Chapter 692: 692: Cunning and Devious

“Who knows? Since they’re not letting him in, he must have offended someone. We shouldn’t voluntarily be the nice ones here. For now, Pingla’s people are not his company’s people, there’s no need to ingratiate ourselves with him.”

The employees of Pingla Group are very aware of this.

“Have people from other departments heard any news?” someone questioned.

“You know what, I heard that our CEO personally dealt with their company. They have now lost several business deals.”

“Wow!” Upon hearing this, a colleague couldn’t help but glance again at Richard Lopez’s family.

They whispered: “How did the Lopez family offend our CEO? This treatment is quite unique!”

The last one who was targeted personally by Adrian Zhekova was the Woods family.

But the Woods family was too small a player, Adrian Zhekova hardly had to make an effort to eliminate them.

The Woods family’s downfall was so subtle; there was not a ripple.

So much so, the employees at Pingla didn’t pay much attention to it.

Most of them didn’t even know that a small player like the Woods family had been targeted by Adrian Zhekova once.

“Who knows? Our company usually has no connection with the Lopez family. It’s unlikely that they offended us in business dealings. As for offending our CEO in private affairs… everybody knows about our CEO’s temperament. Isn’t it better to avoid him as much as possible? Who would dare to offend him!” someone speculated.

“If they didn’t offend the CEO, then they may have offended the CEO’s wife. In any case, offending the CEO’s Wife is even worse than offending the CEO himself,” another guessed.

“Let’s not make blind guesses. What if it’s not about the CEO’s Wife, and she hears that we were guessing about her? It could get us into trouble,” someone else reminded.

“Right, right, right, right!” Others quickly agreed to this reminder.

Anyway, the one in trouble is the Lopez family, not them.

They are quite assured of their jobs at Pingla and decide not to guess further.

After a while, Billy Houston, along with Manager Zhu, and others, arrived at Pingla Group.

They were there to discuss the planning of the special programs for the Spring Festival. They’ve made several proposals and Billy Houston thought they all were good and could select the most satisfactory one.

So, he brought all the proposals for Adrian Zhekova to make the final decision.

But as soon as he entered, he saw the Lopez family.

When Billy Houston saw Edward Lopez, he thought about the last competition, when Edward had sent someone backstage, saying he wanted to meet the 10 contestants.

Associating that with the events of the banquet that evening, Billy Houston wasn’t present at the banquet, but he had heard about it afterward.

If he thought about it, Edward probably wanted to meet Cindy Clarke during the last competition.

If Adrian Zhekova found out about Edward’s intentions, he wouldn’t let Edward get away with it.

Billy Houston normally played it safe, and although his suspicion was not confirmed, he would be very cautious and definitely not initiate contact with the Lopez family.

Thus, upon glimpsing Richard Lopez, Billy Houston pretended not to notice and quietly told Manager Zhu, “Let’s go, let’s go, we need to hurry.”

Manager Zhu wondered why Billy Houston was suddenly so anxious.

Just as they were about to reach the entrance gate to check in, they heard Richard Lopez call out, “Hey Billy!”

Billy Houston rolled his eyes but had no choice but to stop.

Although he wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard, Richard Lopez thick-skinnedly called out several times while running towards him.

This left Billy Houston with no choice but to stay put.

Manager Zhu asked quietly, “Billy, you seem quite close with this Richard Lopez? He’s even calling you ‘Old Lu’.”

“What on earth is close!” Billy Houston was not pleased.

This was unfair.

He had only met Richard a few times face to face: “It’s just Richard Lopez trying to pretend we are close!”

He hoped that Richard Lopez’s claim of closeness wouldn’t reach the scumbag CEO’s ears, otherwise, he might mistakenly think that he and Richard Lopez were actually close, and that could be problematic!

This Richard Lopez was quite a troublemaker!

Billy Houston turned around and put on a look of surprise: “Mr. Lopez, what are you doing here?”

Richard Lopez replied cheerfully, “I came to meet Mr. Zhekova, but unfortunately, he’s in a meeting right now. Billy, what about you?”

Thinking on his feet, Billy Houston figured out that Adrian Zhekova probably didn’t want to meet Richard Lopez.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

So Billy said, “I’m here to discuss the plans for our Cooking Competition with the planning department.”

Although Billy was there to meet Adrian Zhekova, seeing that Adrian was clearly avoiding Richard Lopez, he naturally wouldn’t say he was there to meet Adrian.

He didn’t want to give Richard Lopez any opportunity to ask him to accompany him inside.

Billy Houston, being a sharp man, wouldn’t give Richard Lopez such an opportunity at all.

However, he overlooked Richard Lopez’s thick skin. To Richard Lopez, especially given the current life-or-death situation of his company, what was a bit of shame?

Richard Lopez could not be bothered about such a thing.

“You’re not meeting Mr. Zhekova?” Richard Lopez asked.

Billy Houston hurriedly shook his head, “He’s quite busy today, and I didn’t manage to get an appointment. To discuss such planning matters, we must first finalize it before submitting it to the CEO for the final decision. We can’t just go and discuss directly with the CEO, can we?”

Seeing Richard Lopez waiting here, it was clear that Adrian Zhekova didn’t want to see them.

No matter what excuse Adrian Zhekova might have used, Billy Houston was just giving an alibi, absolutely not revealing anything incriminating.

Richard Lopez’s face showed a glimmer of disappointment, but he quickly resumed his cheerful demeanor and asked Billy, “Are you going to the planning department?”

Billy Houston nodded, “Yes.”

Richard Lopez then quickly asked, “So could we also get into the planning department with you?”

Billy Houston’s face changed and said, “No way! We can’t just bring people in, there are rules. You need to go to the front desk to register, only after approval can you…”

Only then did Billy Houston seemingly ask in surprise, “I was wondering, why are you guys waiting in the lobby?”

Richard Lopez awkwardly replied, “We came to see Mr. Zhekova, but he’s in a meeting right now, so we’re waiting here.”

Billy Houston made a sound as if he was exclaiming, “Oh, didn’t you have an appointment? Our CEO’s daily schedule is always full, if you don’t have an appointment, it’s difficult to see him. Even if we go to report to work, we must schedule it in advance.”

Mrs. Lopez, who stood aside, was mumbling to herself, questioning whether Adrian Zhekova was genuinely unwilling to meet them out of difficulty, or if he was doing this on purpose.

However, Richard Lopez wasn’t as gullible as Mrs. Lopez and thought to himself, ‘Pingla’s people are indeed well-trained and play along well with Adrian Zhekova.’

After seeing Billy Houston’s face filled with difficulty and regret, he said, “Mr. Lopez, I’m really sorry. You made a personal request to me but I cannot bring you in. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I can’t.”