Chapter 20 The Boss is Gay Before the Movie Starts, Jiang Huai...

Before the movie started, Jiang Huaichuan followed the example of the young couple not far away and bought some popcorn.

The movie was two and a half hours long, and Shen Li watched it intently, constantly reaching into the popcorn bucket until—

Taking advantage of the dim light of the movie, Jiang Huaichuan saw that the popcorn in Shen Li's arms had dropped by half. He quickly moved the popcorn to his lap, took out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and carefully wiped Shen Li's fingertips.

Unlike Shen Li, whose hands and feet get cold as soon as autumn and winter arrive, Jiang Huaichuan's hands are always warm. As the warmth spreads from his fingertips, Shen Li's fingers curl slightly, then slowly relax and gently rest on Jiang Huaichuan's palm, letting him wipe them.

Jiang Huaichuan wiped it carefully.

Suddenly, a piercing scream rang out from behind.

"No! I want to watch Ultraman!!"

Halfway through the movie, the boy in the seat behind Shen Li suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs, his shrill voice drowning out the sound of the movie playing.

"Baby, be gentle."

"No! I want to see Ultraman! Ultraman!!!"

The woman sitting to the boy's left was presumably his mother. Sensing the displeased looks from everyone, she awkwardly rummaged through her bag for her phone, opened it, and handed it to her son.

The boy got the phone, and he was quiet for less than a minute. After the woman lowered the volume again, he started screaming wildly, deliberately making "ah ah" noises.

"Turn it up!! I want to hear the sound!!" The boy held the phone above his head and waved it at the woman's face, or rather, smashed it.

The woman raised her hand to cover her face, snatched her son's phone away, and whispered soothingly, "No, you can't disturb other people watching the movie. Be good, and Mommy will take you to buy a toy car later."

"No!!! I want to turn on the sound—!!" The boy's unreasonable shouts drew frequent glances from everyone.

“Here, let Dad turn it on for you.” The man on the right suddenly spoke up. He took the phone from the woman’s hand and turned the volume up to the maximum. He said to his wife unhappily, “Let him turn it up if he wants. It’s not a big deal. Come on, son.”

In an instant, the sounds of a movie screening and the incongruous Ultraman animation emanated from the boy, creating a cacophony of noise that spread outwards from him.

"Don't you have any manners?" a teenager in front of them shouted as he turned around. "If you want to see Ultraman, go outside."

"Mind your own business! My son wants to watch, and I bought tickets for this seat. He can do whatever he wants while sitting here. Son, turn the volume up a bit." The man said arrogantly, chin raised, legs crossed.

"You!" The boy stood up angrily.

"What are you looking at? Don't disturb my movie." The man spat and waved his hand dismissively at the boy.

The boy tried to rush over, but his girlfriend pulled him back, and he sat down with a grim expression.

I could no longer immerse myself in the movie that I was once engrossed in.

Shen Li frowned as the boy behind him kicked the back of his chair repeatedly, making Shen Li uncomfortable. He pressed down on Jiang Huaichuan, who was trying to stand up, and turned to the man behind him, saying, "This is public property, not your child's private property."

"Exactly, do they have any manners?" said the girl on the other side of Shen Li. She was closer and the impact was very obvious. Now that someone was starting a group, she would definitely join in immediately.

The man was taken aback. He felt that Shen Li looked somewhat familiar, but the movie was being filmed at night, and the lighting was dim. In addition, Shen Li was wearing a down jacket, and her hair was fluffy and soft, making her look like a college student who had not yet graduated.

A flicker of doubt crossed the man's mind, quickly followed by a surge of annoyance at being lectured by a young boy. He snapped, "Go ahead and call the police! Report me! Pah! You haven't even grown your baby hairs yet and you want to be a hero? Or maybe..."

The man's uninteresting gaze swept over Shen Li and the girl next to her. He grinned lewdly, "Oh... so you've taken a fancy to the pretty girl next to you and are eager to show off? How about I pay for you to get a room and let you have some fun?"

Seeing the anger between Shen Li's brows, the man sneered, "Young men like you just like to show off. Don't worry, I work for the Jiang Group, I'm rolling in money. You know the Jiang Group, right? Forget it, a loser like you can't even get in."

“However,” the man looked at Shen Li’s face, a hint of amazement flashing in his eyes, and he chuckled lewdly, “I can also let you enjoy this feeling… ah!”

A bucket of popcorn was shoved directly onto the man's face.

Shen Li slowly lowered her hand.

Wow!

At this moment, everyone turned their attention to him, their faces filled with schadenfreude and a sense of "he deserved it."

"Awesome!" The first boy clapped wildly.

Shen Li took the handkerchief Jiang Huaichuan offered with a displeased expression, suppressing her anger and saying coldly, "Please respect women, and also respect your wife. No matter who it is, she is not someone you can use to spread rumors about."

Shen Li looked at him coldly, while the boy had already huddled in his mother's arms in fear.

"As for your work, I feel that your principles are contrary to those that the Jiang Group has adhered to since its inception, and I regret that we will be unable to continue working together."

The man stood up angrily, pointed at Shen Li and cursed, "Who do you think you are? What right do you have to fire me? Don't try to act all high and mighty!"

"You think he doesn't have enough rights? What about me?" Jiang Huaichuan's face was ashen, his thin lips pressed into a straight line, and his gaze was piercingly cold.

The movie then transitioned to a vast, boundless seaside scene, where the azure sea and sky illuminated the entire theater.

The man trembled, his angry expression freezing, looking like a duck being choked, his face filled with terror, stammering, "Mr...Mr. Jiang?!"

As if remembering something, the man quickly looked at Shen Li beside him, and finally recognized his face in the light and shadow.

"Shen Zhu?!" The man slumped back into his seat, his face ashen.

It’s over…

The family of three left quickly. Half a minute later, a cinema staff member came in and said that the movie would be restarted ten minutes later. He apologized for the bad viewing experience and said that the movie ticket price would be fully refunded to the payment account.

In the darkness, Shen Li whispered to Jiang Huaichuan, "Did you do this?"

"Hmm." Jiang Huaichuan squeezed Shen Li's fingertips and held his hand in his palm. "Let's continue watching. No one will bother us anymore."

After the movie ended, Shen Li and Jiang Huaichuan walked out of the cinema side by side. Someone took a picture of their backs and posted it online.

A post quietly gained popularity last night.

#LifeRefreshingNovel

Floor 1: Who knows! I was watching a movie today, and there was this boy who was making a huge fuss. His dad openly indulged him, spreading rumors about girls and bragging about his job. Unexpectedly, his boss was sitting right in front of him and fired him on the spot! Hahahaha!!

2nd floor: Holy crap! A secret code? SJ Cinema?

Original Poster: Yes!

3rd floor: I was there too! It was so awesome!! It cleared up my blocked milk ducts!! Hahahaha!

4th Floor: Is this crappy software supposed to precisely push content to everyone at that event? Seriously though, the moment that guy slammed the popcorn down on that idiot's head was incredibly cool! I almost barked like a dog, hahaha!

5th floor: What? Put an ear in.

OP: I won't mention the specific group name, it's too famous, mentioning it would be like running naked.

6th Floor: Ouch! Your IP address... it's not... cough cough

OP: Stop! Don't talk nonsense! Please protect my only child!

...

246th floor: So where are the photos?! You guys just spread rumors about such a handsome boss?! (Frustrated)

...

Post #346: Replying to post #246, actually I secretly took a picture of her back, but... [Image]

347th floor: emmm

348th floor: emmm

349th floor: emmm

350th floor: The boss is gay! He's gay!

...

367th floor: Huh? Didn't we say we were looking at photos? Why are you saying the boss is gay? Isn't going to the movies with your buddies a normal thing?

368th floor: (sighing) Look, his hands are all stuck together... Would you and your brother be like this too?

369th floor: Holy crap!

370th floor: Anyway, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei wouldn't do that...

——

In December, City A welcomed its first snow. The white snow piled up in the bushes and fell on the branches of the cypress trees on both sides of the road.

As the last month of the year approaches, the entire group is kept busy with year-end settlements, next year's budget, project progress summaries, human resource inventory, performance evaluations, and so on.

The new secretary is a girl named Zhou Ya, who was personally selected by the HR manager from S University, a place teeming with geniuses.

"I guarantee this one will be absolutely reliable."

The HR manager went to the general secretary's office and, under the general secretary's wary and suspicious gaze, patted his chest and gave a guarantee.

Zhou Ya had just started her job on Monday morning. At that time, Shen Li was away on a business trip with Jiang Huaichuan and was not in the company. So, from the time she started her job until today, Zhou Ya had not seen Shen Li, which led to a big misunderstanding.

Another person who joined the company at the same time as Zhou Ya was named Ji Tong. He was a male and worked as an administrative assistant in the administration department. Because the human resources department and the administration department were not in the same place, Zhou Ya only knew him by name and had not seen him in person for three days. She only knew that Ji Tong was about the same age as her, had fair skin, and was easy to get along with.

Early Thursday morning, her mentor gave her a task: to retrieve an urgent document from the administration department. The administration department was short-staffed, and it would take forever for the document to arrive, so she had to go herself.

After receiving the assignment, Zhou Ya hurried to the administration department in her low heels, afraid of delaying her work.

Because a comprehensive summary of the work of each department was needed this month, Shen Li stood in the administration department's office early in the morning.

"Shinzuke, you're here so early?"

The manager had just stepped in with the coffee when she met Shen Li's gentle and calm eyes. She awkwardly handed Shen Li another cup of coffee.

"Thank you, but I won't drink." Shen Li refused. "I haven't received the year-end summary and planning that you mentioned on Friday."

Shen Li swallowed the words "Your department is the only one in the whole company that hasn't given it yet," feeling that it was similar to "Your class is the noisiest in the whole grade."

Shen Li sighed inwardly, "Too naive."

"Okay, okay," the manager said quickly. "It's on my computer. Wait ten minutes, I'll print it out right away."

Shen Li nodded in satisfaction and sat down on a lounge chair next to the main office.

The benches were in the corner, with several potted plants placed in the middle, partially obscuring the view.

Shen Li propped her chin up as she looked at the documents on her phone, occasionally frowning.

Zhou Ya came down at this time.

"Hello, I'm Zhou Ya, the new secretary in the secretarial office. Is Sister Su Lin here? I'm here to get the list."

"She went to the restroom, wait a moment."

Zhou Ya: "Okay, thank you."

Zhou Ya was too embarrassed to look around in other departments' offices, so she only dared to stare blankly at the green plants in front of her. Suddenly, a piece of black fabric appeared in her line of sight. Zhou Ya followed the fabric upwards and saw a slender, clean hand casually resting on a thigh.

Looking further up—

"Fair-skinned and clean-cut", "about the same age", "easy to get along with", "administration department"...

When she realized who it was, Zhou Ya's eyes lit up. It turned out that this was her colleague who had joined the company on the same day, month, and year, and who was not related to her by blood.

Zhou Ya glanced at it several times and felt that the person who delivered the message had overlooked a key point, which was—

"handsome!"

Zhou Ya sat down on the other side of the sofa, two seats away. When the boy looked up, she smiled and introduced herself: "Hello, I'm Zhou Ya. I joined the company on the same day as you. I'm in the secretary's office now."