Chapter 156 Forcing a Decision

As soon as Li Mengfei's words left his mouth, everyone in the living room was instantly stunned. Li Mengyao, Xiang Xiulan, and Murong Xuan all looked at Li Mengfei with astonishment. It was so quiet that they could even hear each other's breathing.

"Li Mengfei, you little brat, what nonsense are you spewing? When did I ever have a secret crush on that jerk Zhang Wei? I can't stand him fast enough! How could I possibly have a crush on him?" Murong Xuan stood up from the sofa, grabbed Li Mengfei by the ear, and scolded him.

"Ouch! If you don't have a secret crush on Zhang Wei and weren't rejected when you confessed your love, then what are you sad about?" Li Mengfei yelled in pain from having his ear pulled, and quickly scurried aside.

"Besides, this is what Zhang Wei told me himself, and you're even going to live t—" Li Mengfei originally wanted to mention that Murong Xuan was going to cohabit with Zhang Wei, but he lacked the nerve to actually say it out loud.

"He was just talking nonsense and flattering himself! How could I ever fancy a scoundrel like him?" Murong Xuan rebuked angrily.

"Xuanxuan, did their store manager really harass you, or was there some other reason you wanted to fire him?" Xiang Xiulan knitted her delicate brows, looking suspicious.

"Little Aunt, that guy named Zhang Wei is no good anyway. Just grant me this wish this once, please?" Murong Xuan said, acting coquettishly.

"This matter is rather complicated. You say the man named Zhang Wei harassed you, while Xiaofei says you have a secret crush on him. You young people should handle your own affairs; I can't possibly manage this," Xiang Xiulan shook her head and said.

Xiang Xiulan knew Murong Xuan's personality very well, knowing she was somewhat willful and headstrong. If she really had been harassed by Zhang Wei, it certainly wouldn't have been as simple as asking her to fire him; she probably would have already resorted to other means to deal with him.

"Xiaofei is just spreading groundless rumors! How could I possibly like a guy named Zhang Wei? I hate him to death!" Murong Xuan stamped her foot and said angrily.

"If you don't like Zhang Wei, why did you only dance with him at the opening ceremony and turn down every other male guest?" Li Mengfei said with a sour tone, naturally including himself among those male guests.

"Th—that dancing with him doesn't prove I like him! You're just guessing blindly!" Murong Xuan wanted to explain, but she couldn't very well reveal the truth of what had happened back then.

"Oh, come off it. Lin Hongwen already told me that you and Zhang Wei even went on a blind date introduced by someone else!" Li Mengfei wore an expression that said he knew everything and she couldn't fool him.

"Hehe, Xiaofei, aren't you and Lin Hongwen rivals in love? Do you actually exchange intelligence with each other?" Li Mengyao giggled.

"A blind date?" Xiang Xiulan also revealed a trace of surprise, turning her gaze toward Murong Xuan.

"Little Aunt, don't listen to Xiaofei's nonsense. Nothing of the sort ever happened," Murong Xuan said with a helpless expression.

Back then, Murong Xuan had asked Zhang Wei to pretend to be her blind date specifically to get Lin Hongwen to stop pestering her. And indeed, Lin Hongwen hadn't looked for her since. To avoid anyone discovering the truth about her and Zhang Wei, she had started intentionally distancing herself from him, yet she never expected Li Mengfei would still blurt it out.

"Xuanxuan, did you really fall for that guy named Zhang Wei?" Hearing this, Xiang Xiulan finally understood that the relationship between Murong Xuan and Zhang Wei must not be as simple as it seemed, otherwise she wouldn't have tried to conceal it.

"Little Aunt, I really didn't!"

Seeing Xiang Xiulan ask like that, Murong Xuan was genuinely speechless. Knowing that further explanation would be useless, she decided the best course of action was to dodge this bullet first. "It's getting late, and Jingxuan Studio is about to close. Little Aunt, I'd better head back first."

With that, Murong Xuan didn't even wait for Xiang Xiulan's reply, fleeing the villa as if escaping for her life. She truly hated both Li Mengfei and Zhang Wei to the core now, and even Lin Hongwen was implicated in her wrath.

On her way back, the more Murong Xuan thought about it, the angrier she became. She simply could not accept being falsely accused of having a secret crush on Zhang Wei; she considered it an insult to her dignity. Although she tried hard to calm herself down, Murong Xuan ultimately failed to hold back her temper.

She took out her phone and dialed Zhang Wei's number, feeling that only by giving Zhang Wei a thorough scolding could she vent the fury in her heart, otherwise, she might just burst with anger tonight.

"Ring, ring..."

Zhang Wei had just finished taking a cold shower and was lying in bed, feeling somewhat drowsy, when the phone on his bedside table began to ring. Half-asleep, Zhang Wei grabbed the phone, pressed the answer button, and said, "Hello."

"Hello? Hello your big head! How dare you tell other people that I have a secret crush on you? Go to hell!" Murong Xuan accused angrily through the phone.

Half-asleep and completely failing to recognize who it was, Zhang Wei cursed with displeasure, "You lunatic! Who the hell are you making harassment calls in the middle of the night?"

"You still have the nerve to ask who I am?" Hearing that Zhang Wei hadn't recognized her voice, Murong Xuan grew even angrier and said, "Did you talk nonsense to Li Mengfei and make him think I have a secret crush on you?!"

"Nutcase! Plenty of people have a secret crush on me, how am I supposed to know which one you are?" Zhang Wei scolded harshly and promptly hung up the phone.

The moment Murong Xuan mentioned Li Mengfei and a secret crush, Zhang Wei had already guessed her identity, but he simply didn't want to admit it. Since the two of them were already at loggerheads, Zhang Wei decided to play it through to the end.

"Jerk! Not only did he call me a lunatic, but he actually dared to hang up on me!" Seeing the disconnected call, Murong Xuan felt a surge of even greater irritation. She pressed the redial button and called Zhang Wei once again.

"We are sorry, the number you have dialed is powered off, please..."

After dialing the number once more, Murong Xuan was greeted only by the automated voice prompt stating the phone was turned off. One can easily imagine the rage and frustration boiling in her heart; she even had the urge to rush over to Zhang Wei's place and give him a severe beating.

Although this night had its share of turbulence, it ultimately passed peacefully...

Over the next two days, Zhang Wei enjoyed some more free time. Their team didn't land any major deals, securing only two small rentals, which didn't even spark Zhang Wei's interest enough to handle personally. As for Chenjen Sheng's deal, progress remained virtually at a standstill.

Chen Jiansheng's deal had reached a complete bottleneck. Neither the homeowner nor Chen Jiansheng was willing to lower their price any further, leaving the negotiation deadlocked at the original figures. Although Zhang Wei tried every trick in the book, he couldn't induce either party to make another concession.

In the real estate brokerage industry, this kind of situation was extremely common. Many deals started out with very harmonious negotiations, but ultimately fell apart due to a remaining price gap. In such moments, the most commonly used tactic was 'forcing a deposit'.

So-called 'forcing a deposit' meant pressuring the client to put down earnest money, which was considered the most crucial step toward signing a deal. There were numerous methods to achieve this—soft, hard, direct, and indirect. Theoretically, there were dozens of approaches, but success ultimately depended on the agent's ability to think and adapt on their feet.

"Hi, everyone!" Just as Zhang Wei was pondering which method to use to force the deposit, a woman's voice rang out from outside. Hearing that voice, Zhang Wei involuntarily knitted his brows.

A sexy woman walked into the Yayuan branch store. She had a cascade of wavy red hair draped over her shoulders, wore a red T-shirt on her upper body and a white miniskirt on her lower body, and ungrudgingly displayed a pair of long, slender legs.

"You've all worked hard, come have some water!" the woman said, placing the bag she was carrying onto the table.

"Sophie, why are you here again?!" Seeing the woman appear, Zhang Wei frowned and asked.

"I saw that everyone was working quite hard, so I bought a few bottles of water to treat you all, hehe." Sophie blinked playfully and asked, "I'm not disturbing your work, am I?"

"Not at all, not at all! You're our store manager's cousin and also a friend of ours, you're not disturbing our work in the least," Guo Bin stood up and said with an ingratiating smile.

"That's right, you buy things for us every time you come, we actually wish you could come every day," Liu Ziqi chimed in agreement.

"Then I can rest easy." Sophie wore a relieved expression and smiled. "Don't be shy, everyone, just take whatever you'd like to drink!"

Seeing Sophie acting this way, Zhang Wei was genuinely helpless. On the second day after Sophie moved in, she had rushed over to the store, announcing that she was a cousin temporarily staying at Zhang Wei's place, and she quickly integrated herself with the rest of the staff.

At the time, Zhang Wei had been completely dumbfounded, having no idea what kind of game Sophie was playing. However, finding it awkward to expose her in front of everyone, he had simply gone along with it and acknowledged her as his cousin. Yet, upon reflection later on, Zhang Wei figured out that Sophie probably wanted to use the cover of being his cousin to infiltrate the store and learn the ins and outs of the real estate brokerage business.

Realizing this reason, Zhang Wei naturally felt displeased. Still, since it wasn't convenient for him to expose her identity as a journalist, he had simply warned her after returning home not to visit the Zhongtong branch store anymore, promising that he would share any industry insights with her privately.

To Zhang Wei's surprise, the very next day after his warning, she had run right back to the Zhongtong branch store anyway, clearly completely disregarding his words. This made Zhang Wei feel even more unhappy.

Zhang Wei stared at Sophie for a moment, and just as he was about to call her outside and tell her to leave the Zhongtong store, a sudden flash of inspiration struck him. He lowered his head in brief contemplation, a smile crept onto his face, and he said, "Sophie, come outside with me for a moment."

"Okay, Cousin," Sophie replied very obediently, following Zhang Wei outside.

"Sophie, why did you come here again today?" Zhang Wei asked.

"I just want to understand more about the real estate business so I can finish writing my article sooner," Sophie said with a pitiful expression. "You're not mad, are you?"

"As you saw last time, our routine work is very mundane and not nearly as exciting as you imagine," Zhang Wei said.

"But I heard from others that there are a lot of... interesting things in your real estate agency industry." Sophie had originally wanted to say there were many shady insider secrets, but the words died on her lips and she didn't dare say them.

"Interesting things!" Zhang Wei muttered, as if suddenly remembering something. "Now that you mention it, I actually do remember something. Tomorrow really is going to be quite an interesting day."

"What interesting thing? Can I join?" Sophie asked with some excitement.

"You can, but you must listen to me and absolutely not act on your own," Zhang Wei said, putting on a reluctant act.

Chen Jiansheng's deal had dragged on for several days, and the longer a deal dragged on, the greater the chance of unexpected hitches. Therefore, Zhang Wei needed to force the deposit as quickly as possible, and Sophie was going to be the most crucial chess piece in his plan! (To be continued)