The next day, Jiang Xiaoyi spent a rare, leisurely morning at home. She cooked herself a good meal and cleaned the house, just starting to feel that fleeting sense of stolen half-day peace, when Ye Zhen’s phone call interrupted it—
“Anna, come to my office.”
Jiang Xiaoyi glanced at her watch—it was only 9:30 in the morning. “I’m not working this morning. You approved my leave last night.”
On the other end came Ye Zhen’s utterly shameless voice: “Oh, did I say that? I have no memory of it at all.” This man continued, “So do you have any written or email evidence to prove what you’re saying?”
“……”
“No, right? If there’s no evidence, then come to work.”
“……”
Jiang Xiaoyi cursed Ye Zhen out silently the whole way, forced to rush over to the company, but deep down she was still conscientious, thinking maybe Ye Zhen had some urgent work matter for her to handle.
It was only half an hour later, in Ye Zhen’s office, that Jiang Xiaoyi began to question her own faith.
She widened her eyes and repeated: “President Ye, what did you just say? You want me to be in charge of what?”
Ye Zhen frowned, repeating it as if annoyed with her: “I’m putting you in charge of screening blind-date candidates for my younger brother.”
Was this actually part of an assistant’s job description?!
Ye Zhen, as if guessing what she was thinking, smiled: “This is a personal matter, so there’s an extra red envelope in it for you.”
The moment she heard “red envelope,” Jiang Xiaoyi’s mood instantly settled. But wait…
“Aren’t you an only child? Why do you have a younger brother…”
Ye Zhen took a sip of tea, calmly: “I really am an only child. My brother was adopted.”
Ah, that made sense… Wealthy families generally liked doing charity, so adopting a child was understandable too. This Ye Zhen might not be much as a person, but his parents were actually pretty kind.
“My brother’s also reached the age where he should get married, so what you’ll be responsible for is finding a suitable match for him.”
Ye Zhen pressed his lips together: “I wasn’t originally in such a hurry, but my brother nearly assaulted the neighbor’s daughter today when he went out—charged right up and jumped on her. Seems he’s reached that age, needs to get married and have kids. To stop him from going out and doing that to people again, I’ve tied him up and locked him at home for now.”
This—assaulting the neighbor’s daughter in broad daylight, wasn’t that attempted rape?! What kind of heavy-duty weirdo was Ye Zhen’s brother…
Still, though Ye Zhen had boss-itis, it seemed on major moral issues he did have some sense—at least he’d tie up a brother like that and lock him inside…
Yet Ye Zhen didn’t think there was anything odd about it at all. He said, quite openly: “So I want to get him married off as soon as possible. You go find some suitable candidates for him, find several, prepare their photos and detailed background materials and bring them to me for review. Pay attention to purity of bloodline.”
So it seemed the wealthy really couldn’t choose their own marriages, and it was so sophisticated too—just like in novels, actually caring about bloodline. Did it need to be three generations of scholarly family or aristocracy to count as pure bloodline?
But who would want to marry a man like Ye Zhen’s brother!
Jiang Xiaoyi wanted to decline, but was afraid of offending Ye Zhen, so she could only take it one step at a time: “Then President Ye, does your brother have a photo?”
Ye Zhen turned unhappy: “You even need a photo? It’s always been us choosing others—when has it ever been others’ turn to choose us?”
“……” Was it money that gave him this kind of confidence? It must be.
Jiang Xiaoyi swallowed her envy: “Then what are your brother’s criteria for a spouse?”
“Pretty, big eyes, able to have children.”
“……” Wasn’t this a bit too objectifying of women!
Ye Zhen was utterly unbothered: “Move quickly. Once my brother’s had his kid, I’m taking him to get neutered.” Speaking of this, he took on a somewhat sorrowful expression. “Leave him an heir, and then he’ll have no regrets in this life.”
Jiang Xiaoyi had seen plenty of wealthy-family gossip—typically patriarchs of multi-child wealthy families decided inheritance division in advance based on how many heads each branch had. But for Ye Zhen to minimize future heirs who could split the inheritance by having his brother neutered right after producing an heir—wasn’t that a bit too ruthless!
Though Ye Zhen was an only child and his brother was merely adopted, she hadn’t expected him to still plan so far ahead as to have his brother neutered. The only trace of brotherly affection was not letting his line die out…
Terrifying. So this was how brutal wealthy-family power struggles really were!
Jiang Xiaoyi walked out of Ye Zhen’s office looking downcast and troubled. Sure, there was a red envelope in it for handling this, but where on earth was she supposed to find someone? And it had to be pretty, big-eyed, and fertile too. But Ye Zhen’s brother was a suspected attempted rapist with poor character, and merely adopted at that, plus he had a psycho like Ye Zhen for a brother—wasn’t this basically pushing some poor girl into a pit of fire?
Ye Zhen was also demanding she settle on a match within the week—wasn’t that asking the impossible?
Fortunately, no job is too hard for a brave working stiff.
Jiang Xiaoyi spent the whole afternoon browsing several major online matchmaking forums, and finally found a solution!
This Saturday morning, there was going to be a large-scale offline matchmaking event in Rong City! The location was a national-level park in a scenic suburban area. The organizer was a matchmaking agency that had built a dreamlike set inside the park, dedicated to getting matchmaking men and women to successfully pair up on-site.
This way, Jiang Xiaoyi wouldn’t have to trick other girls into the fire pit herself.
After all, Ye Zhen’s brother sounded pretty abnormal—maybe he was even ugly, and a normal girl would take one look and pass, so she wouldn’t fall for it. If not, she could go to the event early herself and warn each girl one by one.
That way, no girl would fall for it, and she’d also complete her task—after all, she’d have provided the matchmaking opportunity; if he couldn’t seal the deal himself, that wasn’t on Jiang Xiaoyi.
Get the red envelope and avoid hurting anyone—perfect on both counts!
“Saturday? An offline matchmaking event?”
After hearing Jiang Xiaoyi’s plan, Ye Zhen frowned slightly.
Jiang Xiaoyi pressed on: “President Ye, here’s the thing—if I just give you photos and materials, that’s too flat, especially since photos can be photoshopped and beautified. But this Saturday’s offline matchmaking event would let your brother meet candidates in person and see if they click. You could also personally accompany him and vet things on the spot.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what convinced Ye Zhen, but in the end this man reluctantly nodded: “Fine, understood.” He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi. “Arrange the meals for the day on Saturday.”
“What?”
Ye Zhen said, as if it were obvious: “My brother’s life event—even I’m personally attending. As his assistant, of course you should come along.”
Just as Jiang Xiaoyi was about to swear internally, she heard Ye Zhen continue: “Saturday’s pay will also be doubled, calculated daily like holiday overtime. You’ve handled this matter well—if my brother finds a suitable match at this event, I’ll double the red envelope too.”
Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly had no desire to swear at all.
She said brightly: “Yes! President Ye!”
Of course, Ye Zhen didn’t become any easier to deal with just because Jiang Xiaoyi had handled things efficiently.
Once back in work mode, this man quickly forgot Jiang Xiaoyi’s exhausting effort on his brother’s behalf, and turned picky and difficult again.
Ye Zhen first reformed the attendance system. Ruiyi originally hadn’t had a strict clock-in habit—except for a few department heads like Eunuch Li who set their own strict attendance rules, most departments were fairly relaxed about it, and many veteran employees, relying on seniority, were quite lax about work hours, with lateness, leaving early, and even sneaking off entirely being common.
Now that Ye Zhen had arrived, he immediately installed facial-recognition clock-in machines in the lobby of every floor—opening the office floor’s door now required a face scan.
Ye Zhen tracked time down to the minute. Based on how much time employees spent being late, leaving early, or sneaking off mid-day, pay would be deducted proportionally. Once an employee was caught with this kind of record, that month’s full-attendance bonus and performance bonus would be cancelled. And anyone with more than five such records in a month would be considered a serious violation, and the company could fire them outright.
At first, many veteran employees treated this as just the new boss’s opening bluster, and continued turning a blind eye to it, but after Ye Zhen fired three violating veteran employees in a row, everyone belatedly realized he was serious.
For someone like Jiang Xiaoyi who came in early and left late anyway, this made no difference, but for some perpetually lax veteran employees it caused an uproar. Jiang Xiaoyi herself had heard veteran employees in the stairwell cursing Ye Zhen as a slave-driver more than once.
Strict attendance tracking was a good thing, but doing it as mercilessly as Ye Zhen, with zero flexibility and firing at the drop of a hat, did seem a bit extreme too.
In the new round of anonymous management-level surveys, Ye Zhen’s reputation nosedived—
“Out of 3,565 people company-wide, a total of 1,234 people gave you a negative review…”
Ruiyi traditionally held a year-end mutual evaluation activity between employees and management to help both sides adjust to each other, but this was the first time Jiang Xiaoyi had seen so many people give one single person a negative review.
Ye Zhen set down the survey materials in his hand and sighed: “1,234 people gave me a negative review right now—I didn’t expect this outcome. Seems I still need to work harder.”
Seeing this man now frowning worriedly at the survey data, Jiang Xiaoyi felt a stirring of sympathy—faced with such a brutal reality, surely even Ye Zhen would reflect on himself a bit.
She thought about it, then offered some comfort: “President Ye, the attendance system is a good thing, but does it need to be enforced quite so strictly? If it’s too harsh with no flexibility, it might make you seem out of touch with your employees.”
Ye Zhen was stunned for a moment, then broke into a baffled expression: “In touch?” This man’s beautiful eyes widened slightly. “Why would I want to be in touch with my employees?”
“Weren’t you just saying you need to work harder?”
“Of course I need to work harder.” Ye Zhen declared with conviction. “At the very least, I need to reach a negative-review rate above half.”
“???”
“What’s the use of being liked and popular? I’m not trying to marry my employees. If employees say I’m nice and then slack off at work, does that benefit me? Ruiyi’s work environment has been way too lax. Cursing me while being too intimidated to slack off—that’s the correct way for an employee’s life to unfold.”
Ye Zhen showed not the slightest gratitude to Jiang Xiaoyi—instead he looked at her and raised an eyebrow: “Speaking of which, Anna, why have you been talking so much lately? And why does even the smallest task require you to come running to report every little detail like you’re currying favor?”
“……”
If it weren’t for Ye Zhen constantly being obsessively picky about every little detail, Jiang Xiaoyi wouldn’t be reporting like this in the first place!
Grumbling internally, Jiang Xiaoyi left Ye Zhen’s office and sat back down at her desk, starting to handle routine emails, booking meeting rooms and notifying attendees according to Ye Zhen’s meeting schedule, preparing everything needed.
Most of the time, as long as Jiang Xiaoyi anticipated a problem that might arise in Ye Zhen’s work, she’d take a responsible approach and resolve it in advance.
After finishing not only today’s work but also tomorrow’s ahead of time, she was just about to take a break when she saw Ye Zhen push open his office door and walk over—
“Anna, why are you so quiet this afternoon? Are you actually busy with any work? Feels like you’ve had no presence at all this whole afternoon, so quiet. Is your workload too light, to the point you have nothing worth reporting?”
“……”
The one who called her chatty and said any little thing shouldn’t warrant a report was him—now that she was quiet as a mouse, he was implying she had nothing to do? Ye Zhen’s mouth was a lying ghost.
Jiang Xiaoyi found herself baffled—was it that Ye Zhen had become a nitpicking psycho after becoming a boss, or was it that only a psycho could become a boss in the first place?
After a week of being thoroughly worked over, at nine on Saturday morning, Jiang Xiaoyi stood in the cold wind, ready to “receive the honored guest.”
The event started at ten, but many matchmaking attendees had already arrived early.
Jiang Xiaoyi glanced around and noticed the men attending were noticeably fewer than the women, and their quality was nowhere near as high. Most of the girls were pretty and refined, well-maintained figures too, while the men who’d come for the matchmaking were, well, a mixed bag—some with beer bellies, some nearly balding…
She had no idea what Ye Zhen’s brother actually looked like.
But just in case, Jiang Xiaoyi decided to plan ahead. Time was limited, so she decided to go straight to the point—
“Ladies, my boss’s younger brother will be coming to this matchmaking event later. I’m doing this out of work obligation, but out of conscience, I need to warn you of one thing: he’s a psycho!”
“This man is inwardly depraved and not quite mentally stable—intermittently, that kind of unstable—and he’s even come close to committing a criminal offense before. So no matter what he looks like, please don’t be fooled! But for the sake of my job, please, be gracious and politely turn him down…”
……
After making a round to make sure all the women present had been warned, Jiang Xiaoyi finally felt at ease.
She craned her neck watching for him, and finally, five minutes past ten, saw Ye Zhen’s sports car arrive. She opened the door for him, and—there was no second person in the car besides Ye Zhen.
“Where’s your brother? Didn’t he come?”
Ye Zhen was dressed casually. He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi, sounding annoyed: “Of course he came.”
Then this man swung his leg out of the sports car and pulled out—a Chinchilla Persian cat. ???
Ye Zhen stroked the cat’s head, calm as ever: “Anna, keep a bit of distance from me—my brother’s shy around strangers.”
“……” Jiang Xiaoyi nearly choked. “Your brother is a cat?”
“That’s right.” Ye Zhen smiled. “My mom’s raised him like my brother since he was little.” He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi, raising an eyebrow, tone unfriendly. “What, you have a problem with that?”
Where would she dare have a problem—she only had a slight urge to die on the spot!
Jiang Xiaoyi forced herself on: “But isn’t your brother adopted?”
“Right, my brother’s bloodline is very pure, but he was an abandoned poor little kitten—my mom adopted him from the animal protection association when he was young. Adopt, don’t shop. Is that a problem?”
“Alright, enough of that for now—where are the other cats who came for the matchmaking?” Ye Zhen thought about it. “Did I forget to mention my brother’s a Chinchilla Persian?”
Yes, big bro!!! That’s the crucial part you forgot to mention!!! Who was supposed to know your brother was a cat?!!!
But Ye Zhen didn’t notice Jiang Xiaoyi’s embarrassment at all, and continued matter-of-factly: “But since you said it’s a large-scale offline matchmaking event, there must be Chinchilla Persian female cats too, right? It’s not even a rare breed. Come on, take me to see what cats there are.”
This was it.
At that moment, this was the only thought Jiang Xiaoyi had.
Ye Zhen, suspecting nothing, carried the cat and walked straight into the venue. Ten minutes later, once he realized there wasn’t a single other cat at the event, this man finally caught on, and turned back toward Jiang Xiaoyi, furious.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get far.
“A pervert daring to come to a matchmaking event!”
“Get lost!”
“We don’t welcome someone with the face of a man but the heart of a beast here!”
“Looks so handsome and human, who knew he was a psycho!”
Several middle-aged aunties grabbed brooms from around the park and suddenly charged out, swinging them straight at Ye Zhen…
Ye Zhen might rule supreme at the company, but against these aunties he was completely outmatched. Having to protect the cat in his arms too, he was purely on the defensive, and the scene turned pretty chaotic.
The aunties kept hitting him while also loudly expressing their gratitude to Jiang Xiaoyi—
“Girl, we just heard from our daughters—thank you so much for the warning!”
“Otherwise with looks like that, our kids probably would have fallen for it! Who knew a gem on the outside could hide such trash inside—the world really does have handsome psychos!”
“My daughter got tricked by a scumbag before! Men like this who trick women into marriage—I’ll beat every single one I see!”
……
Watching Ye Zhen get beaten, Jiang Xiaoyi felt her vision go dark.
She’d been so careless—she’d only warned the women attending the matchmaking event and forgot to appease their righteously indignant mothers! These vigilante aunties could’ve at least politely declined so she could complete her task!!!
Half an hour later, Jiang Xiaoyi sat with her head hanging low in a café, weathering Ye Zhen’s “storm.”
“How exactly do you handle things? I waste my precious weekend, and this is how it turns out?”
Jiang Xiaoyi was scolded into low spirits, but Ye Zhen, the one who’d started all this, wasn’t in much better shape either—his expensive custom-made suit had already been snagged and frayed by the brooms, his hair was messed up, and his face had a few small marks on it.
Perhaps his interrogation had pulled at the wound on his lip; this man frowned, paused, then continued berating Jiang Xiaoyi: “Do you even have a brain? Even if I forgot to send you my brother’s photo, a normal person should have deduced I meant to matchmake my own pet cat or dog. Even if I did have a brother, who in modern society would bother arranging a matchmaking event for their brother?”
Jiang Xiaoyi felt she had something to say—
“If you’d said ‘castration,’ I definitely would have understood. But you said ‘sterilization’—male cats are usually castrated, not sterilized, humans get sterilized. And veterinarians also recommend castration for male cat contraception, because a sterilized male cat will still go into heat, and the yowling is really eerie, it just won’t get female cats pregnant…”
“Don’t lecture me like you’re educating me.” Ye Zhen cut Jiang Xiaoyi off, his face dark. “You think I don’t know what you just said? Yes, theoretically castration is more permanent, but after castration, testosterone drops, and male cats also become less aggressive, their fighting spirit and wild instincts weaken too. With so many stray cats roaming around these days, if my brother’s castrated, won’t he lose to those wild cats out there? What if I’m not around and he gets bullied by strays?”
“……”
“I can’t allow that to happen, so sterilization it is. As for the eerie yowling, my villa is big enough—he’ll yowl on the first floor, I’ll sleep on the third, no problem.”
Faced with this bizarre line of reasoning, Jiang Xiaoyi was genuinely speechless.
She tried to argue from a different angle instead: “But President Ye, if I hadn’t held those aunties back and bought you time just now, you’d still be surrounded and getting beaten…”
Ye Zhen sneered: “But if you hadn’t caused this mess, would I have been beaten at all? What, you still think you did nothing wrong?”
“I was wrong, I apologize, President Ye, it was my fault!” Jiang Xiaoyi readily admitted it, then changed tack, testing the waters. “But my misunderstanding also has to do with you not communicating clearly—at the very least, it shouldn’t be entirely on me.”
She pushed on: “For preparing this matchmaking event, I worked overtime on the weekend, plus the transportation costs of coming and going—President Ye, what about—”
“Fine, though the matchmaking didn’t succeed, considering your hard work and weekend overtime, I’ll give you some extra compensation.” Ye Zhen smiled. “Don’t worry, I understand what you mean—I’ll pay you what you’re owed.”
Jiang Xiaoyi let out a breath of relief, and was just about to say something grateful, when she heard Ye Zhen’s expression darken, and continue—
“But you also owe me money, down to the last cent.”
This man pointed at the light scrape on his face with a nasty look: “My clothes, my face, my image, and my wounded pride—how are you planning to compensate me for these?”
“……”
“You wounded a man’s pride and dignity, and you still have the nerve to ask me for overtime pay?! Me not asking you for money is already showing you great mercy! Before I change my mind, right now, this instant, get out of my sight!”
“……”