I knew I’d have to give you something before you’d obediently wait for me.”
She asked, “Why did you even look into this?”
Wen Liang pushed her into the car, got in himself, and closed the door.
“What’s the point of slapping someone? Exposing this will make sure he doesn’t graduate or go abroad,” Wen Liang said indifferently, his eyes half-closed as he leaned back to rest.
“......”
Chen Die examined the documents carefully. There was no way Xu Zhiran had altered the system by himself.
“Who helped him change the records?” she asked.
Zhu Qicong pulled the car out of the school parking lot. “The user ID we traced it back to belongs to his direct faculty advisor.”
Chen Die snapped a few photos of the documents and sent them to Xia Ying, asking her what she planned to do.
Xia Ying didn’t respond right away. Chen Die put away her phone and turned to glance at Wen Liang.
Wen Liang’s personality was mostly arrogant and ruthlessness. His handling of things was always sharp and decisive. A nobody like Xu Zhiran wouldn’t even be on his radar, so why had he bothered to dig into this?
Then she suddenly recalled the scene in the auditorium earlier—when Xu Zhiran had angrily raised a hand to strike her, but Wen Liang had spoken up, stopping him.
…Was it because of that?
She had a bad habit when thinking—biting her fingers.
Smack.
Wen Liang, who had at some point opened his eyes, reached out and slapped her wrist. His voice carried a slight nasal tone, tinged with impatience. “Don’t bite.”
Chen Die pouted, completely dismissing the thought she had earlier.
Zhu Qicong drove into the underground parking lot of Wenyuan Group.
“Why are we coming to the company?” Chen Die tilted her head and asked.
Today was Wen Liang’s birthday. She had assumed he would drop her off at the villa in the western suburbs and then head to the Wen family’s main residence.
“Mm, got some things to handle.”
Chen Die had been with him for six years, but she could count on one hand the number of times she had visited his company.
It was a Tuesday, right before lunchtime, and the employees were busy at work. As she followed Wen Liang into the elevator, it stopped several times on the way up to the top floor.
Everyone who entered greeted him with a respectful “Mr. Wen” before their curious gazes shifted toward Chen Die, standing beside him.
Wen Liang turned his head. “What do you want for lunch?”
“......” Chen Die instantly sensed the way the ears of the people around them perked up. She drawled, “Anything’s fine.”
“I have a meeting. Order something for yourself or have someone get it for you.”
She nodded.
Good. If he was in a meeting all day, she could focus on losing weight.
The gossip about Mr. Wen bringing a woman to the office and even caring about her lunch spread like wildfire. By noon, the entire company cafeteria was abuzz with the news.
“Can you believe Mr. Wen actually cares about someone?!”
“But that woman is stunning. And she has the same kind of aura as Mr. Wen. I was in the elevator with them and felt like I didn't even deserve to exist.”
“Duh, would someone that caught Mr. Wen’s eye be just any ordinary woman?”
“Who is she, though? The rumored secret woman he’s been hiding all these years?”
“Too bad the only person who’s ever seen ‘her,’ A-Li, wasn’t there today. Otherwise, we’d know for sure.”
“If it really is the same woman, that’s insane. She’s had Mr. Wen wrapped around her finger for years!”
“If I were Mr. Wen, I’d be wrapped around her finger too. That skin, that body—perfection.”
……
Chen Die had no idea about the office-wide worship of her. She only knew that Wen Liang had been in his meeting all day, not showing his face once.
She spent the afternoon alone in his office, bored out of her mind.
Hunger gnawed at her, but she stubbornly held out—she was dieting, after all.
Xia Ying had finally replied to her.
She was the type to love and hate passionately. Just that morning, she had been crying over Xu Zhiran’s cheating, but after the graduation assembly, whatever love remained had been ground down to nothing—if anything, it had turned to hate.
[Of course, I’m making sure he doesn’t graduate. I must’ve been blind to fall for this absolute piece of human garbage. Let Fan Yan enjoy the struggle of a long-distance relationship abroad on her own.]
As for how to expose Xu Zhiran’s falsified grades? Easy.
Chen Die had always been in the spotlight at school because of her reputation as the campus belle. And after making a scene by slapping someone in front of all the graduating students that morning, the school’s forum was already flooded with posts about her.
So, she simply uploaded scanned copies of the three A4 pages to the trending thread.
Immediately, the discussion exploded.
[Holy shit, what is this?!]
[Biggest scandal of the year incoming!]
[Xu Zhiran is unreal—cheating on his girlfriend and faking his grades?!]
[OP, where did you even get these past records from?!]
[Probably some badass admirer of the campus belle. Xu Zhiran nearly slapped her in the auditorium earlier—this must be revenge for love.]
[This is so satisfying. Beat up the cheating girl in the morning, take down the cheating guy in the afternoon—who wouldn’t say our campus belle is a legend?!]
[If this is real, Xu Zhiran’s GPA ranks him sixth in the year, which means he took the last guaranteed spot for postgraduate studies. My roommate, who ranked seventh, missed out because of him, failed the entrance exam under pressure, and is now preparing for a second attempt. This is bullshit!]
[I’m in the same class as Xu Zhiran. I knew something was off. He had failing grades in his freshman year—how did his final GPA get so high?!]
[The school has to address this. If they look deeper, his thesis probably isn’t even his own work!]
[His degree needs to be revoked!]
[Agreed—revoke it!]
The incident quickly gained traction, and someone even started a dedicated thread to keep track of all the dirt on him.
People had already looked down on him for cheating in his relationship, and now, with his academic fraud exposed, the backlash was overwhelming. Students posted about it on social media, sent emails to professors, and even submitted complaints to the university principal.
By the time Wen Liang returned to his office in the evening, even more of Xu Zhiran’s misdeeds had come to light.
The university, under intense pressure, announced an official investigation.
Chen Die was in an excellent mood. Even looking at Wen Liang made her feel cheerful.
“Did you eat lunch?” she asked him.
“I did.” Wen Liang loosened his tie and rubbed his temples.
“Oh, by the way,” she said, practically beaming. “Xu Zhiran’s GPA scandal blew up. He’s probably not graduating.”
Wen Liang glanced at her.
The girl was resting her chin on one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other, a smirk of schadenfreude playing on her lips. Her fox-like eyes were long and alluring, glimmering with amusement.
Wen Liang suddenly chuckled.
“He dared to raise his hand against you—honestly, not graduating is letting him off easy.”
Chen Die's fingers paused on her phone screen. She looked up at him.
But Wen Liang had already lowered his head, continuing to go through his documents.
Three days later, the news had spread throughout academic circles, and the university, eager to mitigate the damage, swiftly issued an official disciplinary notice.
Xu Zhiran wasn’t just stripped of his degree—he was expelled. Meanwhile, the associate professor who had engaged in bribery and abuse of power with him was dismissed and handed over to the Ministry of Education for further action.
Without a diploma, all the offers Xu Zhiran had previously secured were automatically revoked.
For the past few days, he and Fan Yan had become the school’s hottest gossip.
Just at the graduation assembly, Fan Yan had been smug and full of herself. Now, word was she hadn’t even dared to show her face on campus. Worse yet, her parents had found out about the scandal, scolded her harshly, and ordered her to break up with Xu Zhiran immediately.
The more completely her ex-boyfriend fell, the faster Xia Ying’s resentment over being cheated on disappeared.
No love, no hatred—just pure ridicule and schadenfreude.
Ever since Chen Die had signed on for a role in the film <Hairpin Flowers>, she hadn't had any other public appearances.
She wasn’t the type to be overly social, either. If others didn’t reach out to her, she wouldn't take the initiative to contact them.
That morning, she received her first message from the production team. Coincidentally, the lead actor of <Hairpin Flowers>, Qi Cheng, was also in Yan City. Before officially starting filming, they planned to hold a script discussion.
Qi Cheng had started his career as a child star. He was a talented idol, with delicate and refined features and a massive fanbase.
When Chen Die arrived at the meeting location, she happened to run into him.
Clearly, Qi Cheng had already familiarized himself with who the lead actress was. Even though she was a fresh face, he recognized her and greeted her with a smile and a nod.
Chen Die responded with polite composure, “Hello, senior.”
Qi Cheng's smile was warm and sunny. “Just call me by my name.”
The discussion was attended by the director, assistant director, and screenwriter.
Some of Chen Die’s classmates had entered university with an aura of prestige, and she had heard them mention these types of script discussions before, so the format wasn’t unfamiliar.
The director outlined the character traits of each role, the key conflicts in the film, and the upcoming schedule for filming.
When the meeting ended, Chen Die followed the crowd outside.
She stood at the intersection as sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on her face. She stretched lazily in the warm glow and took out her phone for a glance.
It was still early, no rush to go back. The pedestrian light across the street turned green.
She walked into a café across the road.
“A latte, please,” she said at the counter.
After taking the receipt, she found a seat by the window, gazing outside without any real focus.
A red Porsche pulled up in front of the café. Chen Shuyuan stepped out, accompanied by a woman who looked to be in her forties.
The woman was well-maintained—her skin gleamed under the sunlight, not a single wrinkle in sight. She wore a casually elegant beige blazer paired with a fitted pencil skirt, black high heels, and carried a Hermès Constance bag on her arm.
The two of them were laughing happily.
Chen Shuyuan clung to the woman’s arm, acting playfully spoiled.
Chen Die’s eyelashes fluttered briefly before she quickly looked away.
That woman was Chen Shuyuan’s mother.
Which also made her… Chen Die’s biological mother.
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