He looked at Yuan Xu's surprised expression and smiled gently, "I saw a photo of her in a business magazine last week, and she looks a lot like you."
Yuan Xu stopped in her tracks. Yu Jiuyuan flipped through the gene sequence map and asked seemingly casually, "Is your brother's company in talks with the Su family about a collaboration?"
“It seems so…” Yuan Xu scratched his head. “Last time I went home, my parents mentioned that the Su family wanted to invest in our gene-editing project.” He suddenly realized something. “Is the Su family after your family? I can ask my brother…”
“No need.” Yu Jiuyuan closed the blueprints, her smile light. “Let the adults worry about business matters.” She took the glass jar from Yuan Xu. “But you, if the bioluminescent gene of fireflies can be expressed stably, perhaps you can apply for a patent. If you need help, feel free to contact me.”
Yuan Xu's eyes lit up, and she nodded vigorously before turning to leave. When only the two of them remained in the office, Rong Shenghan suddenly chuckled, "President, this move was brilliant; even Yuan Xu has become your source of information."
"I was just helping a friend solve a problem." Yu Jiuyuan placed the glass jar on the windowsill, the green light of the fireflies reflected in her pupils, flickering on and off.
"Unlike the vice president, who even knew the Yuan family's background perfectly. Speaking of which, why did you transfer to Saint Sakura?"
Rong Shenghan walked up behind her, so close that he could smell the gardenia fragrance in her hair.
"What if I said it was for the president?" His voice was low and seductively magnetic. "Wouldn't that seem cliché?"
Yu Jiuyuan turned around and bumped right into his unfathomable eyes.
Instead of backing away, she tilted her head slightly, her nose almost touching his shirt button: "It's quite interesting to hear clichés coming from the vice president's mouth."
She raised her hand to straighten his tie, her fingertips deliberately lingering on his Adam's apple for half a second. "But more than that, I'm curious to know what kind of trap the Su family is planning for me at the banquet."
Rong Shenghan's Adam's apple bobbed slightly. He grasped her wrist, his grip light but firm, yet conveying an air of unyielding resolve: "There's a charity auction at the banquet, and the Su family has donated a letter of intent for the development rights of a plot of land in the east of the city."
His thumb rubbed against her pulse. "They want you to take a picture in public to confirm the Yu family's determination."
Looking at his face so close to hers, Yu Jiuyuan suddenly laughed: "Then I'll make Xie Zhecheng raise his paddle. What do you think the Su family will think if someone who has absolutely no interest in business wins the development rights?"
When Rong Shenghan released his hand, the warmth of her wrist seemed to linger on his fingertips. He watched as Yu Jiuyuan put the firefly jar into her handbag.
Suddenly remembering something, he said, "Oh right, there was a note tucked inside Yuan Xu's gene sequence diagram." He pulled a folded note out of his pocket. "It fell on the ground."
The note was written in Yuan Xu's neat handwriting: "The bioluminescent gene of fireflies and the color-changing gene of begonias can be fused. I want to do this experiment with you." A small smiley face was drawn at the end.
[Yuan Xu: Hidden Affection Trigger - Experiment Invitation (+2)]
Just as Yu Jiuyuan slipped the note into her notebook, the system notification sounded. She looked up at the window; dusk had already fallen over the walls of Saint Sakura Academy. The banquet invitation lay in her handbag, the gold lettering gleaming coldly in the setting sun.
Xie Zhecheng's sense of rules, Rong Shenghan's probing desires, Yuan Xu's purity... they are like chess pieces on a chessboard, each with its own moves. And all she has to do is, under the spotlight of the banquet, gently pluck the most crucial piece among them.
As for the "surprise" prepared by the Su family... Yu Jiuyuan stroked Xie Zhecheng's signature on the notebook, a meaningful smile playing on her lips. A perfectionist's first "exception" must be worthy of a sufficiently spectacular stage.
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