Liang Meng was a little tired. She leaned against the car door and dozed off for a bit.

Having been up all night tossing and turning, Lin Qing was no longer sleepy at all. She propped one elbow on the car door and turned over and over in her mind what Liang Meng had just said.

Was Liang Meng really pushing herself this hard purely out of a genuine desire to build a great company?

What a load of nonsense about “flow states.” If Lin Qing believed that kind of inspirational drivel, then all the suffering she’d endured over the past ten-plus years might as well have been flushed straight down the drain.

You can’t take everything a boss says at face value.

Not that Liang Meng was deliberately brushing her off — bosses are human too, and sometimes they don’t even know what they themselves want.

Whatever she was after, the fact that a pampered heiress like Liang Meng was pushing herself this hard meant she must be hoping to be seen and acknowledged by someone.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, someone like Liang Meng — who wanted for nothing materially — must be lacking in validation.

People only seek validation from those they perceive as being at a higher level than themselves.

So that person must have abilities and assets that surpass Liang Meng’s own.

Could it be… President Liang Xing, the great elder sister?

“We’re here.”

Lin Qing opened the car door and shook Liang Meng awake, nudging her to get out.

Liang Meng had an absurd amount of luggage. One enormous suitcase — a vintage-style dusk-tile trunk — had wedged itself firmly in the boot.

Lin Qing yanked at it twice with all her might, but couldn’t get it out no matter what she tried.

The taxi driver, having already pocketed his fare, had gone completely inert — like the rickshaw passenger in Camel Xiangzi — seemingly dead inside the car, leaving his customers to fight for their lives with the boot!

Left with no other option, Lin Qing had to yell at Liang Meng, who was standing to one side with both hands tucked in her pockets: “Could you at least lend a hand?!”

“Me?”

Liang Meng kept both hands in her pockets, as though Lin Qing were speaking in a foreign language.

“If not you, then what — that electrical pole over there?!” Lin Qing was furious.

Only then did Liang Meng snap to attention, and she helped Lin Qing yank and drag her own suitcase out of the boot.

The taxi sped off without a second glance, and Lin Qing gave the driver a scathing one-star review without the slightest hesitation!

Seeing this, Liang Meng even tried to talk her out of it: “Oh, let it go. Night-shift drivers have it rough too. Why bother.”

Lin Qing immediately turned on the little princess: “Rich people and their big hearts, honestly. It’s easy to be sympathetic when you’ve got money. You felt sorry for him — so I guess nearly wrenching my arm off trying to pull out your suitcase is just what I deserve? You can sympathize with him, but you can’t spare a drop of sympathy for me?”

“Lin Qing, why are you suddenly so fierce?”

Liang Meng, knowing she was in the wrong — and about to become a guest in someone else’s home on top of that — wilted a little.

Lin Qing let out a sigh. This pampered princess truly had no idea what it felt like to be a burnt-out working person!

This every-single-day grind!

Liang Meng was also a little baffled, feeling as though this whole running-away-from-home adventure had somehow transported her to a different world altogether.

Right. Whenever she’d run away from home before, it had always just been for show.

No matter where she went, Jiang Han would always show up at the first possible moment in his Maybach — coaxing, pleading, and cajoling until she agreed to go back.

Carry her own luggage? Unthinkable.

During her four years studying in England, Liang Meng had simply assumed, as a matter of course, that whatever fell off the baggage carousel would land directly in Jiang Han’s hands.

That was probably how Jiang Han had built up his biceps and triceps.

Thinking of Jiang Han, Liang Meng felt a fresh wave of sadness well up inside her.

Let the past be the past.

Liang Meng pushed her own suitcase toward the elevator. Then, something clicked, and she turned to Lin Qing: “Wait a moment — you’re my assistant! Annual salary of a million! Why am I pushing my own suitcase?”

Lin Qing nearly rolled her eyes out of her head: “Excuse me! First, I need both hands free to tap the elevator card. Second, trying to wrestle that wretched suitcase out of the boot just now — my hands are still cramping!”

“A mighty dragon humbled by local snakes.”

Inside the elevator, Liang Meng slipped on her sunglasses and muttered the idiom moodily.

Once inside the apartment, Liang Meng asked, “Where do I sleep?”

Lin Qing stood with her hands on her hips, equally stumped.

Lin Qing’s mother had received a call from the estate agent and had bought a train ticket overnight to go back to her hometown to handle a property transfer.

Now, in Lu Zhou’s one-bedroom apartment, only Liang Meng and Lin Qing remained.

When Lin Qing’s mother was here, she had volunteered to sleep on the sofa so her daughter could get a proper night’s rest before work.

Now that Liang Meng was here, she could hardly make her sleep on the sofa, could she?

After all, she was the boss.

But the thought of putting Liang Meng in the master bedroom meant Liang Meng’s body would come into intimate contact with Lu Zhou’s sheets.

Energy is in the breath, and breath is a magnetic field — Lin Qing was a hundred percent against it.

Lin Qing never forced herself to do anything she truly didn’t want to do, so she pointed at the living room: “You sleep on the sofa!”

“Lin Qing!”

Liang Meng was having none of it!

In her entire life — except for that one time with Jiang Han — she had never once thought of a sofa as an acceptable sleeping arrangement!

She was a modern-day Princess and the Pea: any mattress priced below a hundred thousand made her feel like she was lying on rocks.

“Also, the rent. Pay it upfront.”

Lin Qing held out her payment QR code without ceremony.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Liang Meng ripped off her sunglasses.

The imperious, domineering look on her face was a complete reversal from the pitiful expression she’d worn moments before.

“I am your boss!”

“Even siblings settle up when money’s involved.” Lin Qing tossed her head haughtily, the mental abacus clicking furiously behind her eyes.

“Fine! Name your price!”

“Hanting Express charges three hundred a night. I’ll only charge you five hundred!”

“On what grounds? Hanting at least has a proper bed!”

“Then go to Hanting!”

“Lin Qing! You little female bandit!”

The two were bickering away, thoroughly entertaining themselves, when suddenly Liang Meng fell silent, her expression clouding over again.

Lin Qing moved over with concern.

Liang Meng said: “This is bad. My card’s been frozen.”

“What?!”

Lin Qing grabbed Liang Meng’s phone out of her hands, refusing to believe it.

You’d really go this far over five hundred yuan, President Liang?

But it was true.

Half an hour earlier.

Tan Shan.

Liang Xing had offered Jiang Han a suggestion: “If you’re truly worried about Xiao Meng being out there on her own and want her to come home, just freeze her cards.”

A penny stops a hero in his tracks.

Jiang Han genuinely couldn’t stand not being able to see Liang Meng, so he had ultimately accepted this underhanded tactic.

“Is this ‘perverted creep’ even human?!”

Lin Qing was furious on Liang Meng’s behalf!

“Who are you calling a ‘perverted creep’?”

Liang Meng knew perfectly well Lin Qing meant Jiang Han.

But even if Jiang Han had frozen her card, she wasn’t about to let Lin Qing talk about him that way.

“Excuse me — brother-in-law! He’s your brother-in-law! Harassing his little sister-in-law!” Lin Qing pointed at Liang Meng’s phone, trying to pour some sense into her head. “You should be demanding emotional damages from him! And he dares freeze your card?”

Liang Meng was mortified, but Lin Qing wasn’t wrong — when you’re living under someone else’s roof, you pay your way.

Whether Lin Qing was joking or not, Liang Meng knew she wouldn’t sleep easy without paying.

Liang Meng sent a voice message to Liang Xing.

But Liang Xing’s response was equally firm: No money! Not unless you come home!

Two iron doors slammed in her face back-to-back — Liang Meng’s entire worldview crumbled on the spot.

She looked at Lin Qing.

Lin Qing clicked her tongue, sarcasm cranked up to full power: “And who was it who told me her sister would never covet her assets and would always send money whenever she asked?”

“This isn’t about the money!”

Liang Meng argued back!

Her sister was not a money-grubbing person.

“It is absolutely about the money!”

Lin Qing cut right through her.

People profess to love money, but what they truly love isn’t a thick stack of cash — it’s the purchasing power, the control, and the sense of security that wealth provides.

“So what do we do now?” Liang Meng held up her phone helplessly, showing Lin Qing again. “What’s the next move?”

Liang Meng had no desire to cave and go home.

Lin Qing was truly at a loss for what to do with this princess!

With no better option, she took Liang Meng’s phone and walked her through how to apply for credit through various lending platforms.

“Pay attention. Longquan was never really yours in the past, isn’t yours right now, and may not be yours in the future either!”

Lin Qing advised Liang Meng as she tapped away.

On this point, the two of them were grasshoppers tied to the same string.

She had no intention of driving a wedge between Liang Meng and her sister, but her boss was Liang Meng, not Liang Xing.

Only if her own boss climbed higher and held greater power would she herself have a brighter path forward.

Everyone has their own self-interest. From the very beginning, her wholehearted support of Liang Meng had never been unconditional.

Recently, Lin Qing had found online that for her mother’s illness, there was a drug available abroad that could slow the spread of the cancer cells — one hundred and forty thousand yuan per month, and it had to be taken continuously without interruption.

An annual salary of one million four hundred thousand was only the beginning.

Lin Qing needed to fly higher, so that her mother could live longer.

Who in their right mind would actually want to be friends with their boss — but she had no other choice.

And that “perverted creep” Jiang Han — he absolutely must not come tangling around Liang Meng again, or he’d ruin Lin Qing’s path to advancement.

She didn’t actually care about the five hundred yuan in rent either.

It was simply the “foot-in-the-door” effect at work: if she kept helping Liang Meng unconditionally, Liang Meng would only expect more and more from her, and would start taking all of Lin Qing’s effort and sacrifice as flattery — as something she was simply owed.

Lin Qing never stopped thinking about how to manage upward.

“There — all set.” Lin Qing handed the phone back to Liang Meng. “You can transfer the money to me now.”

Liang Meng transferred the money, got settled, and lay down to sleep.

The sofa was cold and hard, the space cramped and narrow.

Liang Meng — pampered and coddled and utterly accustomed to luxury — tossed and turned, unable to sleep at all.

What on earth had her life come to!

The thought of sleeping in her subordinate’s home, banished to the sofa on top of it, sent a fresh wave of sulky indignation rising in Liang Meng’s chest.

This Lin Qing!

Really didn’t know how to treat a guest!

Didn’t even have the basic manners to yield the master bedroom to a visitor!

So her princess’s temper flared right back up, and she went bang bang bang on Lin Qing’s bedroom door.

“What is it?” Lin Qing appeared in her pajamas, half-asleep, holding up the door frame.

“Get up. You’ve got work to do.”

Lin Qing was the landlady and had every right to decide where Liang Meng slept.

But Liang Meng was the boss, and she had every right to decide whether Lin Qing got to sleep at all!

“Are you out of your mind? Is that any way to treat the person who saved your life?”

Lin Qing’s head was brimming with unspoken profanities. She rubbed her eyes.

Liang Meng shot back: “Didn’t you say your only financial backer is your ‘sugar daddy’? Well, daddy’s calling you to get up and work!”

Touché.

Lin Qing gave Liang Meng a fierce thumbs-up.

A capitalist is a capitalist — the instinct to exploit is encoded right into the bone.

So the two of them simply gave up on sleep altogether and spent the rest of the night in the living room, building models and calculating the profit margins of both distributors and livestreaming.

A bruised heart and a sleepless night — were those petty little things really going to get in the way of hitting their KPIs?

Don’t make her laugh.

But no matter which model they ran the numbers through, at the current stage, the distributors who had been entrenched in Longquan for years consistently generated slightly more profit.

Livestreaming, if done with top-tier influencers, would require enormous upfront investment.

Liang Xing was fundamentally opposed to Liang Meng pursuing livestreaming — she felt Longquan was perfectly fine as it was, operating steadily and stably.

There was no way she would approve funding for it.

Given the current situation between them, it was even less possible now.

“President Liang’s concerns aren’t entirely wrong,” Lin Qing said objectively. “Truthfully, Longquan is already entering the livestreaming game far too late. If they pour a massive amount of capital into it now — essentially siphoning profit from the rest of the group to subsidize the streaming operation — the most likely outcome is that Longquan ends up worse off than before, and takes a serious blow to its core business. On top of that, livestreaming at this point means directly cannibalizing the distributors’ income. Longquan’s old guard would tear you apart alive, and honestly, they’d be justified.”

Liang Meng nodded in agreement.

Without money, you can’t take a single step forward.

That was as true for Liang Meng personally as it was for Longquan.

But Liang Meng was determined to push into livestreaming regardless — it was the direction of the times, and however great the obstacles, she had to face them head-on.

“If the group can’t fund the livestreaming operation, what about the distributors themselves?” Liang Meng said, after a moment of quiet thought.

Lin Qing almost laughed out of sheer exasperation: President Liang! What on earth are you daydreaming about?! The distributors are practically praying for livestreaming to die — and you’re expecting them to fund it?

“The Boxed Pigs Game.”

Four words slipped from the corner of Liang Meng’s mouth.

Lin Qing didn’t catch it: “Sorry?”

Liang Meng fell silent again.

But Lin Qing had already understood: Yes! There’s also the “Boxed Pigs Game”!