Shen Ningruo’s brows furrowed instantly. She was certain she hadn’t heard this voice before.
“Who is this?” Shen Ningruo’s tone turned cold.
“Wife, wife…” The strange man continued, and Shen Ningruo immediately hung up.
But just after ending that call, another unfamiliar number called. Shen Ningruo thought for two seconds and answered again.
This male voice was a bit more serious: “Hello, miss, I’m from Zaoxing Entertainment. I saw your video, may I ask if you…”
“No need.” Shen Ningruo hung up and added the number to her blacklist.
Her brows didn’t relax. Qiu Yang came over and smoothed them, asking with concern, “What’s wrong?”
“My number has probably been leaked.” Shen Ningruo looked at Qiu Yang, not mentioning the first call. “I just got a call from someone who said they were from an entertainment company.”
Qiu Yang pursed her lips: “Entertainment company?”
“Yeah, I’ve never heard of the company name. Maybe they’re looking for internet celebrities,” Shen Ningruo guessed. And just as she finished speaking, her phone screen lit up. This time it was another number.
Shen Ningruo rejected it without thinking. Afterward, she received several text messages, all from different people, basically asking if she had plans to become an internet celebrity and offering their help.
Besides that, there were some even stranger texts with vulgar and obscene language. Shen Ningruo enabled text message blocking, but this matter wouldn’t be that simple.
When Yao Yao called, she mentioned that someone in the comments section was offering a large sum for her contact information. Yao Yao wouldn’t give it out, but what about others who recognized her?
In this era of highly developed internet, it’s not impossible to see someone you know online. And some people would sell someone out for this money, because in the end, it’s highly unlikely anyone would find out exactly who leaked it.
Shen Ningruo hadn’t changed her number in all her years of studying and working; she’d used it for many years. She had quite a few people in her contacts, and while her WeChat list wasn’t as exaggerated as Yao Yao’s, it was still large.
Most of the people on these lists were potential suspects.
Therefore, strictly speaking, the video incident was already having an impact on her. It hadn’t happened when Miao Yi asked, but now it had started. Shen Ningruo’s lips pressed into a thin line, and the faces of several people flashed before her eyes.
Qiu Yang also realized the seriousness of the matter. Before, when the video only featured Pingzi, she was already bothered by it. Now that Shen Ningruo was also in the video, if her phone number was given to malicious people, she would receive even more harassment than Qiu Yang had before.
Some of these people were using the guise of collaboration, but they were very likely scammers. And whether they were real or fake, they couldn’t be trusted. One of the downsides of the developed internet is the increasing number of scams.
Shen Ningruo started to feel annoyed. She enabled text and call blocking. But her WeChat account also fell victim. Her WeChat was linked to her phone number, so it could be found with a search. As a result, a flood of people gradually poured into her WeChat friend requests. Each had a strange profile picture, and the friend request notes were all different. Some even used those three words: “Hi, wife.”
Shen Ningruo got a headache just seeing those three words now.
It was already evening, and Shen Ningruo was still bothered by this matter. Qiu Yang came over with Pingzi and sat beside her, hesitating before speaking: “Ruoruo, why don’t you accept one and see if you can find out who exposed your number?”
Shen Ningruo glanced at her, thinking this wasn’t a bad idea. She was just so annoyed that her brain had frozen up a bit. So she accepted a friend request from someone whose profile picture looked relatively normal and who claimed to be a talent scout.
The other party was probably casting a wide net. After Shen Ningruo accepted, they surprisingly asked back: 【You are…?】
Shen Ningruo immediately deleted him and then chose another one. This one was much more normal, at least knowing who they added. They started by asking: 【Miss, want to form a couple?】
Shen Ningruo’s fingertip trembled slightly. She simply asked directly: 【How did you get my number?】
【Ah, sorry, the person who sold your number specifically instructed not to say.】
The word “sold” was particularly striking. Qiu Yang leaned over and saw it immediately. Her gaze fell on Shen Ningruo’s profile, but she didn’t say a word.
Shen Ningruo also deleted this person immediately and didn’t plan to add anyone else to try and get information. The information just received was very clear: someone was targeting her, selling her number to people with impure intentions.
This couldn’t go on.
The next day was Monday. Shen Ningruo went to the company from Qiu Yang’s place. After parting ways with Qiu Yang, she kept a cold expression the whole way. When she reached the company’s underground parking lot, the temperature around her seemed even lower than the parking lot’s temperature. The employees who saw her all shrank their necks.
Ke Yezi saw Shen Ningruo again. She walked up and called out, “Good morning, Director.”
Ever since learning the secret that Shen Ningruo and Qiu Yang were friends, Ke Yezi felt their director wasn’t that scary. It was all just appearances. What’s more, she had seen Shen Ningruo’s video on Douyin yesterday and thought their director was actually very gentle in private.
Then there was even less to be afraid of!
As long as she did her job well, she wouldn’t be given the cold shoulder by Shen Ningruo.
“Morning,” Shen Ningruo replied and started waiting for the elevator. Her mind was currently occupied with how to deal with this incident.
The buzz was slowly dying down, and the number of people adding her was also decreasing. But Shen Ningruo couldn’t swallow this anger without finding the person behind it. She didn’t know if this person had a direct connection to the one who sent the flowers before, but she was absolutely certain she would find them.
What if they were hiding in the dark? She had plenty of ways.
After returning to her office, Shen Ningruo thought of a method. She couldn’t implement it yet because she had to work. But as soon as lunchtime arrived, she left the company and went to a nearby service center to get a new SIM card.
Shen Ningruo was on the phone with Qiu Yang, wearing a Bluetooth headset: “I plan to use a sting operation.”
The store clerk was inserting the new card into her other card slot. A slight curve appeared at the corner of her mouth: “I currently have a suspect, which is Qu Yan. She has my WeChat and my number. I want to see if it’s her.”
After lunch, back in the office, Shen Ningruo first changed the phone number linked to her WeChat account to the new one. Then she posted a moment visible only to Qu Yan—
New number 157xxx, old number is no longer in use.
She didn’t say anything extra, just this simple sentence. She then actually took the old SIM card out of the slot. Then she lightly tapped the desk with her fingertips, staring at her phone, which had finally gone quiet.
Qiu Yang’s WeChat message came through: 【Did you catch anything?】
【Not yet.】 Shen Ningruo picked up her cup and took a sip of water. She was actually a bit nervous now, because she didn’t know if Qu Yan would take the bait.
If she didn’t take the bait, then who would be the person behind it?
The “large sum” mentioned by netizens definitely wouldn’t be much. For a moment, the clues were like wind, wanting to grasp them but unable to.
Shen Ningruo lowered her gaze slightly.
And throughout the afternoon, whenever Shen Ningruo had a moment of leisure, she shifted her attention to this. But her phone remained completely silent, as still as if it had crashed.
Could her assumption be wrong?
Perhaps this matter had nothing to do with Qu Yan.
And just like before, Shen Ningruo didn’t know what Qu Yan’s motive would be. She couldn’t quite figure it out, so she simply put the old SIM card back in.
Yao Yao found out about this and called to express her concern: “Who’s causing trouble? Damn it, they’re really something else.”
She was now on her way back after work, going directly to Qiu Yang’s place. Hearing Yao Yao’s words, she was also a bit troubled: “Too many people know my number, and quite a few people dislike me. The scope is too wide, I can’t give an exact range right now.”
“Then think about who dislikes you the most?” Yao Yao sighed. “Plenty of people dislike me too, but they just get impotently angry.”
Shen Ningruo looked at the congested road ahead and thought carefully: “Who dislikes me the most?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Guo Ming’an, whose plans I ruined, is one. Currently, he’s the one I suspect the most.”
Guo Ming’an appeared gentlemanly on the surface but was actually petty and narrow-minded. After falling out with Shen Ningruo back then, the things he said weren’t pleasant.
“Then why don’t you try to get some information out of him?”
Shen Ningruo: “…I don’t want to. His voice makes me sick.”
Guo Ming’an didn’t get her back then and said the time he spent on her was wasted. But how could that be true? He was someone who couldn’t stand physical loneliness.
He had plenty of women around him. His fiancée, Tao Sixian, was very likely just one of them.
Shen Ningruo felt this man was too dirty and couldn’t be bothered to have any contact with him after breaking up. Otherwise, when Tao Sixian provoked her by saying “my husband’s ex-girlfriend” in front of her back then, she could have called Guo Ming’an and given him a piece of her mind.
But she felt it wasn’t necessary.
Because he was dirty.
She didn’t know how Guo Ming’an saw her now, but perhaps he was the one who disliked her the most. Shen Ningruo held the steering wheel, her thoughts settling down again.
And just as she thought she was right, the phone she had put aside rang. It was still an unfamiliar number, but the call was coming through…
…to her new number.
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