“So, Ye Zhen is my temporary assistant? An employee temporarily borrowed from your Project Incubation Department?”
Eunuch Li looked utterly fearful and deferential: “Yes, yes, President Jiang, that’s right. It’s my fault for poor guidance—I never expected that he’d only been at your side for half a day before offending you at the year-end cruise party… But please know, whatever Ye Zhen did, it has nothing to do with me at all. My admiration for you runs endless—our President Jiang, beautiful and kind, young yet so capable, is the first person I’ve truly admired in my forty-some years of life, I…”
……
Jiang Xiaoyi had gone to the hotel and changed clothes, barely maintaining her composure in the face of enormous shock.
She looked at Eunuch Li, now speaking in a low, submissive tone, in complete disbelief: “Li You’ai?”
She’d said only those three words, and Eunuch Li sat bolt upright as though facing a great enemy: “Present!”
“Sing me a song.”
Eunuch Li trembled: “S-sing what, President Jiang? I only know old songs, I don’t know if that would satisfy you…”
“Old songs it is, then.” Watching Eunuch Li acting like this now, Jiang Xiaoyi finally started to feel it wasn’t a dream, and daringly, recklessly, went on, “Tong An’ge’s ‘Keeping the Roots’? Do you know it?”
Li You’ai might turn a blind eye to being called Eunuch Li behind his back, but given his vicious temper, Jiang Xiaoyi’s behavior would absolutely be seen as a deliberate provocation and would invite savage retaliation…
Yet the Eunuch Li in front of her didn’t jump up to attack her at all—instead, he cleared his throat, and, with a fawning expression, opened his mouth to sing—
“‘So many faces, drifting along in a daze, what are they searching for, struggling to make a living, people wander in every direction yet cross paths through fate, so many years, all condensed into this one moment…'”
“Alright, alright, that’s enough.”
At that moment, Jiang Xiaoyi was truly certain.
Over the following three hours, she skillfully pieced together the situation through indirect questioning—
She hadn’t died.
But she’d transmigrated!
This wasn’t some ancient era, but a modern timeline similar to her original one—laws, social customs, common sense, none of it had changed, and even the company Jiang Xiaoyi worked for was still Ruiyi. Eunuch Li was still the same Eunuch Li.
The one and only difference was—
Here, Jiang Xiaoyi was a young executive, the sole heir of the investment firm that had parachuted her into Ruiyi. And Ye Zhen was, of all things, a broke, working-class underling beneath her!
The two of them had had their identities completely swapped!
Jiang Xiaoyi was still struggling to digest this fact—having been unlucky for twenty-some years, she couldn’t yet fully accept this new identity of hers. Meanwhile, on the other side, Ye Zhen seemed even less able to accept it. He pushed open the door to Jiang Xiaoyi’s presidential suite, his face dark.
“What is going on here?! Is this some kind of year-end party skit you people planned?” He clearly hadn’t figured out the situation yet, his face still carrying a restrained impatience and a barely suppressed fury. “This isn’t funny at all.”
He looked coldly at Jiang Xiaoyi: “Anna, you’d better not push my limits.”
The moment she saw Ye Zhen, Jiang Xiaoyi’s body instinctively recalled the fear of being controlled by him, and she almost subconsciously wanted to apologize—but before she could lower herself to do so, Eunuch Li, who’d gone back out with the contract for Jiang Xiaoyi to sign and had now returned, righteously delivered a smack right onto Ye Zhen—
“How dare you speak to President Jiang like that? Ye Zhen! Who let you in here? Is your rank even worthy of President Jiang speaking to you in person?”
“Being wet sounds like ‘losing your chastity’—a man who just fell in the water is bad luck, unclean, get out of here right now! Don’t taint our President Jiang’s eyes or drag down her fortune!”
Li You’ai chased off the still-uncomprehending, stone-faced Ye Zhen, then cleared his throat, and was just about to angle for credit when a flamboyant voice interrupted him—
“Sweetheart! Sweetheart, are you okay?!”
No sooner had this familiar voice sounded than a wealthy-looking lady, exuding an aura of money, rushed in carrying a Hermès bag, followed closely by a similarly cash-scented middle-aged man—both of them looking at Jiang Xiaoyi with anxious concern.
Jiang Xiaoyi looked up and was nearly stunned—
“Dad?! Mom?!”
“Sweetheart, what happened?” Jiang Xiaoyi’s mother set down the Hermès bag, stroking her face with distress. “How did the year-end party catch fire? And you had to save yourself by jumping into the sea.”
Speaking of this, Jiang Xiaoyi’s mother pouted and shot a glance at her father: “It’s all your fault, insisting our precious daughter come inherit the family business and manage this lousy company. We’ve got so much money at home we could use it as hot pot fuel, and you’ve made our child suffer like this…”
……
Looking at her well-preserved, healthy, wealthy parents before her, Jiang Xiaoyi nearly lost control of her emotions on the spot, tears welling up despite herself.
Her heart was a mix of being deeply moved, of turmoil, and of an excitement and joy she couldn’t put into words.
In this timeline, her parents were still alive! And doing so well!
Jiang Xiaoyi was overwhelmed with mixed emotions, feeling as though the most precious thing in her life had, by some strange twist of fate, been lost and found again.
Jiang Xiaoyi’s mother, not knowing what was going through her mind, patted her head lovingly: “Don’t go to work today. Come on, Mom will take you home to recuperate for a few days, I’ll cook you your favorite fermented rice dumplings.”
“That standalone villa I bought you as a birthday present last time—you still haven’t been there, have you? Come on, Mom will take you.”
Jiang Xiaoyi was stunned: “My—my birthday present was a standalone villa? Mom, exactly how much money does our family have?”
Jiang Xiaoyi’s mother smiled and held up one finger.
Jiang Xiaoyi was so excited she could barely get the words out: “A—a hundred million?”
“No.”
…So she really had been too greedy after all?
Jiang Xiaoyi’s mother corrected her, entirely matter-of-fact: “Only the weak have just a hundred million. Are we weak? We have ten billion!”
Jiang Xiaoyi felt her knees go soft, nearly buckling on the spot.
Who would have thought that Jiang Xiaoyi, poor for over twenty years, would become the owner of cash-based superpowers simply by transmigrating!
Meanwhile, on the other side, Ye Zhen, having lost his cash-based superpowers, was far more miserable.
After being chased out by Li You’ai, at first he assumed Li You’ai had lost his mind, but soon began to wonder if it was actually he himself who’d lost his.
Especially once he was dropped off at his “home” by a so-called coworker, and stood at the foot of the building—that feeling of having gone mad only grew stronger.
This was an extremely old, run-down residential complex. Ye Zhen was staring blankly at the key in his hand when an old auntie’s voice suddenly rang out behind him—
“Oh, little Ye, hurry and move aside, don’t just stand there in the way…”
Ye Zhen frowned, about to snap at her demanding to know who she was and why she was telling him to move, when he noticed a warm, wet sensation spreading on his pant leg. He looked down, and nearly dropped dead on the spot—
A dog!
A poodle!
Shamelessly, brazenly lifting one leg, it was skillfully peeing on his pant leg! Ye Zhen tried to shake the dog off, only for it to circle around his leg instead, as if determined to make sure not a single drop went to waste…
Catching the smell wafting up from his pant leg, Ye Zhen nearly keeled over on the spot. He glared at the old auntie, his face dark, ready to confront her.
But the old auntie showed not the slightest embarrassment, entirely composed, and gracefully came over to scoop up the poodle, glaring at Ye Zhen and complaining: “Honestly, little Ye, you’re always half a beat too slow. I already told you to move, and you just stand there in the middle of the path not moving.”
“How is a young man like you so slow on the uptake? I’ve told you many times, you’re so tall, and whenever you wear these brown pants, it especially looks like the tree stump our Benben used to love as a puppy—he can’t help himself, has to pee on it. Won’t listen no matter how many times I tell you, and now your pants are dirty! Don’t listen to your elders and you’ll pay for it later! Keep being this slow on the uptake and you’ll never find a partner!”
“……”
Having said her piece, the old auntie shot Ye Zhen a couple more disdainful looks, then strutted off carrying her dog.
Before Ye Zhen could even catch up to her, a middle-aged man grabbed him by the shoulder: “Ye Zhen, finally found you! You’re three months behind on rent! When are you planning to pay up?!”
Ye Zhen felt he was going insane.
“I absolutely do not live in a dump like this! And I definitely don’t know any of you people!”
“So this is your plan, playing dumb and stiffing me on the rent?” This middle-aged landlord curled his lip. “Don’t try that with me, kid. I’ve already had your stuff cleared out and dumped at the security office. I’m planning to sell the place—already changed the locks too! Won’t pay and still want to weasel out of it?”
“Money’s the one thing I, Ye Zhen, have never lacked in this life. Did you people take money from my parents to shoot some reality show? Are my parents still overseas on vacation? Let me call and confirm the situation.”
“Your parents are overseas, alright.”
Ye Zhen was just about to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking “so it is as I thought,” when he heard the middle-aged man across from him raise his voice—
“Your parents ran up a mountain of gambling debt, got wiped out in a P2P lending scandal, and made off with a good chunk of my money too—fled overseas! Vacation, my ass?! If they were still in the country, I’d have beaten them black and blue myself already!”
With that, the man took off one of his shoes and raised it, ready to strike Ye Zhen with it.
The posture made it clear he meant business.
Ye Zhen—a man who’d faced down collapsing mountains without flinching, who held real power at the Ye family conglomerate, who sat in the position of “crown prince,” a man for whom life had never taken any real effort—finally, for the first time, had to work hard at something…
Running for his life.