Lin Qing kept glancing at her watch in the office, a stack of printed sheets in hand.

It was quite a while before Liang Meng finally emerged, with a dark-faced Daiwei following closely behind her.

No need to ask whose fault it was that the boss was running late.

But with the blind date already perilously close to being missed, Lin Qing had no time to worry about any of that — she grabbed her boss by the hand and made a beeline for the underground car park.

“President Liang, weren’t we agreed? For tonight’s blind date, not only should you not be late — you should arrive early! That way it shows the Wang family heir that we mean business, doesn’t it?”

As she pronounced the word “business,” Lin Qing gave a deliberate little wink of reminder.

Liang Meng settled into the passenger seat with a helpless expression: “It’s just that Daiwei showed up, and before I knew it we’d been talking until now.”

“What did you two end up discussing?” Lin Qing’s mouth outpaced her brain by one full step.

Liang Meng said nothing, just clicked her passenger-seat seatbelt into place.

Lin Qing realized she’d overstepped — her boss’s business was not hers to pry into — and quickly changed the subject, passing the A4 sheets to Liang Meng as she started the car.

“What’s this?”

Liang Meng flipped through the pages, eyes going wide as she stared at Lin Qing.

“‘A Showcase of Repulsion Tactics’?”

Liang Meng couldn’t quite grasp why Lin Qing was showing her this.

Lin Qing turned the steering wheel, considerably more at ease this time than the first.

“President Liang, isn’t our KPI for tonight to make Young Wang lose interest in you?” Lin Qing began explaining with enthusiasm. “So-called ‘repulsion’ is the opposite of ‘attraction.’ Attraction is about drawing someone in; repulsion is about making them lose all interest.”

“I’m still not quite following,” Liang Meng said, shaking her head with a blank look.

Lin Qing pressed on: “Think of it like throwing a pot of boiling water onto a flower — instantly wilted. Why does attraction work? Because it doesn’t care about outcomes — it’s relaxed! That kind of ease gives off an air of confidence. Repulsion, on the other hand, is all about effort — and not just any effort: maximum effort. Really going for it!”

“Making the other person feel like I’m trying too hard — and therefore start wondering whether the reason I’m working so frantically is because deep down I feel like I’m not good enough for him?”

Something was clicking for Liang Meng.

“Exactly!” Lin Qing nodded. “So I’ve been rushing you to leave early this whole time. Think about it — in Wang Zaiwu’s original expectations, you’re the CEO of Longquan. At minimum, you’d play it cool, run a little late, make him wait. Arriving on time would even be perfectly normal. But instead you do the complete opposite — not only are you not late, you’re five minutes early, all smiles, eagerly awaiting his arrival. How does that make him feel?”

“Like he’s being valued?” Liang Meng answered.

Lin Qing glanced sideways at her and smiled, shaking her head: “Disappointed. Utterly disappointed! Because his expectation didn’t land the way he anticipated.”

Liang Meng looked skeptical: “Lin Qing, aren’t you overcomplicating this? People don’t really operate with that many layers. Is Wang Zaiwu’s mind actually as intricate as you’re making it out to be?”

But Lin Qing was brimming with confidence: “Boss, as long as he’s a man — no, as long as he’s a human being — do exactly what the A4 sheet says tonight, and it will absolutely work!”

Not entirely convinced, Liang Meng fixed her eyes on the page and read through it word by word: “Item one: upon meeting the other party, make immediate eye contact, then spring nervously to your feet and bow three times in a row while saying hello three times. Item two: exude a powerful ‘mom energy’ — cast yourself in the role of his mother figure, serve him food and pour his water, and ask him once every five minutes whether he is ‘cold’…?”

At that point, Liang Meng couldn’t resist looking up and giving the paper a dramatic shake!

This was just too much!

“Item three: compare the prices of staple foods and vegetables at every available opportunity — stay far away from poetry and far-off places. Talk instead about the mundane grind of daily life, choose every topic that reeks of petty, penny-counting practicality, and radiate exhaustion with existence at every turn. Practical example: take a bite of steak, then ask the other party — this big a piece of meat, how much does it go for at the wet market near your place… per pound?!”

The further Liang Meng read, the more outrageous it got!

She turned the full force of her astonished eyes on Lin Qing: Is this really necessary?

“I just want to put Wang Zaiwu off,” Liang Meng said. “I don’t want to be taken for a lunatic.”

Lin Qing couldn’t care less: “Aren’t those the same thing?”

They’d been driving for half the journey, and Liang Meng had more or less resigned herself to her fate.

Fine. She’d follow Lin Qing’s plan. A dead horse deserved a living doctor.

She did, after all, have far too many reasons she absolutely had to turn Wang Zaiwu down.

First and foremost: incompatibility of vision.

In the days prior, she’d caught wind of quite a few rumors — that the Wang family intended to shift their business focus from real estate and industry over to the capital markets, and hoped to complete a full restructuring and transformation of their assets within two years.

Longquan’s core business, on the other hand, was industry — and that wasn’t going to change anytime in the foreseeable future.

That was Liang Meng’s conviction.

If she was honest, ever since Jiang Han married Liang Xing, Liang Meng wasn’t entirely averse to the idea of a strategic marriage.

If she could genuinely find someone right for her who could also help Longquan grow and thrive — why not?

But an alliance like this one with the Wang family, which would bring no positive value whatsoever — that wasn’t even worth a second thought!

Even if the marriage went ahead, what followed would only be endless internal friction between the two families.

Liang Meng could simply have refused the Wang family outright, but she couldn’t quite let go.

She wanted to test what Jiang Han’s reaction would truly be, now that she had actually gone on a blind date.

They say the human heart cannot withstand testing.

But a sincere heart can.

As it turned out, Jiang Han was right where Liang Meng had calculated he’d be — fidgeting and restless all day long, unable to settle, both at Sansheng and back at Tan Shan.

After tracking down Ning Yanhong’s check-in records at the Red Star Hotel, Liang Xing — though she’d arrived at the truth a step late — had already had a change of heart and come out firmly against tonight’s blind date.

She hadn’t exactly gone easy on her own “husband’s” ear all afternoon.

By evening, Jiang Han could no longer sit still.

He stood up, straightened his long legs, and descended the steps of Tan Shan.

“I’m going for a drive.”

He turned to Liang Xing at the door before leaving.

Liang Xing knew full well he was barely concealing his true purpose — but she had gotten exactly what she wanted, and gave her permission with a calm nod.

The two of them exchanged a brief glance, and Jiang Han ducked his head and folded himself into the black Maybach…

Australia. The Golf Course.

Lu Zhou’s round was about to begin.

What should have been a sure thing — yet for some reason, his manager’s right eyelid had been twitching since the moment he’d woken up that morning.

They say: left eye twitches, fortune comes; right eye twitches, disaster follows.

Once a doubt takes hold, things have a way of bending toward the worst outcome, as if determined to confirm the fear.

Ever since the manager had allowed himself to wonder, just the day before: what if Lu Zhou lost his inner confidence? — those images of a match spiraling out of control had been playing on an endless loop inside his head.

“Lu Zhou?”

The manager called out uneasily to Lu Zhou, who had his back turned, warming up.

In the bright sunlight, Lu Zhou turned around — the same bright, easy smile as always.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Good,” said Lu Zhou, stretching out his muscles with a leisurely extension of his arms as he answered without any particular concern.

The manager looked at his posture and told himself to relax. Maybe he was just overthinking it.

The eyelid twitching was probably just from a bad night’s sleep.

This was Lu Zhou — consistently steady, reliable Lu Zhou — that he was managing.

When Wang Zaiwu appeared at the agreed-upon restaurant, Xi Tu Lan Ya, looking immaculate and polished, every pair of female eyes in the room — servers and diners alike — snapped toward him simultaneously.

Like a magnet: every gaze was an iron needle, flying straight to him.

Who doesn’t love a handsome face?

Especially a fresh-faced, youthful, 185-centimeter younger man who had just had a facial and come straight from the gym.

Only Liang Meng and Lin Qing, who had come fully prepared, watched the elegantly approaching Young Wang from a distance with complete indifference.

“You can smile now…”

Lin Qing demonstrated, stretching her own mouth as wide as it would go in encouragement.

Liang Meng, draped in an ostentatious rose-pink feather cape and wearing a lethal shade of Barbie-pink lipstick, followed Lin Qing’s lead — pulling the muscles of both cheeks as flat and horizontal as they would go, straining to expose her ninth tooth in what she hoped was a grin.

“Weren’t we agreeing not to wear this outfit?”

Watching Wang Zaiwu approaching, Lin Qing muttered through barely-parted lips at Liang Meng with growing exasperation.

Liang Meng shot back a disdainful eye-roll, then quickly aligned her face with Lin Qing’s into the joint “double venus flytrap” expression again, murmuring back through equally still lips: “What do you know? Inside and outside — you need both. Miss one and you’re only doing half the job.”

“Since when does anyone apply treatment in ostrich feathers?”

Seeing Wang Zaiwu closing in — this graceful, impeccably handsome young man getting closer by the step — Lin Qing ventured a ventriloquist whisper: “Boss, I’m counting down from three. On one, you stand up and bow three times!”

“Understood! And I’ll throw in a bonus ‘Who has no mother?’ for him!”

“I’m sorry — what?!” Lin Qing shot her a sideways look.

Of all the times to joke, Liang Meng chose now to start playing games with Lin Qing: “It’s just a Japanese phrase!”

Lin Qing stared at her: Boss — it’s not that I play big. It’s that you know too much.

“Hello! Hello! Hello!”

Three eager, rapid-fire hellos, accompanied by a cringe-worthy batting of lashes, ultimately prevailed over Liang Meng’s Japanese impulse.

She was “performing,” but she still had limits.

She had just learned the tactic from Lin Qing — start out politely deferent, then escalate to absurdity.

That way Wang Zaiwu could experience the “unmet expectations” effect properly.

If she went full unhinged right from the opening, like she’d just been released from the psychiatric ward, how was she supposed to top it for the rest of the evening?

Wang Zaiwu looked at Liang Meng and Lin Qing, then rubbed the back of his head, with the vague expression of a person wondering whether he’d walked onto the wrong set.

This was supposed to be a blind date with Longquan’s CEO — the formidable President Liang, wasn’t it?

Who was this “silly girl” dressed up like a pitaya?!

Had he wandered into the wrong private room?

Before Wang Zaiwu could sort out what was happening, Liang Meng had already rolled out “Repulsion Tactic Number Two.”

“You must be Wang — is the temperature okay in here? Are you cold? It does feel a little chilly, doesn’t it? Look at you with your neck exposed! Here — let me lend you my mink scarf!”

Without pausing for a breath, Liang Meng proceeded to wrap her pitaya-colored fluffy scarf around Wang Zaiwu’s neck without so much as asking, then turned to the server: “Could you adjust the air conditioning a little?! What if the guests catch a chill! Here — let me pour you some hot water first!”

The explosive enthusiasm absolutely floored Wang Zaiwu!

But no matter how faithfully Liang Meng followed every item on the “Repulsion Tactic Manual,” Wang Zaiwu — though he found Liang Meng decidedly strange — found he couldn’t actually feel repelled by her.

Because from the very first glance as he walked in, Wang Zaiwu — who had gone into this blind date expecting absolutely nothing — had experienced something like… love at first sight?

No.

More accurately, it should be called “instant familiarity.”

Wang Zaiwu felt as though this bizarrely-behaving Liang Meng was somehow familiar — as though he’d met her somewhere before. There was a natural sense of recognition about her.

That sense of familiarity made the usually cool and aloof Young Wang inexplicably want to get closer to this woman who was “currently performing a scene.”

But within that urge to get closer, there was something pure — “joyous yet not licentious,” as the old phrase went.

Simply, without any desire or expectation attached — he just wanted to be near her.

Seeing that Wang Zaiwu, while physically dodging this way and that, showed absolutely no sign of backing toward the exit —

“Ahem!”

Lin Qing couldn’t hold back a discreet cough!

She was signaling to Liang Meng: time to deploy the finishing blow — care about the price of grain and vegetables!

Liang Meng caught her meaning and, reaching out, picked up the apple sitting on the table and held it out to Wang Zaiwu, slipping into a sweet, kittenish manner: “You must be hungry, Wang! Have an apple first! Do you know how much these apples go for per pound back in my neighborhood?”

The moment she finished that sentence, Liang Meng’s heart sank.

She’d made a terrible mistake!

She’d just realized — this tactic worked perfectly well on other people, but for her, she’d just dug her own grave.

Because Liang Meng — the great heiress Liang Meng — had absolutely no idea what apples cost on the open market.

She blinked rapidly and shot Lin Qing a desperate look.

Lin Qing still didn’t understand the panic.

Because within Lin Qing’s frame of reference, she simply couldn’t imagine that anyone could not know the going price of an apple.

Of all fruits, apples were cheap and high in vitamins, which had also earned them the ironic title of “the most boring fruit.”

Lin Qing bought apples all the time. These things cost twenty yuan at most. Liang Meng could just throw out any number close to that and it would be fine.

Wang Zaiwu, completely unaware that this was some kind of tactical maneuver, accepted the apple from Liang Meng with solemn, earnest sincerity and turned the question right back around on her:

“I don’t know, actually. How much per pound?”