Ye Zhen had been quite busy recently with official duties, and Jiang Xiaoyi, now that the proposal for the Chuyuan Studio project had been approved, had a pile of materials to prepare, so her attention had all gone into work.

The second time the two met was at Ruiyi’s internal project review meeting. Li You’ai naturally ran around fussing over every detail for this meeting—when Ye Zhen took his seat, Li You’ai practically wanted to dust off the chair for him.

However, Li You’ai himself clearly had no idea this meeting was going to become the one where he got targeted and picked apart.

Ye Zhen had been making big moves recently, and mid-level managers like Li You’ai were understandably on edge—several senior executives had already been disciplined to varying degrees. Li You’ai was rather uneasy inside too, but fortunately he had never taken sides in the internal power struggles among the higher-ups, and on top of that, he’d previously gotten some credit for how he’d handled Jiang Xiaoyi. So although Li You’ai was somewhat worried, overall he felt his position was relatively stable.

Li You’ai had run the Project Incubation Department for many years, and naturally, among the projects that had passed through his hands, there were bound to be some with procedural flaws or other issues. A new official lights three fires when he takes office—this Director Ye wanting to review the department’s projects over the years was also just a way to establish authority. Li You’ai was fairly confident: the Incubation Department had handled so many projects, and a boss like Ye Zhen was surely just putting on a show—there was no way he could actually review them all. Besides, someone who’d never actually worked in the trenches of the Incubation Department had no idea what pitfalls existed in the day-to-day operations. What could a pretty face like Ye Zhen possibly see?

Still, now that a mid-level manager like himself finally had a rare chance to interact directly with Ye Zhen, Li You’ai was determined to make the most of it this time.

The moment Ye Zhen sat down, he glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi: “What are you standing around for? Hurry up and pour Director Ye some tea.”

Li You’ai had deliberately made sure Jiang Xiaoyi wasn’t asked to serve tea before the meeting started, precisely so he could seize this moment—showing Ye Zhen his own thoughtfulness and attentiveness toward his superior, while also putting this “hostile” Jiang Xiaoyi in her place in front of Ye Zhen, thereby demonstrating that he was aligned with Ye Zhen’s side. Wasn’t that killing two birds with one stone?

But before Li You’ai could even wait for the praise, he found himself on the receiving end of a reprimand instead.

Almost the instant Li You’ai finished speaking, Ye Zhen’s expression darkened—

“I didn’t hire female employees to serve tea. Every attendee has a teacup and a kettle of water in front of them. Are they missing hands, unable to pour their own tea? Where did this habit come from—being so spoiled they can’t even take care of themselves?”

His voice was cold and full of authority. As he spoke, Ye Zhen’s gaze flicked toward Li You’ai: “I recruited staff under you not so you could waste her energy on something so useless. If an employee is forced to spend an entire meeting pouring tea, she’ll inevitably have to keep watching whose cup has gone empty—how is she supposed to run a good meeting under those conditions? How is she supposed to actually listen during the meeting? After all, once someone is fully engaged in a meeting, who’s going to notice whose water cup is empty?”

“I want my meetings—all of Ruiyi’s meetings, in fact—to have every attendee fully, one hundred percent engaged. I won’t allow anything that disrupts the quality of a meeting.”

Li You’ai’s face couldn’t hold its composure, but he still wasted no time throwing Jiang Xiaoyi under the bus, resourceful as ever. He explained: “Director Ye, I really didn’t mean to disrupt your meeting. I… I asked Jiang Xiaoyi to pour your tea mainly because I wanted to give her a chance to show herself in front of leadership. As you know, she really did clash with you a fair amount before, and I was thinking of her too—she’s young, opportunities are rare, so I thought she could perform a bit in front of you, help smooth things over…”

Director Ye was clearly in a bad mood today and looking for someone to make an example of—Li You’ai figured he’d probably had the misfortune of walking right into the line of fire. What to do in this situation? Naturally, redirect the trouble downstream—throw out Jiang Xiaoyi, who had offended Ye Zhen even more, first!

Li You’ai was rather pleased with his own quick thinking. But before the storm of Ye Zhen’s fury could land on Jiang Xiaoyi as expected, he instead heard Ye Zhen’s voice turn on him—

“From now on, whoever orders a subordinate to serve tea because they’re so eager to perform—they can do it themselves. Give that opportunity to perform to themselves.”

Ye Zhen was quite good-looking, but right now he looked more like a jade-faced King of Hell. He glanced at Li You’ai: “Li You’ai, what are you standing around for? Pour the tea. This precious opportunity to perform in front of me—it’s yours now.”

“……”

Li You’ai hadn’t expected this turn of events at all. He’d been scolded out of nowhere, but he didn’t dare say a word, and could only slink off with his tail between his legs to pour Ye Zhen’s tea.

But it turned out that wasn’t the end of it either—Ye Zhen glanced at him: “Keep going.”

Ye Zhen smiled: “How could I let you pour tea for just me? There are so many people here—I can’t play favorites. I hate discriminatory treatment more than anything. If you pour for me, you get to perform in front of me, but what about everyone else who doesn’t get tea poured for them—how do you think they’ll feel? Let me give you a chance to perform in front of them too.”

Ye Zhen paused, then smiled again: “After all, don’t forget—according to the new year-end evaluation system, these employees of yours in the Incubation Department hold the golden key to your performance score. You’ll need to get along well with everyone going forward too.”

“……”

That comment alone was enough to give Li You’ai a headache—this new evaluation system was truly something. He’d never held back from bullying his subordinates in the past, and now with this new evaluation system in place, he could already see his performance bonus getting docked… Ye Zhen had really just reminded him of that.

With no other choice, Li You’ai gritted his teeth and poured tea for every single attendee. Only then did Ye Zhen’s expression at the head of the table seem to ease.

Li You’ai finally let out a breath and sat back down.

He’d thought his ordeal for the day was over, but he had no idea that this entire meeting was only the beginning of his trial by fire.

“Li You’ai, explain the Chicheng Project from two years ago—why doesn’t the amount in Ruiyi’s investment agreement match the figures in the Chicheng Project’s financial report? There’s a discrepancy of 5,600 yuan.”

“And the Max Project from three years ago—why is there a travel expense receipt missing from the project reimbursement?”

“And the Z-fun Project from three and a half years ago—the entire commercial viability analysis was copy-pasted directly from another project. You didn’t even bother changing the other project’s name on page five, line two. Li You’ai, your work ability here is genuinely concerning. Don’t you know Word has a find-and-replace function? If you’re going to blatantly recycle another project’s materials to pad things out, at least do it thoroughly.”

……

The further the meeting went, the more sweat beaded on Li You’ai’s face. Ye Zhen fired through issues like a machine gun, working backward through five years of the man’s projects one by one. Li You’ai hadn’t imagined that Ye Zhen had truly read through every single project in detail, and he’d also underestimated just how nitpicky this young boss could be—

He even pointed out typos and improper punctuation.

“There are too many problems in the projects you’ve handled. I’ll only give a brief warning here in the meeting—for the rest, I’ll have my assistant put together an Excel spreadsheet listing every issue in your project files.”

Ye Zhen smiled at Li You’ai without a trace of warmth: “Before this meeting, I read through your Incubation Department’s internal regulations. There are clear disciplinary rules for this kind of thing—how many performance points get deducted per error, all written in black and white, and previously distributed to all staff. I asked around—turns out you’re the one who drafted these rules.”

“Even a prince who breaks the law is punished the same as a commoner. You made the rules yourself, so you should be the first to follow them.”

At this point Li You’ai wasn’t just sweating—he wanted to cry. Being made an example of in the meeting was one thing, but the moment performance points came up for deduction, he was ten thousand percent unwilling.

Besides, many of the reports Ye Zhen had picked apart weren’t even written by Li You’ai himself!

Li You’ai immediately protested: “Director Ye, the Z-fun and Max projects were both written by Wang Yani…”

Unfortunately, Ye Zhen didn’t buy it at all. He cut Li You’ai off flatly: “But I saw it clear as day—in the list of project originators and handlers, there’s no name for Wang Yani anywhere. Only your name, Li You’ai, appears.”

These projects truly had once belonged to Wang Yani, and the reports really had been written by her—Li You’ai had simply used his position to coerce and manipulate his way into forcibly claiming these projects as his own KPIs. And to keep the staff under him from ever getting ahead, after seizing a project Li You’ai never credited the employees who actually did the work.

He’d played this game very smoothly—he just hadn’t expected it to blow up in his face one day.

Ye Zhen looked at him with a cold smile: “You still want to deny your own signature? I hate nothing more than people trying to shift blame when something goes wrong. It’s right there in black and white—do you want to get a handwriting analysis done too?”

“……” Li You’ai wilted, but he still tried to explain: “Director Ye, I—I was a bit too strict when I set that policy at the time. Look, our Incubation Department handles so many projects, the workload is heavy and the pressure is heavy—we often have to work overtime, using our own personal time to write things up, so it’s easy to make small typos and things like that. These minor mistakes, in the grand scheme of things, don’t really matter much. Thinking it over now, docking performance points and dismissing an employee’s hard work over this really isn’t quite appropriate. I set that rule poorly—it needs to change, it needs to change!”

Li You’ai had originally just been making a last, desperate attempt, but he hadn’t expected Ye Zhen to actually nod: “I agree it needs to change too. That part really is unreasonable.”

So did that mean…

Li You’ai’s eyes lit up: “Director Ye, do you mean that the minor errors in this report of mine won’t have points deducted this time?”

“Yours still gets deducted.” Ye Zhen said flatly, “A new policy naturally only applies going forward, from the point it’s formally announced, to things that happen afterward. There’s no way what you did under the old policy gets wiped clean too.”

“……”

Li You’ai had originally thought that once Ye Zhen took power, his good days would begin. He hadn’t expected to completely misread the situation—what should have been a grand meeting had instead become his own struggle session.

As for Jiang Xiaoyi, she turned out to be the meeting’s biggest winner, receiving the most praise from Ye Zhen—

“The ‘Chuyuan’ project—I was the one who rejected it before, out of bias on my part. But Jiang Xiaoyi didn’t give up. She refined the business model and future outlook, put together an extremely thorough proposal, and initiated the review process all over again.”

“It was her persistence that made me decide to take another look at this project, and it’s thanks to her that I didn’t miss out on something as good as ‘Chuyuan.'”

“The Project Incubation Department is one of Ruiyi’s most crucial core departments. Going forward, every project at Ruiyi will need to be screened and refined through your department. That’s why I hope every single one of you will be bold and enterprising. Sometimes a boss’s judgment isn’t necessarily accurate—you’re the ones reviewing projects on the front lines, and you may well have more specialized knowledge of the entertainment industry than I do. If there’s a project you believe is viable, I hope you’ll do as Jiang Xiaoyi did—use your professional judgment to convince me.”

……

Given how things had gone, if Li You’ai still didn’t get the message, that really would be inexcusable.

Far from having offended Ye Zhen, this Jiang Xiaoyi had instead risen to prominence, showered with Ye Zhen’s favor!

Could kicking Ye Zhen in the rear have somehow given him some strange fondness for her instead?

Or was Director Ye… a masochist at heart?

Li You’ai felt both frustrated and baffled. If he weren’t still holding onto some shred of reason, he might have wanted to try kicking Ye Zhen himself sometime, just to see.

**

While Li You’ai found nothing going his way, Jiang Xiaoyi felt like she was thriving.

Thanks to Ye Zhen’s reforms, Li You’ai’s year-end bonus would now be directly tied to how the department staff evaluated him. Li Gonggong, who had swaggered around the Incubation Department unchecked for years, was, for the first time in his life, starting to lower himself.

Early one morning, with less than half a minute left before her attendance clock-in, Jiang Xiaoyi walked through the Incubation Department’s door and found Li Gonggong standing there with his hands on his hips, right at the entrance.

Jiang Xiaoyi’s heart instinctively lurched—she braced herself to weather a storm from Li You’ai. Instead, Li You’ai broke into a fawning smile at her—

“Ah, little Jiang, you must have worked overtime late last night and had to rush this morning. But I really admire someone like you—look, work starts at nine, and you got here right at the edge, just before nine, not a second early or late. That shows you’re someone quite meticulous and punctual, which is rare in this day and age.”

“But rushing like this, you probably didn’t have time to grab breakfast, did you?” Li Gonggong’s face wrinkled up with his smile, “Go eat quickly—I ordered everyone a Japanese breakfast set this morning…”

Jiang Xiaoyi was somewhat suspicious, thinking Li You’ai must be up to some trick again. But when she actually walked into the main office area and saw the lavish Japanese breakfast sets laid out on the desks, she realized he’d been telling the truth.

Li You’ai enthusiastically placed a set into Jiang Xiaoyi’s hands: “Eat it while it’s hot, eat it while it’s hot.”

……

As for seizing projects—Li You’ai no longer dared to even think about it.

After that meeting where Ye Zhen had made an example of Li You’ai and hung him out to dry, Li You’ai finally realized that all of Ye Zhen’s reforms were serious business, and he no longer dared to throw his weight around. Instead, he began falsely fussing over each of his coworkers in the department—

“Oh, Yani, didn’t you say last time you had something and wanted to leave early this afternoon? A few days ago I was worried about the workload and didn’t dare approve it, but today the workload looks manageable, so go ahead and leave early if you want. And if there’s any unfinished work, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

“Little Zhang, that email you sent before—it really was my own fault for missing it. That’s not on you. I apologize for criticizing you last time—dinner’s on me tonight! To make it up to you! Order whatever you want!”

……

Jiang Xiaoyi watched Li You’ai sweating buckets as he went around ingratiating himself with everyone, and eventually the true purpose surfaced.

Li Gonggong put on a stiff smile and went around pleading with everyone one by one: “Everyone, don’t forget the year-end evaluation. Don’t worry, once I get this bonus, I’ll set aside 10% of it for department team-building funds! Ha ha ha, I know I haven’t done well by some of you in the past, please bear with me. Going forward, whatever dirty or exhausting work comes up in this department, I’ll be sure to remember Director Ye’s teachings and, as department head, be the first one to charge in!”

Although Li Gonggong’s true intent, of course, wasn’t really about the wine—it was purely about staying on good terms with everyone in the department so he’d get good marks in the year-end evaluation—on the surface, the mood in the Incubation Department had completely transformed. It was like the serfs had stood up and taken over the household.

Naturally, all of this was thanks to Ye Zhen.

And riding this new atmosphere, Jiang Xiaoyi found herself wanting to work even harder. With the “Chuyuan” incubation investment plan approved, Jiang Xiaoyi threw herself full speed into pushing the comic’s final serialization forward.

At the same time, she also began itching to prepare for something else she’d done in the parallel timeline—combining the comic with offline themed store marketing, funneling the two-dimensional world into the three-dimensional one.

As it happened, Dan Hui had invited Jiang Xiaoyi to dinner that very evening, and Jiang Xiaoyi quickly ran the idea by him.

Sure enough, the gentle and understanding Dan Hui gave Jiang Xiaoyi his support almost immediately: “The Fire Extinguisher Club’s traffic is still decent right now, but it’s already showing a declining trend—business is nowhere near as hot as before. We’ve thought of a lot of ways to refresh the room scenarios, but despite racking our brains, the results have been minimal. Better to plan ahead—we really do need to explore new business collaboration models. What you’re describing, combining comics with an offline themed store, sounds really interesting to me.”

……

No sooner said than done—Jiang Xiaoyi practically flew back to the staff dormitory and drafted an outline of the proposal that very night. She’d already brainstormed all of this back in the parallel timeline, so it felt like cheating, using a cheat code—by the next day’s meeting, she already had a remarkably complete proposal ready to present.

The proposal cleared one hurdle after another and won a fair amount of approval. And Ye Zhen, having witnessed this new model succeed in the parallel timeline, readily approved her new venture.

But while Ye Zhen had approved things quite readily on the official front, privately, this man’s mood seemed less than pleased.

That evening he called Jiang Xiaoyi into his office to work overtime discussing and refining the offline themed store proposal, and his displeasure showed through in his words—he started nitpicking Jiang Xiaoyi’s offline themed store plan repeatedly.

Jiang Xiaoyi had several small details picked apart by Ye Zhen in a row. No matter how dense she might be, even she could tell Ye Zhen was in a mood and looking to pick a fight.

She set down the materials in her hands, a bit puzzled: “Do you have some objection to the offline themed store plan? If you have doubts about this innovative model, or think there are flaws in it, you don’t need to worry about our personal relationship—just tell me directly, and I’ll keep refining the proposal to satisfy you more.”

But after Jiang Xiaoyi said all that, Ye Zhen seemed to have only registered one sentence of it. He raised his eyelids and asked, as if offhandedly: “So what exactly is our personal relationship?”

“Friends!” For some reason, Jiang Xiaoyi found herself growing nervous under Ye Zhen’s gaze, her heart rate picking up. She mumbled, trying hard to shake off the strange emotion stirring inside her, “Just good friends.”

“Oh—”

Ye Zhen drew the syllable out long, his expression looking even more sour, though his tone remained mild: “I have no objection to the offline themed store plan. I really did have a bias against the entertainment industry before—an offline themed store really is a successful attempt. However.”

“However what?”

“However, an offline themed store could partner with all sorts of options. Does it have to be the Fire Extinguisher Club?” Ye Zhen cleared his throat and added, with an air of seriousness, “Couldn’t it be a milk tea themed store instead, or a fried chicken themed store? Why does it have to be a partnership with the Fire Extinguisher Club specifically? Compared to milk tea shops or fried chicken shops, the Fire Extinguisher Club is still relatively niche. If you want to expand the operation broadly, you could just as easily try partnering with a more mainstream chain.”

He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi: “I honestly wonder if there’s some conflict of interest on your part in all this.”

“?”

Ye Zhen cleared his throat: “Is it because you have some special feelings about the Fire Extinguisher Club, on top of knowing that senior of yours, and you keep wanting to give him a leg up? Of course, I know your overall intentions are surely good, but that senior of yours—looking at him, he seems pretty calculating to me. I’m just warning you in case you’re being used as a pawn by him.”

Jiang Xiaoyi waved her hands repeatedly: “No, no, this idea was something I brought up myself. I did consider milk tea shops and fried chicken shops too, but other entertainment companies have already done collaborations combining that kind of shop with themed store formats—it wouldn’t feel novel to consumers. Plus, those milk tea and fried chicken shops are all quite small, and mostly not for dine-in, so customers buy and leave right away—they don’t even have time to notice a themed store, which wouldn’t do much to help our promotion and marketing.”

“Whereas the Fire Extinguisher Club’s concept is genuinely novel, and its consumption model is one that keeps people lingering for a long time—that’s great for cross-promoting our comic.”

After finishing her analysis, Jiang Xiaoyi thought it over and decided to set the record straight for her senior anyway: “And also, Ye Zhen, I feel like you have some kind of misunderstanding about my senior. He’s a very gentle person, not the competitive or grasping type by nature—not someone driven by material desire. If anything, he’s a bit idealistic. When he founded the Fire Extinguisher Club, it really was purely out of passion—a lot of the staff he hired were alumni from families with financial difficulties, and he treats them very well. Quite a few of our junior classmates have been looked after by him. If he were really calculating, he wouldn’t do things like that. Besides, plenty of wealthy, beautiful women have pursued him, and he’s never once been swayed—he’s a genuinely upstanding, clean-cut person.”

But Jiang Xiaoyi’s explanation, far from reassuring Ye Zhen, only seemed to make him more hostile toward Dan Hui.

“Plenty of wealthy, beautiful women have pursued me too, and I’ve never been swayed either—I’m a genuinely upstanding, clean-cut person. Why don’t I get any praise from you? So Dan Hui is calculating after all, unlike me, a simple, straightforward man. He’s just doing what any man ought to do, yet somehow he’s the one held up as a role model and praised for it—guess that just means he’s got skill. As for all those wealthy beauties chasing him without success, maybe he just hasn’t met one wealthy and beautiful enough yet.”

Ye Zhen looked rather indignant: “I’m just too principled, I don’t know how to sweet-talk, but I’m a man who’s genuinely studied proper male virtue. Has he? In this world, your senior probably hasn’t even heard of what proper male virtue is—for all we know, he looks refined on the outside but who knows what’s actually going on in his head.”

Jiang Xiaoyi knew Ye Zhen had an intensely competitive streak, but she hadn’t expected that this man would now be comparing himself not only to Jiang Lin, who came from a similar background, but even to Jiang Xiaoyi’s own senior.

“Ye Zhen, people’s happiness comes from not blindly comparing themselves to others!” Jiang Xiaoyi was genuinely being earnest with him this time. “You’re plenty good, but everyone has different strengths. My senior and you have completely different personalities—you’re someone who handles big things, while my senior is more meticulous about the small details.”

If Ye Zhen had found the first half tolerable, the second half didn’t sit well with him at all: “I’m not just capable of handling big things—I think I’m plenty meticulous about the small details too.”

“Your meticulousness is more like nitpicking…” Jiang Xiaoyi held back, but couldn’t quite manage it. “But my senior is good at remembering the little things about people—like he remembers every employee’s birthday…”

Before Jiang Xiaoyi could finish, Ye Zhen cut her off, contrarian as ever: “If I only had a dozen or so employees like him, of course I’d remember all their birthdays too.”

“……” Jiang Xiaoyi ignored Ye Zhen and continued, “My senior doesn’t just remember birthdays—he also remembers everyone’s food restrictions and preferences, and not just for the department heads either, even every single intern. Even if you mention something offhand, he’ll remember it.”

At this point, Jiang Xiaoyi couldn’t help rummaging through her bag. She pulled out a bar of chocolate: “See, this flavor is really hard to find—it’s one I loved as a kid. I mentioned it in passing half a year ago, and then, when I met up with my senior to discuss the themed store, he casually handed it to me, saying he’d happened to see it in a shop while wandering an old street a few days earlier, and thought of how I liked it, so he bought it.”

As she spoke, Jiang Xiaoyi couldn’t help unwrapping the chocolate and taking a bite, her face lighting up with the pleasure of a favorite flavor. She couldn’t resist shooting Ye Zhen a teasing look: “If you’re really so thoughtful and attentive, then it shouldn’t take long—let me ask you, do you even remember what I told you a month ago?”

“……”

Ye Zhen looked like he badly wanted to argue back, but he genuinely couldn’t remember. He could only press his lips together, and then, in a rather childish move, quickly changed the subject, steering the conversation back to work and launching into a serious discussion about future promotional models for the offline themed store.

Jiang Xiaoyi had assumed what happened that evening was just a minor incident, that Ye Zhen’s competitive streak had simply flared up. But the next morning, she found an enormous box sitting on her desk.

Li You’ai, devoted to staying on Jiang Xiaoyi’s good side, walked over with a fawning smile: “Not sure if this is some material Director Ye wanted you to look at—his new assistant carried it over this morning, and specifically said it was for you to open personally.”

Although he’d already been thoroughly disciplined by the new system, Li You’ai had reined himself in quite a bit—but he still craned his neck to peer at the box, his tone tinged with envy: “This wouldn’t happen to be confidential material for some major project, would it? That must be why Director Ye wanted to protect it and leave it just for you, insisting you open it yourself—probably afraid the rest of us would open it and steal the project out from under you.”

Li You’ai went on rambling, clearly trying to needle Jiang Xiaoyi a little: “But little Jiang, you should remember, the reason you’ve gotten to where you are today really is because you served as Director Ye’s temporary assistant for a while—that’s what let Director Ye see your strengths and give you all this special treatment. But ultimately, it’s also because I wasn’t jealous of talent and let you step away from the Incubation Department for a while, to go show yourself off in front of Director Ye…”

Li You’ai rambled on for a while, but the point was crystal clear—don’t forget your friends once you’ve made it big.

Li Gonggong was clearly hoping that once Jiang Xiaoyi rose to great heights, he could still get a share of the pie from her.

And because Li You’ai had done so much brainwashing on this front, before opening the box, even Jiang Xiaoyi assumed it must contain some major project resource Ye Zhen was giving her.

She really didn’t need Ye Zhen to tilt resources her way like this—it wouldn’t be fair to the other employees in the department. Still, as Jiang Xiaoyi took a box cutter and sliced open the packaging, she couldn’t help feeling a secret flicker of happiness inside, for some reason.

Being singled out for special treatment by Ye Zhen like this—she knew she shouldn’t want it, but she couldn’t help being happy about it anyway.

Before opening the box, Jiang Xiaoyi made up her mind—if it really was some major project’s resources and materials, she’d absolutely return it to Ye Zhen. She appreciated the thought, but she really couldn’t accept it…

Amid a mix of nervousness and subtle excitement, Jiang Xiaoyi opened the box, and saw—

A whole box of chocolate?!

She pulled out a bar—it was exactly the flavor she’d said not long ago was hard to find.

So Ye Zhen had sent her an entire box of chocolate?!

Compared to Jiang Xiaoyi, Li You’ai was even more stunned. He couldn’t help stepping forward, moving the top layer of chocolate aside, as if convinced some confidential major-project documents must be hidden beneath. But like a mole digging through the earth, he burrowed through layer after layer, only to find more chocolate underneath…

Just as Jiang Xiaoyi stood there holding a chocolate bar, brimming with questions, her phone rang. The sender of the chocolate was calling.

Ye Zhen’s voice was calm and composed: “Did you receive the item?”

His tone was so solemn and serious that Jiang Xiaoyi almost thought he was about to discuss some official matter with her.

Getting no response from Jiang Xiaoyi, Ye Zhen cleared his throat, and then his voice finally showed a faint, uncomfortable crack: “That box on your desk—did you not receive it?”

Only then did Jiang Xiaoyi snap back to herself: “I got it. Is it a whole box of chocolate?”

“Mm.” Ye Zhen regained his earlier composure. “Good that you got it. Nothing else. I’ll hang up then.”

“Wait.” Jiang Xiaoyi, full of confusion, called out to stop him. “Why did you suddenly send me a whole box of chocolate?”

“It’s nothing.” Ye Zhen’s tone was very casual. “I just happened to buy it. Didn’t you say it was hard to find? There’s nothing to it—this flavor you like is actually easy to find. See, I just casually bought a whole box of it, and your senior only got you one bar. Being stingy is a real dealbreaker in a man.”

“……”

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll hang up.” Ye Zhen laughed softly, and, unable to resist getting one more dig in, added as if it were an afterthought, “Successful men are actually quite busy—they don’t really have time to bother people with long phone calls.”

“……”

Even after the call ended, Jiang Xiaoyi still couldn’t quite believe it had happened.

Ye Zhen’s hostility toward Dan Hui was getting hard to explain as simple jealousy—after all, Dan Hui wasn’t even a rival to Ye Zhen the way Jiang Lin was. Could it be…

Could it be that he was jealous, in the romantic sense?

But quickly, Jiang Xiaoyi decided that wasn’t it either.

Would Ye Zhen actually like her?

Jiang Xiaoyi had always been a very ordinary person. The environment she grew up in had never given her an inflated sense of self—if anything, there was a faint thread of inferiority buried deep inside her. Thinking it over carefully, what was so special about an ordinary person like her that could possibly attract someone?

Even Dan Hui had only confessed to her in the parallel timeline because he was facing the accomplished “President Jiang.” Back in this timeline, Dan Hui had simply done what any senior classmate should do—looking out for her, nothing more. In all these years, he’d never shown any other special sign of interest.

Jiang Xiaoyi had known the hardships of life and the importance of being well-matched since she was very young. She understood deeply that not indulging in daydreams was what let someone like her live a happier life.

Because life wasn’t a TV drama—there weren’t that many Cinderella stories, nor that many legends of sparrows flying up to become phoenixes. Just like back in college, when she’d really wanted to join the travel club but also understood she had no money, and there was no way some benefactor would mysteriously appear to sponsor her.

What life had taught Jiang Xiaoyi was not to expect things—as long as she numbed herself into believing she didn’t really want to join the travel club, didn’t really want certain things, she could keep going, working hard happily, carefree.

When life was scarce, keeping your head down on the road ahead suited you better than gazing up at the stars.

To her, Ye Zhen was a luxury even further out of reach than the travel club.

Jiang Xiaoyi thought it best not to let her mind wander.

Ye Zhen was wonderful, but in this timeline, he had money, looks, everything good—while Jiang Xiaoyi had almost nothing. Ye Zhen wasn’t something she was entitled to fantasize about.

Treating him as a good friend—maybe that way, if she ever lost him, it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Jiang Xiaoyi shook off the messy thoughts swirling in her head, and, feeling a bit gloomy, tore open the chocolate’s packaging and bit into it fiercely.

Fortunately, there was sweet food—it could ease this sudden unhappiness of hers.