Grandfather: “Fifth Brother, the complaint rate at the property management company you run has gone up by another three points, and you actually cut off residents’ electricity to force them to pay their management fees?!”
Yu Zheng: “Grandfather, I didn’t shut off power to the entire community. I only cut off the electricity of those deadbeats who refuse to pay their fees for no reason... People like that deserve to be dealt with this way! If they still don’t pay, I’ll go to their homes tomorrow and splash red paint on their doors!”
Grandfather: “You idiot! I gave up that line of work so many years ago. I do charity every day to build up some good karma for all of you descendants. Your parents even went abroad to work as Doctors Without Borders, and I never stopped them... Yet now you dare to imitate the way I used to lend money at exorbitant interest and collect debts when I was young!”
Grandfather: “Come home tonight. I’ll show you whether I’m going to beat you or not!”
Grandfather: “But if you do things properly now, the public opinion reversal will be huge. You’ll definitely be the most likely person to receive the initial operating funds! I won’t beat you, either.”
Yu Xiaxing stared at the messages in the family group chat.
She wondered whether Fifth Brother had taken the hint.
Regardless, she certainly had.
As long as she helped Fifth Brother turn public opinion around, wouldn’t those operating funds end up being handed over to him?
Property management... cutting off electricity...
Yu Xiaxing mulled over the matter.
In her previous life, this property management company’s project had belonged to Fourth Sister, Yu Lingyi.
Before long, that project would become the disaster that destroyed her.
At the time, in order to force residents in the community to pay their long-overdue management fees, Yu Lingyi had also resorted to extreme measures.
She sent people to stand beneath the buildings day and night, repeatedly broadcasting payment notices through loudspeakers. She even secretly cut off the water and electricity to several of the most stubborn residents’ homes, disguising it as a system failure.
Then something happened.
An elderly man suffered from a serious chronic illness.
One night, in the early hours of the morning, he suddenly had an acute attack. The emergency medical equipment he regularly used at home... An oxygen concentrator, perhaps? It required electricity. But the power had been cut off by Fourth Sister, and the old man could not be saved.
The media exposed the story, and it instantly became a nationwide sensation.
“Heartless Property Management Company Drives Elderly Man to His Death.”
Headlines like that appeared everywhere.
Yu Lingyi’s property management company collapsed almost overnight. The old man’s family refused to accept a settlement, and because of the decision she had made, she ended up in prison.
In this life, the project had fallen into Yu Zheng’s hands, yet he had made the same choice as Yu Lingyi.
Could it be that there was someone bad among the staff of the property management company who had deliberately given them both the same idea?
Otherwise, how could Fourth Sister and Fifth Brother have come up with such similar plans?
Yu Xiaxing lightly tapped her fingers against the desk as she thought.
She did not want Yu Zheng to be eliminated this early.
It was not only because she was afraid he would take her spot in the elimination round.
More importantly, Yu Zheng and she had been raised by the same parents... No, by the same couple. She had almost forgotten that she was not their biological daughter.
All the Yu family’s children had grown up together at the Yu residence, so they were ranked by age as one group. Fifth Brother was her brother in name, at least.
After thinking it over carefully, Yu Xiaxing realized that if her parents had known in her previous life that she had developed a sudden and serious illness, they might not necessarily have refused to save her.
The two of them were both Doctors Without Borders, constantly traveling around war zones across the world to save people. In places where artillery fire rained down around them, they often went half a month or even a month without making contact.
In her previous life, she simply had not been able to reach them.
At present, neither of them had done anything wrong to her. They had raised her, after all.
She could not stand by and watch their biological son go to prison.
And more seriously, an old man would lose his life because of it.
But she and Yu Zheng had fallen out over something when they were children, and the two siblings were bitter enemies.
If she told him directly, he would probably assume that she was plotting against him and trying to harm him. He would refuse to believe her.
How could she casually let him know about it...?
Just then, the head of human resources called.
Yu Xiaxing answered.
“Board Director Yu, the assistants you asked me to recruit have completed the initial screening. I’ve sent their résumés to your email. As you instructed, we gave priority to candidates with outstanding physical appearances.”
“Understood.”
Yu Xiaxing hung up and opened her email.
She skimmed through the résumés. Then her finger suddenly stopped.
She saw a familiar name... Lu Yanzhao.
The attachment contained a concise, perfunctory résumé and a one-inch ID photo.
Yu Xiaxing’s gaze fell on the photograph. She lightly tapped her finger against the mouse, and the corners of her lips curved upward.
Just as she thought.
The man in the photo was very young, appearing to be barely over twenty. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed gold glasses. Behind the lenses were a pair of classic phoenix-shaped eyes, with slightly drooping inner corners and subtly raised outer corners.
He looked harmless, with a handsome face that carried an air of scholarly refinement.
But Yu Xiaxing had known in her previous life that this man was the very definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He was Yu Zheng’s personal loyalist.
In her previous life, on the very day she saw this résumé, she had hired an excellent private investigator and had Lu Yanzhao’s background thoroughly investigated.
Lu Yanzhao had grown up in an orphanage. All his educational expenses had been paid by an anonymous account.
That account belonged to Yu Zheng.
So in her previous life, she had eliminated him without hesitation, replacing him with an assistant whose background was clean but whose abilities were mediocre.
Later, Lu Yanzhao went to work for Eldest Brother. As expected, he proved her suspicions correct.
Lu Yanzhao was someone who knew how to repay a debt of gratitude. Because Yu Zheng had raised and trained him, he infiltrated Eldest Brother’s side and repeatedly caused trouble behind the scenes. That was also why Yu Zheng had been able to defeat Eldest Brother, despite his formidable strength, and make it all the way to the end of the competition.
In this life, she had been worrying about how to speed up her own failure!
She would gladly accept this man who was so good at causing trouble!
Besides, she could use Lu Yanzhao to pass the property management matter on to Yu Zheng.
Yu Xiaxing immediately gave the order.
“Hire Lu Yanzhao.”
-
The next day, Friday.
Early that morning, Lu Yanzhao arrived to report for duty.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Lu Yanzhao walked inside.
It was clear that he had taken the occasion seriously. He was wearing a well-pressed black suit, with every button fastened meticulously all the way to the top. His waist was trim, his trousers sharply pressed, and his broad shoulders and narrow waist were complemented by a pair of long legs.
Lu Yanzhao was polite and gentle. “Board Director Yu, hello. I’m Lu Yanzhao. I’ll be serving as your assistant from today onward.”
His voice was more composed than his youthful appearance suggested, and his tone was calm and completely even.
Yu Xiaxing rested her chin on her hand and openly examined him from head to toe. She was fairly satisfied.
Yu Zheng really was her “brother,” after all. He understood her well.
Among all the loyalists he had raised, he had chosen the most handsome one and placed him at her side.
He clearly knew how serious her weakness for attractive men was.
Yu Xiaxing leaned back into her chair. “I don’t have many rules here. There’s only one: Whatever I tell you to do, you do it. Don’t ask why, and don’t argue with me. Treat me like an emperor. Understood?”
“Understood.” Lu Yanzhao nodded.
Yu Xiaxing lowered her head and began playing a game.
Lu Yanzhao waited quietly beside her for half an hour, but she still did not assign him any work.
He simply opened the tablet computer he had brought with him and typed away for a while. Then he said, “Board Director Yu, since you haven’t assigned me any work, I took the initiative to ask the principal, the teachers, and the chairperson of the parents’ association about matters that require your attention.”
“First up is next week’s board meeting. We need to prepare the quarterly report. Then there’s the follow-up audit process for the cafeteria and facilities reforms that needs to be tracked. Also, the open house for the first-year high school parents is scheduled for the week after next. The proposal…”
Yu Xiaxing gave a lazy yawn. “It’s Friday. We’ll deal with it on Monday.”
Seriously?
Once you started working, weren’t you entitled to weekends off—and to giving yourself an early start to the weekend on Friday?
Lu Yanzhao: “…”
Yu Xiaxing glanced up at him and smiled again, her manner languid and unconcerned. “The reason I’m not in a hurry to work today is because I have a major assignment planned.”
Lu Yanzhao’s thoughts shifted. He remembered that he was there to work undercover by her side.
He ventured, “You can assign it to me now.”
