Song Xinya had fallen back into the habit of crossing days off the calendar.
Every day, she crossed off another square.
Only seven days remained until Qin Yuhe returned home!
Her anticipation was like a balloon being inflated nonstop, swelling inside her until it was practically ready to burst with a bang.
She lay sprawled across the double bed where the two of them had once rolled and tangled together. Her white nightdress was as thin as cicada wings, its soft fabric clinging to her skin. Her fair, slender legs were delicate, while the line from her thighs to her buttocks rose like a hill, its curves full, rounded, and incredibly pert.
So springy. So perky.
Just looking at them made his palms itch, tempting him to give them a hard slap and see how they felt—how much they bounced.
Qin Yuhe had tried it before.
He liked gripping her waist with one hand while giving her a heavy smack with the other.
She would suddenly tense all over, giving him an instant rush of bliss that sent him straight to heaven.
In the video, Qin Yuhe’s gaze grew deeper and darker as he watched Song Xinya.
Still innocently immersed in the piano piece, Song Xinya said, “Qin Yuhe, the piano piece you played is so beautiful.”
“Ah, I can’t play the piano either.”
Qin Yuhe said, “You don’t need to know how to play. You just need to know how to cry.”
Song Xinya said, “What are you talking about? Who doesn’t know how to cry? Everyone can cry.”
“Other people’s crying doesn’t sound as good as yours.”
“What’s so nice about the way I cry?”
“Delicate, alluring, soft and coquettish—very seductive. It really gets me in the mood.”
Song Xinya understood what he meant. She raised her head and shot him a glare, her eyes rippling like spring water.
Since Qin Yuhe was in America, she decided to embrace the local customs and cursed at him: “Fuck you.”
Qin Yuhe pressed his tongue against the side of his cheek. His smile was wicked, wild, and laced with desire.
“Don’t just say it,” he said. “When I come back, you’d better really fuck me.”
Song Xinya was mortified.
ʘʚʘ Huh?
She was completely helpless. She really couldn’t outdo him when it came to being shameless.
Song Xinya said, “I have work tomorrow. Bye-bye.”
Qin Yuhe said, “Even when we’re not doing it, my wife takes the initiative to call me Daddy. What wonderful taste.”
Song Xinya: “(⊙……⊙)”
She had spoken too soon when she said she was helpless. This was the real dead end.
Oh, right—there was still one move left.
She pressed the hang-up button and refused to stay on the video call with him.
A tiny punishment, just to teach him a lesson.
Qin Yuhe regarded his wife’s painless little punishment as a form of flirtation.
How could her taking the initiative to hang up on him not be flirtation?
After all, she had hung up on him with her face bright red.
………
The next day, Song Xinya arrived at the company.
The moment she entered the lobby, she saw several more coworkers carrying cardboard boxes filled with their personal belongings as they headed outside.
Chen Siyan walked over with a cup of coffee and said, “President Yuan fired another group of people.”
Song Xinya gazed at them, unable to make sense of it.
The last two times, she had been able to tell that the people Yuan Jingcheng fired were friends or relatives of Zhao Yinian.
Song Xinya said, “These people don’t look like they have anything to do with Zhao Yinian.”
“They might,” Chen Siyan said. “We just don’t know about it.”
The truth was exactly as Chen Siyan had said.
These people had all been personally recruited by Zhao Yinian. Their base salaries were higher than everyone else’s, and they were the informants and power base she had cultivated herself.
No one else could tell there was any connection between them and Zhao Yinian, but Yuan Jingcheng had investigated everything thoroughly.
Yuan Jingcheng might have been selfish, but he was exceptionally capable when it came to getting things done and managing people.
After those employees were fired, every person in the company connected to Zhao Yinian had been completely purged.
Yuan Jingcheng reported his work to Qin Yuhe with high spirits. “President Qin, the last-place elimination system I implemented has been progressing very smoothly. We’ve successfully cleared out a large group of veteran employees who were occupying positions without contributing anything. Not only has this streamlined the company’s redundant workforce, but it has also saved us a great deal in unnecessary expenses.”
He portrayed his purge of the old regime’s forces and his efforts to establish his own authority as actions taken entirely for the company’s benefit.
Qin Yuhe had long since seen through what he was doing.
But he did not expose him.
After all, Qin Yuhe had poached him with a high salary precisely to handle this kind of work.
“Yuan Jingcheng, you handled this even more efficiently than I expected. I thought it would take you another month to finish, but you completed it ahead of schedule.”
Yuan Jingcheng was immediately delighted with himself.
He had worked faster than President Qin had anticipated—he had even exceeded his boss’s expectations. What tremendous praise.
Filled with ambition, Yuan Jingcheng wanted to press his advantage and demonstrate his extraordinary capabilities again. “President Qin, next, I plan to recruit a group of outstanding talents to create greater profits for the company.”
In other words, he wanted to spend Qin Yuhe’s money to recruit troops for himself and build up his own sphere of influence.
Qin Yuhe said, “You won’t need to handle that.”
Yuan Jingcheng was puzzled. As the company’s general manager, if he was not going to do it, then who would?
Qin Yuhe intended to let Song Xinya take charge.
Zhao Yinian’s sphere of influence had already been completely eradicated. Next, he would support his wife in taking a position of power as general manager, bringing in talented people and cultivating her own trusted inner circle.
What Qin Yuhe wanted Yuan Jingcheng to do was this: “When those people come to cause trouble, you step in. Don’t let them go after my wife.”
Yuan Jingcheng froze for a moment.
Was that all President Qin wanted him to do?
Then it dawned on him: President Qin was placing his wife in his care. Such an important responsibility—this was proof of how highly President Qin regarded him!
After ending the call, Yuan Jingcheng left his office and deliberately went to the lobby to check whether Song Xinya was all right.
When he saw Song Xinya sitting safely at her workstation, he let out a breath of relief.
Yuan Jingcheng’s gaze shifted to the side, where he saw Chen Siyan preparing materials for a livestream.
He walked over and handed him the documents in his hand. “Print twenty copies of each of these materials and put them on my desk.”
Chen Siyan could not be bothered to give him the time of day. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m a gold-medal lecturer, not someone you use for this kind of menial work.”
Ever since being named a gold-medal lecturer, he had become so smug that he walked with his toes turned outward. He practically wanted to buy advertising space in the busiest part of Jingbei and announce to the entire city that he had earned the title of gold-medal lecturer.
Yuan Jingcheng said, “You think it’s beneath you to print a few documents for me?”
Chen Siyan: “Of course I’m upset. I’m an atomic bomb, and you insist on using me to swat mosquitoes. Isn’t that a complete waste of talent?”
Yuan Jingcheng: “No job is too big or too small. As long as you contribute to the company, you’re a good employee.”
Chen Siyan: “You also said that responsibilities should be clearly defined, and everyone should stick to their own duties. Printing documents for you is your secretary’s job, not the job of a gold-medal lecturer like me.”
Ever since the gold-medal lecturer selection, Yuan Jingcheng had been sabotaging Chen Siyan, needling him and trying to force him to resign. Having seen through all of it, Chen Siyan couldn’t even be bothered to keep up appearances anymore. If someone challenged him, he fought back. If something pissed him off, he called it out.
When someone had practically slapped him across the face, being timid and submissive would have been downright pathetic.
If there was no place for him here, there would be somewhere else.
In modern society, there were plenty of ways to make a living.
But if a person lived too miserably and felt too stifled, they really could get sick and die early.
Life was simple—just go for it!
Chen Siyan: “You carry a bowl as big as your hands can hold, and you take on work that matches your abilities. I’m a gold-medal lecturer. Remember that!”
Yuan Jingcheng was so furious that his features nearly twisted apart.
But Chen Siyan was good friends with the CEO’s wife, and President Qin had spoken up for him and personally appointed him a gold-medal lecturer. The CEO and his wife both protected him, his colleagues all liked him, and from an outsider’s perspective, Chen Siyan was clearly everyone’s darling.
What could Yuan Jingcheng do? He could only swallow his anger and stew in it alone.
That evening, after work, Song Xinya stepped out of the company building and saw another crowd making trouble at the entrance. All the people Yuan Jingcheng had fired had shown up—more than twenty of them in a massive group.
This time, they had upgraded their methods. They even knew to bring banners.
In bold letters on the bright banners were the words:
[Yuan Jingcheng’s mouth is like toilet water—when he smiles, he looks just like the idiot next door.]
[Yuan Jingcheng’s neck is so adorable, with a pig’s head perched on top.]
[Yuan Jingcheng is worse than a pig or a dog—thirty percent human, seventy percent ghost. His head looks like a moldy potato, and every day he pretends he’s a kiwi.]
It had to be said: teachers in the tutoring industry were talented. Even their insults sounded like stand-up comedy.
Seeing this grand spectacle, Song Xinya decided that discretion was the better part of valor and prepared to make a run for it.
Come on—when danger struck, anyone who didn’t run was an idiot.
She took off the scarf around her neck and wrapped it around her head and face, hunching her back and bending at the waist as she pretended to be disabled.
Song Xinya took three steps toward the exit without attracting anyone’s attention. Just as she was about to slip away, Yuan Jingcheng shouted from behind her, “Song Xinya!”
A bolt from the blue struck. Song Xinya wanted to strike Yuan Jingcheng dead.
The troublemakers’ gazes snapped toward Song Xinya.
She had become the target.
Yuan Jingcheng stepped out of the lobby and saw the crowd of troublemakers.
Then he turned and ran straight back inside.
Forget it. He wasn’t going home tonight. He’d better just sleep at the office.
Chen Siyan approached from the opposite direction, his phone pressed to his ear as he spoke with Qin Yuhe. “President Qin, you really are as perceptive as ever. The moment Yuan Jingcheng saw danger, he immediately turned around and ran, completely abandoning Madam.”
Qin Yuhe: “Give him a send-off.”
Chen Siyan: “Understood.”
He pocketed his phone, backed up several steps, then started pumping his legs wildly and charged straight at Yuan Jingcheng.
“Ahhhhhhh! The Great Sage Chen Siyan has arrived!”
When he reached Yuan Jingcheng, he kicked him hard and sent him flying. “Away you go!”
Yuan Jingcheng shot out through the gate, tracing a parabola through the air before crashing down in front of the troublemakers with a loud thud and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Talk about delivering a mouse right to a cat’s mouth.
The fired employees rolled up their sleeves. “Get him!”
Clang! Bang! Thump!
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“Ow, ow, ow!”
Yuan Jingcheng and the others were soon tangled in a brawl, and before long, he was sporting a badly bruised and swollen face.
Chen Siyan ran over to Song Xinya. He rubbed his hands together, flicked them dramatically in front of him, planted one palm on the ground, and dropped to one knee.
“Your Highness, forgive your servant for arriving late to your rescue.”
Song Xinya: “Stop acting like an eunuch and run! Otherwise, we’ll get beaten up too!”
She took off running.
Chen Siyan sprinted after her. “Hey, hey, hey! I wasn’t acting like an eunuch. I was playing a dashing, gallant guard. How could you not tell?”
