From the moment Cheng Mingjiao became self-aware, he knew that he was a very intelligent person.
Very intelligent—not merely somewhat intelligent.
From the age of three, he had been adept at using his powerful mind to understand every human relationship and behavioral pattern in the world.
As for the time before he was three, he believed he had been just as capable. It was simply that the human brain had its limitations and couldn’t allow him to remember events from before the age of three, so he had reluctantly decided to count from three onward.
In short, his intelligence allowed him to integrate information, accurately analyze situations, and swiftly come up with solutions.
But.
Today.
His ability to think.
Seemed to have.
Disappeared.
Because he truly couldn’t understand why his new assistant—the one he had snatched away from Lu Xue—
was treating him like this.
The weather was hot, and her palm was hot as well. Before he had time to feel any aversion at the contact of heat against heat, the scent of hand cream from her fingertips had already wafted toward him.
The two girls had already run off laughing, and the surrounding noise seemed to fade into the distance.
The little square was still bustling, but Cheng Mingjiao and Zhang Xiyue seemed to have been cut off from it all.
Only after the female lead’s figure had completely disappeared did Zhang Xiyue withdraw her hand.
Cheng Mingjiao continued staring at her. His dark coffee-colored eyes clearly reflected her sweat-dampened face.
He looked at Zhang Xiyue, and Zhang Xiyue looked back at him.
This was probably the longest they had ever held one another’s gaze since their brief acquaintance began.
From a distance, Cheng Mingjiao’s face looked striking and handsome. Up close, it was a work of art. From the spacing of his brows and eyes to the height of his nose bridge, even the fullness and shape of his lips were flawless.
If he had been a stranger she had encountered by chance, Zhang Xiyue, appreciating beautiful things on principle, would have been more than happy to look at him a few extra times.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
Zhang Xiyue did her best not to let her gaze waver and spoke as sincerely as possible. “Mr. Cheng, there was a mosquito on your face just now.”
Cheng Mingjiao was silent for several seconds before asking, “Do I look like an idiot to you?”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
Cheng Mingjiao said, “You have one minute to give me a reasonable explanation. Otherwise, I’ll fire you and sue you.”
“S-sue me?” Zhang Xiyue was astonished. “For what?”
Cheng Mingjiao looked at her calmly. “Sexual harassment.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
To be fair, with a face like his, he was rather convincing when he made that accusation.
She was still distracted when Cheng Mingjiao raised his wrist. “Forty-five seconds.”
“Mr. Cheng…”
“Forty seconds.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
“Thirty-eight, thirty-seven, thirty-six…”
The gold-trimmed green watch was extravagantly elegant. Its slowly moving second hand traced an invisible arc, gradually opening a huge, mocking mouth toward Zhang Xiyue.
And Cheng Mingjiao—the gloomy, obsessive man he would become three months later, but at this moment a polished member of the social elite—stood right in the middle of the little square, counting down for her with solemn precision as though no one else existed.
Zhang Xiyue’s mind raced as she tried to come up with a reason that would convince Cheng Mingjiao within the few seconds remaining.
But his countdown sounded like the death knell of an executioner’s drum, pounding away and throwing her thoughts into disarray.
“Twelve, eleven, ten…”
The final ten seconds. She still couldn’t think of anything.
Zhang Xiyue drew a deep breath. Her usually straight back slumped slightly. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Cheng Mingjiao!”
A furious shout cut off the countdown. Zhang Xiyue and Cheng Mingjiao turned around at the same time.
A tall, extremely fat man was charging toward them, gritting his teeth in fury.
He had to weigh over two hundred pounds. His flesh jiggled wildly as he ran, making the people nearby cry out and retreat.
Seeing that he clearly meant trouble, Zhang Xiyue immediately stepped back—only to stumble when she stepped on a pebble.
By the time she finally regained her balance, the man was already right in front of them.
His enormous fist arrived before the rest of him.
Although the fist wasn’t aimed at her, Zhang Xiyue still let out a startled cry. In the next second, the white shirt beside her flashed past, and a nimble figure formed a crisp silhouette beneath the vast blaze of sunset clouds.
Bang!
The man crashed onto his back, cursing and groaning in pain.
Recognizing the mole on his chin, Zhang Xiyue realized that he was Yang Fei, the owner of Deshuo Construction.
That afternoon, Fangfang had added her to the small group chat titled “What Exactly Does His Majesty Want?”—a group chat without Cheng Mingjiao.
Unlike the cold and impersonal work group, everyone in the small group was extremely talkative. Their conversations generally fell into three categories: what to eat, what to drink, and cursing Cheng Mingjiao.
Whenever they reached the cursing-Cheng-Mingjiao portion, the discussion would branch off endlessly, and Yang Fei was one of the many branches.
Apparently, he had recently declared that sooner or later, he would take Cheng Mingjiao’s life.
Their grudge had begun one evening in March. Cheng Mingjiao had caught him kissing his mistress, then immediately told his wife.
Yang Fei owed his current position to the resources of his wife’s family. Once his infidelity was exposed, his wife divorced him, and his company’s performance had been declining ever since. Now it was barely holding on.
Clearly, he had charged the entire debt to Cheng Mingjiao.
Zhang Xiyue hadn’t expected that, after seeing Yang Fei’s photo in the group chat that afternoon, she would run into the man himself that very evening.
She took another couple of glances at him. When she raised her head, she suddenly met Cheng Mingjiao’s condescending gaze.
“…He’s the reason I did that,” she blurted out.
One of Cheng Mingjiao’s brows lifted almost imperceptibly.
Zhang Xiyue had already regained her composure and swiftly arranged a convincing explanation. “As a competent assistant, I should do my best to ensure that my boss’s mood isn’t affected by unpleasant people or situations. So when I saw Yang Fei just now, my first instinct was to keep him from appearing in your line of sight. Unfortunately, the situation was urgent, and there wasn’t time to warn you verbally…”
Although the explanation was somewhat stiff, her words were sincere and logically sound. There was no obvious flaw to pick apart.
“Mr. Cheng, I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful about how I handle things next time,” Zhang Xiyue added, offering another apology.
Cheng Mingjiao was silent for a moment before accepting her explanation and moving on to another matter. “You suddenly stepped in front of me just now. Were you trying to protect me?”
When did I ever—
Zhang Xiyue looked up in confusion. But after meeting his eyes once again, she remembered how she had tried to run away and nearly fallen over.
After a moment of silence, she nodded. “Yes, Mr. Cheng.”
On her very first day at work, she had been willing to go that far for her boss. If Cheng Mingjiao possessed even the slightest trace of humanity, he wouldn’t continue making an issue of her touching his face.
Sure enough, Cheng Mingjiao didn’t mention it again.
But not mentioning it didn’t mean he had any humanity.
“Go settle your wages with Finance tomorrow. You won’t need to come back after that.”
With that cold declaration, Cheng Mingjiao left the fallen fat man and the stunned Zhang Xiyue behind and turned toward the base.
The delay had dragged on until nightfall, ruining his incognito outing.
It wasn’t until he had walked five meters away that Zhang Xiyue finally came to her senses and hurried after him. “Why?”
“Because you wanted to protect me,” Cheng Mingjiao replied casually.
…Was that supposed to be a human language?
Just as Zhang Xiyue was rendered speechless, Cheng Mingjiao suddenly stopped and gave her a lazy sidelong glance. “Are you a professional boxer?”
Zhang Xiyue answered instinctively, “No.”
“Then why were you trying to play the hero?”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
“Given his height and weight, he could kill you with one punch even without a shred of training,” Cheng Mingjiao said, deciding to make sure she understood. “And in a situation like that, instead of running away, you chose to protect me—the man who works out for two hours every day and won the national youth boxing championship at fifteen?”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
She had every reason to suspect that he’d spent all that time setting the stage just to deliver that final sentence.
Cheng Mingjiao concluded, “My company doesn’t need employees who have no idea what they’re capable of.”
Zhang Xiyue hadn’t expected that, under his powerful logic, even a perfectly reasonable attempt to claim credit would turn into a case of shooting herself in the foot.
Her lips moved several times, but for once, she had no idea what to say.
Cheng Mingjiao gave a derisive snort and turned to leave again.
“Honey! Honey, what’s wrong?!”
A scream rang out. Zhang Xiyue turned around and saw a short-haired woman fling herself onto Yang Fei.
Yang Fei was crushed beneath her, opening his mouth and nearly rolling his eyes back.
Everyone knew that his wife had already divorced him. The only person who would still call him “honey” was his mistress.
Zhang Xiyue had just sorted out the woman’s identity when she saw the woman lift her head viciously and glare in the direction of…
Remembering Mr. Cheng’s advice, Zhang Xiyue quickly moved two steps to the side.
“Cheng Mingjiao, I’m going to make you pay!”
The woman charged at Cheng Mingjiao in her high heels, looking ferocious.
The fat man earlier had already made Cheng Mingjiao the center of attention. Now, the woman had made him the center of attention’s center of attention.
Zhang Xiyue hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder, curious to see whether Cheng Mingjiao—who had won the national youth boxing championship at fifteen—would give the woman a shoulder throw too.
Apparently not.
Cheng Mingjiao’s expression was cold and severe, and his presence was intimidating, but all he did was frown and step backward.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t retreat as quickly as the woman advanced.
In the blink of an eye, she was upon him. Using her sharp, manicured nails as weapons, she reached furiously for Cheng Mingjiao’s face. His expression darkened further, but he did nothing except raise a hand to block her.
Zhang Xiyue sighed and grabbed the woman’s arm, pulling her away.
The woman had been too focused on taking revenge for her lover to notice that Cheng Mingjiao had an ally. She froze for a moment, then began struggling.
“Let go of me! Let go…”
Zhang Xiyue wasn’t a professional fighter, but dealing with a petite woman who weighed no more than eighty or ninety pounds was still well within her abilities.
In three quick moves, she had subdued the woman. Then she casually took something about the size of a lighter from her bag.
“This is an electronic stun device. The energy inside it can knock down a grown man instantly,” Zhang Xiyue explained to Cheng Mingjiao in a gentle voice, ignoring the woman’s continued struggles. “Mr. Cheng, I’m not overestimating myself. I really can protect you.”
Looking at the calm and gentle woman, a flicker of astonishment passed through Cheng Mingjiao’s normally icy eyes.
Just as he fell silent, a third high-pitched scream rang out.
“Daddy! Mommy!”
Cheng Mingjiao: “…”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
Why was there a child too?
What was this, the Calabash Brothers rescuing Grandpa one after another?
Was this procession never going to end?
Fortunately, the patrolling officers arrived in time to put a stop to the farce and escorted everyone involved back to the police station for a little chat.
Cheng Mingjiao’s incognito visit had been a complete failure. He sat coldly on a bench outside the police station.
Zhang Xiyue finished giving her statement and was ready to make her exit as soon as the lawyer arrived.
After all that commotion, night had fully fallen.
She went out for a while, and when she returned, she found Cheng Mingjiao still sitting on the bench.
By then, his shirt was no longer neat, and the carefully styled hair that had been swept back had fallen across his brows. His long legs had nowhere comfortable to go, giving him the air of a disheveled young aristocrat.
Zhang Xiyue adjusted her mood and asked with genuine concern, “Mr. Cheng, are you all right?”
Cheng Mingjiao raised his cold, gloomy eyes and asked impatiently, “How much longer?”
“It should be soon. The security footage has already confirmed that they were the ones who started it.” Zhang Xiyue walked over and crouched down after smoothing her skirt. She placed the iodine and cotton swabs she had just bought on the bench.
Cheng Mingjiao frowned. “Are you hurt?”
“You’re the one who’s hurt,” Zhang Xiyue corrected him. “Mr. Cheng, let me disinfect that for you.”
Cheng Mingjiao paused, only then noticing the two minor scratches beneath the sleeve he had rolled up.
“It’s just a small injury. No need.” He rejected her outright.
Zhang Xiyue reminded him, “There are a lot of bacteria under people’s fingernails. It’s best to disinfect it anyway.”
At that, Cheng Mingjiao’s expression softened slightly. But as the boss, once he had clearly refused something, he would never go back on his word.
Zhang Xiyue had only brought out the supplies to cultivate the image of an employee who cared about her boss. Seeing that he was determined not to accept her help, she didn’t press him any further.
Cheng Mingjiao watched as she put everything away. He seemed to want to say something, but held back.
The lawyers for both sides were still arguing inside the police station. The people sitting on the bench had increased from one to two. Outside, the streetlights illuminated the pavement, where tiny flying insects flickered in and out of sight.
Amid the jumble of background noise, Cheng Mingjiao suddenly asked, “Why do you carry an electronic stun device with you?”
Drowsy, Zhang Xiyue answered, “For you.”
As the assistant to a yandere male supporting character who might try to throw himself into oncoming traffic at any moment, her top priority wasn’t motivating him to improve. It was protecting herself.
She answered so quickly that it sounded as though the response had been carved into her mind long ago.
For a moment, Cheng Mingjiao had nothing to say. He simply watched her in silence.
The lights from the police station softened the contours of his face, making him look less overbearing. His narrow, elongated eyes seemed almost veiled in a layer of watery light.
Zhang Xiyue turned her head and looked into those beautiful eyes. Then, with complete sincerity, she expanded on her answer.
“That’s right, Mr. Cheng. I carry it to protect you.”
Cheng Mingjiao’s eyes shifted slightly.
