I went back to report to Zhao Yu.

“Manager Zhao, I went to discuss cooperation with Beicang Company. They agreed to do joint transport with Weisheng Company. Although their fees are a bit more expensive, overall we still saved costs.”

Zhao Yu had just finished playing basketball. Gasping for breath while drinking soda, she said after a long while, “You’re something. I heard Beicang is notoriously thuggish. To negotiate to this point—impressive.”

“It’s not that I’m impressive.” I said with a bitter face, “Do you know Engineer Yu from the Provincial Architecture Institute?”

“Ah! Yu Fuchao? Didn’t he retire early due to illness?”

“His daughter works as an accountant at Beicang Transport.”

Zhao Yu was stunned by this huge piece of gossip. She said, “What! Why would she come to this remote backwater to be an accountant?”

I sighed and silently added in my heart: Part-time young mistress.

Beicang Transport’s young master was called Chi Na, which means “wolf” in Mongolian.

This young master studied at an arts university in Russia, came back and rode a Harley everywhere playing around, calling it “project inspection,” and also went to Company S’s construction site.

Because I’d been crazily cutting costs, I had quite a bad reputation among transport companies, so he also learned about me.

But that wasn’t important. What was important was that during his site inspection, he met Yu Shixuan.

When a twenty-year-old young master pursues someone, it’s like dry wood meeting fierce fire—though this fire was ignited with cash.

Roses were sent by the carload, confessions used drones, and going out on dates meant luxury cruise ships.

Yu Shixuan at the time should have just had her self-esteem wounded by Cheng Xia’s rejection. She plunged headfirst into this passionate relationship and decided to return with the young master to the grasslands.

Engineer Yu of course didn’t agree.

A first-tier city, a senior intellectual’s young daughter, raised from childhood with the best things, receiving the best education, decent work, bright future, and as icing on the cake, pretty and lovely.

Quit her job to go to Inner Mongolia with a nouveau riche’s son?

No one would agree to that.

But legs are attached to a person’s body. No one expected that on the day Engineer Yu and his wife went to a team-building activity, she climbed out the window to escape and boarded a plane to the grasslands.

They lived on the ninth floor.

Even Shakespeare would have to raise a glass to that.

That’s why Engineer Yu had a heart attack and was hospitalized.

I’d brushed past this shocking gossip. What I saw now was the ending of the story.

The young master’s office was quite shabby—furniture old and worn, with a fairly large deer head hanging on the wall.

Yu Shixuan was playing with the dogs in the courtyard. She looked unchanged, even more beautiful.

She wore a white Chanel suit, makeup exquisite, every strand of hair carefully groomed. Those huge, fierce Tibetan mastiffs surrounded her wagging their tails, making her seem even more delicate and refined.

The young master looked out the window at her, his gaze tender as water.

Then he turned to look at me—the idol drama turned into a crime thriller.

He said, “How can Manager Ren come to discuss cooperation alone? Do your words count?”

Weisheng’s manager was already sweating beside him.

I didn’t react to his domineering attitude. I said gently, “Manager Zhao has to make decisions on everything at the site. We subordinates have to help share the leader’s burdens, don’t we?”

“My dad talked with Manager Zhao before.” He sneered and leaned back in his boss chair. “Manager Zhao didn’t think much of us. Now you want us to help, but it’s not the original price anymore.”

Money was the construction site’s Achilles heel. If Zhao Yu heard this, she would’ve grabbed a shovel and fought him to the death long ago.

I was about to say more when Yu Shixuan walked in and said softly, “You can’t make things difficult for Sister Dongxue!”

With just that one sentence, things took a turn.

This Young Master Chi Na finally impatiently agreed to joint transport with Weisheng, except that their fleet’s price was double Weisheng’s.

I didn’t say anything, only, “I’ll go back and discuss with Manager Zhao. We definitely have sincere intentions about cooperation.”

Yu Shixuan and I didn’t exchange much small talk. Only when I was leaving, she came out to see me off.

“Are you together with Cheng Xia?” she asked.

“Mm.”

“I guessed it.” She smiled, then said, “Sure enough, there’s no such thing as pure friendship between men and women.”

She asked again, “Do you think I’m really stupid?”

I looked at her, not understanding whether this question was about the past with Cheng Xia or her current choice.

I only said, “Of course not.”

“I had no choice.” She smiled, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “You’ll understand later. I really had no choice.”

Under the setting sun covering the grasslands, she was heartbreakingly beautiful.

It was a completely different beauty from Ha Rina’s. It was beauty meticulously carved by financial and material resources, cherished in her parents’ palms with meticulous care—the innocence and tenderness thus nurtured.

“Love is boring when it’s natural and expected. Besides, you two are talented and beautiful—you really match well.” I said this lie without any psychological burden. “If you get bored here in the future, come find me to hang out.”

—

Actually, although Yu Shixuan’s situation was explosively dramatic, for me it was a good thing.

Beicang Transport didn’t necessarily want to do this business that much.

Most likely they were used to being local tyrants. When they found out we’d actually chosen a fleet they looked down on, they felt they’d lost face, so they deliberately caused some trouble.

Being able to solve it with a joint transport plan was already extremely fortunate.

But Zhao Yu didn’t agree.

“One is the budget issue. Another is, I, Zhao Yu, don’t accept threats. Using these underhanded tactics to get a contract—what’s the difference from robbery!”

I said, “A powerful dragon doesn’t suppress a local snake. Besides, in this kind of place, the waters actually run very deep.”

Remote places don’t necessarily mean simplicity—they might also mean savagery.

I understood this principle in Africa already.

Besides the transport vehicles, there was also a Cullinan parked in the back courtyard.

The bag in Yu Shixuan’s hand, along with a full set of Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry, was worth nearly 200,000 yuan.

I didn’t believe a small county town’s transport fleet could have such high profits.

Moreover, I noticed that among that pack of dogs were quite a few hunting dogs. The deer head on the office wall was still seeping with bloodstains.

The young master hunted, carried guns—both things blatantly illegal.

He was no longer an ordinary spoiled brat, but a lunatic who ignored the law. Normal people like us couldn’t afford to provoke him.

Zhao Yu still didn’t agree. “Today we give in to this Beicang Transport Company. Tomorrow Xicang Company, Nancang Company will all come cause destruction and extort us. Then we’ll be like pushing a millstone naked—making fools of ourselves in circles!”

I still insisted.

I said, “Manager Zhao, I understand your feelings, but we’re only doing this project here temporarily. Fighting with them is purely a waste of time…”

Company S wasn’t some small enterprise. If things really blew up, we couldn’t possibly be afraid of a nouveau riche.

But we were just working for wages. Smoothly completing the project was more important than anything. It wasn’t worth fighting them to the death—better to show some weakness.

This was something Old Feng taught me.

But Zhao Yu was different from Old Feng. Whether about projects or people, she had an almost reckless sense of justice in her heart.

She ultimately insisted—don’t change transport fleets, assign personnel to guard the roadside, and call the police immediately if anything happened.

But actually, even if the police came, it was useless. Without actual losses, they’d at most give verbal criticism. Our transport time would still be delayed.

But Zhao Yu went head-to-head with them to the end.

Beicang Transport set up one roadblock for us, so we set up two on their transport routes.

On the other side, Zhao Yu personally led the fleet for transport. When encountering Beicang Transport trucks again, she just floored the gas and charged at them.

That truck driver emergency-turned the steering wheel. The two vehicles missed each other by just centimeters. When he got out, the driver was trembling all over.

After that, no one dared intercept our transport vehicles again.

Later, Beicang Transport’s boss personally came to find Zhao Yu.

The boss had an odd name—Teng Seventy-Two. Round and plump, smiling genially, not at all like someone who could produce a son with such a bandit air as Chi Na.

The two of them talked for an hour.

After that, roadblocks never appeared on the roads again.

At the time I felt ashamed of myself. When I called Cheng Xia, I even said, “Manager Zhao is a real man. If I’d listened to her earlier, I wouldn’t have tried to be clever going to Beicang and suffering all that frustration.”

This was the first time I was genuinely convinced.

I even had a thought—I wouldn’t overthink things anymore. Whatever the leader told me to do, I’d do it.

For this thought, I paid the most painful price of my life so far.