Fuming, Cheng Yao tossed aside the useless pile of materials in front of her. And the moment she set down her work, she suddenly felt her stomach hollow and aching — she’d come straight home and buried herself in research without eating anything at all.

So she decided to properly treat herself. She headed to the kitchen and briskly started washing and chopping vegetables.

Cheng Yao wasn’t one to brag, but while her legal skills might not have been the sharpest, her cooking skills? Second to none — she’d claim second place, and dare anyone to claim first.

In no time at all, she’d put together three dishes and a soup: braised pork belly, shrimp and tofu in a light broth, blanched Chinese broccoli, and a tomato egg-drop soup. Every dish looked good enough to eat with your eyes — and tasted even better than it looked.

Just as Cheng Yao had served herself a bowl of rice and was about to dig in, Qian Heng’s door opened.

The boss who’d supposedly already gone to sleep emerged, still in his pajamas, hair slightly mussed, his handsome face intact despite it all.

Cheng Yao looked up and met his hazy gaze.

She immediately protested her innocence. “I didn’t make any noise cooking! I really didn’t disturb you!”

Uncharacteristically, Qian Heng didn’t pick a fight. He gave a small “Mm,” walked over to the table, and cast a seemingly casual glance over the array of dishes, letting out a short laugh. “Don’t think you can win me over with a spread like this and get me to answer your childish questions.”

Cheng Yao blinked, confused. “I made this for myself.”

Qian Heng smiled with total confidence. “Then why’d you make enough for two? Three dishes and a soup — that’s clearly a portion for two people.”

Cheng Yao kept shoveling food into her mouth while explaining, perfectly sincere. “I have a big appetite. I can finish all of this by myself, easy.”

Qian Heng said nothing more. He just stood there, arms crossed, watching her with the leisurely air of someone waiting to see just how far she’d take the bluff.

Cheng Yao decided that when falsely accused, words were cheap — actions spoke louder. So she stubbornly finished the entire spread right in front of him.

…

“See? I really can finish it all by myself!”

Cheng Yao wiped the corner of her mouth and looked up — only to realize that her boss, having watched her demolish the entire table of food at lightning speed, looked… rather unwell.

Qian Heng’s face had gone dark. “Cheng Yao. I haven’t had dinner yet.”

Only then did it finally dawn on her — oh. Her overly sensitive boss had actually wanted some of the food she’d cooked.

Well, well, Qian Heng — never expected to get a taste of your own medicine, did you?

A flicker of triumphant, rebellious glee bloomed in Cheng Yao’s chest. She asked, feigning innocence, “Huh? Weren’t you already going to bed?”

“You did that on purpose.”

“Hm?”

“You’re still holding a grudge because I refused to answer your childish questions, so out of spite, you forced yourself to finish two people’s worth of food.”

Cheng Yao actually laughed at that. “Boss, let me ask you one question. Did I cook this, or did you?”

“…”

“Whoever cooks gets to decide how it’s eaten.”

Qian Heng said, deadpan, “Cheng Yao, you’ve got some nerve. Where’d this sudden burst of courage come from?”

“You trained me well, boss — you taught me that as a lawyer, I have to advocate for myself, defend my own rights, fight to the very last moment!”

“Fine. Here’s two thousand yuan. Go make it all over again, exactly the same.”

“I’m all grown up now, mature, sensible — I understand that some principles shouldn’t bend for money.”

Qian Heng looked at her preening like that, her dark hair and red lips, her round eyes bright and sly, like a slick-furred little fox.

He looked away and pressed his lips together. “Final offer — you cook, I answer your questions.”

“No time limit on the answering!”

“Cheng Yao, don’t push your luck.”

Cheng Yao gave a fake yawn. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty tired today. Cooking’s not great for your health either, all that oil smoke…”

“Fine. I agree.”

Though he looked like he was grinding his teeth, the food Cheng Yao had made really had smelled and looked too good to pass up, so after a moment’s thought, he accepted the unequal treaty.

“I want to see a finished meal in half an hour.” Qian Heng sat himself down at the table. “But Cheng Yao — if the food’s all looks and no substance, you’re done for.”

Qian Heng pointed a finger and rapped it against the table in his best boardroom cadence. “Where one party deliberately provides false information, or deliberately conceals the truth, inducing the other party to enter into a mistaken agreement, that constitutes fraud. A contract entered into through fraudulent means may be rescinded.”

“So — if the food turns out terrible, that’s fraud, and our verbal agreement can be rescinded. Don’t expect me to answer your questions then.”

“…”

Qian Heng sat there at the table in his loose, rumpled pajamas, yet delivered that little speech with the air of a man in a bespoke Zegna suit, holding court from an expensive executive chair.

Confident in her own skills, Cheng Yao wasted no time and went straight back to the kitchen to handle the ingredients. For meat, all she had left was some fish fillets she’d bought for tomorrow’s fish congee, plus a few chicken wings. Unsure what Qian Heng might prefer, she stepped out of the kitchen to ask.

The moment she slid open the kitchen door, she caught her esteemed boss rubbing his eyes drowsily, then letting out a completely undignified yawn, his usually cold eyes gone a little damp from it. The warm lighting softened the edges of his features into something almost fuzzy and gentle — from where Cheng Yao stood, Qian Heng’s handsome face seemed, for just a moment, to carry an illusion of tenderness.

But then—

Beep beep beep beep.

The rice cooker chimed to signal it was done. Qian Heng turned his head reflexively toward the sound and spotted Cheng Yao standing by the door.

In almost the same instant, this chronic sufferer of boss syndrome did a total about-face, snapping back into his usual haughty, aloof mask — except, unfortunately, traces of that yawn still lingered on his face, and around his cold eyes there were suspicious hints of what looked like tears…

Cheng Yao found herself thinking, out of nowhere: even the most worshipped idols, adored by millions as gods and goddesses, still had to use the toilet in private… even the most poisonous of bosses had his moments free of venom, once off the clock…

Her mind wandered off on this tangent — she thought, I should really try pufferfish sometime. Ah, pufferfish must be delicious. Poisonous, sure, but once you cut away the toxic parts properly, it’s supposed to be exquisite…

“Where’s the food?”

Unfortunately, her venomous boss shattered her lovely little daydream in an instant.

“Standing there daydreaming instead of cooking?”

“…” Fine, Cheng Yao thought, no need to even ask — no fish fillets for him, just two chicken wings and call it done. Fish fillets were expensive; not worth wasting on such a poisonous boss.

In no time at all, another gorgeous, fragrant spread emerged from the kitchen.

Qian Heng, stone-faced, took a few reserved bites at first, as though genuinely afraid Cheng Yao might have committed “fraud” — food that looked great on camera but tasted terrible, like some internet-famous dish.

But clearly, Cheng Yao’s cooking cleared her of all suspicion. After a few bites, Qian Heng’s chopsticks started moving faster and faster, and before long, the whole table had been mostly demolished.

Once he’d finished, clearly in good spirits, he dabbed his mouth elegantly with a napkin, his expression relaxed.

Cheng Yao looked at the pile of dirty dishes and was just organizing her argument when her boss’s insufferable voice rang out first.

“You wash up.”

“…”

Cheng Yao decided to fight to the bitter end. “But the normal arrangement between roommates is — whoever cooks, the other one washes up!”

Qian Heng raised an eyebrow. “And is it normal for roommates for one of them to pay the other a salary every month?”

“…”

“I’m not trying to pull rank as your boss here. I just think, logically, whoever creates the pollution should be the one to clean it up.”

Cheng Yao screamed internally — wasn’t that exactly pulling rank as her boss?! What was this “whoever pollutes cleans up” nonsense?! Who did she cook for in the first place? For whom?!

Reluctant as she was, Cheng Yao thought of all the questions she still wanted to ask him and, bowing to his tyranny, went ahead and “cleaned up the pollution.”

Well fed and with the kitchen tidied, Cheng Yao finally brought out her case materials from her room and sat down respectfully in front of Qian Heng.

She smiled, wheedling. “So, um, this is about the Bai Xingmeng divorce case…”

Qian Heng leaned back in his chair with the posture of a seasoned executive — except the rented apartment’s dining chairs were nowhere near as good as the several-thousand-yuan ergonomic chair at the office, and he frowned and reluctantly adjusted his position. “I assigned you to investigate Xu Jun’s concealed assets. Go on — where exactly are you stuck?”

“I’m stuck on basically everything…”

“…”

Qian Heng’s expression was priceless. “I think I must have been out of my mind.”

Cheng Yao: ?

“I shouldn’t have hesitated and let you in.”

Buddy, if you’d said that a little earlier, I’d have poisoned that dinner myself!

Still, despite grumbling internally, Cheng Yao had actually been curious about this for a while now.

When she’d first sent in her resume to Junheng, it had only been a long shot, and getting hired had felt like sheer luck. At first she hadn’t thought much of it — until she noticed that all her other colleagues either had better academic credentials or more practical experience, résumés full of standout achievements. By comparison, Cheng Yao really was fairly unremarkable.

Now, looking at Qian Heng’s face, a bold theory formed in her mind. “Is it… ” she hesitated, then finally decided to just go for it, “is it because you thought I was pretty, so you hired me? I mean, everyone says my ID photo looks pretty good, haha…”

Qian Heng stared at her in silence for a long moment. “Now I’m certain I was out of my mind back then.”

“…”

So then why did he hire me…

Qian Heng, as though sensing her unspoken question, glanced at her. “One reason was a line in your personal statement — ‘I hope to hold the law as my lifelong faith.'”

Huh? Cheng Yao scratched her head — honestly, she’d nearly forgotten what she’d even written in her personal statement, and that one line, of all things, had accidentally impressed him? Wasn’t that just a stock phrase?

“Hasn’t everyone else written something like that before?” Cheng Yao asked, genuinely confused. “I assumed that’s what everyone wrote…”

“What they wrote was ‘I hold fairness and justice as my faith.’ You wrote ‘I hold the law as my faith.’ I thought that meant you were different.”

Cheng Yao was thoroughly confused now — wasn’t holding the law as your faith basically the same as holding fairness and justice as your faith? What was the actual difference here? Wasn’t it just different phrasing between her and everyone else?

Qian Heng looked at her, expressionless, clearly still puzzling over the same question. “Of course, now I know my usually reliable judgment failed me this time. That look on your face tells me you’re no different from anyone else.”

Wait, what?!

“So, in the end, hiring you was a lapse in judgment on my part — not because you’re pretty.”

“…”

Qian Heng swept another glance over her face and added, “I know that by ordinary standards — say, our HR director Jiang Chenggang’s standards — you’d count as quite pretty. That’s why the moment he saw your ID photo, he decided to hire you. But!” As he spoke, he raised one hand and marked a height above his own head. “This — is my standard for pretty.” Then he lowered his hand to shoulder height. “You — are here.”

“…”

As if that wasn’t cutting enough, Qian Heng thought it over and added, “Passable, I suppose — decent enough. But don’t get conceited. Keep a proper sense of perspective about yourself.”

Forget it, I need to stay calm… Cheng Yao told herself internally. Bear with it — today he’s the boss, you’re the subordinate, so work all the harder. Someday, once you make partner too, you’ll get to be just as insufferable as he is!