“President Liang, where would you like to go now?”

Lin Qing pressed the accelerator of the Ferrari — it burned beneath her foot.

Liang Meng turned her face away and said nothing, feigning sleep.

A meltdown really does take that much out of you, Lin Qing thought.

She tried again. “Shall I take you back to the office?”

Liang Meng seemed not to hear.

“Back home, then?”

“No!!”

Liang Meng sat bolt upright with an extremely strong reaction.

So she had heard that one — and the answer was perfectly clear.

“Find somewhere. Keep me company for dinner.”

Liang Meng put on her sunglasses with a haughty tilt of her chin.

“No!!”

This time it was Lin Qing’s turn to refuse, firmly and without hesitation.

She had taken the day off — working without pay was already bad enough. She absolutely, categorically refused to do unpaid overtime on top of that.

“I’ll pay you overtime.”

Liang Meng seemed to have read her mind. All she wanted right now was someone by her side. She did not want to be alone.

“President Liang, it’s not about the money. I need to get home to keep my mom company…”

Lin Qing had already decided what they were going to cook in the hot pot that evening — quality time with her mother was priceless.

Besides, she could not afford to set this precedent. Under any circumstances.

Work hours were work hours. Personal time was personal time.

The moment she agreed to this once, the boundary would be broken — and once broken, she would never have any personal time to herself again. She would be at Liang Meng’s disposal every waking hour.

She was a person of principle.

“Triple overtime pay.”

“You’ve got it, President Liang! Let’s go!”

Lin Qing immediately came back to life.

Some principles exist precisely to be broken. Right?

On the way there, Lin Qing found herself wondering — did Liang Meng really not have any friends?

She actually needed her for company.

“Not going home to keep your mom company anymore?”

Liang Meng teased, looking rather pleased with herself.

“I am. It won’t get in the way.”

And with that, Lin Qing steered the Ferrari toward Lu Zhou’s apartment.

“Is there a restaurant in this mixed-use residential building?”

Liang Meng got out of the car and tilted her head back to look up at the tower, asking.

“No.” Lin Qing shook her head.

“Then why did you bring me here?!”

“To eat! We’re eating at my place.” Lin Qing said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, swiped her key card, and led Liang Meng inside.

Liang Meng was taken aback. She had just opened her mouth to challenge Lin Qing when Lin Qing got in ahead of her:

“You’re the one who said to find somewhere and have dinner with you.”

“You — !” Liang Meng pointed a finger at Lin Qing’s nose.

That hit home.

She had said exactly that.

Lin Qing had a calculating little streak hidden inside her.

She had already figured that Liang Meng had nowhere else to go — this way, she could keep her mother company over hot pot and earn overtime pay from the boss, both at once.

Here we are, might as well make the most of it.

Four words that solved everything.

Liang Meng steeled herself and followed Lin Qing into what she called “home.”

A spotlessly clean little apartment, tidy in every corner. The dining table in the living room had already been set up with an induction cooker and fresh, vivid green vegetables glistening with water.

Moving closer, she noticed two boxes of bright red meat tucked beneath the vegetables.

The hot pot gurgled and bubbled, filling the small home with the warmth and fragrance of everyday life.

Nothing like the home Liang Meng had grown up in — where the stove was always cold and the pots were always empty.

“You’re back!! ~”

Lin Qing’s mother came bustling out of the kitchen, cradling a basket full of fish balls.

The moment she saw Liang Meng, she welcomed her with warmth and enthusiasm. “Oh! A ‘colleague’ is here! Come in, come in, sit down! Hot pot is always better with more people around!”

“Mom, don’t go around saying things like that.” Lin Qing tugged at her sleeve to quietly correct her.

Lin Qing’s mother cheerfully shook off her own daughter’s hand. “This isn’t the young lady from before — the one who drove us home? She’s so beautiful, just like a fairy. I may have old eyes, but I’d never mistake a face like hers!”

“She’s the boss,” Lin Qing muttered under her breath.

Lin Qing’s mother didn’t believe her for a second. The boss of Longquan, coming home to eat with her intern daughter?

Ridiculous.

Clutching her basket of fish balls, Lin Qing’s mother bumped Lin Qing aside with a nudge of her hip and pulled Liang Meng over to sit down.

Liang Meng rarely visited other people’s homes and was slightly ill at ease.

But Lin Qing’s mother was simply too warm and welcoming to resist. She piled Liang Meng’s small bowl high with food and kept up a cheerful, meandering conversation without pause.

Liang Meng sat with her chopsticks in hand, and something quietly stirred in her chest.

She thought of her sister and brother-in-law — how neither of them cared anything about her feelings, and yet between them they had made a momentous decision about her life.

This stranger, this older woman she had barely met, offering such unguarded kindness out of nowhere — it made her nose sting.

The warmth and coldness of people.

The hot pot paired with beer soon left Lin Qing a little tipsy. Her mouth began running ahead of her better judgment.

“Boss! Not to be rude, but you… you’re not the sharpest, are you!”

Liang Meng, completely sober, listened with perfect clarity as Lin Qing — red-faced all the way down to her collar — pressed on.

“What was the point of spending all afternoon at the mall buying those ostrich outfits?!”

Lin Qing propped one foot up on her own stool as she spoke.

“You’re gorgeous. You’d look stunning in a burlap sack. And your family’s loaded! Your blind date tomorrow — as long as he’s not a complete idiot, he is not going to be scared off by what you’re wearing!”

“What?” Even Lin Qing’s mother couldn’t help but jump in when she heard that. “Sweetheart, you’re so beautiful you look like a celestial being! And you still need to go on a blind date?!”

Then she clicked her tongue and muttered: “What kind of world is this?”

Could it really be that in a big city, a perfectly wonderful girl goes to waste and gets left behind?

“Is there another way to handle it?”

Liang Meng, too, was troubled by the thought of tomorrow’s date with Wang Zaiwu.

Lin Qing was well and truly tipsy. She slung an arm around Liang Meng’s shoulder and leaned close to her ear. “There is! But I’m not telling you — unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you tell me how you knew about the Nash equilibrium.”

Liang Meng tensed — then smoothed her expression and picked up the hot tea in front of her, taking a calm sip as though nothing had happened.

This assistant named Lin Qing was not someone to be underestimated.

She had been found out.

“What ‘ten’?” Liang Meng asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“Keep pretending.”

Lin Qing, somewhere between drunk and sober, raised her glass and pointed it at Liang Meng.

“You’re drunk,” Liang Meng said.

Lin Qing leaned in again. “Then tell me — why don’t you want to go on this blind date?”

Liang Meng let out a small sigh and answered quietly: “I just don’t want to find anyone.”

Lin Qing tilted her head back and downed another mouthful of beer.

She wasn’t drunk.

She was testing Liang Meng deliberately.

Everyone who says “I don’t want to find anyone” has someone they can’t get over buried in their heart.

Speaking from experience, Lin Qing decided to give Liang Meng a little more of a push.

“Have you heard of ’emotional neglect’?”

Lin Qing set down her beer can and transformed into a relationship sage.

Liang Meng didn’t even have a chance to answer.

Lin Qing continued: “The truth is, men and women are two different species. Men don’t get driven away by being ‘cold-shouldered’ — what they enjoy is the push and pull of the chase. And you, President Liang, are drop-dead gorgeous, with the commanding presence of a queen — even with a cold expression, you’re just a stunning ‘ice queen’.”

Having already told her she’d look good “in a burlap sack,” Lin Qing now doubled down and showered her boss in a fresh torrent of extravagant compliments.

Flattery costs nothing.

Words of praise feed anyone’s ego.

As long as the boss was happy, it worked in her favor — she had no qualms about being a workplace flatterer.

True strength, she believed, was not caring what others thought — and, more importantly, discarding every trace of self-doubt from within.

Every move served the goal.

Lin Qing’s current goal was to become “the boss’s most trusted confidante” — not “the boss’s biggest headache.”

She had to show what she was made of, so she continued:

“If you genuinely want to blow up tomorrow’s blind date, then let’s go against the grain — what if we tried ’emotional assault’ instead?”

“Emotional assault?”

Liang Meng didn’t quite follow, but from the way Lin Qing said it, it sounded remarkably formidable.

Like some kind of nuclear weapon capable of handling tomorrow’s situation.

“Emotional assault means: being absurdly clingy — bombarding him with eight hundred messages a day, all variations of: Did you eat? Did you sleep? What are you up to? Every time his phone goes off, ask him: Who’s that? Man or woman? What do they want? The moment he interacts with anyone of the opposite sex, act deeply insecure and fire off a relentless barrage of questions — dig into their past like you’re excavating their ancestors eighteen generations back.”

Just listening to it made Liang Meng’s skin crawl.

Lin Qing was still going, gesturing animatedly as she carried on: “The very first time you meet, insist he change your contact name in his phone to ‘babe.’ Demand his location at all times, require him to report his whereabouts constantly. While he’s at work, call him and ask: ‘Baby, don’t you love me anymore?’ When you’re out shopping and any woman walks by, hit him with a soul-crushing interrogation: Am I prettier, or is she? What does she have that I don’t? Go on like that and so on and so forth.”

“What you mean is —” Liang Meng summarized Lin Qing’s suggestion, “violate every boundary until he gives up and backs away?”

“Exactly! Emotional neglect is a form of psychological harm; emotional assault is a form of emotional harm. The other person knows something feels wrong but can’t say a word about it.” Lin Qing said.

Liang Meng thought it over for a moment, then nodded.

She suddenly picked up her cup of tea, raised her eyes, and said: “Lin Qing, you’re not even drunk.”

The hand Lin Qing had raised holding her chopsticks froze in midair.

What exactly was the right move now?

But very quickly, Lin Qing resumed eating as if nothing had happened.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered was that she could help the boss solve tomorrow’s problem — and the boss would owe her.

After dinner, Liang Meng stood to say her goodbyes.

Lin Qing’s mother chased after her with a bag of fruit: “Sweetheart, sweetheart! Don’t rush off! Take some cherries! Here, take them!”

Liang Meng stood there holding the little bag of cherries. Whether it was the steam from the hot pot or something else entirely, her eyes had grown slightly damp.

Lin Qing’s mother gave her a little bit of fruit every time they ran into each other — last time it had been oranges, and now cherries.

She looked up and met Lin Qing’s mother’s warm, earnest gaze — a gaze that held her as tenderly as it would her own child.

That kind of look could not be faked.

Lin Qing’s mother genuinely did not know who Liang Meng was. Her sincerity was not flattery or fawning — it was a purely human connection, the honest expression of two people simply taking to each other.

“Thank you, auntie.”

After the hot pot, Liang Meng felt warm all the way through, right down to the palms of her hands.

“Sweetheart, what’s your name? Come visit again sometime.”

Lin Qing’s mother called out one last friendly question before she left.

“Liang Meng.”

With that, Liang Meng straightened her back, lifted her head with the same proud bearing she always carried, and walked away.

“Liang Meng…?”

Lin Qing’s mother was left standing there in a daze.

Why did that name sound so familiar?

Liang Meng? Where had she heard it before?

The moment the door closed, Lin Qing’s mother’s eyes went wide.

Liang Meng — President of Longquan Group!!

And so, Lin Qing, who had just been clearing away the dishes, received a fresh serving of her mother’s legendary scolding — delivered at full volume, rapid-fire.

Mother and daughter were in the middle of their quarrel when Lin Qing’s phone rang — a video call.

It was Lu Zhou.

“How are you settling in? Everything comfortable?”

From the background, Lu Zhou had apparently just finished a match and returned to his hotel room.

He lay back against the white pillow, his arm tucked beneath his head. “All good?”

Lin Qing answered, “Pretty good. Just wanted to give you a heads-up — tonight I had a guest over for dinner without asking you first.”

“Man or woman?”

On the other end of the screen, Lu Zhou immediately sat up straight.

He didn’t say a word about Lin Qing bringing someone over unannounced — his only concern was whether her guest was a man or a woman.

Lin Qing was caught off guard by that, then let it go and answered: “A woman.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not going to ask who it was?” Lin Qing said.

She had expected Lu Zhou to follow up.

“I lent you the apartment — that makes you the host. You don’t need my permission to have guests over.” Lu Zhou settled back against the pillow. “Men are the exception.”

Lin Qing laughed. “Then let’s call that our ground rules.”

But she still wanted to share: “The one who came over tonight is my…”

Before she could finish, she heard the voice of Lu Zhou’s agent calling through the screen —

“Lu Zhou, get ready. The next round, you’re aiming for under seventy strokes! There are several endorsement deals all waiting on how this tournament turns out.”

“Alright, got it.”

Lu Zhou answered.

He looked back at Lin Qing with a slightly apologetic expression. “Get some rest. I’ve got to get back to the match. I’ll call you again later.”

With the time difference between them, Lu Zhou always called Lin Qing in whatever gaps he could find between matches.

After they hung up, Lu Zhou took the contracts from his agent’s hands and flipped through a few pages.

“Lu Zhou, brother, the whole team is counting on you for this one. Just got a call from the PR firm — if you win the Grand Slam this season, Longquan is considering signing you as their brand ambassador.”

“Seriously?!”

A surge of adrenaline shot through Lu Zhou. Brimming with confidence, he picked up his golf club and headed out toward the course.