“This is my boyfriend, Cheng Xia,” I said. “This is our big boss, Mr. Feng. I’ve told you about him.”

Cheng Xia extended his hand, but Old Feng didn’t see it. He just lit a cigarette and gestured for me to take one.

I didn’t usually smoke much, especially not in front of Cheng Xia, but what could I do at that moment? I could only take one.

Old Feng leaned over and personally lit it for me.

Cheng Xia stood beside us watching us puff away in silence until Old Feng asked, “Where do you work?”

“Provincial Architecture Institute,” he said.

“Can you make two hundred thousand a year?” Old Feng asked.

Only then did I realize that Old Feng was truly drunk. Usually Old Feng was a man of few words—if you made him say even half a word more, he’d fire you immediately.

But drunk Old Feng became an interrogation demon who could turn any place into an interview scene.

However, Cheng Xia didn’t answer, only smiled politely.

The atmosphere immediately became awkward. Old Feng pressed on aggressively, “It’s not lower than hers, is it? I personally trained her—she can’t be supporting you!”

Cheng Xia showed no emotional fluctuation, only politely said, “Mr. Feng, that’s my personal privacy.”

…He was so bold! I could barely hold my cigarette steady. With Old Feng’s kind of presence, Cheng Xia was the first person who dared to speak to him like that.

“Too embarrassed to say, right? A formal architect at the Provincial Architecture Institute makes at most two hundred and fifty thousand a year,” he said. “With that little money, are you planning to rely on the girl to buy a house when you get married?”

I quickly tried to smooth things over. “Mr. Feng! We’re just dating! You’re getting ahead of yourself!”

Old Feng didn’t even look at me, still staring directly at Cheng Xia. “Is that so? You’re not planning to marry her?”

Old Feng was usually impassive, but this was the first time I’d seen him display such overt emotion. I could feel sparks flying in the air.

Cheng Xia remained quite calm and said, “What does that have to do with you, Mr. Feng?”

“Of course it has something to do with me!” Old Feng pulled me close with one arm. “This girl has been working on projects with me since she was a teenager. In Africa, we depended on each other for survival. To me, she’s closer than anyone else in this world! Can I let her jump into a pit of fire? Can I!”

I stared at Old Feng in shock… at that hand resting on my shoulder.

Oh my God! He was way too drunk!

Cheng Xia finally showed some emotional fluctuation. He pulled me behind him with one swift motion, looked directly at Old Feng, and said, “Mr. Feng, you’re drunk.”

Old Feng was about to say more but was interrupted by Cheng Xia.

“You don’t know me, but I know many things about you. For example, the Haicheng project from eleven years ago.”

Old Feng’s expression changed drastically. The way he looked at Cheng Xia could even be described as horrified.

“Because the construction party violated the blueprints during construction, a major safety accident occurred on site—five deaths and three injuries. The person in charge took all the responsibility. Aside from internal personnel, no one knew that it was actually someone’s despotic arrogance, stubbornly insisting on rushing the schedule.” Cheng Xia’s voice was light, yet it struck like thunder.

“After that, he was sidelined until six years ago when he was reinstated for the Africa aid project. As for his so-called mentorship toward my girlfriend, isn’t the truth that at the time, he simply had no one else available? I don’t know.”

In the deathly silence, Cheng Xia looked at Old Feng with a trace of pity in his gaze. “Mr. Feng drank too much today. Next time you overstep boundaries with my girlfriend, I’ll speak directly with President An.”

With that, he pulled me away. I stumbled along as he stuffed me into the car, continuously whispering, “Are you crazy? Are you drunk too?”

Cheng Xia said, “So you want to maintain some ambiguous relationship with him to sustain your development in the company?”

“Of course not!”

“Then establishing boundaries is very important. Today, he was the one who crossed the line.” Cheng Xia started the car. I looked in the rearview mirror—Old Feng was still standing there in a daze, like a beaten dog.

My heart felt inexplicably uncomfortable, just like how no one likes to see a hero in his twilight years or a beauty with white hair.

When someone who stands tall in your eyes suddenly becomes pathetic, you can’t help but feel a pang of sadness.

While driving, Cheng Xia held my hand and said, “If you don’t want me to crash, stop looking at him.”

Cheng Xia’s team building trip was a three-day, two-night stay at a ski resort.

He still took me to the hotel near the ski resort. His colleagues had already checked in. He said we could go skiing together the next day.

But how could I be in the mood to ski? From the moment we got out of the car, I kept asking non-stop, “Do you think Old Feng will black out tomorrow?”

“Is it true or false that you know the big boss?”

“Damn it, I have this feeling he’s going to silence me…”

Cheng Xia didn’t answer. He checked in, got the key, went upstairs, and opened the room door.

The moment the door opened, I belatedly realized that the two of us were going to stay together tonight.

Before I could react, I was pushed against the wall by Cheng Xia and kissed deeply.

This was a rough kiss, charging recklessly toward the depths of my soul. I felt my entire being shatter and crumble, endlessly invaded.

It was too much…

This intensity…

My bra was pushed up, and Cheng Xia’s fingers—those cool, slender fingers—kneaded roughly. I reached out to push him away but was caught and pinned against the wall.

I could only tilt my head back to receive this rough, unrestrained kiss, my entire being sinking into an infinite, soft, chaotic darkness. Only that fierce, invasive sensation spread across every inch of my skin.

Cheng Xia finally stopped. He pressed his forehead against mine, breathing slightly heavily.

He held my hands pinned above me with one hand, while his other hand slowly wound down from my back, bringing with it a trembling, tingling sensation.

I trembled and said, “Cheng Xia…”

He said, “You’re mine. I want you to only look at me, only think of me.”

The next moment, his hand moved downward, forcefully parting my legs and lifting me onto him.

I had no choice but to wrap both legs around his waist. Some hidden, wet things collided heavily together.

Cheng Xia had never asked me about my relationship with Old Feng.

He hadn’t asked before, and he didn’t ask afterward.

He was just unusually frenzied and merciless that night, like a knife prying open a clam.

It wasn’t until I held him and cried out loud that he reluctantly stopped.

It wasn’t that I was unwilling. I never had any ideas about preserving my chastity. I’d thought before that if I couldn’t have him, I’d sleep with him—do it for a whole day and night to make it worth it!

But this version of Cheng Xia was too strange.

For a brief moment, I had this bizarre feeling that the man on top of me was a stranger, someone I’d never known before. It made me feel very afraid.

“Why are you crying? Coward.” Cheng Xia picked me up and placed me on the bed, wrapping me up in the blanket.

In this moment, he seemed to become again that person I was familiar with, that person I was deeply attached to.

“You hurt me,” I said quietly. “How am I supposed to face people tomorrow?”

My neck and chest were covered in marks of varying shades.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll let you bite me back.” He extended his arm—such a pale, white arm.

I pounced on him ferociously and kissed it hard.

We both laughed.

He looked so good when he smiled—so gentle and clean. I felt completely infatuated again.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “They’re all cunning old foxes. They’ll definitely forget everything.”

“What if they don’t!” I said. “You’d better really know President An!”

President An was our top boss.

He said, “Sorry, I was bluffing.”

Mortified and furious, I reached out to hit him.

I didn’t know at the time that aside from upper management, no one knew about the Haicheng project incident. Cheng Xia’s knowledge about Old Feng wasn’t just from “asking around a bit”—that’s why Old Feng had been so shaken.

We fooled around until we had no energy left, then lay in bed spacing out.

He suddenly said, “There’s a line in a book I like: ‘You hated them so much and fought them for so long, but in the end you became just like them. No ideal in this world is worth such degradation.'”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Some things are more important than climbing up,” he said, stroking my head. “You can succeed step by step on your own. Don’t let impatience make you unrecognizable.”

I nodded, but in my heart I thought: Only people who’ve already climbed up are qualified to say such things.

That day, we ultimately didn’t go skiing.

But in the early morning hours, we successfully snuck into the ski resort and took photos.

Snow-covered ground is the best reflector, especially southern snow—you can wear a dress and strike all kinds of poses.

Offending Old Feng was such a catastrophic disaster that I entered a state of reckless, broken-jar madness.

I shouted and made noise, struck all sorts of silly poses for photos, and tackled Cheng Xia into the snow to tickle him.

Cheng Xia kept looking at me with an indulgent smile.

At six in the morning, we slurped instant noodles at a convenience store while posting on our Moments.

Me: Happy vacation. Extra drumstick for the photographer.

With a nine-grid of photos, the center position was a picture with Cheng Xia.

Then I blocked Old Feng and all my colleagues.

After finishing, I noticed Cheng Xia had also posted—just one photo of me grinning stupidly in the snow.

His caption read: The bright moon hangs high in the night sky, spring lies ahead.

I said, “What does that mean?”

He looked at the gradually rising orange-tinted warm sun outside the glass window, smiled slightly, and said, “Spring has come. I love spring.”