My Perfect Female CEO

The birthday banquet came to an end, and the unforeseen trouble everyone had been bracing for never happened.

Under the heavy security, they only managed to catch this one mole, Director Ji.

In fact, it was only Han Zizhen and Director Ji—the two moles under Hunter Cat’s control—who took part in the poisoning attempt. With both of them caught, it was only natural that nothing else could happen.

Ye Fan and the others didn’t know this, of course, so they stayed on high alert until the very end.

After seeing the guests off, Li Dingguo came over to Ye Fan and said with feeling, "It’s finally over. My heart’s been strung tight the whole time. Luckily nothing dangerous happened."

This was what he cared about most. If a crisis had broken out, he’d have no way to explain himself to his colleagues.

"The enemy doesn’t have enough manpower left. They don’t have the capacity to launch a serious attack," Ye Fan said flatly.

Judging from the moles they sent in, it was clear Hunter Cat was at the end of his rope.

Two people engaged in scientific research, with no experience doing evil at all—people like that are bound to expose themselves once they act.

If they were operating in a situation where people trusted them and had no defenses up, they might have pulled it off.

But once they spark suspicion, they don’t get even the slightest chance to act.

"What’s the haul?" Li Dingguo asked carefully.

There had been a lot of guests on site; there was no way he could remember every single one of them. He didn’t even know who was missing, yet he was afraid that colleagues he was close to might have gone down, which left him particularly torn.

"Han Zizhen and Director Ji," Ye Fan said casually, spitting out the two names.

"Sigh, you do something wrong, you pay the price. If they want to blame someone, they can only blame themselves for not having firm enough willpower—that’s what gave the enemy an opening," Li Dingguo sighed, his feelings complicated.

"Dad, I’ll take you home," Li Tong said with concern.

Li Dingguo gave Ye Fan a meaningful look, clearly wanting to say something but holding it back. In the end he said nothing, turned to his daughter, and replied, "Alright, let’s go home."

The interrogation of Han Zizhen and Director Ji started almost immediately.

The interrogation wrapped up quickly, without yielding anything of real value.

Aside from their codenames, the other bits and pieces they talked about were utterly useless to Ye Fan and the others.

"The value of these two is practically negligible," Zhang Lu said, a little regretful.

"I anticipated that. Two pieces buried that deep only ever know so much to begin with. Hoping to get more valuable intel out of them is impossible," Ye Fan said.

"How should we handle the two of them?" Zhang Lu asked, sounding out his opinion.

"That’s not our concern. I figure your old man’s fairly free right now—hand them over to him. How they’re punished isn’t for us to worry about," Ye Fan said.

"Alright, once we’re off duty I’ll arrange for people to take care of it right away," Zhang Lu agreed, then added, "We’ve already dealt a heavy blow to Hunter Cat. But looking at you, you don’t seem very happy. With such a big win, shouldn’t we be happy?"

"Hunter Cat won’t be able to stir up much more trouble. But this has dragged out a much bigger hidden danger—a Mister Jin who might control an even greater threat than Hunter Cat. That’s not exactly good news for us."

Ye Fan was thinking about precisely this and said, worried, "Just Hunter Cat has already cost us this much on the inside. You know exactly how many moles have popped up. If Mister Jin stirs things up again the same way, the consequences will be unimaginable."

"At this point, all we can do is meet soldiers with soldiers and water with earth. Beyond that, there’s nothing else. No matter how rotten things are on the inside, we just do everything we can to dig out the rotten parts. Worrying beyond that is useless," Zhang Lu said, sounding tolerant on the surface, but in truth her statement carried anger.

Now that things had deteriorated to this stage, aside from cutting through the mess quickly and eliminating all traitors, there really was no other way.

"The more traitors there are, the heavier the impact on internal stability becomes—beyond imagination," Ye Fan said evenly. "I need to think this through properly and see if we can start nipping things in the bud."

Hunter Cat and Transforming Mouse sat side by side, their expressions dark.

"One ended up in a car crash; the other got grabbed on the spot. I didn’t expect things to go like this," Hunter Cat said, face ugly. "I’d long realized that acting this boldly had very slim odds of success. But I had no choice. I’ve already lost my last pieces on the board. My own fate is in jeopardy."

"Maybe things aren’t as bad as we imagine," Transforming Mouse said uncertainly. "It’s not like we have no chance to atone by meritorious service. As long as we get through this, it’s not impossible for us to stage a comeback."

"Hard. It’s hard. The Company entrusted us with a major task, and not only did we fail to complete it, we also sacrificed all the internal assets we painstakingly developed. We’ve lost our value—that’s the most critical thing," Hunter Cat said, deeply worried.

He knew the Company’s way of doing things extremely well, and precisely because of that he couldn’t help worrying about his own future and fate.

It wasn’t hard to imagine that he would have to pay a proper price for these repeated failures.

"Our opponent is Ye Fan. The Company will take that into account. As long as the Company understands the stakes involved, it won’t overly blame us for our failures. Instead, we might get a chance to regain the Company’s trust and be given important responsibilities again," Transforming Mouse’s line of thinking was quite different from Hunter Cat’s.

"My incompetence doesn’t stem from a lack of ability or intelligence. It’s that the opponent is simply too strong. Losing in a fight like this is only natural," Hunter Cat said bitterly.

"It’s suffocating, but that’s the truth," Transforming Mouse said through clenched teeth.

"However we look at it, it doesn’t change anything. It all depends on how Mister Jin sees it," Hunter Cat said, dejected.

Just as Hunter Cat and Transforming Mouse were sitting there, full of anxiety, a visitor who hadn’t been invited walked straight over to them.

Hunter Cat and Transforming Mouse looked in puzzlement at the woman who had suddenly appeared, exchanged a glance, and asked, bewildered, "And you are?"

"I’m here to convey Mister Jin’s instructions," the woman said. She was none other than Jin Hua, Mister Jin’s capable aide.

Hunter Cat and Transforming Mouse were shocked, jumping up in a hurry. They bowed respectfully to Jin Hua and said, "Please, have a seat."

Times were different now; Hunter Cat didn’t dare show the slightest slackness.

In the past, when Jin Hua saw Hunter Cat, she had to observe the proper superior-subordinate etiquette.

Now it was different. Hunter Cat no longer had the capital to back that up.

Jin Hua sat down with a smile, entirely at ease.

"May I ask what instructions Mister Jin has?" Hunter Cat took the initiative to ask.

"Mister Jin is giving you a chance to atone through service. From now on, all actions will follow Mister Jin’s arrangements. If you perform well, you’ll still have a place to settle back in at the Company. Otherwise, I don’t need to spell out what will happen, do I?" Jin Hua said with a smile.

"Many thanks to Mister Jin for his consideration," Hunter Cat said from the heart, moved almost to tears.