Cheng Yao nearly burst out laughing at the worst possible moment, hands on her hips. Watching Qian Heng’s still-tense expression, she felt a wicked impulse rise up inside her.

What goes around comes around. Surely it was her turn to hold the upper hand now.

She looked at him, her voice tinged with mock regret. “Boss, given my current abilities and overall competence, I really don’t think I can measure up to this new position you’ve offered me. I can’t handle it, so I’ll voluntarily give up this opportunity. You’d better find someone more qualified.”

Qian Heng did indeed freeze for a moment, then glared at her, struggling to stay composed. “This job isn’t as hard as you think. Whatever you don’t know, I could always teach you myself, step by step…”

“No need, no need.” Cheng Yao only smiled. “I know myself well. I just remembered—I don’t fit your standards for a partner at all.”

“…”

“You want a girlfriend who’s obedient. But deep down, I’m actually quite rebellious. Making me behave goes against my nature.”

“You want a girlfriend who’s sensible and understanding—who has to accept and even reflect on herself when the man plays around outside.” Cheng Yao put on a troubled expression. “I can’t do that. I’m quite possessive by nature—what’s mine is mine, no one else can so much as touch it, and I’ll get jealous if someone even looks twice. If a man played around outside on me, I’d grit my teeth and treat my bar exam as a waste of study time, and even if it cost me my license, I’d make sure the matter got handled.”

“…”

Cheng Yao glanced up at him. “I’ve memorized the Standards for Assessing the Degree of Human Bodily Injury. Loss of over half the glans is only classified as minor injury, grade one; loss of one testicle is also only grade one; only loss of both testicles counts as grade two.”

“…”

Qian Heng went quiet for a long while before finally forcing out a few words. “Cheng Yao, is that really necessary?”

“Can’t help it. A woman who isn’t ruthless won’t hold her ground.”

Cheng Yao brushed back her hair, avoiding the sight of Qian Heng’s face, which had turned every shade of the rainbow, and went on. “And don’t get me wrong—I hold myself to a double standard. I don’t like men who play around, but as an excellent female lawyer myself, I inevitably have to deal with men socially for work, and a bit of playing around for professional purposes is only natural. My man should be understanding of that, and not make unreasonable scenes over it.”

“…”

“Also, my boss said no dating within two years.”

“…”

“Office romances are far too unprofessional. Professionals absolutely cannot make that kind of mistake.”

“…”

After a long silence, Qian Heng finally took a deep breath. His face had gone completely dark, like a balloon about to burst on the spot from anger.

“The two-year no-dating rule was meant for anyone who’s nowhere near as good as me. If the person in question is me, you should be dating right away—you should be seizing the opportunity.”

“An office romance, used well, can actually help your work—working during the day and being in love at the same time can relieve stress even better.”

“You’re allowed to disobey me.”

“I won’t play around.”

Qian Heng stared into her eyes, his tone firm. “But if you think you get to play around, you can dream on.”

He looked away. “You’re possessive, you get jealous—so do I.”

As he said this, Qian Heng kept his eyes locked on hers, and this time, Cheng Yao found she couldn’t hold his gaze so steadily. When he spoke like that, in that tone, her heart pounded like a drum. Her earlier smugness, hands on hips, crumbled entirely.

Qian Heng was simply too outstanding—outstanding to the point of feeling unreachable. And yet the closer she got to him, the more Cheng Yao had to finally face her own heart honestly.

From her initial prejudice and dissatisfaction with him, to later, when every glance, every gesture of his seemed to carry a different meaning for her. Whenever he was around, she found herself unconsciously following him with her eyes; hearing about his blind date made her unhappy; learning his blind date had failed made her secretly gleeful…

All those moments of her heart skipping a beat around him that had piled up, all the times she’d forced herself to hold back, warning herself internally to keep her distance, all the small everyday details she’d tried so hard to ignore—in this instant, like water long held back by a dam, the moment the dam collapsed, it came roaring back with a vengeance.

In that instant, Cheng Yao’s mind was filled with nothing but Qian Heng. His smile, the way he raised an eyebrow, the curve of his lips when pressed thin, the rapid blink of his eyelashes when utterly shocked, the way he stayed professional despite his stomach pain, the unconscious softness in his eyes when he looked at his succulents, the dark, accusatory expression when he confronted her, the arrogant, infuriating yet still handsome look on his face, the punch he’d thrown for her sake, his awkwardness when handing her chocolate, his unreasonable insistence that she not cry…

The instant Qian Heng had said “I like you,” Cheng Yao’s heart had felt as though it stopped altogether.

Faced with Qian Heng’s overbearing, unreasonable confession, no matter how composed she appeared on the surface, inside she had absolutely no defenses left.

If this were a battle, then even though she’d started with the clear advantage and held the initiative from the start, at this point Qian Heng had thrown her ranks into complete disarray.

Even unwilling to admit it, Cheng Yao finally realized it.

She really did harbor some improper feelings toward Qian Heng.

Only, somewhere in her subconscious, even Cheng Yao herself felt the thought was too bold, too reckless, too dangerous, and her self-protective instincts had been furiously denying the feeling.

Perhaps because of Cheng Yao’s prolonged silence, Qian Heng finally couldn’t help himself. He looked at her and added, very forcefully, “I won’t play around, and neither can you. You’re only allowed to have me.” He paused, turning his face away. “I only have you, too.”

Cheng Yao had thrown so many moves at him, and yet with just this one line, Qian Heng had effortlessly dismantled all her defenses.

Absolutely against the rules.

Face burning red, Cheng Yao glared at him. Qian Heng—so infuriating!

“As for the new position I’m offering you, if I say you’re qualified, you’re qualified.” Qian Heng said, overbearing. “Take the position when I tell you to. All this hesitating—don’t you want your year-end bonus anymore?”

The year-end bonus thing just wouldn’t die, apparently?!

Suppressing her own flustered state, Cheng Yao tried to feign anger. “No boyfriend threatens his girlfriend with her year-end bonus!”

“No boyfriend pays his girlfriend a salary either.”

“…”

Cheng Yao calmed herself, finally regaining her composure. She glanced at him, trying to keep a fearless expression. “Fine, then, forget the bonus. I know my own limits. I can’t handle the position.”

“…”

Cheng Yao held back her racing heart, watching Qian Heng squirm. She could tell his face had gone nearly too dark to look at, but driven by the wicked impulse inside her, she wanted to push further.

“And thinking about it more, maybe you don’t even like me that much—after all, it wasn’t long ago that you were ‘falling in love at first sight’ with that girl on your blind date, blaming me for ruining your date.” Cheng Yao said sourly. “Given how fast your affections seem to shift, even if I rejected you, you’d probably find someone new to like within a month and successfully get out of singlehood…”

“There’s no one I like more.”

Cheng Yao said, unhurried, “Try it and see, why don’t you, boss? How would you know unless you try?”

“I never liked the woman from the blind date.”

Qian Heng glanced at her, then looked away. “I don’t like her.”

“But you said…”

Qian Heng glared at her. “I lied to you.”

Cheng Yao froze, then understood—so that early on, Qian Heng had already been setting her up.

But she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. She pretended not to understand and pressed on. “Why would you lie to me?”

Qian Heng said nothing, only glaring fiercely at her. “You already know, don’t you?”

But Cheng Yao had made up her mind to play dumb to the very end. “I don’t know. I can’t read minds. How would I know what you’re thinking?”

“Cheng Yao.” Qian Heng was almost gritting his teeth. “Don’t push your luck too far.”

“How am I pushing my luck? Just tell me why you lied.”

Qian Heng stuck his chin out, looking as if he’d rather die than answer. “I refuse to answer that question.”

“Fine, then I refuse to be your girlfriend.”

Qian Heng was practically about to explode. “Cheng! Yao!”

“Is it really that hard to tell the truth?” Cheng Yao met his eyes, her heart racing, her face flushed, but she kept her tone steady. “I don’t want a boyfriend who won’t tell me anything. Someone like you doesn’t fit my standards for a partner.”

“If you have nothing else to say, then I’ve made my position clear too. It’s getting late, I’ll head back.”

Just as Cheng Yao turned to leave, Qian Heng yanked her back.

“I lied to you because it would let me get you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”

Qian Heng seemed to have exhausted every last drop of his pride to get that one short sentence out, and the moment he finished, he turned his head away awkwardly, as if he’d just endured unbearable torment.

But before long, this boss with his warped, proud, tsundere tendencies seemed unable to resist and turned his gaze back toward her. He glanced at her, looked away again, and then, unable to help himself once more, glanced back—only to be caught red-handed by Cheng Yao’s stare.

“…”

For the first time, Cheng Yao saw a flicker of unease and awkwardness in Qian Heng’s eyes, though his tone remained bluffing and fierce as he shot her a sharp look before glancing away again. “Just go ahead and make me furious, then.”

Cheng Yao only smiled. “In that case, this can hardly count as me pursuing you—shouldn’t you be the one pursuing me? Going by the evidence so far, it really looks like you were the one with improper thoughts about me first.”

Qian Heng instinctively kept a straight face and denied it. “I did not.”

“Then I’m leaving. A man who doesn’t even have improper thoughts about me clearly doesn’t really like me.”

“Fine! I did!”

Qian Heng still kept a straight face, but Cheng Yao felt that if it could be visualized, he’d probably have puffed up like a pufferfish by now. He said, at the end of his patience, “Cheng Yao, are you really trying to make me drop dead from anger?”

“Didn’t you just tell me to go ahead and make you furious? I was only following the boss’s orders.”

“…”

Qian Heng’s expression had shifted from his initial confidence to a state of helpless, almost pitiful confusion. For the first time, he had absolutely no control over how things were unfolding, with no idea what Cheng Yao might say next, utterly unable to predict her. It was almost the first time he realized that the person he liked wasn’t nearly as obedient as she appeared.

But even as he kept warning himself internally, “I’m furious, I can’t keep liking her,” the moment Cheng Yao gave him one glance, made one sound, Qian Heng found his eyes helplessly drawn back to her again.

Truly a femme fatale.

The femme fatale in question, however, remained entirely unaware of this. Having, for perhaps the first time, gone toe to toe with Qian Heng and kept winning, she couldn’t help but feel a little smug. “So right now, it shouldn’t be a case of ‘you reluctantly agreeing to let me be your girlfriend’—it should be ‘you sincerely begging me to be your girlfriend.'”

The moment she finished, Cheng Yao noticed that Qian Heng’s face had gone as foul as a rock pulled from a latrine pit. Only then did she belatedly start to feel a flicker of unease—had she pushed him too far? He had said he liked her, but he was, after all, a boss who valued face above all else. And just how much did he like her—enough to abandon his own principles for her sake?

The thought made her suddenly regretful. She was afraid he’d get angry and simply walk away, afraid to find out that his feelings for her weren’t actually that deep, afraid that compared to his principles, his pride, she might not matter that much to him after all.

Qian Heng’s silence only deepened Cheng Yao’s unease. Because of all the unspeakable, delicate feelings she harbored toward him, at that moment she too found herself gripped by uncertainty and anxious anticipation.

Because she liked him too, and that liking had become a weakness of its own.

“Never mind, this question’s too much to ask…”

Just as Cheng Yao, anxious herself, was preparing to give Qian Heng an easy way out and change the subject, she heard his voice—

“Cheng Yao, I’m asking you to be my girlfriend.”

It was, unmistakably, a romantic and loving thing to say, and yet the expression on Qian Heng’s face at that moment was a spectacular mess of colors. Going purely by his face, by his stiff, dry voice, one would never guess he was confessing his feelings—he looked more like he’d just been thoroughly beaten, his worldview and principles shattered under a heavy blow, forced to bow to a cruel reality.

But once he’d started saying this most difficult of sentences, Qian Heng seemed to simply let go of his rigid composure, his face taking on a self-destructive air of having given up the fight entirely.

“Fine, Cheng Yao. I said it. I’m asking you to be my girlfriend.”