Wenxi quickly threw together three simple home-style dishes.

When he brought them out, Gu Xuehan seemed to be on the phone. Seeing him approach, she lowered her voice and stepped away from the living room into her study, as if handling a call she didn’t want him to overhear.

But her manner didn’t seem like a work call—could it be something personal?

Wenxi felt a pang of disappointment for a moment—he wished he had supernatural hearing, so he could eavesdrop on who she was talking to. Was it a man? Some other suitor of hers?

But whoever it was, he still had no right to ask.

Soon enough, though, Gu Xuehan finished the call and came out of the study.

Wenxi immediately stood up, reverting to his obedient little-brother persona: “The food’s ready—go ahead and try it. If there’s anything you don’t like, let me know.”

First, establish yourself as the virtuous homemaker type—to win a woman’s heart, you win her stomach first.

Though his cooking was nowhere near as good as his own family’s housekeeper’s, as far as home-style food went, it was quite decent.

Gu Xuehan tried a few bites and, unsurprisingly, thanked and praised him. But she followed it with a request he hadn’t expected—

“Wenxi, this is great, but since we rarely get the chance for you to cook, I’d like to make an inappropriate request.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “That soup you left me last time was quite good—I just checked, and tonight, since we happened to buy all the ingredients, would you mind showing off your skills once more and making me a pot of soup? Besides drinking it tonight, I could save some for tomorrow, saving me the trouble of making it again.”

“…” To his embarrassment, every time he’d sent Gu Xuehan soup, it had actually been made by one of the Tan family housekeepers!

It wasn’t that he lacked the intention to make soup with his own hands—it was just that, first, he’d spent so much time “working part-time” at her firm, and even though Xinsheng had already punished Tan Weixiang, remnants of his faction still needed cleaning up, plus he still needed to review the company’s financial reports and study the production status of several new drug lines—there simply hadn’t been time to carefully make soup. Second, his soup-making skills genuinely lagged far behind the housekeeper’s—though his general cooking was passable, for some reason soup was his weak point. His regular dishes could pass as decent, but his soup was a culinary disaster.

“Soup takes too long—if I start now, by the time it’s done, we’ll have already finished everything else.”

But faced with his attempt to dodge, Gu Xuehan remained firm: “But I really do want soup. Might as well take advantage of tonight to properly learn the method from you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or is it that you actually can’t make soup, and don’t even know the recipe?”

Wenxi had meant to keep deflecting, but at this he grew flustered: “Didn’t I already prove myself with the meal I just made? How could soup possibly stump me!”

He cleared his throat. “But let’s eat first—otherwise, by the time the soup’s done, this whole meal will have gone cold.” He desperately tried to buy himself time. “We’ll drink the soup last anyway, so let’s start eating.”

This time Gu Xuehan didn’t argue further. She sat down quietly, her expression complicated in a way Wenxi found baffling, glanced at him a couple of times, then started eating.

Fortunately, the food seemed to suit her taste—she looked to have a good appetite, which gave him tremendous satisfaction.

Cooking was one of Wenxi’s ways of relieving stress—people need food the way iron needs fire. Whether studying abroad or now taking over the family business, whenever he faced pressure, all he needed was to immerse himself in cooking, then eat the piping-hot food he’d made with his own hands. No matter how low his mood, it would gradually settle, and he’d find a sense of everyday happiness in a warm meal.

Being able to cook for someone he liked, watching her eat contentedly—that alone already put him leagues ahead of most people in terms of happiness.

But his contentment didn’t last long, because a bigger crisis was still waiting.

While Gu Xuehan ate, he used the excuse of going to the bathroom, hid there frantically texting the housekeeper, begging her to walk him through the secrets of soup-making, all while silently praying Gu Xuehan would completely forget about it by the time she finished eating.

Unfortunately, her memory was excellent, and not long after finishing her meal, she put learning soup-making back on the agenda.

Gu Xuehan looked visibly eager, while Wenxi felt like he was steeling himself for battle.

“Let’s make corn and pork rib soup today. First, wash all the ingredients, cut the corn into pieces, and then…”

It had to be said, though he had no confidence in his soup-making, he was quite good at putting on a convincing show. His movements looked convincing enough to fool Gu Xuehan, who rarely set foot in a kitchen herself—he figured he’d be fine.

Besides, the housekeeper had just told him that if he roughly followed her instructions, the results would be passable, even if the flavor came out a bit off. He’d already prepared his excuse: his hand was injured today, so his performance might be a bit unstable!

Still, looking at the pot bubbling away with rising steam, he figured it looked passable enough visually, at least.

Gu Xuehan stood right beside him the whole time, watching him bustle about, giving him the nervous feeling of being under exam supervision.

But once it was done, looking at the finished pot, he felt a surge of pride and couldn’t resist showing off: “Want to try it?”

Gu Xuehan nodded and readily ladled out a bowl, taking a sip.

Amid his nervous anticipation, her expression showed: “It’s delicious—tastes exactly the same as before. Your soup-making really is quite good.”

At this, Wenxi, who’d been nervous moments before, couldn’t help but start feeling smug—if not now, when would he get the chance to brag?

He said, puffed with pride: “Even with my hand injured today, it’s just soup—it can’t stump me. This was just my average performance. Normally, my soup could easily be served at a Michelin restaurant.”

“It’s delicious, thank you.” Gu Xuehan brushed her hair back, her tone gentle. “Don’t just stand there chatting—pour yourself a bowl too. You can’t make soup and not taste it yourself.”

Fair enough.

Wenxi thought to himself that the power of love really was remarkable—he’d actually managed to reach the housekeeper’s level!

This bowl of soup, he figured, had probably already won Gu Xuehan over about eighty percent of the way—after all, someone this cold was now speaking to him gently, warmly, and had even personally ladled him a generous bowl.

Feeling light and pleased with himself, he happily accepted the bowl she handed him.

Gu Xuehan added: “Not a single drop left, understand?”

Naturally!

He immediately started drinking.

Except…

The delicious taste he’d expected, matching the housekeeper’s, never materialized.

The very first sip nearly did him in.

He could barely hold himself together, spitting the mouthful back into the bowl, all pretense abandoned, desperately pleading for help—

“Water, water, give me water…”

This pot of soup—clearly, being watched so closely had made him far too nervous. Forget matching the housekeeper’s level, he hadn’t even managed his own normal baseline.

And Gu Xuehan had just been pretending it was delicious!

She’d completely tricked him!

But by the time he realized the problem, it was already too late.

Not only did she not hand him the water, she deliberately moved the glass further away.

The gentle, warm expression she’d worn moments before vanished, replaced by a professional, formulaic blankness—

“Tell me. Who actually made the soup before?”

Wenxi’s mouth was salty, but his heart was even more bitter. At this point, he finally understood Gu Xuehan had grown suspicious of the soup he’d been sending her all along.

He could only reluctantly admit half the truth, sounding bitter: “It was my mom. She got help before during the Xinsheng case, and when I told her I wanted to give you some soup, she was eager to help.”

Gu Xuehan gave no reaction, simply toying with her glass, looking at him. “Is that all? Anything else you’ve lied about? If so, I’d suggest confessing now.”

Wenxi felt his resolve waver under her gaze, but still believed there was no way she could’ve discovered his real identity—his disguise had been flawless.

So he put on a bashful, embarrassed expression and shook his head, explaining: “That’s really all of it. I genuinely am bad at soup, and my mom wanted to help, so I let her. Everything else really was me, with genuine effort… aside from that, I haven’t lied about anything else.”

He blinked, his tone sounding wronged: “Why would I lie to you? There’s nothing to gain from it…”

Gu Xuehan paused; her voice sounded somewhat amused, though Wenxi found it hard to read exactly.

She looked at him: “So that’s everything? Nothing else?”

Wenxi obediently shook his head: “Nope, that’s everything.”

But soon enough, he breathed a sigh of relief, because she didn’t pursue it further. She finished her meal, then pulled out iodine and cotton swabs from her medicine kit, handed them to him, called him a car, and only left once she’d confirmed he was safely inside.

Watching her wave goodbye through the car window, Wenxi suddenly felt that sitting in this old, smoke-smelling taxi was entirely worth it.

But his happiness didn’t last long, because starting almost the very next day, Gu Xuehan assigned him an even more exaggerated workload, no longer limited to simple tasks like organizing case files—she began giving him English translation work, scheduling, and client liaison duties.

Beyond that, she also started having him take on personal assistant duties, including occasionally picking her up and dropping her off from work, preparing dinner, and even accompanying her on shopping trips.

Wenxi was more than happy for the extra chances to be close to her, but with the heavy daytime workload, plus still needing to handle Xinsheng’s business in the evening, while also carving out time for her errands, he felt like he’d need to split himself into several people just to keep up.

But regardless, he never once complained of exhaustion, nor pushed back or refused even once.

In front of clients, Gu Xuehan always came across as proud, confident, and coolly composed, but only Wenxi knew that she also grew tired, also had moments of vulnerability, also carried a quality that made people want to protect her—yawning and tearing up at the night lights outside after a full day of overtime, throwing childish tantrums about not wanting to take calls from clients she disliked, tearing at her hair like a bird’s nest when wrestling with difficult cases…

Originally drawn to her only by looks and presence, the more Wenxi actually spent time with her, the more he discovered just how genuinely endearing a woman she was.

And the more he realized this, the more, amid all the busyness, he began to feel a creeping regret, arriving too late.

If only he hadn’t deceived her from the start…

Because knowing Gu Xuehan’s personality, if she found out he’d deceived her like this, forget about being her boyfriend—he probably wouldn’t even qualify as an ordinary friend.

Wenxi admitted that at first, his interest in her had mostly been infatuation with her looks—he’d impulsively wanted to get to know her, without ever really thinking long-term, which was why he’d chosen the clumsiest, least suitable approach to get close to her.

But thinking about it now, Gu Xuehan clearly wasn’t the type to care about someone’s wealth or background—worrying she might be after his money, and thus approaching her under a poor disguise, was, if anything, an insult to her.

But…

But what was done was done. Wenxi had no idea what appropriate opportunity might still arise to confess all of this, to let him properly, honestly pursue her as his true self.

A month had originally felt like an incredibly long stretch of time to him, but now, as the final day of his temporary job arrived, he found himself realizing just how short that time had actually been.

Gu Xuehan called him into her office, seemingly preparing to see him off, but for some reason, though he’d come to the firm earning just a few thousand yuan while doing work worth tens of thousands, he found he didn’t quite want to leave.

“I—I’m still a bit short on money, could you make an exception and let me keep working part-time a while longer? The pay can be lower, that’s fine—I feel like I’ve only just gotten the hang of things here…”

Wenxi put on his most pitiful tone, but Gu Xuehan gave no clear response.

Having exhausted every excuse he could think of, she calmly took a sip of tea.

She glanced at him, raising an eyebrow slightly: “Gotten the hang of legal work, have you? Planning to stay and work for me forever?”

Just as Wenxi was about to nod, he heard her voice once more—

“Tan Wenxi. What do you plan to do about Xinsheng Biotech?”

…

Wenxi felt something snap inside his mind. He stared at her in shock, at a complete loss for what to say.

Gu Xuehan pressed her lips together briefly. “On the day you ruined that pot of soup, I called your ‘mother.’ It only took a little bluffing before she told me everything. I gave you a chance to come clean yourself that day—unfortunately, you didn’t take it.”

Wenxi started explaining in a rush, words tumbling out incoherently: “I didn’t mean to deceive you—but if you’re angry, I completely understand. I just want you to know my feelings were genuine. As long as you’re willing to forgive me, I’ll do anything.”

“I just didn’t know how to explain hiding my identity—it never seemed like the right moment, because I felt like no matter what, you’d be angry, and I really didn’t want that, and I couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen after.”

He said all this in one breath, for the first time in his life not composed or confident, but nervous, like a schoolboy: “I hope you’ll give me another chance, to prove myself…”

But Gu Xuehan cut him off directly: “No need.”

Just as Wenxi was on the verge of despair, he saw her lips curve slightly.

Her gaze wasn’t the anger of someone deceived, but something teasing, unhurried, and composed.

“I’ve already been evaluating you this whole past month.” She said, lips parting slightly. “Withstanding me deliberately piling several times the normal workload on you shows your resilience and stamina are both solid. Your cooking’s decent too, mostly. The only thing that still needs work is your soup.”

“There’s no suitable position left at the firm, but if you’re interested, I could personally offer you one.” She paused. “But work hard—I’m very particular, and there’s a real chance you’d be let go during probation. Since this would be private employment, it wouldn’t be bound by labor law protections—if you’re let go, that’s it, no severance, and there’s a good chance I’d retaliate too.”

“Most importantly, I don’t care who you are. Here, with me, there’s no such thing as ‘Chairman Tan’ or ‘Young Master Tan’…”

Before she could finish, Wenxi had already crossed the distance to her, and, with her still sitting in her office chair, dropped to one knee and leaned up to kiss her, as if in submission, and as if in protection—

“Here, there’s no Young Master Tan. Just Wenxi.”

“I’m just Wenxi.”

“I promise—tomorrow, I’ll go learn how to make soup properly.”