Chapter 5: Media Storm

Sleep had not been a refuge.

It had been a battlefield of disjointed images and lingering sensations.

The scent of his cologne.

The impossible softness of his cashmere sweater.

The ghost of his knuckles against her cheek.

The terrifying, exhilarating pull of a kiss that never happened.

Yu Zhen woke with a gasp, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

For a moment, she was disoriented, tangled in her sheets, the phantom feeling of his lips still hovering millimeters from hers.

Then reality came crashing back.

It started with a low buzz from her nightstand.

Her phone.

It was vibrating with the relentless, angry energy of a disturbed hornet's nest.

Who the hell is calling at 6 AM?

She reached for it, her eyes still blurry with sleep.

The screen was a blinding cascade of notifications.

Dozens of missed calls.

Hundreds of text messages.

An avalanche of social media alerts from Weibo, WeChat, and every gossip app known to man.

A cold dread, sharp and sudden, pierced through the fog of her dreams.

This was not normal.

Her finger trembled as she tapped on the first notification, a link sent by Mei Ling with a simple, ominous caption: "WTF YU ZHEN???"

The link opened to a popular celebrity gossip blog.

The headline was splashed across the top in huge, scandalous characters:

"MICHELIN QUEEN'S SECRET RENDEZVOUS: IS CHEF LIN YU ZHEN BEING SERVED UP AS A BILLIONAIRE'S LATEST ACQUISITION?"

And beneath it, the photo.

A grainy, long-lens shot, but the subjects were unmistakable.

Her, striding into the impossibly grand entrance of Chao Wei Jun's apartment building last night.

Her face was a mask of determination, her shoulders squared for a fight.

Another photo showed her leaving hours later, her expression flustered, her hair slightly less perfect, her eyes wide with a chaotic mix of emotions she couldn't even name herself.

The article was pure, venomous speculation.

It painted her as a gold-digger, an artist selling out to the highest bidder.

It painted him as a corporate predator, adding a Michelin-starred chef to his collection of conquests.

It hinted at secret deals, at a romance born of power and money.

It was trash.

It was poison.

And it was everywhere.

Oh my god.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

A wave of nausea washed over her.

She felt exposed.

Violated.

Her carefully constructed world, her reputation built on a foundation of integrity and hard work, was being dismantled overnight by anonymous strangers on the internet.

Her hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped the phone.

She scrolled frantically, a sick feeling churning in her stomach.

Every major gossip site had the story.

#ChefLinAndTheCEO was already trending.

The comments were a cesspool.

"Knew she was overrated. All it takes is a big enough check."

"He could do better. She's not even that pretty."

"This is what happens when you let women run businesses. They just look for a rich husband."

"Lowkey, they'd be a power couple though."

The last one, for some reason, was the most infuriating.

This wasn't a romance.

This was a war.

And she had just walked straight into a perfectly laid ambush.

He did this.

The thought crystallized in her mind, sharp and cold and certain.

This was his move.

The construction was a physical assault.

This was the public one.

He couldn't force her to sign, so he was going to ruin her reputation until she had no other choice.

He was going to burn her kingdom down and then offer to sell her the fire extinguisher.

The fury that rose in her was so potent, so absolute, it burned away the fear and the nausea.

It left only a cold, hard resolve.

She threw back the covers, her body moving with a singular, violent purpose.

She was not going to hide.

She was not going to issue a statement.

She was going to the source of the fire.

And she was going to pour gasoline on it.

The kitchen at Phoenix Rising was a tomb of stunned silence.

The usual morning bustle of prep work was nonexistent.

Her entire staff was huddled in a corner, staring at their phones, their faces a mixture of shock and pity.

When she walked in, they all looked up, their eyes wide.

The silence was deafening.

"What are you all looking at?" she snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. "Do you get paid to scroll through gossip rags, or do you get paid to cook?"

They flinched, immediately scattering back to their stations, the sudden clatter of knives and pans sounding forced and unnatural.

Only Mei Ling didn't move.

She stood by the pass, her arms crossed, her face a mask of worry.

"Yu Zhen," she said softly. "Don't."

"Don't what?" Yu Zhen shot back, throwing her bag into her small office. "Don't be angry? Don't fight back?"

"Don't go see him," Mei Ling pleaded. "This is what he wants. He's trying to get a reaction out of you."

"He's got one!" Yu Zhen yelled, whirling around to face her friend. "He thinks he can smear my name all over the internet and I'll just roll over? Is that what you think of me?"

"I think you're walking into another one of his traps!" Mei Ling's voice rose to match hers. "He's a billionaire, Yu Zhen! He plays games you and I don't even know the rules to. He probably planned this whole thing, right down to what you'd be wearing when you stormed into his office to yell at him!"

She's not wrong.

But the anger was a wildfire in her veins, and it was too late to stop it.

"I don't care," Yu Zhen said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "He needs to see my face when he lies to me. He needs to know that I'm not just some headline he can manipulate. I'm a real person, and he just declared war on me."

"And what if it wasn't him?" Mei Ling asked quietly.

The question stopped Yu Zhen cold.

Could it be possible?

That someone else leaked the photos?

A rival? A paparazzo who got lucky?

No.

The timing was too perfect.

The narrative was too clean.

This had the fingerprints of Chao Wei Jun's cold, calculating strategy all over it.

"It was him," Yu Zhen said with finality. "I know it was."

She grabbed her keys, her mind set.

"Cover for me," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument.

Mei Ling just sighed, a look of profound resignation on her face.

"You know I will," she said. "Just... try not to commit a felony. The restaurant's reputation is already taking a hit. We don't need 'Michelin Chef Arrested for Assault' as the follow-up headline."

The second time she walked into the Chao Conglomerate headquarters, she didn't bother stopping at the reception desk.

She strode past the model-like receptionist with a glare that made the woman physically recoil, and went straight for the private elevator, pressing the button for the top floor with a vicious jab of her finger.

The ride up was an eternity of fury.

She rehearsed what she would say, the accusations she would hurl, the threats she would make.

When the doors opened directly into his office, he was exactly where she knew he would be.

Sitting behind his massive desk, looking out at the city, a cup of coffee in his hand.

He looked up as she stormed in, and a flicker of something—surprise? disappointment?—crossed his features before being replaced by his usual mask of cool amusement.

"Chef Lin," he said, his voice calm. "To what do I owe the... pleasure... of two visits in as many days?"

"You know damn well why I'm here," she seethed, slamming her hands down on his desk. The solid wood shuddered under the impact. "The photos. The articles. The trending hashtags. Was this part of the plan, Wei Jun? Was this your 'tool' for creating a 'clearer' business logic?"

He didn't flinch.

He took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, his eyes never leaving hers over the rim of the cup.

"I saw the news this morning," he said, his tone infuriatingly neutral. "Unfortunate."

"Unfortunate?" she shrieked, her voice echoing in the vast, silent office. "You call this unfortunate? This is a character assassination! You've branded me as some kind of corporate whore, and you call it unfortunate?"

The air between them was thick with her rage and his unnerving calm.

But underneath it all, something else was churning.

The memory of last night.

The shared vulnerability.

The almost-kiss.

Every accusation she threw at him was a reminder of that moment, of the intimacy he had manufactured only to, in her mind, betray it so spectacularly.

"Was any of it real?" she demanded, her voice cracking with a pain she hated herself for showing. "The dinner? The story about your childhood? Or was that all just part of the game? Researching my weaknesses so you could exploit them?"

He set his cup down, the soft click of ceramic on wood the only sound in the room.

He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping a few feet from her, just as he had done yesterday.

"The dinner was real," he said, his voice quiet but intense. "And everything I told you was the truth."

"I don't believe you."

"I know," he said with a sigh. "And I don't blame you. Given my reputation, and my actions, you have every reason to believe I orchestrated this."

He took a step closer.

"But I didn't," he said, his eyes locking onto hers, and for the first time, she saw no amusement, no calculation. Just a raw, frustrating sincerity. "I would never be that crude, Yu Zhen. My methods may be aggressive, but they are direct. This... this is messy. It's beneath me."

I want to believe him.

God, I want to believe him so badly.

But the evidence was overwhelming. The timing, the motive...

"So it's just a coincidence?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The day after I have dinner at your apartment, photos of me are leaked to every gossip blog in the country? What are the odds?"

"The odds are high when you are two of the most talked-about people in your respective fields in Beijing," he countered smoothly. "We were a story waiting to happen. Someone simply gave it a push."

He was so reasonable.

So logical.

He was making her feel like she was the crazy one.

And then he did something that completely shattered her resolve.

He reached out, not to touch her, but to pick up his desk phone.

He pressed a button.

"Zhang Hao," he said, his voice shifting back into the sharp, commanding tone of a CEO. "Get in here. And bring the entire PR and legal team with you."

He put the phone down and looked at her.

"You believe I did this," he said. "Fine. Then watch me undo it."

Within sixty seconds, the office was filled with people.

A team of sharp, serious-looking men and women in expensive suits, all standing at attention, their eyes fixed on Wei Jun.

Zhang Hao, a man with a kind face who looked slightly older than Wei Jun, stepped forward. "Sir?"

"There has been a media leak concerning myself and Chef Lin," Wei Jun began, his voice cold and hard as steel. "I want it scrubbed. I don't mean a press release. I mean I want it gone."

The head of his PR team, a severe-looking woman, spoke up. "Mr. Chao, once a story like this is out, it's impossible to completely erase—"

"I don't pay you for 'impossible'," Wei Jun cut her off, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I pay you for results. I want takedown notices sent to every single blog, every social media platform that ran the story. Cite invasion of privacy, defamation, whatever you need to. I want our legal team to draft lawsuits against the top three outlets that broke it. I want them to feel financial pain so acute they will never even think about writing my name again without my express permission."

He paused, his eyes sweeping over his team.

"Furthermore," he continued, "I want a statement issued. Not from me. From the company. It will state that Chao Conglomerate is exploring a potential business partnership with Chef Lin Yu Zhen, a leader in the culinary arts, and that these baseless, sexist rumors are a pathetic attempt to derail a professional negotiation. It will state that we have the utmost respect for Chef Lin's integrity and that we will pursue legal action against anyone who suggests otherwise."

He turned his gaze back to Yu Zhen, who had been watching this entire display in stunned silence.

"Is that clear?" he asked his team.

They all nodded, a chorus of "Yes, Mr. Chao."

"Good," he said. "You have one hour to show me significant progress. Now get out."

The team scurried out of the office as quickly as they had entered, leaving Yu Zhen and Wei Jun alone once more in the echoing silence.

She was speechless.

This was not the action of a man who had orchestrated the leak.

This was... protective.

It was a raw, undeniable display of power, but for the first time, it wasn't directed at her.

It was directed for her.

He was shielding her.

Using his entire corporate arsenal to defend her reputation.

Her mind was reeling, trying to process this new, confusing data point.

"Why?" she whispered, the single word hanging in the air between them.

He walked back to the window, looking down at the city below.

"Because," he said, his voice quiet. "Whether you believe it or not, I respect you. I respect your art. And I will not have you dragged through the mud because of your association with me."

He turned to face her, his expression serious.

"This is not how I conduct business. And it is certainly not how I treat people I find... interesting."

The word hung there.

Interesting.

It was such a clinical, controlled word, but in his mouth, it felt loaded with a thousand unspoken meanings.

She didn't know what to believe.

She didn't know what to feel.

Her anger had evaporated, replaced by a dizzying, terrifying confusion.

She left his office in a daze, the ride down in the elevator feeling like a descent from some strange, alternate reality.

Mei Ling was waiting for her back at the restaurant, pacing anxiously.

"So?" Mei Ling demanded. "Did you kill him? Do I need to call a lawyer?"

"No," Yu Zhen said, sinking onto a stool in the empty dining room. "Worse. I think he might be telling the truth."

She explained what had happened. The denial. The command to his team. The raw display of protective power.

Mei Ling listened, her expression shifting from worry to shock to grudging admiration.

"Damn," Mei Ling breathed when she was done. "Okay. So the man's a shark, but he might be our shark?"

"I don't know what he is," Yu Zhen confessed, burying her face in her hands. "Every time I think I have him figured out, he does something that completely contradicts everything I thought I knew. He's infuriating. He's manipulative. And he might be the only person who has ever truly understood my food."

"And he's stupidly hot," Mei Ling added helpfully. "Don't forget that part."

"That's not helping!" Yu Zhen groaned.

Her phone buzzed again.

It was a notification from a major food blogger's Weibo page.

Her heart sank.

She was sure it was more bad news.

She opened the link, her hands trembling.

But it wasn't an attack.

It was a post from Wang Lei.

The arrogant, classically trained chef of 'Imperial Dragon', her biggest rival in the Beijing fine-dining scene. He had been trying to poach her staff and steal her suppliers for years. He saw her as a trendy upstart, and he hated her success.

The post was a photo of him in his own pristine kitchen, a smug look on his face.

The caption read:

"The culinary world is buzzing with scandals today. It seems some chefs are more focused on landing billionaire boyfriends than on their craft. It is a sad day for the integrity of our profession. To remind Beijing what truly matters, I am issuing a public challenge. A cook-off. Me versus Chef Lin Yu Zhen. Let us settle, once and for all, who truly reigns supreme in this city. Let the food speak for itself, without the distraction of corporate deals and tabloid rumors. What do you say, Chef Lin? Are you still a chef, or are you just a commodity?"