On the way to the construction site, Li Sheng ran into Cheng Xiao. He wasn’t surprised at all; Cheng Xiao was a subordinate of their former boss, Zhang Qishan. Competing for a client, it was naturally no surprise to bump into each other. Cheng Xiao also moved very fast; the moment he got the news, he rushed straight to the construction site to check out the situation. Seeing Li Sheng, he immediately stepped forward. “Yo, President Li has personally come to the construction site?”
Li Sheng gave a light snort. “Spare me the sarcasm. Do the two of us really need to beat around the bush? Did Zhang Qishan send you to check out the advertising space?”
“Hey, such a simple matter doesn’t even need to be exposed. When did you become so long-winded?”
Without paying him any mind, Li Sheng walked straight into the building body. Guided by the foreman, he inspected the advertising spaces of the five neighboring buildings. Located right in the city center where crowds of people surged through by the hundreds of thousands every day, if one were to buy the advertising space here, renting out the locations alone could turn a massive profit over the course of a year. It could be said to be fat meat served right to the mouth. Right now, there were actually hundreds of entities meeting the conditions and possessing sufficient capital. In this city, large businesses engaged in advertising and promotion were quite numerous, but many still lacked the courage to invest. Construction here had been underway for three years and still wasn’t finished; most people were afraid the building structures wouldn’t successfully complete construction, meaning that money would essentially be thrown away for nothing over several years. However, since last year, Li Sheng had set his sights on this place. He had learned from clients about the completion news slated for this year, but to drive up prices, the developer had leaked news to several capable large households simultaneously, so recently everyone had rushed back to fight over this piece of fat meat.
Some people thought it was merely a gimmick used by the developer to sell the buildings, yet others still scrambled to negotiate prices—among them were Li Sheng and Zhang Qishan.
Just as they stepped into the building, two bricks suddenly plummeted from the rooftop. Noticing something amiss, Cheng Xiao hurriedly pushed Li Sheng out of the way while throwing himself backward as well. Li Sheng was knocked down onto a pile of bricks on the side. Although he scraped his skin, fortunately he wasn’t hit by the bricks. Terrified, the foreman rushed over to shower Li Sheng and Cheng Xiao with anxious inquiries and warm regards.
“Are the two of you alright? You really must be extra careful at this construction site, it’s way too dangerous, way too dangerous. Are you okay?”
Li Sheng looked up toward the upper floors. He clearly caught sight of a person, but due to the glare of the reflection, it was completely impossible to tell whether it was a worker or someone else. Seeing that a small section of his lower leg was scraped raw and bleeding, he couldn’t help letting out a sigh. “I really shouldn’t have gone out today.”
Cheng Xiao patted Li Sheng’s shoulder. “Head back quickly. I’ll just stay here and take a look around.”
Seeing that it was just a bit of blood that had quickly clotted and didn’t hurt much, Li Sheng said to Cheng Xiao, “Well, that’s going against your wishes then. This boss here still decides to go up and take a look.”
When work wrapped up in the afternoon, Li Sheng had long since thrown the injury on his leg to the back of his mind. The wound wasn’t deep and didn’t hurt, so carrying a massive stack of spreadsheets, he headed upstairs to find Yuan Ye to discuss the pricing issue. However, the moment Yuan Ye laid eyes on him, he spotted the wound on Li Sheng’s leg, furrowed his brows tightly, and asked, “How did this happen? How did your leg end up injured after a trip to the construction site?”
Li Sheng lifted his leg to take a look; it had already scabbed over, and brushing it off lightly, he said, “Don’t even mention it, I almost didn’t make it back. Up on the building at the site, some brick-handlers must have been careless—two bricks fell right down. If it weren’t for Cheng Xiao, me ending up hospitalized today would have been the least of my worries.”
Yuan Ye frowned tightly without a word, fetching disinfectant to clean the wound for Li Sheng. Had Yuan Ye not pointed it out, Li Sheng wouldn’t have realized how filthy he was—his legs and body were covered in dust, with mud splatters right along the edges of the wound. Where Yuan Ye’s cotton swab swept across, there was a faint, stinging pain. Seeing him looking so deeply concerned, Li Sheng smiled playfully and teased, “Is your intense focus sincere, or are you just putting on a show?”
Yuan Ye raised his eyes to look at Li Sheng and said, “You heard it that day, what Du Yu said.”
“I suppose you want to say that you fell in love with me later on.”
Yuan Ye’s brow smoothed out slightly at Li Sheng’s words. “No, the very first time I saw you, I fell in love with you.”
A sudden tightness gripped Li Sheng’s heart. Although he knew full well what Yuan Ye would say, hearing it spoken aloud still made him feel a bit flustered. Pushing Yuan Ye’s hand away, he asked, “Do you say things like this to every single lover?”
Yuan Ye smiled, pulling Li Sheng’s neck into an embrace so close they were practically touching. “If I told you that the only one I’ve fallen in love with is you, I bet you wouldn’t believe it either.”
Li Sheng bit down on Yuan Ye’s lips, then instantly loosened his bite. “Liar.”