Chapter 37
After taking cold medicine, Ren Ruiyun slept soundly for a long time.
When I woke up, a little sunlight was seeping through the gap in the curtains. I reached for my phone, but found nothing under the covers or on the pillow.
She squinted her sleepy eyes and found Shen Hanyang in the dim light; the faint light from the computer screen illuminated his deep features.
"What time is it?" she asked.
He glanced at the numbers in the bottom right corner: "Almost eleven o'clock."
Ren Ruiyun stretched and lay on her side in a seductive position: "I feel much better, do you want to go for a walk?"
There was no response from Shen Hanyang.
She got out of bed barefoot, walked to the desk, hugged his neck from behind, and left a kiss on his cheek.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
Shen Hanyang stared intently at the screen: "Doesn't the hotel offer brunch? Or you can just have lunch."
"Shall I have the waiter bring it over, and we can eat together?"
"You go first."
Ren Ruiyun ordered food delivery and went to take a shower. The curtains were still drawn, and Ren Ruiyun didn't close the bathroom door, so the sound of running water filled the room.
Shen Hanyang stared at the computer screen. Assistant Hao was always efficient; in less than three days, Yan Qing's background check information had been submitted completely.
A six-page PDF.
He read it carefully, not missing a single word.
The homepage is a full-page table that records Yan Qing's grades and awards from her undergraduate to graduate studies.
The second page was another table, listing her part-time job information. The sheer volume and complexity of the entries astonished even Shen Hanyang: she had handed out flyers, worked as a librarian, a restaurant waitress… a wide variety of jobs. Most surprisingly, she had even worked at a building materials market.
Shen Hanyang couldn't understand what someone who was so weak could do in the building materials market, and could only silently comment in his heart: a genius.
Starting on page three, the list transforms into text. The first three dense paragraphs recount Yan Qing's turbulent childhood: her biological father died early, and her mother, Feng Fanying, raised her alone. Feng Fanying was uneducated and worked odd jobs; Yan Qing wandered with her through many places until she was five. When she was eight, Feng Fanying committed suicide, and guardianship was transferred to her nominal uncle, a man named Feng Xin. Feng Xin was the adopted son of Yan Qing's maternal grandparents, and had no blood relation to her. He was an idle, swindling, and petty thief, a typical conman, and had been imprisoned twice.
Upon seeing this, Shen Hanyang recalled overhearing Yan Qing arguing with this person on the phone. From the fragmented conversation he had gleaned, he deduced that Feng Xin had been demanding money from her. This matched the character description in the materials.
Shen Hanyang continued reading.
Yan Qing had excellent grades in school and was sponsored by a couple from high school until he graduated and was admitted to the mathematics department of L University. During the summer vacation of his senior year of high school, the mining company run by his sponsors went bankrupt, and the two sponsors died one after the other within a month.
The document includes detailed information about the donor.
Shen Hanyang stared at the names of the sponsoring couple for a long time before finally closing the document.
The sound of water in the bathroom stopped. Ren Ruiyun, wearing a hair cap and a bikini, came out.
Shen Hanyang had already packed up his computer, his suit jacket draped over his forearm.
Ren Ruiyun, seeing his posture, asked, "Are you leaving?"
Shen Hanyang looked down at his phone to reply to messages, and it took him a while to finally answer her: "Okay, going to the company."
Ren Ruiyun sized him up. He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday: a white shirt and black trousers, without any sign of changing. He had spent another night with her, keeping to himself.
She took off her hair cap, and her wet hair fell down.
"I'd also like you to help me blow-dry my hair."
Blow-drying her hair was something he used to be most happy to do for her. Ren Ruiyun cherished her seaweed-like curly hair, and every time after a shower, she would have him carefully blow-dry it for her. She loved admiring his earnest and patient expression in the mirror. She would snuggle into his arms, her long hair brushing against his wet chest. Whenever he said, "Be good," she would seize the opportunity to turn around and kiss him lightly, like a dragonfly skimming the water, then gaze at him tenderly for a few seconds. When he was itching to take things further, she would deliberately turn away, continuing to face away from him: "Blow-dry carefully!" leaving him to endure the burning heat of her body alone.
More than six years have passed, and the suggestion of this once fun interaction does not seem to elicit a special reaction from Shen Hanyang.
He looked up from his busy phone messages and said casually, "I have something to do at the company."
"Wait a minute." Ren Ruiyun called out to him as he was walking out, ran over barefoot, and leaped lightly over.
Shen Hanyang didn't react in time and instinctively caught her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. Water droplets dripped from her hair, rolling down her porcelain-like neck and hanging onto her full, snow-white breasts.
Her voice was both seductive and soft as she spoke: "You haven't kissed me yet."
Another ritual she used to keep. When they were together, she required him to perform the kiss goodbye ritual every time he left the house. Sometimes, when they were very affectionate, the kiss goodbye was just the kiss itself, and what happened afterward.
Ren Ruiyun gazed at Shen Hanyang, her watery eyes filled with boundless affection.
She watched as Shen Hanyang raised his head and slowly approached, feeling quite satisfied. What she had trained, like herself, had left an indelible mark on him.
However, Shen Hanyang's eyes suddenly turned cold. He peeled her off his body, like peeling off a parasitic barnacle.
Shen Hanyang disappeared outside the door, and Ren Ruiyun stood there thoughtfully, water droplets from her hair falling onto the carpet and onto her bare feet.
Shen Hanyang was in a hurry to get back to the company. He had spent a sleepless night dealing with work. He only remembered it was Yan Qing's first day at Huanyu after receiving a text message from Secretary Zhao early in the morning. But at that time, he was suffering from severe stomach pain, so he had to endure the pain and send a message to Secretary Zhao asking her to look after her. He leaned back on the sofa for a long time before finally managing to catch his breath. Then Assistant Hao sent him the background check documents, which he had been reading for a while now.
Unbeknownst to him, Yan Qing had indeed had a very fulfilling morning.
First, the administrative assistant, Ms. Zhao, personally escorted her to office 1903 on the 19th floor. The last time she played the role of Shen Hanyang's girlfriend, she had encountered Secretary Zhao on the 30th floor. At first, Yan Qing was a little guilty, fearing that Secretary Zhao was a witness to that absurd love triangle drama.
After arranging a workstation for Yan Qing, Secretary Zhao said to the people in the office, "Please take good care of her."
A group of obedient people immediately surrounded Yan Qing, showering her with attention. Their method was remarkably consistent: feeding her. Before long, Yan Qing's desk was piled high with their generous gifts of small bread rolls, biscuits, Want Want milk, Yakult, potato chips, beef jerky…
Before Yan Qing could even feel touched, Secretary Gao arrived.
Yan Qing quickly stood up to greet him.
Secretary Gao wasn't very tall; even in six-centimeter heels, she was barely the same height as Yan Qing. Yet, she always held her chin high, trying her best to look down on Yan Qing.
"Huanyu implements 5S standardized management, with strict requirements for the cleanliness of workstations. Look around, whose desk is as messy as yours?"
Secretary Gao immediately started pointing out mistakes, which startled Yan Qing. She subconsciously glanced at the other people's workstations; well, not many were tidy. However, Secretary Gao seemed to only have eyes for her. After Secretary Gao reprimanded her, the others quickly applied what they had learned to their own work, checking their own work and burying themselves in tidying up, creating a rustling sound in the office.
Fortunately, Secretary Gao only appeared briefly and then left. Yan Qing tidied her workstation and went to get some water. She heard her name called at the entrance to the break room.
"Judging from Sister Gao's attitude, Yan Qing doesn't seem to be someone with connections."
"So why did Secretary Zhao specifically instruct us to take extra care of him?"
"Who knows, maybe they're a relative of Secretary Zhao."
"She's good-looking, but her attire is quite simple."
"That's the kind of person who's the most cunning, pretending to be weak while actually being strong."
If there's anything in the world that Yan Qing admires to the point of complete awe, it must be human imagination and language ability. The human brain and the human mouth are two incredibly powerful processing machines; anything, after being processed by the mind, chewed over by the tongue, and then uttered, often becomes unrecognizable, novel, and exciting.
Yan Qing didn't listen anymore and silently walked away with her water glass.
With just one sentence from Secretary Gao, the office sanitation was improved with minimal effort, and Yan Qing's situation was completely reversed, with all sorts of strange and unusual tasks soon coming her way.
Some people asked to borrow her computer to watch traffic regulations videos to reduce their points deductions, others asked her to help proofread typos on advertising pages, and still others asked her to help their children with their homework after hearing that she was a graduate student in the mathematics department of L University—in short, none of them were related to work.
A young male employee said in frustration, "My coffee delivery has arrived, but I can't leave right now." He glanced at Yan Qing and asked, "Excuse me, are you available right now?"
Yan Qing understood immediately: "I'll go get it for you."
As soon as this head opened, the other mouths, like frogs meeting a timely rain, all opened their mouths and croaked, their calls rising and falling in a chorus:
"Could you pick up my package while you're at it?"
"I also have a package! By the way, mine is fragile, so please be careful when you handle it!"
In front of the elevator in the lobby on the first floor, Yan Qing had two cups of coffee slung over her arm and a stack of delivery boxes in her arms, the top one towering above her head. She could barely see the path beneath her feet by tilting her head to the side.
Ding-dong, the elevator is coming up. She cautiously and laboriously stepped into the car, and in her limited field of vision, she saw a pair of straight, long legs wearing dark trousers.
Unable to free her hands, she awkwardly asked for help: "Excuse me, could you please press 19 for me?"
The elevator doors closed slowly, and the car was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The person who had been in the car with her remained silent. Yan Qing's view was blocked by the delivery box, so she could only guess that he had pressed the button for her.
The delivery boxes were stacked too high and were leaning slightly. Yan Qing struggled to adjust their position, but the more she adjusted, the worse it got. It looked like the boxes were about to fall over, and Yan Qing was terrified, afraid that the fragile items would be damaged.
At that moment, the weight on her arm suddenly lightened, and the three express boxes were removed, revealing Shen Hanyang's face in front of her.
Before Yan Qing could speak, Shen Hanyang glanced at the delivery slips sticking out at the top and frowned: "Are they all from Zhang Pengbo?"
"Oh no, there are other teachers too," Yan Qing explained.
Shen Hanyang gave a cold snort.
Upon reaching the nineteenth floor, Shen Hanyang stepped off the elevator before Yan Qing. Yan Qing quickly followed.
Shen Hanyang strode into office 1903 and said coldly, "Whose stuff is this? Come and claim it."
The lively conversation in the office suddenly froze, as if filled with ice.
Zhang Pengbo reacted the fastest: "Mine is mine. I was busy revising the PPT and didn't have time to get away..." The other colleagues also seemed to wake up from a dream and rushed over to take over.
Yan Qing: "Professor Sun, here's your coffee."
Sun Yuping quickly took it: "Thank you."
After Shen Hanyang left, everyone's eyes were fixed on Yan Qing.
Unable to contain his curiosity, the ever-gossipy Guo asked, "What's your relationship with President Shen...?"
Yan Qing looked bewildered: "What kind of relationship? We bumped into each other in the elevator. I had too many packages to carry, so I asked him for help. You said he's... some kind of manager?"
Everyone suddenly realized what she meant and laughed at her recklessness.
Yan Qing chuckled, secretly relieved. Playing dumb, trying to avoid attention, and remaining invisible—this was a self-protective strategy she had long ago learned.
After work in the afternoon, Zhang Pengfei called everyone to go for barbecue. When he called Yan Qing, Yan Qing said, "I'm not going."
Sun Yuping said, "Let's go, the brothers will take you to have some fun."
“I still have to help Brother Zhou’s kid with his math homework.” Yan Qing’s excuse was perfect, and Zhou Ke immediately agreed: “Yes, yes, don’t bother her. Xiao Yan, this is my son’s summer homework, and this is a mock test for the start of the school year. You should focus on the questions he got wrong and analyze why he got them wrong. It would be best if you could also note down the correct solution. I think the thought process is the foundation of everything; if the thought process is wrong, it’s like going in the wrong direction. Sigh, my wife and I are both busy, we really don’t have time…”
As everyone in the office gradually left, Sun Yuping poked his head in from outside the door and urged, "Old Zhou, are you coming or not? If you dawdle any longer, I'm not taking you!"
"Come on!" Zhou Ke hurriedly shut down his computer, packed his bag, and rushed out. Before leaving, he turned back to remind her, "Xiao Yan, write it carefully, the kind my son can understand at a glance! Sun Yuping, wait for me!"
Shen Hanyang habitually works overtime. After finishing his work,
The streetlights outside the window were already on. Ren Ruiyun sent him several messages, but he didn't open them.
The elevator, which had been busy all day, arrived smoothly at the thirtieth floor. Stepping into the car, he first pressed B1. Before the doors closed, almost inexplicably, he pressed 19 as well.
The door to office 1903 was open, the ceiling lights were all off, and only the desk lamp on Yan Qing's desk was lit, her profile bathed in a soft halo of light.
She was engrossed in writing on the exam paper spread out in front of her, completely oblivious to the footsteps.
Looking at the page full of red crosses, Shen Hanyang shook his head and said, "With this kind of aptitude, parents shouldn't push their children too hard. They should switch to a more suitable path as soon as possible."
Yan Qing looked up in surprise and met Shen Hanyang's gaze, which was filled with regret and disdain.
“You can’t tell much from elementary school math.” Yan Qing tried to say a few words of justice for the child she had never met. “I had a classmate who was outstanding in math in elementary school. Our teacher described him as ‘the only seedling to grow in ten acres of land.’ No one could have imagined that this hope of the whole village would quickly fade into obscurity after entering junior high school.”
Shen Hanyang looked at her and smiled.
"What's so funny?" she didn't understand.
“I laugh at you for being silly, for taking things too seriously.” His expression turned serious. “You’re here to work, not to do odd jobs. Don’t take on tasks that aren’t your responsibility; once you do, they’re hard to get rid of.” He picked up the “Third Grade (Lower Semester) Math Workbook” next to the test paper. Each page had a sticky note with neat, small characters—Yan Qing’s annotations.
“Zhou Mingfei,” Shen Hanyang read out the name written in pen on the cover, “Zhou Ke’s child?”
Yan Qing didn't speak.
Shen Hanyang scoffed, "You're bad at math and your handwriting is terrible. Zhou Ke has the nerve to say that." He glanced at Yan Qing, "You're new here, they don't know you, and they'll keep testing your limits. If they ask you to grade homework this time, they'll dare to ask you to tutor next time. You have to set clear rules for them from the beginning."
"Understood," Yan Qing said, her solemn nod conveying obedience and humility.
The conversation seemed to have ended there, but Shen Hanyang insisted on adding, "Going back to school? I'll take you."
Yan Qing said, "I have an appointment."
Shen Hanyang couldn't help but glance at the FANTLAND canvas bag that accompanied her, and then realized that her suggestion was inappropriate.
"Don't stay out too late."
After saying this, Shen Hanyang left.
As he reached the door, he turned back and glanced inside. He felt as if he saw the moon, but he couldn't tell if it was the solitary lamp or the bright, radiant face that resembled the moon.
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