What did he mean by saying treating him to a meal wasn’t sincere enough, and that she should spend the night with him instead? How could this person think about such things all day long…
Tang Yao felt the red marks on her neck tingling with heat again. She opened a box of milk and took a big gulp to cool down before saying, “Didn’t I sleep with you last night? And the night before that too.”
“Oh, right,” Jiang Shiyan was a reasonable person. “Since you’ve slept with me for an extra night, how about I sleep with you instead?”
What kind of reasoning was this…
Tang Yao’s face grew hot.
Jiang Shiyan added, “In all sorts of positions.”
Tang Yao’s mind conjured up some images, and her cheeks involuntarily flushed red.
Jiang Shiyan’s voice deepened and became magnetic: “Up in the sky and down in the earth.”
Tang Yao had watched some educational films before, and hearing these four words made her whole body feel like it was about to burn up.
To make matters worse, Jiang Shiyan’s voice grew even deeper, and she could hear his teasing smile through the screen as he enunciated each word: “Satisfaction guaranteed.”
Those four words.
The thoroughly red Tang Yao exploded, and emboldened by the distance between them, she fearlessly shouted, “Come on then! Come on! Come and sleep with me! What kind of hero just talks big? What kind of real skill is it if you only talk and don’t come?”
There was silence on the other end, followed by rustling sounds.
After her outburst, Tang Yao swallowed nervously and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed, booking a flight,” Jiang Shiyan replied calmly.
“Jiang Shiyan.” Tang Yao started to feel scared.
“Hmm?” Jiang Shiyan responded.
Tang Yao took a sip of milk and said sheepishly, “Let’s… let’s calm down a bit…”
“My girlfriend is asking me to come over and take care of her. I can’t be calm,” Jiang Shiyan said.
“Your girlfriend is just throwing a tantrum,” Tang Yao tried to mediate. “Your girlfriend has to get up early for class tomorrow, and she’ll have evening classes starting tomorrow. You have work too. Love isn’t about rushing things; it’s about the long haul…”
Tang Yao’s voice was soft, rambling on like Tang Seng.
Jiang Shiyan thought her words sounded familiar, then realized they were what Ms. Yi had mockingly said to him before…
Could it be that Tang Yao was Ms. Yi’s biological daughter?
Jiang Shiyan had truly considered going over, but he knew it wasn’t realistic. Hearing her words, he compromised, “Then let’s video call. I want to see you.”
Tang Yao hesitated, “I haven’t put on makeup or done my hair, and…” Unable to resist Jiang Shiyan’s silence, she bit her lip and said, “All right.”
When they were working, they didn’t talk much, keeping things brief and to the point.
But when facing each other, it seemed like they could never run out of things to say.
Before they knew it, it was midnight. Tang Yao wanted to look at him more and didn’t want to end the video call.
Jiang Shiyan saw her eyelids drooping, about to close any second. He felt both amused and tender, “Move the tablet further away. I won’t hang up. I’ll watch you sleep.”
Tang Yao did as he said, rubbing her eyes with her hand, “What if you see me burping, farting, or sleep-talking? Will you still love me?”
Jiang Shiyan pretended to be casual, “I’ve heard you sleep-talk before.”
“!”
Tang Yao was suddenly wide awake, “What did I say?!”
Oh no, she could hardly breathe.
“You said,” he deliberately paused for effect, then imitated her voice, “Jiang Shiyan is so handsome, super handsome, incredibly handsome! Tang Yao loves Jiang Shiyan the most!”
Tang Yao burst into laughter and wanted to hit him, “Go away!”
Jiang Shiyan got up and walked a few steps in the screen, then lay back down on the bed and said “Goodnight, baby” to her.
Tang Yao fell asleep to his smile, her dreams sweet as honey.
—-
The next morning, the video call was still connected when Tang Yao woke up. Jiang Shiyan was still asleep.
She wanted to send him a good morning message but was afraid the ringtone would disturb him.
The morning sunlight fell on her brown wooden floor. The gray soft blanket covered half of his face, casting faint shadows on his nose and eye sockets. His side profile was breathtakingly handsome.
Tang Yao cupped her face and smiled as she watched him for a while. She mouthed “good morning” to him and stuck a note on her bedside table where he could see it as soon as he woke up. Only then did she quietly get out of bed, wash up, and go to class.
Although Chen Qiang had told Tang Yao not to rush when he gave her the hard drive yesterday, saying she could look at it when she got back to A City, curiosity was human nature.
When Tang Yao arrived at the classroom, there weren’t many people. She connected the hard drive to her computer, looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to her, and quietly opened the file.
As the data loaded, Tang Yao understood what Chen Qiang meant by “legally obtained.”
The documents showed Gan Yiming’s hotel check-in records with different women, including dates, locations, and even surveillance screenshots. Most of the involved hotels belonged to the group that had recently been involved in a scandal for maliciously leaking customer information. The records spanned from when Gan Yiming arrived in A City three years ago until last month, totaling a hundred pages.
Tang Yao knew Gan Yiming was a womanizer and had even caught him with his so-called “cousin” at the amusement park.
She wasn’t surprised by his extramarital affairs, but as she scrolled further, especially from last year onwards, her hand on the mouse wheel moved slower and slower until it finally stopped.
There was Fan Linlang.
It wasn’t Fan Linlang checking in with Gan Yiming, but Fan Linlang booking the room, leaving the hotel, and then Gan Yiming entering the room Fan Linlang had booked with other women.
Tang Yao had never heard Fan Linlang mention having a boyfriend or husband. Could it be that Fan Linlang liked Gan Yiming? Was she helping him deceive others?
As this thought occurred to her, Tang Yao remembered the Elite Club meeting at the beginning of the year when Fan Linlang jokingly wanted to ride in Gan Yiming’s Maserati. Gan Yiming had rejected Fan Linlang’s invitation for her to sit in it, and she had refused Gan Yiming’s offer to give Fan Linlang a ride. She also recalled many small details from their afternoon teas, the subtle jokes between Fan Linlang and Gan Yiming.
At the time, Tang Yao had attributed it to them knowing each other for a long time and thus being familiar.
But from a different perspective, if Fan Linlang liked Gan Yiming, why would she so naturally help Gan Yiming book rooms with other women? Tang Yao thought about the times she had overheard Fan Linlang defending her, and how Fan Linlang joked with other colleagues as well. She couldn’t help but dismiss her previous assumption.
Fan Linlang might just be helping a colleague, or Gan Yiming might be paying her.
Fan Linlang didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t married, so she probably didn’t care about these things.
It seemed very reasonable.
The bell rang, signaling the start of class, and her classmates began to file in.
Tang Yao quickly saved and closed the file, then sent a WeChat message to Chen Qiang: [Thank you].
Soon after, Chen Qiang replied: [You’re welcome].
—-
As Tang Yao attended a full day of intense classes, Jiang Shiyan was also busy.
In A City, on the top floor of the Yixiu Building, Jiang Shiyan was attending a meeting to hear work summaries from various department heads and watching the interview he had sent to Tang Yao last night.
The Jiujiang Group was mainly controlled by the Wei Xianyong family, with Wei Xianyong serving as the Chairman of the Board.
Wei Xianyong had four children. The eldest son, Wei Changchun, was formerly the director of Jiujiang Steel Factory and currently serves as the Executive President of Jiujiang Group. The second son, Wei Changxia, led Jiujiang Industries. The third daughter, Wei Changqiu, who was Gan Yiming’s wife, managed Jiujiang Real Estate. The fourth daughter, Wei Changdong, worked at the Banking Regulatory Commission in A City. Although Wei Changdong’s relationship with the family wasn’t as close as the other three, it was enough to make Zhou Zisheng wary of Gan Yiming.
Gan Yiming came from a remote small county town. While interning at Huishang, he happened to meet Wei Changqiu, who was ten years his senior, by chance. From then on, his career soared.
Although both Wei Changqiu and Gan Yiming had their lovers outside of marriage, in this interview, Wei Changqiu still showed a strong sense of possession by referring to “my Yiming” repeatedly. Gan Yiming’s nodding and smiling beside her reminded Jiang Shiyan of a male concubine from an ancient drama.
Tang Yao had made him watch a few minutes of it the night before last…
She liked the horse-riding and archery princess in it…
What was Tang Yao doing now…
She should be in class…
Jiang Shiyan remembered waking up this morning to see the note on her bedside table, with “Good morning” written in her neat handwriting and a simple smiley face. It was like the first steamed bun from the school cafeteria that Tang Yao used to bring him when they were in school – soft, sweet, fluffy in his mouth, and warm in his heart.
Back then, he would eat happily, his mouth full of “Thank you, Brother Tang, long live Brother Tang!” Tang Yao would sit beside him, pausing from memorizing vocabulary to criticize him: “Would it kill you to wake up half an hour earlier to review some ancient texts? You always get the poetry fill-in-the-blanks wrong and you don’t even care. No wonder your Chinese is dragging you down…”
Jiang Shiyan, chubby back then, would smile with squinting eyes: “As long as my Brother Tang is first, that’s all that matters!”
Tang Yao would get angry and tap his hand with her pen: “You…” As she spoke, she’d frustratedly run her hand through her hair, “Forget it, forget it. I’m tired of lecturing you.”
“…”
“Mr. Jiang, Mr. Jiang.” The assistant called out twice.
Jiang Shiyan came back to his senses: “Hmm?”
The assistant leaned in to remind him: “You said before the meeting that we needed a topic for April.”
Jiang Shiyan asked, “What was Youran Residence’s promotional copy for last quarter?”
The assistant pulled it up: “Pamper your delicate stomach with gourmet food. The subtitle was ‘Unseen by the Sun, A Thousand Ways to Spoil.’ The planning team from the North District previously suggested a ‘sugar daddy’ angle, thinking that content involving values would easily trend on hot searches. The previous ‘Lost Pearl’ had such a serious atmosphere that public opinion was too one-sided, making it difficult to create topic conflicts. This could be a good way to warm up the traffic…”
As Jiang Shiyan listened, he tapped the nanmu desktop with the end of his pen.
Suddenly, the pen stopped.
“Let’s do a collection,” Jiang Shiyan said.
No one at the large conference table spoke.
The man sitting in the main seat had his legs crossed at an angle. The light seemed to cast a long shadow along his relaxed posture, while also dotting his long, dense eyelashes with specks of light.
“Complaints, oddities, anecdotes, celebrity news – have the A-list marketing accounts do collections in stages, following Youran Residence’s theme of pampering. The hook will be preparing to film a movie with a special theme. Keep submissions that meet the criteria trending. The hidden requirements for screening submissions will be that the woman is between 18 and 25 years old, located in A City, and visited the Guose Tianxiang Amusement Park with a man this March,” Jiang Shiyan thought for a moment, then added, “There should be pictures, which can be blurred.”
Although the conditions were strict, the number of qualifying submissions was likely to be considerable.
Jiang Shiyan added, “If it’s netizens’ submissions naturally trending on hot searches, that’s equivalent to increasing traffic for marketing accounts. But if we’re going against market rules to push submissions with specific conditions to the hot search, that’s equivalent to burning money to promote someone…”
The conference room was silent.
The assistant dared to speak up: “Many TV stations have new dramas airing in April, which will require marketing promotion. If we clear a month’s schedule for A-level accounts to focus on soliciting content, then in terms of profit—”
“Will One Rest collapse if we lose a month’s profit? Is One Rest only about marketing accounts?” Jiang Shiyan countered.
The assistant stammered, “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Hmm,” Jiang Shiyan casually upped the ante, “We can use Youran Residence’s copywriting as a front. If any submissions fit our film themes, we can discuss copyright fees, and maybe even have the protagonist make a cameo appearance. Of course, the film part is just talk.”
Jiang Shiyan added a few more words before dismissing the meeting.
This is outrageous! Truly outrageous! The assistant wrung his hands.
But Jiang Shiyan was used to being outrageous. Finances were a minor concern; the assistant, having enjoyed so many afternoon teas courtesy of Tang Yang, naturally sided with her. Deputy Tang had only been in City A for two days, and CEO Jiang was already indirectly searching for a needle in a haystack—a woman, 18 to 25 years old, the kind you’d keep hidden away like a precious treasure.
What on earth is he planning to do?! What is CEO Jiang up to?!
The assistant wanted to report this to Tang Yang with every fiber of his being, but considering Jiang Shiyan still paid his salary, he chose to keep quiet, feeling deeply apologetic to Tang Yang. As he followed Jiang Shiyan out of the conference room, the assistant, with his agenda, reported, “One Rest Films and Thompson have a joint title sponsorship event on Friday. You only need to attend once, either in City B or City C. I’m more inclined towards City B.”
“City B,” Jiang Shiyan replied concisely.
The assistant continued, “Also, CEO Cheng Siran just called. He insists you must go to Youran Residence tonight. It’s his dog’s birthday. If you don’t go, he’ll… he’ll…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish.
Jiang Shiyan prompted, “He’ll what?”
The assistant touched his nose nervously, “Collect one less gift money envelope.”
Jiang Shiyan snorted a laugh, then, impeccably dressed in his suit, entered his office with an air of elegance.
The assistant said a few more words before closing the door and leaving.
Jiang Shiyan waited a while, until 5:30 when Tang Yang finished class, and then made a call.
One second, the man was casually spinning in his chair, the next, as the call connected, Jiang Shiyan’s handsome face fell: “Yang Yang, I’m in a bad mood.”
Tang Yang had just come out of the restroom.
“What’s wrong?” Tang Yang asked sweetly.
His voice did sound gloomy.
“Cheng Siran’s dog is having a birthday, and I have to go, but I don’t want to see Cheng Siran,” Jiang Shiyan said with exaggerated seriousness.
Tang Yang patiently replied, “What happened between you two? Weren’t you on good terms before? We even talked about Youran Residence last night,” she pondered, “Though you haven’t seen him in a while, come to think of it.”
Jiang Shiyan deliberately sniffled loudly, complaining pitifully, “It’s because of last time, you know. That what’s-her-name said Cheng Siran and Yang Yang make a good match, even said they look like a married couple. How could she say that? Why not me and Yang Yang? Married couple look, the married couple look, the married couple look…”
Knowing his sadness was an act, Tang Yang still felt sorry for him: “She’s talking nonsense, we shouldn’t pay attention to her,” she comforted him gently, “It’s Yan Yan and I who get along well, Yan Yan and I who look like a married couple…”
“What did you call me?” There was a moment of silence on the other end, followed by an amused tone.
Tang Yang froze, belatedly realizing her face was heating: “Jiang Shiyan…!”
Jiang Shiyan could easily imagine Yang Yang’s expression now, wanting to reach out and pat her head.
But long-distance relationships can be so cruel.
Jiang Shiyan sighed inwardly, but his lips curled in a suppressed smile as he teased her: “Say it again.”
Tang Yang turned her little face away: “No way.”
“Just ‘Yan Yan,'” Jiang Shiyan coaxed in a low voice with a hint of persuasion, “Say it one more time.”
Deputy Tang, hiding in the corner of the restroom to talk to her boyfriend, felt her face burning up to her ears: “I won’t.”
Her soft tone at the end was like a cat’s paw, gently scratching.
Jiang Shiyan felt a ticklish ache in his heart, but changed the subject: “What do you think I should bring later?”
Tang Yang became serious too, answering, “Clothes? Or toys?”
Jiang Shiyan: “What time do you finish class tonight? I’ll call you.”
Tang Yang: “After 9, mm-hmm.”
Jiang Shiyan smiled: “Don’t you think we’re like how we used to be…”
Tang Yang: “Are you going to return the favor and help me take notes?”
They chatted idly for a while until Jiang Shiyan’s assistant knocked on the door, telling him it was time to leave.
Tang Yang heard it.
Jiang Shiyan didn’t move but pretended to make sounds of packing up: “Then either call me Yan Yan again or give me a kiss.”
The restroom was busy with people coming and going, all female leaders with titles on their business cards. Making a “mwah” sound would be so embarrassing…
Tang Yang looked around, then, with her little face flushed red, cupped her hand near her mouth and said with the soft tone one uses for children: “Yan Yan.”
The other end was silent for a few seconds: “Baby, remember to eat dinner.”
Tang Yang obediently replied: “Mm-hmm.”
Tang Yang hung up first.
Her face was so hot…
Tang Yang patted her cheeks and sprayed some mist on the sink.
The small cubicle next to where she had been hiding opened, and a female classmate in her early forties came out: “Deputy Tang, you’re so young and already married with a child?”
Tang Yang was slightly surprised: “No.”
“Huh?” The classmate laughed awkwardly, “I accidentally overheard a bit while I was in there. I thought you were coaxing a child. My youngest is four this year, and he’s particularly fussy about eating. I have to coax him every time,” seeing Tang Yang’s confused expression, the classmate hinted, “You know… ‘Yan Yan’?”
Tang Yang’s face, which had just cooled down, heated up again: “No, no, it’s not like that.”
The classmate: “Then…”
Tang Yang considered for a second the probability of saying it was the CEO of One Rest Media on the phone, who was both throwing a tantrum and shamelessly pestering her to call him “Yan Yan,” and the likelihood of being thought crazy. She coughed lightly: “It’s my dog.”
That’s right, he does bite people! Hmph.
“We have a dog too,” the classmate’s eyes lit up, “What breed is yours?”
“Ah?” Tang Yang’s face grew even hotter, she nervously said, “Go Golden Retriever.”
“Golden Retrievers are so gentle, loyal, and understanding. Does he understand when you call him?”
“…”
The enthusiastic classmate chatted with Tang Yang for five minutes before finally leaving.
Tang Yang sighed, realizing that one lie indeed requires many more to cover it up while feeling relieved.
“Gentle, loyal, and understanding”…
With the restroom now empty, the classmate’s words seemed to still echo.
Tang Yang wasn’t a clingy person, but it had been a whole week, and it wasn’t too much for someone with a boyfriend to go back to City A to see him on the weekend, right?
The bank manager seemed to have mentioned a group activity on Saturday morning, so Tang Yang chose a ticket for noon.
As she was about to pay, something occurred to Tang Yang…
Wait a minute.
“Say it again,” “No,” “Say Yan Yan again,” “No,” and then why did it become “Either call me Yan Yan again or give me a kiss”??
Why was the alternative to not calling him Yan Yan kissing him??
Is taking a step back to broaden one’s horizons now so simple, cruel, vulgar, and unreasonable??
Yan Yan…
Yan Yan…
This was the first time Tang Yang had called him anything other than “Yan Dog,” “Jiang Shiyan,” “Big Dog Jiang,” “CEO Jiang,” and the like.
Jiang Shiyan sat in the corner of the private room at Youran Residence, thinking of how she had said “No, no” earlier, but in the end, with bitten lips and a blushing face, called him “Yan Yan.”
She is, Jiang Shiyan’s lips curled into an unconscious smile, such a little fool.