Chapter 71

“This bouquet is mine,” Wei Xiaolu said, her heart pounding as she did her best to keep her tone steady. “I just got back from a date.”

“Wow,” Wang Chen drawled, clearly amused. “You even went on a date?”

Wei Xiaolu slammed the car door shut and shot him a fierce glare. “So what if I did?”

But Wang Chen wasn’t looking at her. He’d already seen the message Shen Siyan had sent in the group chat: everyone was to gather in the conference room for an urgent meeting.

“Anyway, nice work. Even you’ve managed to get taken,” he said as he got out of the car, waving at Wei Xiaolu casually. “I’m heading to work overtime.”

As he approached the company building, Wang Chen opened Wei Xiaolu’s Moments, but there was no sign of romance at all. Still, back when she was interning, she’d posted about her daily life fairly often. Wang Chen suspected that this little sycophant had blocked him.

A date, and she even got such a huge, exquisite bouquet of roses. So it seemed this devotee of power had really climbed her way onto a high branch.

How tacky.

Wang Chen thought indignantly as he entered the conference room with an unhappy expression.

Two people still hadn’t arrived yet. Inside, everyone was discussing the newly issued regulations; the purpose of this emergency meeting tonight was to work together on a revised plan for the policy changes.

Wang Chen had no interest in this kind of tedious bureaucracy. They were in tech; all they had to do was execute. Who needed to understand so much? Coming here tonight was practically pointless.

But after repeatedly trying and failing to give Shen Siyan gifts, he didn’t know any other way to ease the tension between superior and subordinate. All he could do was work harder and try to salvage his image in CEO Shen’s eyes.

“Hey, hey, look at CEO Shen,” someone nearby whispered.

“Look at what she’s wearing today. Isn’t it way too formal?”

“It’s like she’s going to a banquet.”

“No, I don’t think so. I ran into her downstairs just now, and she seemed to be in a pretty good mood. What was she doing that made her so happy? So hard to guess.”

“Oh! Could she have just finished seeing some big shot and come straight over?”

“...You’re all wrong,” Wang Chen said with a cold laugh, joining in. “I didn’t see any rich guy driving her over. She drove herself, and she brought Wei Xiaolu with her.”

“Huh? The intern from before? Why was she with her?”

“They live together.”

Just after Wang Chen said that, Shen Siyan, at the front of the room, spoke up. “Everyone’s here. Then let’s begin. I’ll give you a brief explanation of the policy.”

Mm, let’s see what policy the higher-ups handed down... Holy shit, Shen Siyan and Wei Xiaolu are together?!

Wang Chen had only caught half of what his boss said when he suddenly raised a hand to his mouth in disbelief.

Maybe coding had made him a god; his thoughts were getting a bit wild. He quickly calmed down and tried to search his memory for evidence to disprove the guess he’d just made.

The last time he went to Shen Siyan’s place to deliver a gift, he’d already learned that the two of them lived together. But he’d never dug into why they lived together. After all, during her internship, Wei Xiaolu had flattered Shen Siyan very well; with a little leniency, it made perfect sense for Shen Siyan to let this little hanger-on stay by her side.

But hadn’t everyone recently been saying Shen Siyan was seeing someone?

And then, how coincidental was it that Wei Xiaolu had also suddenly gotten a boyfriend—or rather, a partner? When she went on that date, Shen Siyan was the one who drove her there and picked her up; on top of that, both of them were dressed in an unusually exaggerated way. Also, Wei Xiaolu had shown no interest in him, Wang Chen, a man so tall, elegant, and handsome he could rival an entire nation; there’d even been faint signs she might be into women. And she’d personally said before that she liked women like CEO Shen...

Wang Chen was struck dumb. There was no way to overturn the conclusion he’d just reached!

So this really was a story of a bootlicker finally winning the title.

He’d misunderstood Wei Xiaolu all along.

Her flattery toward Shen Siyan had never been about chasing power. Looking back now, bringing food every day, taking on all the work without complaint, keeping herself so humble, constantly buttering her up—wasn’t that exactly the standard profile of a sycophant?

“Wang Chen, for the technical part I just mentioned, you’ll handle the specific implementation.”

“Ah, okay, okay. Got it, CEO Shen.” Wang Chen answered blankly.

Shen Siyan could tell Wang Chen had drifted off and clearly hadn’t absorbed the decision she’d just explained, so she repeated it once more and said, “Every single item needs to be carried out carefully.”

This time Wang Chen had come back to himself. “Understood.”

The meeting wasn’t long, but since everyone was working overtime, Shen Siyan handed out red packets to the team, settled the details, and by the time she returned to Wei Xiaolu, it was already nearly ten.

After the car door shut and automatically locked, Wei Xiaolu’s knuckles were frozen stiff from waiting outside. As soon as Shen Siyan got close, she immediately slipped into the front passenger seat to warm up.

“So cold.”

Wei Xiaolu pushed her fingers into Shen Siyan’s palm and felt the solid warmth there.

“Why did you get out of the car?” Shen Siyan asked as she turned on the heat and took Wei Xiaolu’s hand to hold it against the vent.

“I wanted to get some air,” Wei Xiaolu said, then remembered. “I ran into Wang Chen just now.”

She had no good impression of Wang Chen, so her tone sharpened a little when she described the encounter that followed.

After listening, Shen Siyan fell into thoughtful silence.

Wei Xiaolu noticed her fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel and wanted to ask what she was thinking. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Shen Siyan said with a smile, reaching over to ruffle her hair. “You’ve got to get up early for work tomorrow. We should hurry home and sleep.”

“Right!” Wei Xiaolu had been half-dazed with sleepiness after waiting so long. The moment Shen Siyan said it, she grew even drowsier. “I need to go straight to bed when I get back. The internship place isn’t even in the city center. HR said I’d have to spend two months at the subsidiary first. Looking at the subway, it’s about forty minutes each way; I’ll have to get up by seven at the latest.”

“The subsidiary?” Shen Siyan’s gaze sharpened. “But you applied for a position in the city, didn’t you?”

“They’re just starting me at the grassroots level for training. Keron also just set up the subsidiary and is short on people, so I’ll be transferred back after two months.”

“That won’t do. The commute is too hard.” Shen Siyan had already started looking through her phone. “I have a classmate who can speak to them. I’ll have her put in a word, and you can intern in the city directly. It’ll be much more convenient coming and going.”

“Sis, why are you doing this again?” Wei Xiaolu let out a disappointed sigh.

Shen Siyan caught the change in her mood and, along with it, put down her phone.

“Everyone else gets trained this way. I’m the only one being made special. Have you thought about how much people might gossip about that?”

Shen Siyan paused, then said only, “I don’t want you to be too tired.”

“I’m not afraid of being tired,” Wei Xiaolu said. “Waking up forty minutes earlier isn’t a big deal. That’s way better than office workers who commute for two hours at a time.”

Shen Siyan looked like she still wanted to say more, but Wei Xiaolu beat her to it. “Let’s go already. I still need to get back early and sleep.”

Wei Xiaolu’s attitude was so firm it was almost as if anyone who didn’t accept hardship from the bottom rung was just being delicate. Shen Siyan had no ground to stand on in front of her, so in the end she could only say, “All right.”

Another new journey was about to begin, and even someone as broad-minded as Wei Xiaolu would suffer a little insomnia the night before her first day at work.

What time she finally fell asleep no longer mattered. In any case, it didn’t affect her getting up early the next day. Shen Siyan kept the same schedule as her; the two of them left home together and parted ways at the subway station entrance.

“I might have to work overtime tonight,” Shen Siyan said. “Go eat first when you get back. Don’t wait for me.”

“Okay.” Wei Xiaolu waved at her. “Love you, sis. Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye, baby.” Shen Siyan said.

Wei Xiaolu, the queen of perfect timing, was very respectful toward this job and arrived at the address HR had sent her fifteen minutes early.

But it was only a service hall. She looked around and didn’t see any Keron Medical sign.

She said she was here to report for her first day, but no one responded to her. Wei Xiaolu was terribly frustrated and messaged HR to ask about it, only to find out this was merely a “transfer station.”

“The subsidiary is hard to find. I wanted you to wait here first; I’ll arrange for someone to come pick you up in a bit.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll wait here then.” Wei Xiaolu found a bench in the service hall and sat down.

About ten minutes later, a car horn sounded at the entrance. Wei Xiaolu, as if struck by inspiration, immediately knew this was the coworker coming to get her.

“Hello, sir, I’m the new intern.”

After getting in the car, Wei Xiaolu took the initiative to chat. While speaking, she even tried to sound a little clever and dig out some work-related information, but the older man wasn’t forthcoming. He only laughed heartily and said, “All that stuff you learned in college? Useless. When you get there, just do whatever they tell you to do.”

“Got it.” Wei Xiaolu smiled brightly as well.

Very quickly, the car pulled into the parking lot. Wei Xiaolu got out with the man and, after crossing another intersection, came to a narrow, dirty lane.

“There. The building behind you when you go in is the one.”

As soon as he delivered her, the older man received a new task by phone. He waved and hurried off.

Wei Xiaolu stood there a little dazed. As she walked inward, a faint chill passed through her body.

At the end of the narrow lane, turning right led to the subsidiary building she’d been told to go to. From the outside, it looked somewhat run-down. Wei Xiaolu wondered if she’d gotten the wrong place, but she still went in and found a staff member to explain why she was there.

“So you’re the new one coming in today,” said a person addressed as Team Leader Meng, coming over to greet her. “The leaders are all out. I’ll introduce you to them tomorrow. For today, just start working.”

“Okay, Team Leader Meng.” Wei Xiaolu addressed him that way too.

“My name is Meng Jue,” he said, leading Wei Xiaolu to the warehouse door. “Inside here are our medical gloves. One bundle is ten pairs, which is twenty individual gloves. Today you’re to count everything in the warehouse and report the total to me before you leave.”

Wei Xiaolu wasn’t very keen on doing this kind of work, so she tried to phrase it tactfully. “Team Leader Meng, I’m a data processing clerk. Should I put my computer at my workstation first?”

Meng Jue frowned. “What workstation? Having you count things is processing data too. Just leave the computer wherever. And make sure you count everything and check it again. If the numbers are wrong, you’ll be held responsible.”

This man was power-drunk and impossible to argue with. Wei Xiaolu had no choice but to accept the arrangement for the time being and push open the warehouse door.

A wave of air hit her in the face, carrying dust and the pungent smell of some kind of plastic product.

The warehouse was dimly lit; only two old incandescent bulbs were working. The floor was covered in trash and oil stains, and in the center of the room were piles of... medical gloves stacked without any barrier at all.

Wei Xiaolu’s feet seemed to freeze to the ground.

Beyond the difficulty of believing that a medical device company’s sanitary conditions could be so crude, she also felt ashamed that she had ended up here.

It wasn’t exactly a waste of talent, but compared with interning in Shen Siyan’s bright, neat, orderly office, the scene before her carried a jarring blow that made the roughness and absurdity of reality feel almost physical.

But—

Shen Siyan’s firm refusal to help her still rang in her ears. Even if that excuse about grassroots training now seemed a little one-sided, her pride in not wanting to show weakness before Shen Siyan, along with a trace of numbness from the thought of “I’m here already,” forcibly pressed down the discomfort in her throat and the urge to turn around and leave.

Wei Xiaolu took a deep breath and began counting the supplies.