Chapter 117 Zhao Chen's USB Drive

The early morning sun had just climbed up the huge floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of Starlight Technology. Yu Ling sat behind a large mahogany desk, her fingers clacking on the keyboard. The densely packed numbers and charts on the screen made her dizzy.

But those rigorous logical lines could not suppress the place in his heart that had been pickled by Gu Qianqian's venom, and a burst of fine pain would emerge from time to time.

"Ants", "low-class embryos", "poor background"... those words, like poisoned needles, pierced the nerves.

She squeezed her eyes shut, straightened her back, and tried to suppress the gloom. It was no use. She couldn't see the dark cloud between her brows, but it was visible to others.

Knock knock knock.

There was a gentle knock on the office door.

"Come in." Yu Ling didn't look up, and her voice was deliberately tense and steady.

Assistant Xiao Yang poked half his head in, his eyes a little cautious: "Director Yu, Mr. Zhao is here."

The keyboard sounds suddenly stopped. Yu Ling looked up, her heart skipping a beat. What was he doing here? At this hour...could he have smelled something?

"Well, ask him to come in." She closed the notebook and her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the cool metal edge.

The door opened. Zhao Chen appeared at the doorway. He wasn't wearing his intimidating tailored suit, but a soft, light gray cashmere sweater and casual trousers. He exuded a homely, lazy air.

He was holding a cheap white paper bag with a huge logo of the coffee chain downstairs printed on it?

"Oh, did I disturb Director Yu from his busy schedule?" Zhao Chen put on his signature gentle fake smile, but his gaze behind his gold-rimmed glasses was like a searchlight. The moment Yu Ling looked up, he accurately scanned the fatigue and depression in her eyes that were not hidden well.

His heart tightened slightly, but his expression remained unchanged. He shook the paper bag in his hand and spoke in a relaxed tone, as if he was chatting in the vegetable market:

"I passed by downstairs and saw their new tiramisu. The line was super long! I thought Mr. Yu might be lacking sugar, so I bought some. Want to try it?"

As he spoke, he walked in naturally, leaned over the plush sofa with a familiar air of familiarity, and placed the torn paper bag on the coffee table. His posture was just like that of a slacking clerk offering afternoon tea to his immediate superior.

Yu Ling looked at his clumsy appearance as an "ordinary employee", and then at the cheap bag with a huge trademark printed on it. The heaviness in her heart was somewhat diluted by a sense of absurdity.

She stood up and walked over to sit down opposite him. She glanced at the paper bag and raised the corner of her mouth slightly:

"Mr. Zhao is thoughtful. But..." She deliberately dragged out her tone, "The tiramisu from that place downstairs... doesn't seem to have a very good reputation, does it?"

Zhao Chen, bending over to take something out of a paper bag, suddenly froze! The forced composure on his face instantly crumbled, visible embarrassment creeping across his cheeks, and even the tips of his ears quickly turned a light shade of red!

He frantically pulled out the small transparent plastic box containing "Tiramisu" and placed it on the coffee table with a "plop". His movements were as stiff as if he was placing a landmine.

"Ah? Is...is there? I see there are a lot of people here... ahem... maybe there is a surprise? Give it a try?" His eyes darted left and right, and he didn't dare to look into Yu Ling's eyes.

Yu Ling looked at his "there is something fishy here" acting, and then looked at the dark-colored thing in the plastic box, with collapsed cream and wet biscuits stuck together... Finally, she couldn't help but smile.

She didn't expose his impromptu "prop" he'd grabbed while walking downstairs, but reached for the small plastic fork that came with the box. "Alright," she said with a hint of mischief in her voice, "then let's try this 'surprise' that Mr. Zhao waited so long for."

I picked up a small piece with the tip of my fork and put it in my mouth. As expected, it was so sweet that it choked my throat, the coffee tasted so weak that it seemed diluted with water, the cream was so greasy that it made my mouth sticky, and the biscuit was so soft and boneless.

"Hmm..." Yu Ling deliberately prolonged the tone, savoring it slowly. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught with satisfaction the instant tenseness of Zhao Chen's body and the anxious look in his eyes.

"I didn't taste any surprise... but there was a bit of 'shock'." She put down her fork, picked up the silver thermos beside her, unscrewed the lid, and a waft of spicy ginger-scented brown sugar water overbearingly dispelled the cloying taste of the inferior dessert.

"Mr. Zhao, next time you buy dessert, I suggest you try a different brand. The one downstairs is a rip-off."

Zhao Chen's face fell in a rage, and he tore at his hair in frustration, turning his carefully styled hair into a mess in an instant.

"Ah?! Is it so unpalatable?! I... I saw on their poster that it looked pretty similar!" He refused to believe it and picked up another fork, scooped out a large piece and stuffed it into his mouth. The next second, his face wrinkled like a bitter melon. "Pah! Pah! Pah! Damn it! I got fooled! Swindlers! I'm never buying from you again!"

Seeing him so furious and utterly humiliated over a piece of shoddy cake, Yu Ling felt a sense of relief from the heaviness in her heart. She sipped the warm brown sugar water, the familiar warmth soothing her throat.

Zhao Chen's eyes were fixed on the thermos in her hand, and his eyes suddenly lit up, as if he had grabbed a life-saving straw!

He immediately pushed the box of "Scare" away, leaned forward, and put on a fake smile of "humbly seeking advice" on his face:

"Right, right, right! Mr. Yu, you're right! Things from outside just don't work! Your 'strategic materials' are the real deal!" He rubbed his hands together, his eyes almost glowing with eagerness.

"Um... didn't you say last time that the brown sugar was almost gone? How about... I cook for you myself tonight and make you some fresh sugar? I'll make sure it's full power! Plenty of ginger slices! Double the red dates! How's that?"

Yu Ling held the thermos cup and glanced at him with a half-smile:

"Chef Zhao, are you sure?" She paused deliberately, admiring the momentary stiffening of Zhao Chen's lips. "Are you sure you won't turn the kitchen into a Syrian battlefield again this time? Last time I made brown sugar water, you almost overturned the sugar jar. And the ginger slices were cut like a martial arts master practicing darts, so thick and crooked that they almost broke my teeth."

Zhao Chen's face flushed red! The previous "kitchen tragedy" was an indelible stain on his glorious resume!

He stiffened his neck and tried to save face: "That... that was purely an accident! My hand slipped! This time! I promise! Steady! Accurate! Ruthless! I won't waste a single piece of candy or ginger!" He raised three fingers, his expression as serious as if he was signing an international peace treaty.

Seeing him trying to hold himself together despite being clearly guilty, Yu Ling's last bit of gloom vanished completely, leaving only amusement and a hint of soft warmth. This man was trying every way to coax her.

"Alright, alright," she waved her hand, interrupting his "big talk." "Let's talk about the sugar water tonight. Mr. Zhao, you took time out of your busy schedule to make this special trip, it's not like you came just to give me this... um, 'surprise' cake, right?" She deliberately emphasized the word "surprise."

Zhao Chen seemed to have suddenly remembered the "important matter". He immediately sat up straight, cleared his throat, and his acting skills instantly came on line. He took out a small, unmarked silver-gray USB flash drive from the pocket of his cashmere sweater. He was too low-key.

He carefully pushed the USB drive onto the coffee table in front of Yu Ling, his face showing the confusion of a "tech idiot" and the sincerity of "sorry to bother you" at the right time: "Well, actually... there is a small matter that I would like to trouble Director Yu with."

He pointed at the USB drive, his tone was just the right amount of helplessness:

"A friend of a friend of mine runs a small tech outsourcing business overseas. He recently took on a small job that required him to create a data visualization to simply analyze trends. But their raw data... in Excel, it was a mess, like a ball of yarn that had been scratched by a cat."

He scratched his head in frustration. "I'm fine writing a couple of lines of code, but dealing with this messy spreadsheet, especially cleaning the data and drawing graphs... I'm completely clueless!"

He looked up at Yu Ling, his eyes filled with trust in her "innocent" nature and sincerity in his willingness to "go through fire and water for a friend":

"That makes me think of you, Director Yu! You're an expert in market analysis, and you can make beautiful charts quickly! People in the world call you the 'Excel Valkyrie'! Could you... could you please come and help me take a look? Just give it a try, as long as I can get a general idea! No rush! Just consider it... a small favor for a friend?" He tried to make his eyes look particularly innocent.

Yu Ling's gaze stayed on the small, heavy USB flash drive for two seconds, then she looked up at Zhao Chen's face that said "harmless" and "I'm just an ordinary programmer", and she instantly understood what was going on.

Friends of friends?

A small technology outsourcing company?

A “slightly messy” Excel spreadsheet?

This script was exactly like the one he had written when he "happened" to know a lawyer who specialized in plagiarism cases, and "happened" to have a friend who won the grand prize at a shopping mall!

The contents of this USB drive are definitely another hot potato or a tough project that will allow her to show her skills! This guy is constantly finding new ways to "give her experience packs"!

A warm feeling, mixed with a mixture of laughter and tears, washed over me. This man, who could have easily done something with a flick of his finger, had to go through so much trouble, pretending to be an "ordinary husband" who needed his wife's help with Excel, carefully protecting her little bit of self-esteem and sense of accomplishment.

"Oh? A friend of a friend?" Yu Ling slowly sipped her red sugar water, her eyes brimming with a knowing smile as she deliberately drew out her words. "Mr. Zhao's circle of friends is truly... quite hidden, and his business scope is quite extensive."

Zhao Chen's ears started to burn again when she looked at him. He quickly lowered his head and pretended to tidy up the tiramisu box he had despised, to hide his guilty conscience: "Ahem... just fooling around, these are just some petty fights, how can they compare to your strategic planning, Director Yu."

Yu Ling stopped teasing him and reached out to pick up the cold little USB drive, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the smooth metal surface.

"Alright," she said, clutching the USB drive in her hand. A sly glint flashed in her eyes as she changed the subject. "Since it's Mr. Zhao who asked, and since it's a favor for a 'friend of a friend,' I'll do you a favor."

Zhao Chen had just breathed a sigh of relief, but a smile had not yet appeared on his face.

"But—" Yu Ling raised a finger, her red lips curved into an almost rogue, sweet arc, "How is the remuneration calculated?"