Shen Li’s eyelashes fluttered slightly as he thought of how difficult this past year had been, and his voice carried a hint of grievance. “I don’t have the face to beg you.”
The meal left both of them with mixed, complicated emotions.
Shen Li’s personality had two distinct extremes: when he was unserious, he was completely absurd and cheeky enough to make people want to hit him; when he was silent, he could go half a day without uttering a single word.
Ji Zhouye could never find a way to handle him. That was true in the past, and it was true now.
As they stepped out of the restaurant, they passed a milk tea shop with a smattering of customers. Shen Li glanced at the shop for two extra seconds.
Unable to help himself, Ji Zhouye gave him a light, unburdened tap on the head. “Go buy some if you want it, or are you waiting for me to buy it for you?”
The single remark shattered the silence.
“Then wait for me a second.” In a split second, Shen Li reverted to his unserious demeanor.
Like a scolded child who is suddenly handed a candy, he instantly tossed all his unhappiness to the back of his mind.
Ji Zhouye watched his back with a helpless expression, the gloomy shadow dissipating along with the smile on Shen Li’s lips.
Knowing full well that Ji Zhouye disliked sweet drinks, Shen Li still bought him one anyway. He ordered a pearl milk tea for himself and a coconut jelly milk tea for Ji Zhouye.
He had braced himself to drink two cups if necessary, but to his surprise, Ji Zhouye didn’t say a word and simply accepted the milk tea.
Because Ji Zhouye didn’t like things too sweet, Shen Li had specifically requested one-third sweetness for him.
On the way back, Ji Zhouye didn’t make him drive. Sitting in the passenger seat, Shen Li tore open the straw wrapper and poked it straight into the milk tea.
After taking a sip, he realized it wasn’t nearly as delicious as he had imagined, falling far short of the milk tea stalls outside the pedestrian street near Nanjing University. He muttered a complaint, “This isn’t as good as the ones at the Nanjing University pedestrian street.”
Whether the milk tea genuinely tasted bad or the person had changed, both of them knew the answer in their hearts.
Ji Zhouye glanced sideways at him before shifting his gaze away without a word.
After drinking less than half the cup, Shen Li stopped.
Upon returning to the villa, Shen Li headed straight to the master bedroom, grabbed a change of clothes, and went into the bathroom.
Ever since that stomachache sent him to the hospital, Ji Zhouye hadn’t touched him again, even though they shared the same room and bed.
When he finished showering, Ji Zhouye had also cleaned up and pushed open the door to enter.
That night, the two of them lay in bed with a small gap of space between them. Shen Li had no idea when he fell asleep or at what point he had ended up wrapped securely in Ji Zhouye’s arms.
The next day at the office.
At first, he didn’t notice anything unusual. But the moment Ling Feng stepped into the office, Shen Li sensed that something was off about the way Ling Feng was looking at him.
Catching his gaze, Ling Feng flusteredly looked away after a mere two seconds.
Shen Li set down the documents in his hand, leaned back against his chair, and twirled a pen between his fingertips. “Are you that free?”
“No.”
Shen Li’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What is it? Out with it.”
Ling Feng shook his head like a rattling drum. “Nothing.”
Whether Ling Feng had something to report was something Shen Li knew better than anyone. “Not talking? Say goodbye to your year-end bonus.”
Ling Feng stared in silence.
This was blatant financial blackmail. With no other choice, he always fell for this exact trick—he could live without his life, but he couldn’t live without his year-end bonus.
“Fine, I will talk, okay? It’s just that last night, I saw you getting into a man’s car, though I only caught a glimpse of his back.”
Shen Li thought for a moment; the person he was talking about must have been Ji Zhouye. “And?”
The sudden influx of cash that had saved Jiang Qing from its economic crisis made it hard for Ling Feng not to overthink things. “You and him…”
Shen Li recalled what Ji Zhouye had said the previous night.
Lovers count as being together, too.
There was no need for him to hide or cover it up anymore. “Just like you think. I’m with him.”
In modern society, people were generally quite open-minded about same-sex relationships. Even if they didn’t fully understand, they respected and blessed them, making sexual orientation much less difficult to bring up around friends.
Ling Feng was shocked at first, but following the shock came a sense of unfairness on Shen Li’s behalf. “For the sake of the company, is sacrificing yourself really worth it?”
“It’s not entirely for the company. He’s my first love.”
Ling Feng’s jaw dropped even wider than before. He could accept same-sex relationships, but he never would have guessed Shen Li was gay; the Shen Li he knew was straighter than a steel pipe.
Suddenly, a realization dawned on him: you could never judge a person purely by their surface appearance.
Take the man right in front of him, who looked straighter than a steel pipe yet was actually bent. “President Shen really is full of surprises.”
Ling Feng had always known Shen Li had a first love, having heard Shen Li mention it after getting drunk on business dinners. Once, he had even cried, his eyes flushed red and corners glistening with tears, looking utterly shattered.
“Go print a share transfer contract. We have a meeting at three o’clock.”
Ling Feng asked, “A new shareholder?”
“Mh-hm.”
The Ling Feng who had just been feeling sorry for Shen Li instantly switched to celebrating for him. “It looks like our Jiang Qing Group is about to return to its former glory.”
Amused by his reaction, Shen Li crumpled up a piece of paper and tossed it at him. “Get back to work.”
Ling Feng drafted the contract, and Shen Li carefully checked it over.
Ji Zhouye appeared in the meeting room promptly at three o’clock. The moment he walked in, time seemed to freeze; everyone in the room held their breath, fixing their eyes on the decisive and ruthless man.
Knowing that everyone present was more or less aware of who Ji Zhouye was, Shen Li still went ahead and introduced him formally, introducing him as a shareholder of Jiang Qing Group.
The moment the introduction left his lips, everyone was struck dumb with shock. With a backer this powerful, they would never have to worry about the company going under or losing their jobs again.
Ling Feng wore the exact same expression as everyone else in the room. He had considered many possibilities regarding who the wealthy shareholder might be, but he never imagined it would be someone this ridiculously loaded.
Everyone’s reactions were well within Shen Li’s expectations. He pushed the documents on the table toward Ji Zhouye. “Take a look. If everything is fine, sign it.”
There was no corporate flattery, just straightforward business.
From the staff’s perspective, Ji Zhouye becoming a shareholder in Jiang Qing seemed like the most ordinary, everyday occurrence to Shen Li.
If it were anyone else facing Ji Zhouye, they would have fawned over him and desperately tried to latch onto the big boss’s coattails.
Ji Zhouye signed his name at the bottom of the document, his handwriting clean, elegant, and powerful.
Shen Li’s heart was a tangled mess of complex emotions. This meant that with this single piece of paper, as long as Jiang Qing didn’t go bankrupt and Ji Zhouye didn’t pull out his shares, they would remain tied together indefinitely.
Once the contract was signed, the meeting was dismissed.
Shen Li and Ji Zhouye left the meeting room side by side.
No sooner had they stepped away than someone turned to Ling Feng. “Special Assistant Ling, does President Shen already know President Ji?”
“I have no idea. President Shen never mentioned it.” He wanted to know what was going on with his boss himself, just how many secrets was Shen Li keeping from him? “Alright, everyone scatters and get back to work.”
The employees filed out of the meeting room in twos and threes, speculating wildly about why Ji Zhouye would suddenly invest in Jiang Qing.
One man stepped forward to cut the speculation short. “Stop spouting random guesses. Although Jiang Qing experienced a rough patch, under President Shen’s leadership, its development prospects are still very strong. President Ji is a businessman; he would never do anything against his own interests.”
Everyone recognized Shen Li’s capability. If Shen Li hadn’t stubbornly held his ground, Jiang Qing probably would have collapsed long ago.
Back then, even when Jiang Qing was struggling to stay afloat, Shen Li had never treated any of them unfairly.
“Everyone is shocked that you invested in Jiang Qing. They must be wondering how a big shot like you could make such an irrational move.” Shen Li poured a glass of water for Ji Zhouye.
“Jiang Qing isn’t bad.” One day, it would stand proudly at the top of the business world once again.
“Then happy cooperation.” Shen Li extended his hand toward Ji Zhouye.
Seeing that Ji Zhouye had no intention of shaking it, he awkwardly pulled his hand back.
“Happy cooperation.”
Just as Jiang Qing weathered its crisis and began to show signs of recovery, Zhou Lifen rushed over to demand money from Shen Li.
The demand started at ten million yuan.
Naturally, Shen Li had no intention of giving it to her.
Furious, Zhou Lifen swept a stack of documents off his desk onto the floor. Pointing straight at Shen Li behind the desk, her voice grated harshly, “Little bastard, don’t forget that this house and this company belong to me, too.”
Shen Li stood up and unhurriedly picked up the documents from the floor. “My dad’s will states that the real estate goes to you, and the company goes to me. Did you forget? You have no right to interfere with company matters.”
“I’m not interfering with the company. I just want money.”
“I don’t have any.” Shen Li’s tone remained flat and devoid of ripples.
Zhou Lifen snatched the documents Shen Li had just picked up and slammed them back down onto the floor. “Shen Li, don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. You put on a high and mighty act in front of me, but in the end, you just went crawling back to hook up with the Ji family’s son.”
With a loud bang, Shen Li slammed his own files heavily onto the desk. “Yes, I hooked up with him, and we’re together now. Are you satisfied?”
Zhou Lifen looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Utterly hopeless. A lunatic whose sexual orientation is warped.”
As long as she got money, Zhou Lifen didn’t even care. “Give me money. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll go ask the Ji family’s son for it.”
The knuckles of Shen Li’s hand turned stark white, his eye sockets blazing with suppressed rage, his patience burning close to the limit. “You dare.”
Zhou Lifen didn’t actually dare. Her son was a thorough madman; when he lost his mind, there was no telling what he might do. She was merely using this as a threat.
Failing to get the money and getting intimidated by Shen Li instead left Zhou Lifen furious.
The older her son got, the less control she had over him.
She never had any control over him to begin with, but previously she could use dirt as leverage. Now, he had reached the point of utter self-abandonment where no threat worked anymore.
Shen Li cleaned up the scattered documents from the floor and left the office at three o’clock in the afternoon.
He drove down to the JH Corporation building, parked the car, and sat inside smoking a cigarette, content to waste time waiting for Ji Zhouye to finish work so they could head back to the villa together.
Zhou Lifen couldn’t ruin his mood; what truly lingered in his mind was hearing Ji Zhouye’s name slip from her mouth.
He sat there with the car window rolled down, smoking cigarette after cigarette as the smoke drifted out into the air.
He was too lost in his thoughts to notice a figure approaching until the passenger door opened and someone slid inside. “Why are you here?”
When Shen Li snapped back to reality, Ji Zhouye was already seated beside him.
Without even thinking, the words slipped out of his mouth, “To pick you off work.”
It was not yet four o’clock, and the scorching sun baked the asphalt at the hottest hour of the day.
Unwilling to listen to his nonsense, Ji Zhouye asked, “Something wrong?”
Shen Li snuffed out the cigarette in his hand, lingering with the heavy scent of tobacco, and gave Ji Zhouye a very light embrace before releasing him two seconds later. “Nothing’s wrong anymore.”
“You came all this way just to hug me?”
“Mn, wanted to hug you.” Shen Li glanced at the time. “Hurry back up to work, I’ll wait for you.”
Ji Zhouye’s gaze darkened, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Let’s go home.”
“You’re not working anymore?”
“Going home so you can hold me all you want.” Ji Zhouye’s voice dropped a fraction lower.