Amid Qian Heng’s eye-roll and hurrying, Cheng Yao stepped into the room, her heart uneasy as she thought it through. By Qian Heng’s own logic, if her accidentally tugging on his clothes was equivalent to lusting after him, then wasn’t him actively inviting her into his room now, rounding things off, essentially him offering himself to her, throwing himself into her arms???
Once she started down that line of reasoning, Cheng Yao’s thoughts ran wild…
Sure, he had a foul temper and a sharp tongue, but that waist of Qian Heng’s, that chest, that face… She hadn’t seen his backside, but going by how it looked in his usual suit trousers, it seemed quite firm, and his legs were absurdly long… Factor in Qian Heng’s hourly billing rate, and if it really did come to that, thinking about it, it might actually be worth it. Especially if that usually cold, aloof, high-and-mighty face of his were to cry out “no, no” in a pitiful whimper—somehow, the thought was oddly thrilling??
Without quite realizing it, having apparently been poisoned by prolonged exposure to Qian Heng, Cheng Yao found herself feeling a flutter of attraction…
It wasn’t until she recalled how many years one could get for the crime of rape that she finally sobered up, pulling herself back from the edge of legal trouble, and turned to look at Qian Heng.
Because of the outage, Qian Heng’s room was pitch black too. Though the curtains were open, the faint moonlight from outside left everything in the room shrouded in a hazy quality. At that moment, Qian Heng was rifling through a pile of documents in the dark, searching for the family trust materials.
Cheng Yao hurriedly pulled out her phone and switched on the flashlight.
By that light, Qian Heng searched through his materials, and Cheng Yao finally got a look at the desk in his room.
Scattered messily across it were various case references and files, but oddly enough, mixed in among them were several succulent-plant care guides.
Qian Heng liked succulents?
Succulents were plump, round, green, and adorable—and Qian Heng liked something so at odds with his image? She’d always felt he’d suit something like a Dieffenbachia—one of those highly toxic plants—far better…
But thinking back, Cheng Yao realized it did check out—there were always pots of succulents in Qian Heng’s office, only every time she visited, a week or two apart, they’d be different ones.
She’d never given it much thought before, simply assuming her boss got bored of them easily. But now, seeing this stack of succulent care manuals, she realized—it probably wasn’t that he tired of them. It was that he kept killing them.
“Boss, you like succulents?”
Qian Heng froze for a moment, then immediately denied it. “I don’t. I just grow them casually.”
Casually, sure. Talk about a poor liar—just the books alone amounted to quite a collection; he approached succulent care with the same rigor he brought to studying legal statutes.
By the faint light in the room, sure enough, on the sunlit windowsill of Qian Heng’s room sat several more pots of succulents, though a few of the leaves had already lost their plumpness, clearly not far from death.
Cheng Yao felt a pang of sympathy. “These are dying too, huh.”
Qian Heng, who moments ago had claimed to grow them “just casually,” immediately dropped what he was doing and strode to the windowsill, brow furrowed, expression grave. He looked them over, then let out a small sigh of relief, before shooting Cheng Yao a warning glare, his face taut. “Curse my succulents again and I’ll dock your bonus.”
Even so, this time—perhaps it was the night blurring the usual clear line between boss and subordinate, or perhaps it was the nervousness Qian Heng had just tried, and failed, to hide—Cheng Yao found his threat carried no weight whatsoever.
She fiddled with a few of the leaves, and the already-withered ones crumbled right off at her light touch. “See, look—they might look okay on the surface, but they’re actually already about to—”
Before Cheng Yao could finish saying “die,” Qian Heng cut her off. “So what do I do?”
His expression remained cold, his tone still flat, yet beneath that pretense of calm composure, his true feelings still managed to slip through.
He was nervous. Very nervous.
Over a succulent.
Cheng Yao, marveling at this fresh discovery, also suddenly felt a mischievous streak rise up in her. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her, but seeing Qian Heng standing there, clearly anxious yet stubbornly clinging to his image, made her want to tease him.
Clearly he wanted it badly, yet he insisted on acting like he couldn’t care less—the problem was, his acting wasn’t quite good enough, and it kept slipping through the cracks.
Cheng Yao narrowed her eyes and smiled. “Want to know what to do?”
Qian Heng said nothing. He pressed his lips together and glanced at her. “I’ll exempt you from two days of unpaid overtime.”
Cheng Yao kept smiling, saying nothing.
Qian Heng frowned. “I won’t dock your perfect attendance this month.”
Cheng Yao kept smiling.
“I’ll give you a raise at year-end.”
Cheng Yao still said nothing, eyes narrowed. Qian Heng was much taller than her, and she had to tilt her head up to look at him, yet in that moment, she felt an odd sense of looking down on him from above.
Come on. Come and beg me.
“I’ll give you an ‘excellent’ rating for your probation period.”
“I’ll give you a bigger year-end bonus.”
“I’ll approve you one extra day of paid leave.”
Let’s see just how low your standards can go for a succulent.
…
“The contract was originally only for one year—I’ll renew it with you early.”
“I’ll bring you onto a case with a big commission split.”
No matter how tempting the offers Qian Heng threw out, Cheng Yao just kept up her enigmatic smile and said nothing.
Oh Qian Heng, Qian Heng, what goes around comes around—today it’s your turn. Let you have a taste of what it’s like to beg someone and get no definite answer, your heart hanging in uncertain suspense—quite the “thrill,” isn’t it.
This, in the end, finally provoked Qian Heng. His face took on a “you’re really pushing it” expression. “Cheng Yao, don’t push your luck. What exactly do you want?”
Cheng Yao nearly burst out laughing. If outsiders didn’t know better, they’d never guess this whole exchange between her and Qian Heng was entirely over one little succulent.
Having thoroughly tormented Qian Heng psychologically to her satisfaction, Cheng Yao finally decided to quit while she was ahead. She cleared her throat. “How about this—bring these pots to my room and let me take care of them for a few days, and they’ll bounce right back. I’m guessing you’ve been overwatering them and they’re not getting enough sunlight. Unlike you, I’m not busy all day, so I can make sure they get sun every day.”
Qian Heng eyed her suspiciously, as though weighing whether this guarantee could be trusted.
“Don’t worry—for the sake of skipping unpaid overtime, keeping my perfect attendance, getting a raise, an excellent probation rating, a bigger year-end bonus, an early contract renewal, and a big case, I’ll definitely put in the effort!”
“…”
Qian Heng’s expression shifted through several states, while Cheng Yao felt like a serf who’d just seized her own household—utterly triumphant! So this was what it felt like to push your luck and watch your boss squirm! Hahahaha, what a rush!
Emboldened, perhaps by nothing more than sheer nerve, Cheng Yao suddenly felt light on her feet. “Come on, boss, weren’t you going to explain the family trust stuff to me?”
“…”
Qian Heng ground his teeth, but given the circumstances, with the tables turned and himself now the one asking for a favor, he had no choice but to hold his tongue, pull out the trust materials he’d compiled, find a spot by the desk, and genuinely begin explaining things to Cheng Yao.
“Domestic trusts, like banks, require approval from the banking regulator to be established, and like banks, they’re subject to its oversight. That requirement alone sets a high bar for setting up a domestic trust, and because of the regulatory concerns, these domestic trusts tend, generally speaking, to be run very conservatively…”
…
The night was truly still, and in that room, every sentence Qian Heng spoke, every sound, every trailing sigh, seemed magnified. With no power, Cheng Yao held her phone’s flashlight over the materials Qian Heng had found, and the two of them ended up sitting quite close together, working through the technical details of trust law by that precarious little sliver of light.
Being so close, Cheng Yao found she could sense every breath Qian Heng took—that faint, mint-tinged breath of his seemed to take on physical form, lingering by her ear, seeping into her skin, warm and damp.
At this distance, Cheng Yao was close enough that the slightest tilt of her head would have bumped Qian Heng’s nose, yet he, absorbed in his explanation, seemed utterly unaware, glancing occasionally at the materials, occasionally up at her.
There was no denying it—Qian Heng really was extraordinarily good-looking. Even though she saw that face every day, at such close range, Cheng Yao still found her thoughts wandering. His nose, straight and fine, was right there before her; his usually thin, pale lips parted slightly; his long lashes fluttered with each blink; and the focused intensity in his eyes was especially captivating.
She’d always heard people say a man is most handsome when he’s focused, and only now did she understand it was true.
Immersed in his work, professional to the point of seeming utterly unapproachable, Qian Heng somehow radiated an even more magnetic pull. Perhaps the height of rejection was, in its own way, a kind of allure.
Like junk food—you know it’s bad for you, but it tastes too good, and you just can’t help wanting more.
Watching Qian Heng, so focused and wholly absorbed in explaining this professional material to her, truly handsome—so handsome that Cheng Yao instinctively didn’t dare look straight at him, and turned her head slightly away.
The moment she avoided his gaze, he called her out on it.
“Cheng Yao, are you listening?”
Startled, Cheng Yao looked up, and there was Qian Heng’s face, enlarged right before her eyes. She suddenly felt a jolt of nerves and instinctively tried to lean back, but her foot caught on some clutter in the dark.
A sharp pain shot through her twisted ankle, and Cheng Yao couldn’t help letting out a low cry.
She tried to stand, but from the awkward angle of her fall, she couldn’t get up right away. Bracing herself against the edge of Qian Heng’s bed and trying to push herself up, that simple movement alone sent another jolt of searing pain through her ankle.
Qian Heng, interrupted by the commotion, stopped his explanation of trust law and stood, looking down at her.
In the fall, Cheng Yao’s phone had gone flying somewhere unknown, and for a moment the two of them were plunged into darkness. Though there was faint moonlight from the window, Qian Heng stood with his back to it, and Cheng Yao couldn’t make out his expression.
“Can you stand?”
Though she couldn’t see his face, Qian Heng’s voice remained cold and detached. Cheng Yao, wincing in pain, silently cursed him—didn’t he know to come help her up?!
“I can’t stand up!” Cheng Yao tried several times and kept failing, aggravating the injury and crying out in pain again.
Qian Heng seemed to have reached his limit. “Can you stop yelling? Show some backbone. Take it like a man.”
I… I’m not a damn man!!!
Cheng Yao was so furious she nearly cried. “Are you some kind of fascist? I…”
Before she could finish, Qian Heng bent down, and without a word, scooped her up and, with no apparent effort, set her down on the bed.
Cheng Yao was stunned.
What just happened to me??? Boss just… just picked me up?? Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing???
Still reeling with shock, Cheng Yao stared blankly up at Qian Heng, her voice full of confusion as she called out, “Boss?”
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t stand?” Qian Heng turned his head aside, his tone oddly harsh. “Cheng Yao, I’m warning you—don’t test my limits anymore.”
Huh??? How did I test your limits???
“Also, don’t call me that anymore.” Qian Heng warned coldly. “Especially not in front of other men.”
“Why not?”
“Annoying.”
“…”
As though worried Cheng Yao might slip up again, after a moment Qian Heng solemnly repeated himself once more. “It’s genuinely annoying.”
“…”