In the school board chairman’s office.
Yu Xiaxing stared at the dogpile against her alt account and angrily closed the group chat window.
“A bunch of fence-sitters!”
“Just a few days ago, you were all cursing me for fooling around. And now you’re singing my praises. Can’t any of you stick to your principles?”
She sighed and checked the time. It was already six.
Time to clock out. She’d think of another way to stir things up at school tomorrow.
She packed up and quickly left campus.
—
When she returned to the Yu residence, Diandian came bounding happily out of the third branch’s courtyard the moment she stepped inside.
Yu Xiaxing bent down, scooped Diandian up, and carried her back to her room before collapsing onto the soft leather sofa.
After “working hard” all day, nothing was more comfortable than the sofa at home.
Diandian leaped out of her arms and trotted over to her snack bowl as if she knew the place by heart. She nudged the empty bowl with her nose, then turned around and gazed at Yu Xiaxing with big, watery eyes.
“All right, all right, you little darling.”
Yu Xiaxing resigned herself to getting up and went to fetch Diandian some dried beef.
Just then, the phone on the coffee table began vibrating repeatedly.
After feeding Diandian, Yu Xiaxing went over and picked up her phone.
Sender: Special Committee for the Heir Selection
Subject: [Round Two Task: Resolve a Complaint at Zero Cost]
Yu Xiaxing frowned.
Couldn’t they send these assignments during working hours? Honestly.
She tapped the message to read the detailed requirements.
[Following a preliminary audit and public-opinion monitoring, the committee has found that all projects taken over by the participants contain a certain number of unresolved complaints or disputes that have been allowed to pile up. These outstanding issues are damaging the projects’ reputations, consuming operational resources, and creating potential risks.]
[Accordingly, the following special task is hereby issued:
1. Task: Within one week—by midnight next Thursday—select one complaint from the backlog of your respective project and resolve it.
2. Requirements: No money may be spent on resolving the complaint. The entire process must be documented and submitted to the committee.
3. Evaluation criteria: Speed of resolution, 20%; innovation and feasibility of the solution, 30%; satisfaction of the relevant parties, 30%; mitigation of long-term risks to the project, 20%.
4. Rewards and penalties: First place will receive a ten-million-yuan operational funding bonus.
Last place will receive one yellow-card warning. Accumulating three yellow cards will result in immediate elimination.]
Yu Xiaxing stared at the words “yellow-card warning,” her eyes slowly widening.
That’s right! She had almost forgotten about this!
The first task had merely been meant to familiarize everyone with the rules, so even the person who ranked last had not been punished.
But things were different now. From this point on, there would be penalties.
A yellow card! Three meant elimination!
Wonderful!
Tomorrow, she would go to school and immediately pick the most difficult, most impossible, and most offensive complaint.
Then she’d resolve it in the crudest, most heartless, and most idiotic way possible!
She would successfully infuriate everyone and secure last place, guaranteeing herself a precious yellow card.
Just as she was getting excited, the front door opened, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps.
Yu Zheng was home. He was dressed very formally, as if he had just returned from some event, and a trace of cool night air clung to him.
When he saw Yu Xiaxing on the sofa, he raised an eyebrow. “You’re still up? You received the assignment?”
Yu Xiaxing gave a vague “Mm.”
As he removed his coat with one hand, Yu Zheng said casually, “I saw Big Brother’s car at the entrance just now. He didn’t even stop—he drove straight off. He’s probably rushing back to deal with the complaint. You’d better hurry and have—”
He had almost said “Lu Yanzhao.”
Ever since he and his little sister had reconciled, he kept relaxing around her without thinking and nearly letting slip the fact that he had planted a spy by her side.
He still couldn’t reveal that.
It was one thing for the siblings to have a good relationship.
But he still had to fight hard for the family fortune.
Once he won, he wouldn’t shortchange his sister.
He paused, then continued, “Have your assistant send over the complaint files so we can take a look. There’s not much time, and the task is urgent, little sister.”
Yu Xiaxing pursed her lips. “No way. My time off work is sacred and inviolable.”
More importantly, she had to go to school tomorrow and choose her target in person so she could step on the land mine with perfect precision.
Yu Zheng did not say anything more. He took out his phone and began typing, apparently giving instructions to his own assistant.
Leaning casually against the stair railing, he reached habitually into his trouser pocket with his other hand and pulled out a cigarette, then a lighter.
Click.
A blue flame sprang up, illuminating his sharply defined profile.
He tilted his head slightly and was just about to light the cigarette when—
“Don’t smoke!”
Yu Xiaxing shot up from the sofa and rushed over. Under Yu Zheng’s stunned gaze, she slapped the cigarette out of his hand.
Yu Zheng stood there holding the still-burning lighter, completely frozen.
Yu Xiaxing glared at him. “What gives you the right to make me and Diandian breathe your secondhand smoke?”
Diandian came trotting over and barked at Yu Zheng, wagging her tail as if she thoroughly agreed.
Yu Zheng blinked, then realized he was in the wrong.
He had lived alone overseas before. After returning home, his sister had initially avoided him, taking a detour whenever she saw him, so he had simply kept all his old habits.
Now that he had more chances to talk with his sister, he really couldn’t keep this bad habit.
He casually tossed the lighter onto a nearby cabinet. “All right, all right. I won’t smoke. I’ll quit. I won’t smoke again.”
Yu Xiaxing was reasonably satisfied with his attitude.
As someone who had died of illness in her previous life, she knew all too well the helplessness of watching life slip away little by little.
Life was fragile, and good health was precious. Secondhand smoke was a potential danger too.
She cherished her own life—and was merely keeping an eye on his while she was at it.
Once she had said her piece, she picked up Diandian and turned toward the stairs. She planned to go upstairs for a while, then come down for dinner later.
Yu Zheng watched his sister’s retreating figure, the smile at the corners of his mouth deepening.
He murmured to himself, looking rather pleased.
“Tsk. Such a tsundere.”
“She cares about her brother’s health, but she has to sound so fierce about it.”
With that, he followed her upstairs.
—
Yu Xiaxing lay in her room for a while. A servant soon came to tell her that dinner was ready.
She acknowledged it and was about to go downstairs when she passed Yu Zheng’s room and noticed that the door was not fully closed, leaving a narrow gap.
She glanced inside and saw Yu Zheng throw several boxes of cigarettes and a beautiful leather case into the trash can.
It looked like the packaging for some very expensive cigars. Cohiba, perhaps? One of their high-end series. A single box supposedly cost several hundred thousand yuan.
Yu Xiaxing quickly pulled her head back, unable to believe what she had seen.
He really threw them away? He was actually going to quit smoking? Just because she had said one sentence?
Maybe they were only empty boxes…
Yu Xiaxing withdrew her gaze and went downstairs to eat.
—
After dinner, Yu Xiaxing saw that the servants had already gathered Yu Zheng’s trash into a large garbage bag and placed it in a corner of the courtyard.
She still couldn’t stop thinking about it. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, she immediately slipped over to investigate.
Right on top was that familiar leather case. Beneath it were several ordinary cigarette boxes.
The cigars in the wooden box still had their cellophane wrapping intact. They had never even been opened!
“What a wasteful idiot,” she muttered.
The ordinary cigarettes were one thing—they weren’t worth much.
But this was an unopened box of cigars worth several hundred thousand yuan, and he had just tossed it away?
Ha. Finders keepers.
Yu Xiaxing took out the box and quickly cleaned up the scene, pretending nothing had happened.
Holding this contraband, she found herself in a bit of a quandary.
She certainly wasn’t going to smoke it, and she couldn’t possibly give it to any of the friends or family she loved. After all, it wasn’t exactly healthy stuff.
Resell it? That sounded like a lot of trouble…
