Cheng Yao was still half-asleep when her parents’ call woke her.
“Yaoyao! You’ll never guess who we ran into today!”
Cheng Yao, jolted awake from her nap, was still groggy. “Who? That old classmate who used to chase after Dad?”
“No! What is even going on in that head of yours?” her mother said, both angry and worked up. “It’s that no-good boyfriend of yours, little Qian!”
Huh??? Qian Heng??? Wasn’t Qian Heng out on his blind date today??? How had her parents run into him???
“Your dad and I ran into him at some fancy Western restaurant today, and he was there eating with another girl! Cheating on you behind your back, and lying to you the whole time about slaving away in Dongguan!”
Cheng Yao suddenly felt very wide awake, and a distinctly bad feeling crept over her…
“Mom… did you… did you say anything to him?”
“Say anything? I exposed his rotten behavior right then and there!” her mother said, sounding pleased with herself. “And it turns out that girl he was eating with had been deceived by him too — apparently he already has a girlfriend! She dumped a glass of wine right on him on the spot! Serves him right, if you ask me!”
Even though Cheng Yao herself had been feeling put out about Qian Heng going on a blind date at all, and had even wished it would go terribly wrong, she’d never imagined it would go wrong quite like this!
…
Her mother went on and on, tearing into “that cheating scumbag” Qian Heng, while Cheng Yao’s heart sank further and further with every word.
“Mom, I might not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise…”
Her mother was indignant. “What kind of talk is that? So you got cheated on, big deal. Compared to everything life throws at you, this is nothing. Don’t wallow — go break up with him right now, understand?”
…
Cheng Yao was about to say something more when she heard the sound of a key turning in the front door.
Qian Heng…
He was back…
“Never mind, you got taken advantage of, poor thing, not your fault. Take some time to get your head straight. Your dad and I will grab dinner out and come see you a little later.”
Cheng Yao could no longer hear her mother’s voice — her mind was buzzing loudly, and facing the storm about to descend on her, she had no idea how she was supposed to weather it. She couldn’t muster a shred of optimism, not even reciting Gorky’s “The Petrel” would help — and honestly, she was nothing like a petrel right now, more like a trembling little quail.
Qian Heng walked in with a face like thunder.
Cheng Yao glanced surreptitiously at the front of his suit and, sure enough, spotted a suspicious stain — and through the white dress shirt beneath, as he moved, she could faintly make out patches tinged with the color of red wine.
So he really had gotten wine dumped on him…
Cheng Yao barely dared to look up and meet his gaze. Without a word, she immediately hung her head to admit fault, practically ready to drop to her knees.
“Boss, I’m guilty,” Cheng Yao said, her face crumpling as she apologized. “I didn’t know my parents would go to that same restaurant, I didn’t know they’d jump to conclusions and think you were cheating, I didn’t know they’d embarrass you like that in front of the girl right in the middle of your date, and I definitely didn’t know she’d dump wine on you without even listening to your explanation…”
Cheng Yao still clung to a last shred of hope, her voice weak as she asked, “But — I’ve heard from friends who’ve done this that most blind dates end with neither party being interested anyway, and matchmakers aren’t always reliable either. With your standards, boss, you’d never fall for some run-of-the-mill girl anyway! You obviously weren’t interested in her! So even though the process was a bit of a mess and there was a misunderstanding, at least nothing important got affected…”
Cheng Yao’s plan had seemed sound enough — Qian Heng found ninety-nine percent of people idiots anyway, and his standards for a partner would surely be sky-high; if he hadn’t been interested in this blind date girl to begin with, this would all be manageable.
But of course, the one thing she’d been hoping wouldn’t happen happened.
Qian Heng’s next words shattered her hopes entirely.
“I was quite satisfied with her.”
Cheng Yao: ???
Qian Heng pressed his lips together, his tone solemn. “She was quite satisfied with me too. If it weren’t for your parents, I’d already be off the market as of today.”
That fast?? Was that even legal?? Surely not!!!
And yet Qian Heng insisted, flat out, that he and his blind date had genuinely been hitting it off, on the verge of walking into a bright future together, only for Cheng Yao’s parents to barge in and ruin the whole thing.
“So, you owe me compensation.”
Cheng Yao was on the verge of tears. “Boss, whether two people end up together really comes down to timing, circumstance, and fate. Isn’t it… isn’t it possible fate just decided the two of you weren’t meant to be? And besides, how am I even supposed to compensate you for that? You know our country doesn’t recognize emotional damages claims for this kind of thing. We’re both in the legal field, we should respect the law, right?”
Qian Heng shrugged off his coat and sat down on the sofa, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t want emotional damages. I’m not short on money.”
“Then…”
“I need a girlfriend.”
Cheng Yao: !!!
Cheng Yao was stunned, shocked, completely speechless…
Was Qian Heng… saying this to her, looking at her like that, meaning to hint at something?
What should she do, what should she do, what should she do!
Cheng Yao’s nerves went into overdrive; even her breathing sped up in an instant. Was Qian Heng, she wondered, trying to make her his girlfriend??? So the things in TV dramas weren’t fake after all!! She braced herself, thinking his next line would surely be something like “Since your parents cost me a girlfriend, you’ll just have to make it up by becoming my girlfriend yourself”!!
How should she answer? Should she say yes? No, that couldn’t be right — in her fantasies, her first love was supposed to come with armfuls and armfuls of roses, a grand, sweeping courtship! How could it be settled just like that? And wasn’t office romance between a boss and subordinate the worst possible idea? What if they broke up later — awkward doesn’t begin to cover it, and since Qian Heng owned the firm, he certainly wouldn’t be the one quitting, which meant she’d be the one forced to job-hunt all over again. And with how toxic he could be, dating him might just be lethal…
But if she said no — they’d still be seeing each other constantly at work, wouldn’t that be even more awkward going forward?
While Cheng Yao’s inner monologue was already spinning out enough material for a full-length script, Qian Heng leisurely continued—
“I need a fake girlfriend to bring home to placate my parents.”
Cheng Yao thought: Oh.
Qian Heng shifted position and went on. “It’s almost my father’s birthday. He’s ordered me to bring someone home, otherwise they’ve already had three thousand copies of my blind-date profile printed up, ready to hire people to hand them out at People’s Park and every subway entrance in the city.”
Oh.
“You just have to pretend once, that’s all. That’ll shut them up. After a while we can say work got in the way and use that as an excuse to break up.”
Oh.
“Cheng Yao?”
“Oh.”
Qian Heng frowned. “What’s with the ‘oh’?” He turned his head aside. “Anyway, it’s settled. I’ll let you know when it’s time to go.”
“Oh.”
“…”
Qian Heng was in a foul mood.
Actually, before he got home, his mood hadn’t been this bad.
Sure, he’d had wine dumped on him, but he’d also gotten rid of the pest that was his blind date, so he’d actually felt pretty good about it. Extorting Cheng Yao like this hadn’t been part of his plan at all. He simply hadn’t anticipated that Cheng Yao’s parents wouldn’t have explained the full story to her — leaving out entirely the fact that the misunderstanding had been deliberately engineered by him — so Cheng Yao had assumed her parents had simply acted rashly, ruining his date without knowing any better.
And his usual cold expression had only made things worse, deepening the misunderstanding. The moment he walked in, Cheng Yao had greeted him with the look of someone bravely marching to their execution, ready to confess and beg forgiveness.
He wasn’t even sure how it happened — somehow, driven by some inexplicable impulse, he’d claimed to be thoroughly satisfied with the date and gone on to extort Cheng Yao over it.
Only — what was that “oh” of hers supposed to mean?!
And she’d said it twice!
Qian Heng was thoroughly, deeply displeased — was this any way to talk to your boss?
Faced with his proposal that she pretend to be his girlfriend, shouldn’t she have shown some excitement, some nervous flattery, some sense of honor? Was this any way to react?!
Sure, it was only a fake girlfriend — but given his refined taste and impeccable standards, choosing her for the role was practically a compliment in itself!
And yet Cheng Yao seemed utterly unmoved by it!
Not only unmoved — she looked positively crushed!
Qian Heng was almost incandescent with fury.
But he couldn’t exactly show it. He could only bottle it up.
As for how Qian Heng’s mood came across to Cheng Yao — that was an entirely different matter altogether.
She could tell that although his face remained as cold and expressionless as ever, the air around him felt distinctly off — if he’d had a giant cleaver on hand, he probably would have already drawn it.
Cheng Yao noticed several times that Qian Heng kept sneaking glances at her, his eyes carrying a faint edge of hostility, and she wasn’t sure if he was scheming some kind of retaliation over the failed blind date.
She was baffled — it was just one first meeting on a blind date, how could he fall for someone that fast? Devoted enough, wounded enough over it, to act like this? She thought, with a touch of sourness, just what kind of heavenly beauty was this that had left Qian Heng so unable to let go? Hadn’t he once praised her own looks too? Was this girl really that much prettier than her?
A little annoying!
But annoyed as she was, Cheng Yao still had a favor to ask of Qian Heng after all.
Her parents were coming to see her tonight!
And here was Qian Heng’s whole pile of belongings, still in the apartment, right after they’d just “caught him cheating” — how could her parents possibly let that slide?!
“So, boss, why don’t I go ahead and pack up your things while we’re at it? You’re supposed to be moving out soon anyway, right? Might as well start getting organized now — that way when my parents get here, you can… you can step out for a bit, and once they see your things all packed up, they’ll know we’re basically breaking up, and they won’t have anything more to say about it…”
“…”
Cheng Yao thought it over, then went on, “And even if you step out, leaving all your stuff behind — knowing my mom’s personality, she’d probably just pack it all up and throw it out herself. Better that I do it, and tell her I’ll handle it properly so she doesn’t need to get involved.”
“…”
Though Qian Heng’s silence carried a distinct air of displeasure, Cheng Yao took it as tacit agreement.
She didn’t waste any time either, worried her parents might show up at any moment, and threw herself right into packing up Qian Heng’s things.
“Boss, how should I file these documents? Should they all go in one packing box?”
“Boss, I’ve put your coats over here.”
“Boss…”
Cheng Yao worked away energetically, while Qian Heng showed no sign whatsoever of helping. Cheng Yao figured he must still be too dispirited from the failed blind date to muster any enthusiasm — even for the prospect of finally moving from this rented flat back into his mansion.
Just as Cheng Yao had nearly finished packing the bulk of Qian Heng’s belongings, she got a call from her parents.
“Yaoyao, we’re not coming after all.” It was her father calling. “I need to go get a haircut and buy some new coats that suit me better tonight, and switch out my bag too — your dad’s current one is getting a bit worn, doesn’t look sharp enough.”
“Huh???”
Cheng Yao was baffled. Since when did her father care this much about how he looked or dressed?
“That archenemy of your dad’s! That Qian guy! He’s coming to this reunion too!” her father declared, worked up. “How can I lose to him in terms of presentation?! Absolutely not! Your dad’s going to crush him completely — in bearing, in presence, in refinement, in looks, across the board!”
“…”
Fine, Dad, Cheng Yao thought — good thing she wasn’t actually going through a real breakup and heartbreak, or she’d have felt genuinely moved to tears realizing she ranked lower in importance than this bizarre old classmate rivalry of his.
Since her parents weren’t coming after all, Cheng Yao was left with some free time. Still feeling guilty about having ruined Qian Heng’s blind date, and hoping to smooth things over between them, she eagerly invited him to dinner.
“Boss, are you free tonight, as it happens? Would you give me the chance to treat you to a meal?” Cheng Yao rubbed her hands together, wearing her most ingratiating smile. “That Japanese place you wanted to go last time, when we got back from our trip? I figured, since our little house-share is almost wrapping up, and this past month I’ve gotten to soak in your professional aura every day, breathing the same air as you has really been an honor — so let me treat you to a farewell dinner, to show my thanks?”
Perhaps Cheng Yao’s earnest attitude finally won Qian Heng over — his previously stormy expression finally showed signs of clearing, the clouds beginning to part.
“Since you’re this grateful, so sincerely inviting me, I suppose it would be rude of me to refuse,” Qian Heng said, turning his face away, tone solemn. “Fine, let’s go to that place tonight.”
Even though Qian Heng still wore his usual “I’m doing you a huge favor by letting you treat me” expression, Cheng Yao was well used to it by now. She was in the middle of pulling up the app to book the Japanese restaurant when Qian Heng stopped her.
“I’ll make the booking.” He cleared his throat, explaining somewhat awkwardly, “I happen to have nothing else to do. Bored, that’s all.”
Fine, Cheng Yao thought — since when had he ever been this eager to volunteer for anything? Clearly he only got proactive when someone else was footing the bill!
Cheng Yao reassured herself: sure, tonight was bound to cost her dearly, but treating the boss to dinner, buttering him up a bit — worth it!
The restaurant was called Yawo, and by the time Qian Heng and Cheng Yao arrived, a line of walk-ins without reservations had already formed outside.
Yawo specialized in crab dishes, and the crab looked excellent. What left Cheng Yao a bit embarrassed, though, was that the restaurant seemed designed entirely for couples — every item on the menu was part of a couples’ set, practically hostile toward anyone dining single.
And the private room made things even worse for a single person like her. It was a fully Japanese-style tatami room with a table and two seats, decorated to look like an intimate Japanese-style bedroom, the lighting dim and suggestive, the ikebana on the table shaped unmistakably like hearts, and the ukiyo-e prints on the wall left even less to the imagination — every single one depicting figures in wildly explicit, gravity-defying poses.
The whole private room seemed designed to hint at something.
Sharing such a confined space with her boss, Cheng Yao suddenly felt very uneasy. Qian Heng, though, seemed perfectly composed, his lofty gaze apparently oblivious to the prints on the wall — the very picture of a chaste, unworldly ascetic.
Unable to help herself, Cheng Yao pulled up a review app, and nearly fainted on the spot — right there in black and white, it clearly stated that Yawo ranked among City A’s Top 4 couples’ restaurants…
Was Qian Heng… blind? Had he really not seen this ranking???
Was he so warped by his failed blind date that he’d deliberately brought her somewhere like this, just to make her feel his own urgency to find someone? Or had his eyesight simply failed him entirely, and he genuinely had no idea what this restaurant was known for?
…
Since it was couples’ set menus only, ordering went quickly, and once they’d finished, the two of them sat facing each other across the vast tatami room in awkward silence.
“I didn’t know there were pictures like that on the wall.”
The dead silence, surprisingly, was broken first by Qian Heng.
His voice sounded a little unnatural, his gaze subtly averted, turned toward the tatami mat.
So even the seemingly unflappable Qian Heng had, in fact, already clocked those pictures out of the corner of his eye…
Cheng Yao badly wanted to grab his sleeve and demand, loudly: buddy, do you or do you not know this is a couples-only, romance-themed restaurant? Do you know?!
As if he could sense the outrage brewing in Cheng Yao’s head, Qian Heng lowered his lashes, looking down at the table. “I booked over the phone.”
Cheng Yao blinked, only belatedly catching on.
Oh… I see… since he’d booked by phone instead of through the review app, he hadn’t seen that this restaurant ranked on the couples’ list — that would explain it, then.
Qian Heng, somewhat stiffly, changed the subject. “Japanese food portions tend to be small. After we finish, would you like some dessert?”
Well, this must be his way of apologizing for the mix-up, Cheng Yao thought — a promising sign after all.
“Godiva!”
If the boss is paying, only go for the expensive stuff — never mind what’s fitting!
Qian Heng looked a little sheepish, though he tried to play it off with feigned indifference. “Besides Godiva, is there anything else you like?”
Just as Cheng Yao was preparing to seize this rare moment of Qian Heng’s guilt and really milk it for all it was worth, her phone rang at the worst possible moment.
She glanced down — it was Li Mengting.
Qian Heng, visibly annoyed at having the conversation interrupted, fixed his gaze on Cheng Yao, unblinking, an intense, focused look on his face — one that left Cheng Yao with the unsettling feeling that answering the phone right now would somehow be spoiling the mood, practically a crime.
But this was Li Mengting calling! They hadn’t spoken since they’d parted ways last time, and Cheng Yao couldn’t help but worry — she had no idea whether things with Zhang Hao had been sorted out or not.
“A friend of mine, in the middle of a fight with her husband,” Cheng Yao explained carefully. “It might be urgent, sorry, let me take this call.”
Cheng Yao stepped outside the private room to answer.
“Yaoyao, I’m done for, I really don’t know what to do anymore…”
The moment the call connected, Li Mengting’s anguished, hoarse voice came through.
“What happened? Take your time.”
“I listened to what you said, went back and really thought it over, realized I had things I’d done wrong. I went to try to make peace with Rat, but he absolutely refused, insisted on cutting things off completely, told me to get rid of the baby too.” Li Mengting’s tone was desperate, filled with grief. “That’s when I finally started to feel like something was off, so a few days ago I had an old friend from back home follow him around — and it turns out he’s been having an affair with a coworker in his department! He lied to me about working overtime, but it was all fake — he was going out to hotels with her!”
Cheng Yao, too, found this hard to process. “How could this happen…”
On the other end, Li Mengting was sobbing, and Cheng Yao felt a strange sense of unreality — was this really happening? How could a relationship fall apart like this?
“Now I finally understand why he suddenly got so attentive lately. I was foolishly assuming it was because I was pregnant, that he’d developed a sense of responsibility about becoming a father — but it turns out that attentiveness was something someone else had trained into him! His change, it was all for that shameless mistress! Even the way he’s been looking after me lately — that was purely out of guilt!”
“Don’t get worked up, take it slow, I’m here.”
At Cheng Yao’s words, Li Mengting seemed to calm down a little. She took a deep breath. “After my friend followed them and photographed them, I lost it and sent everyone in Zhang Hao’s and that woman’s companies — all their bosses and coworkers — the evidence of them cheating behind my back. I wanted them to lose all face.” Li Mengting laughed bitterly. “And you know what? That shameless mistress turned around and sued me! With the affair being an open-and-shut case, she couldn’t very well claim defamation, so instead she’s accusing me of violating her privacy!” Li Mengting’s tone carried pure disbelief. “They were the ones flaunting their affair in public, being affectionate together — I’m a pregnant woman who can’t get around easily, so I just had someone take photos as evidence, and even had a formal power of attorney authorizing them to collect the evidence on my behalf. How is that a privacy violation?”
“Having a third party covertly tail and photograph someone to catch them cheating has always counted as a privacy violation,” Cheng Yao said, rubbing her temples. “The only person with standing to gather evidence of infidelity is you yourself. If you commissioned a third party to collect the evidence, that’s an infringement. If you’d gone and tailed them yourself, taken photos in public places yourself, that evidence would be clean — no infringement.”
Li Mengting laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I ran into an old senior from law school at the courthouse, and he told me the exact same thing. So this infringement case — that shameless mistress might actually win it. Four years of studying law, and only now do I realize how useless textbook knowledge and shallow legal concepts are in actual practice — it’s a completely different world.”
“Cheng Yao, tell me — what exactly does the law protect? Does the law protect people who are thick-skinned enough, who have no bottom line at all? I’m pregnant, I’m married, I got cheated on, and I get no protection whatsoever — but the privacy of a woman who slept around with a man she knew was married, knew was expecting a baby, that gets protected properly?”
Li Mengting, apparently somewhere with a strong wind blowing, her voice half-drowned out and thick with grief, kept circling back over and over to Zhang Hao’s wrongs, cursing the mistress.
Cheng Yao suddenly grew alert. “Where are you? Have you been drinking?”
“Ha.” Li Mengting let out a drunken hiccup. “Well, this is how my life’s turned out anyway. I’ve let these two kids down. If there’s a next life, tell them not to be born to me again — I’m too useless a mother.”
Cheng Yao felt real fear now. Li Mengting had sailed through life smoothly, never facing any real setbacks — and now, faced with her whole life suddenly falling apart, it sounded like she might be considering ending it.
“Li Mengting! Listen to me! Where are you?! Send me your location right now! Hurry! Don’t do anything rash!”
“What’s the point,” Li Mengting murmured. “Rat doesn’t want me or the baby anymore, what does it matter what I do…”
“Get a grip! If you die now, you’re playing right into Zhang Hao and that mistress’s hands — she’ll get to marry him without any obstacles at all. You die today, and ten years from now, that scumbag and his mistress will have kids of their own, thriving careers, everyone around them long since moved on, not even remembering they ever did anything wrong — the only ones left crying their eyes out at your grave will be your own parents!”
It has to be said, Cheng Yao’s words hit hard and precisely, and hearing them, Li Mengting’s last defenses crumbled entirely. She broke down sobbing, and eventually, after Cheng Yao talked her through it, finally sent her a location pin.
Afraid that any delay might lead to disaster, Cheng Yao rushed back into the private room, gathering her things as she explained the situation to Qian Heng.
The food hadn’t even arrived yet, and here she was, the one who’d invited him to dinner, about to run off — not exactly polite or sincere. But with a life potentially on the line, Cheng Yao had no time to worry about that.
Just as Cheng Yao was about to dash out of the private room, Qian Heng caught her arm.
“I’m coming.”
Cheng Yao: ???
Qian Heng pressed his lips together, looking away. “That friend of yours is currently standing at the edge of Lake Su Linghu. If you go and she still wants to end things, do you really think you alone can stop her? What if she drags you into the lake with her when you die, where am I supposed to find a fake girlfriend then? My parents will have my blind-date profile broadcast to the entire universe.”
“…”
“All right, quit standing around, let’s go.”