Chapter 220: 57.4

Ji Qingying: “…Huh?”

Cheng Zhen asked again, “I’m right, right?”

Ji Qingying nodded as she finally remembered who he was. Among Fu Yanzhi’s friends, this man was Cheng Zhan that didn’t attend last time’s party.

She greeted him, “Mr Cheng.”

Cheng Zhan acknowledged the greeting before glancing behind her and seeing the assistant by the side, “Here to see someone?”

Ji Qingying smiled, probably knowing what he was thinking.

She nodded, “Yes.”

Cheng Zhan understood and instructed, “If you can’t find them, you can ask the front desk for help.”

As soon as he said that, a manager right next to him also responded, “Feel free to do so.”

Cheng Zhan must have been very busy, because he promptly led the staff away after saying those few words.

Ji Qingying then got into the elevator.

The assistant looked at Ji Qingying, a bit surprised, “Miss Ji, do you know Mr Cheng?”

Ji Qingying glanced at her, “I met him once.”

The assistant saw that her expression didn’t seem good, so she didn’t dare to ask again.

The two went to the top floor in silence.

The hotel where Zhou Zhilan was staying was arranged by the organizer and she received the highest level of courtesy.

As soon as she entered the room, she could feel how luxurious the hotel really was.

Jinchen’s 100 years of good reputation was known by everyone.

Hearing them enter, Zhou Zhilan raised her head and looked at her, “So you’re here.”

“Yes.”

Ji Qingying looked indifferent and directly asked, “So what do you want with me?”

Zhou Zhilan gave her a copy of a document and softly answered, “The international competition is strictly reviewed.”

She paused for a bit before continuing, “So it’s inevitable for everything that happened in your college days to be found out. Even if I had it suppressed.”

Ji Qingying was stunned.

After the incident back then, with the student body falling into a scandal, Ji Qingying’s drafts disappearing, and with the testimonies of He Yuan and his other associates, Ji Qingying was directly accused of cheating back then.

Even if she never admitted to it, everyone was greatly disappointed with her. It seemed that it only took a single mistake to erase all her previous achievements and efforts. Everything was put into suspicion.

After she returned to Jiangcheng back then, Ji Qingying thought about her future.

If she couldn’t prove her innocence, then the stigma of being a plagiarist would follow her wherever she goes, and would even disallow her from participating in any other competitions in the future.

At that time, because her grandmother was seriously ill, Ji Qingying had called Zhou Zhilan, and she returned from abroad.

Later, she didn’t know how Zhou Zhilan found out that Ji Qingying got into trouble, but she immediately had her people suppress the spread of the incident without asking Ji Qingying.

At the very least, no trace of it was left in her official documents.

Even some of the insiders who knew of the story kept their mouths shut. As if they would take it to their graves.

Ji Qingying never realized how strong and influential Zhou Zhilan was in the fashion industry.

She had no choice but to admit that if someone was powerful enough, they could indeed cover up everything if they wanted.

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However, all Zhou Zhilan could do was try to suppress the news so that it wouldn’t spread around the fashion circles, which may stain her own reputation.

But as for a select number of people, she could do nothing against them without blowing things up. Moreover, even if she could force the matter, Ji Qingying wouldn’t necessarily approve of it.

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So Zhou Zhilan did all that without Ji Qingying knowing about it.

It was only after she left for abroad again that Ji Qingying found out about everything through her teachers.

Though her teachers were disappointed with her, they still never lost all faith in her. It was just that before they found out about Zhou Zhilan, they couldn’t offend He Yuan with his background, not to mention the fact that Ji Qingying had no evidence to prove her innocence.

That was the reality.

No one could do anything. Sometimes, a blow from reality was needed to wake people up.

After finding out what Zhou Zhilan did, Ji Qingying couldn’t really say that she was moved by the gesture at all.

She had always known that Zhou Zhilan had wanted to make things right with her, but it wasn’t as if all the trauma she endured during her childhood could be fixed by just a single incident.

After all, Ji Qingying was really stubborn.

Make no mistake, she did feel grateful to Zhou Zhilan because of what she did, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t change a lot.

She could never simply forgive the fact that she once was abandoned. It was because of this that their mother-daughter relationship never really went anywhere.

As for that college incident, both of them sort of had a tacit understanding of it. The past was the past, so they never mentioned it again.

……

“Ji Qingying.”

Zhou Zhilan raised the tone of her voice and she called out to her when she saw she wasn’t responding.

Ji Qingying was jolted back to her senses as she raised her eyes to look at her, “So have the investigations found anything yet?”

Zhou Zhilan shook her head, “It’s still underway, but it’s only a matter of time.”

She added, “International competitions aren’t actually better than local ones, in terms of how they investigate things. We may try to clean up everything on our side, but who knows what could happen when so many people are involved during an international investigation. I can’t guarantee that nothing will get exposed.”

She then looked at Ji Qingying, “So, what do you think? Are you still planning to participate?”

Ji Qingying was silent for a while before she nodded, “Definitely.”

She looked straight at Zhou Zhilan, “In the first place, I never plagiarized. So why would I ever back out?”

Zhou Zhilan frowned, “But you have no evidence.”

She looked at Ji Qingying and asked, “Back then, didn’t you say that your original draft disappeared overnight? Don’t you understand what that implies?”

“I completely understand.”

Ji Qingying’s face was unyielding, “But because I do, it makes me want to prove myself more.”

In the past, she was cowardly and stupid as she couldn’t find a solution. But today? Although she still hadn’t thought of a definite way, she had complete confidence in herself.#pleasereadthischapteratfoxaholic.com

Although this confidence came blindly.

But this confidence wasn’t based on nothing.

She looked at Zhou Zhilan and pursed her lips, “So when are you going back?”

“What do you mean?”

***
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