Although one reason was that he was doing it for Professor Cheng’s sake, Shen Liang was also willing to humor her.
Shen Liang: [Don’t be sad. I’ll take you out to dinner tonight.]
Cheng Yao: [Really? Isn’t your girlfriend back? Can you still have dinner with me?]
Shen Liang’s fingers paused over the screen.
If Cheng Yao hadn’t reminded him, he really would have forgotten that he’d just told Fang Youyao they would have dinner together that evening.
After thinking it over, Shen Liang replied: [I’ll have dinner with you tonight.]
Cheng Yao was delighted: [I’m looking forward to having dinner with Big Brother.]
After Cheng Yao passed the office doorway, Fang Youyao looked away and continued studying the dense data on her screen.
She analyzed feedback on the revamped game while also helping her team members with the technical problems they sent her.
Fang Youyao answered patiently, guiding them toward solutions.
At seven that evening, Shen Liang messaged her: [Yaoyao, let’s go get dinner.]
Fang Youyao still had work to finish: [There’s one more technical problem I haven’t solved. I’ll stay late for a bit.]
She was a workaholic.
Shen Liang had known she’d say that, which was why he’d agreed to go with Cheng Yao without a second thought.
[Then I’ll head out first.]
[Okay.]
Fang Youyao continued to focus on her work.
The company wasn’t Shen Liang’s alone. It was the fruit of her hard work, too.
By the end of this year, her current shareholding would entitle her to a ten-million-yuan dividend.
During the company’s early years, Shen Liang had been eager to prove himself to his family.
He was always working late into the night, eating irregularly, and getting too little sleep and too little food.
He had run his body into the ground.
Three years ago, he fell ill and underwent stomach surgery.
After that, Fang Youyao worried about him. She wouldn’t let him work late into the night and reminded him to eat on time.
Meanwhile, she took on most of the company’s work herself.
Shen Liang started leaving work earlier and eating regularly.
Fang Youyao, on the other hand, worked at the office until midnight every day and often forgot to eat.
She had always been serious about her work, and she would often forget to eat or sleep while trying to solve technical problems.
Overtime was routine in the tech department. Sometimes the system crashed or a server failed, and they had to get up in the middle of the night and come into the office to find the problem and maintain the system.
Nine that evening.
He Xixue couldn’t stay any longer. She packed up her workstation and prepared to leave, passing by Fang Youyao on her way out.
“Sister Fang, you’re still here?”
Fang Youyao was still full of energy. “I’ll leave in a little while.”
“Bye, Sister Fang. See you tomorrow.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Fang Youyao was studying game engines.
She had developed an engine herself. It was only a prototype so far, and it didn’t work very well.
She was improving its performance.
The company was currently using an engine developed in-house by a major overseas game company.
If her company could develop a better engine of its own, they wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else.
On their last trip abroad to negotiate a partnership, one of the other company’s executives—a European man in his forties—had tried to take advantage of her, speaking to her with blatant disrespect.
Fang Youyao had been furious.
What made her even angrier was that he had looked down on her country, too.
Because she’d flatly refused his advances, he’d taken offense and made disparaging remarks about Eastern people.
They had reached an agreement, but the negotiations had been far from pleasant.
At the time, she had silently vowed to develop an engine with even better performance.
She and Shen Liang had always disagreed on this.
Shen Liang thought that buying a license and negotiating a partnership was a shortcut; developing an engine themselves would take time, effort, and money.
But Fang Youyao believed that relying on someone else’s shortcut was like leaving a sword hanging over their heads.
Looking back now, many of their conflicts at work had been papered over by their half-hidden love for each other.
Maybe they had never been right for each other in the first place.
Nine thirty that evening.
As usual, Fang Youyao opened the delivery app and ordered herself an extra-strong iced Americano.
She made a round of the office and found that more than thirty people were still working overtime.
Fang Youyao ordered them a late-night meal.
She was trying to lose weight and didn’t plan to eat anything herself. She would just have coffee to keep herself alert.
Twenty minutes later, the delivery rider called her.
She asked Zhou Sunan from the tech department to go downstairs with her to pick up the order.
Zhou Sunan carried the huge bag of late-night food back upstairs.
Fang Youyao waited downstairs for her coffee.
Two minutes later, a sleek motorcycle came speeding toward her. It whipped around and braked sharply right in front of her.
Fang Youyao instinctively took a step back.
The delivery rider wore a black helmet that hid most of his face, leaving only his eyes visible. He swung one long leg over the bike, dismounted, and handed her the coffee.
Fang Youyao reached out to take it with a smile, saying by habit, “Thank you. You must be tired.”
Every time she received a delivery, she thanked the rider.
Fang Youyao had come from a humble background and understood better than most how hard life could be for ordinary people.
She was always polite and considerate, and she respected workers in every line of work.
The rider didn’t hand over the coffee right away. He pulled it back instead, as if deliberately teasing her.
Fang Youyao’s hand stopped in midair. She looked up at him, confused.
“Does your company rely on you alone to work yourself to the bone?”
The rider’s voice was low and pleasant, and strangely familiar.
The moment Fang Youyao met his eyes, she froze for a beat.
Beneath the helmet, his eyes were black as ink.
There was an untamed wildness in them.
A face she would never forget immediately came to mind.
Sharp-edged and roguish.
Fang Youyao looked surprised. “It’s you?”
The handsome, wild-looking guy she’d run into at the hotel a few days earlier.
With a click, Song Song unfastened his helmet strap and took off the helmet with one hand. He held it in his arms, his hair tousled by the wind, and stared straight at her.
“Your ‘thank you’ is the same for everyone, isn’t it?”
He spoke lazily, then hung the helmet on the handlebars. His fingers were still curled around her coffee.
Tonight, she was dressed in a sharp, professional style, unlike the woman he’d seen at the hotel: long hair flying, eyes seductive, utterly captivating.
Fang Youyao met his deep, ink-black gaze, feeling oddly unsettled. “Fancy running into you again. What a coincidence, huh?”
Song Song curled his lip and took a step closer, watching her.
“Not a coincidence at all. I’ve delivered coffee to you more than fifty times in the past six months.”
Every time, she had politely thanked him—but she had never once looked at him.
He took the coffee and held it out to her.
Fang Youyao stared at him in surprise, still a little doubtful. “Really?”
How had she never noticed that the same person was always bringing her coffee?
Song Song added, “You like ordering an extra-strong iced Americano from Riverside Café at nine thirty at night.”
Fang Youyao was taken aback. “How do you always manage to get my orders?”
Song Song was silent for two seconds. “To get your orders, I hang around that shop at that time every night.”
If they hadn’t met at the hotel last time, Song Song would have handed her the delivery and left, just as he always had.
But after accepting this order tonight, he’d spent the whole ride over wondering whether Fang Youyao would recognize him.
The result was just as he’d expected: once again, she hadn’t even looked at him.
Song Song couldn’t help speaking up. He wanted to see whether she still remembered him.
Fang Youyao was puzzled. “Why go out of your way to take my orders?”
Song Song suddenly bent down and leaned closer, looking into her eyes as he lowered his voice in the night.