Chapter 13 — The Mighty, All-Powerful Genie

"What do you keep meeting these people for?" Nhã Kỳ asked directly, placing the secretly taken photo album on the table in front of Bách Nguyên as soon as he entered the living room. Her voice was cold but contained a tension that was hard to hide.

Bách Nguyên looked down at the photos, immediately realized that this was evidence of his secret meetings with former Long Thịnh employees, and immediately understood that someone had deliberately sent these photos to Nhã Kỳ with a not-so-good purpose. "I can't explain the details right now."

"Can't, or don't want to?" She asked, her eyes sharp as if trying to find some sign of deception on his face.

"Both," he answered honestly, even though he knew that answer would only make her more suspicious. "I promise you, what I am doing does not harm you or Đường Gia. On the contrary, I am trying to protect this corporation. But I need more time before I can explain everything clearly."

"You want me to trust you blindly?" Nhã Kỳ growled, anger and fear of betrayal piling up, making her lose her composure more than usual. "I learned very early that you should not trust anyone blindly, including people who live in the same house as you."

Bách Nguyên remained silent, not knowing how to explain without revealing all the secrets about the task of dealing with Long Thịnh that he was still secretly conducting, as well as the bigger secret about his true identity. He could only look at her with the most sincere eyes possible, hoping she would feel that sincerity even without any specific explanation.

The conversation ended in a deadlock, the two returned to their own rooms filled with doubts and unresolved hurt. But just a few days later, a much bigger crisis struck, causing doubts about Bách Nguyên to temporarily be pushed to a secondary level in Nhã Kỳ's mind.

On Monday morning, Nhã Kỳ received an urgent call from the head of the finance department. He announced in a panicked voice that Đường Gia's stock price was dropping unusually sharply right from the beginning of the trading session, accompanied by a series of rumors spreading on financial forums about the group being in serious internal crisis, the management board in disarray, and the young CEO being incompetent to manage.

She immediately convened an emergency meeting with the entire board of directors, only to discover an even more horrifying truth: a group of minority shareholders, believed to be secretly connected to a foreign investment fund, has been quietly buying shares of Đường Gia for many months, and now, in coordination with the campaign to spread false rumors, they are preparing to propose a vote of no confidence aimed at Nhã Kỳ herself at the upcoming extraordinary shareholders' meeting.

"Who is behind this?" Nhã Kỳ asked, her voice shaking with shock and anger, even though she tried her best to remain calm in front of the board of directors.

"We cannot determine exactly, but there are signs that this investment fund has indirect contact with Long Thịnh Group." The head of the legal department reported, his face equally worried. "If the vote of no confidence succeeds, she may be forced to leave the CEO position immediately, and the corporation will fall into an unprecedented power chaos."

The entire meeting room fell into heavy silence. This was the first time since Nhã Kỳ took over the executive position that the leadership had faced a threat so serious that it could completely overthrow the current power structure. Several older faces in the council, who had been cautious with her in the first days, now looked at her with both worried and searching eyes, as if wanting to see how she would handle this first crisis in her life.

"We need to immediately release a statement to reassure shareholders," Nhã Kỳ said, her voice tried to remain decisive even though inside she was in extreme panic. "At the same time, contact a lawyer to consider the possibility of suing individuals spreading false rumors."

"We tried, ma'am." The head of the communications department replied, his voice filled with helplessness. "But the rumors spread so quickly, and their true origin is difficult to determine because they were spread through dozens of different anonymous accounts on many platforms at the same time. This is clearly an organized campaign, not a spontaneous rumor."

During the following week, Nhã Kỳ devoted all her energy to trying to turn the situation around - meeting with each major shareholder to reassure, working with the media team to quash rumors, consulting with lawyers on legal options to deal with the upcoming vote. But no matter how hard she tried, the situation still showed no signs of improvement, because the opponent had prepared this plan too carefully, too sophisticatedly, hitting right at a time when she still lacked experience in dealing with such large-scale power battles.

Friday night, after an exhausting week of non-stop work without finding a way out, Nhã Kỳ sat alone in the office, her face haggard from not sleeping for many nights in a row, her hand trembling as she held a cup of coffee that had long since cooled. For the first time since her grandfather passed away, she felt completely helpless, not knowing who to turn to for help.

She thought of the major shareholders, the board of directors, and the business relationships she had worked hard to cultivate over the past year, but they all seemed powerless in the face of such a sophisticated plot. She even tried calling a few close friends from college who worked in the financial industry to ask for advice, but none of them had enough experience or connections to help her deal with a conspiracy on such a large scale. And in that moment of despair, a thought suddenly flashed in her mind - the image of Bách Nguyên rushing out of the car at extraordinary speed to save the child, the image of him always strangely calm in every situation, the secretly taken photos showing him secretly meeting many people in the business world whose purpose she still did not understand.

Although pride and doubt remained, despair eventually overcame them all. She stood up, walked out of the office, and went straight to the outbuildings behind the garden, where the light in Bách Nguyên's room was still on even though it was nearly midnight.

She stood in front of his door for a long time, her hand raised to knock on the door and then lowered it, the pride she had carried with her all her life struggling fiercely with the fear and helplessness that surrounded her. Finally, she took a deep breath and gently knocked on the wooden door.

Bách Nguyên opened the door, a bit surprised to see her standing there at such a late hour, her face haggard, her eyes red from lack of sleep and prolonged stress. "What's up?"

Nhã Kỳ stood still for a moment, her throat choked. All week she had tried to shoulder everything on her own, trying to prove that she did not need to rely on anyone, but now, standing in front of the man she had always despised, she felt that all that pride no longer seemed as important as saving the corporation that her grandfather had worked so hard to build all his life.

"I need your help," she said, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper, a sentence she never thought she would have to say to this man. "Tang Gia is in great danger, and I don't know what to do anymore."

Bách Nguyên looked at her, his eyes did not show any triumph or surprise at that sudden change in attitude, only a deep sincere concern. "Come here, tell me everything that happened."

For the first time after more than a year of living together, Đường Nhã Kỳ entered Bách Nguyên's private room, not as a half-hearted wife supervising her husband, but as someone desperately seeking help from the only person left in whom she, even though she didn't want to admit it, still had a little bit of fragile faith left.

She sat down in the chair he pulled out for her, her hands clasped tightly together on her thighs, trying to suppress the trembling that was threatening to well up after a long, exhausting week. This was the first time she let someone, other than herself, see her so weak since her grandfather passed away, and the strange thing was that, even though she knew she still had many unanswered questions about this man, she didn't feel embarrassed or shy about letting him witness her most fragile moment.