◎ New Boss. ◎
Having exchanged WeChat contacts with Si Yan, Su Yun drove away from the underground parking garage in a daze. That slightly out-of-character move for him had exhausted all his energy.
As he passed the front entrance of the restaurant building, he happened to see Si Yan get into a black commercial vehicle, which definitely was not the one he had seen in the basement.
Perhaps he really had misunderstood.
He felt inexplicably happy, and in a momentary lapse in focus, drove his car straight down to the company building.
Since he was already here, he decided to do some overtime work, and while waiting for the elevator, he happened to run into Yang Ximing.
Sipping his milk tea, Yang Ximing issued a soul-searching interrogation regarding Su Yun’s overworking behavior of coming to the company to work overtime right after a blind date: “Spill it, were you subjected to an attack on your looks by the other party, or was your worldview shattered by their behavior? Not properly going on a date, what are you doing coming to the company for? Anyone who doesn’t know would think you’ve fallen in love with the new boss.”
“I haven’t fallen in love with him personally, exactly,” Su Yun was in a good mood, feeling a bit more tolerant toward exploitative capitalists. “What I’ve fallen in love with is the salary and benefits he offers.”
“Truly a person of similar tastes,” Yang Ximing nodded, then brought up the blind date again. “Fellow Daoist, if I may be so bold as to ask, how did the blind date go?”
The corners of Su Yun’s pursed lips curved upward. “Exquisite.”
“Ohmo,” Yang Ximing couldn’t help exclaiming, “Ohmo ohmo ohmo, what kind of sacred being was the other party to actually make you, Fellow Daoist, finally bloom an iron tree? Quickly, give me all the details.”
“There is not even a single stroke written yet,” Su Yun said, though his eyes still carried a smile.
“Is that stroke yours or his? If it’s his, then he truly has no eye for talent,” Yang Ximing critiqued.
Su Yun had not yet fully confirmed Si Yan’s situation and couldn’t go into detail, but he remembered the video Yang Ximing had watched in the afternoon.
He felt that the man and woman he had seen in the underground parking garage were still very similar to the people in that video, and he wanted to verify it.
“That airport breakup video you watched this afternoon, send it to me to take a look.”
Accustomed to sharing gossip, Yang Ximing took out his phone to search. “Let me find it.”
“Alright, I’ll treat you to cake upstairs,” Su Yun held up the cake box in his hand.
The cake Si Yan had packed was a whole one, which he couldn’t finish by himself.
“OKK,” Yang Ximing gave his word.
The elevator doors opened, and Su Yun’s phone vibrated. It was a WeChat message from Si Yan, and the content was very simple: “Have you arrived home safely?”
Su Yun’s brows curved upward as he replied: “Arrived at the company safely.”
Si Yan sent another brief inquiry: “Working overtime?”
Su Yun replied with a cartoon panda furiously slamming a keyboard sticker, indicating that the other person had guessed correctly.
After a few seconds, Si Yan replied with a cartoon dog drinking coffee while looking at the computer sticker, likely indicating that he was also working overtime, except that the two of them were completely not on the same wavelength.
Su Yun somewhat regretted sending that sticker just now, as it made his emotional state look extremely unstable.
He hesitated about what else to content himself with sending to make up for the collapsed persona, but the other person sent a message first: “Work is endless, your health is what matters, don’t stay busy too late.”
Su Yun suppressed the corners of his mouth that wanted to lift, and coolly replied with “Okay, you too,” to show that his emotional state was very stable.
Their first online chat ended with Si Yan sending: “I won’t disturb your work anymore, remember not to stay busy too late, good night.”
Staring at his phone, Yang Ximing leaned closer: “Strange.”
Su Yun hurriedly put away his phone, wiping away even the secretly silly smile on his face: “What?”
Yang Ximing turned his face to look at him: “Why such a big reaction?”
Su Yun felt a guilty conscience: “Was there?”
Not paying much attention, Yang Ximing continued: “The video can’t be found, even the photos are gone.”
“Oh,” Su Yun had lost much of his interest in that video. Si Yan had said good night to him three times tonight; if the other party were truly straight, how could he be so enthusiastic toward a same-sex blind date partner?
He felt that Si Yan was not straight.
“How could that be? Those two people caught on camera didn’t seem to be celebrities either,” Yang Ximing was still muttering over there.
“It’s fine, if you can’t find it, forget it,” Su Yun comforted him.
“No way, how could there be gossip that my gossip little prince can’t dig up? Just wait, I’ll definitely find it for you.” Yang Ximing’s gossip soul was ignited, and he continued flipping through the melon fields.
Su Yun wanted to say there really was no need to look, but a collapsed figure rushed over, hanging directly onto his arm: “Big Senior Brother, save me, save me, Big Senior Brother.”
If it were usual times, Yang Ximing would definitely tease: “What? Did your master get captured again?”
However, he was currently completely immersed in the ocean of gossip, flipping through his phone while walking back to his workstation, not sparing any distraction for the senior and junior brothers beside him.
“What’s wrong?” Su Yun grabbed junior brother Jiang Yiyi, who was sliding downward and preparing to hug his thigh.
“It’s too hard, Senior Brother, it really is too hard,” Jiang Yiyi’s head of fluffy curly hair looked like an exploded spring. “The client said he wants to see light in the darkness. I gave him light, and he said it was too bright. I adjusted the brightness ratio, and he asked why the light was gone again. Waaaaah, is he blind? There was clearly light right there!”
“I’ll help you take a look,” Su Yun seized the opportunity to ruffle Jiang Yiyi’s hair.
Jiang Yiyi instantly came back to life on the spot, pulling Su Yun to his workstation and pointing and gesturing at the monitor: “Look, look, isn’t there light right here and here?”
Placing the cake box on the desk, Su Yun slid the mouse and roughly reviewed the composition of the entire frame first: “The background color is too dark, it doesn’t highlight the lighting effect. Try adjusting it by using other cool color tones for the base.”
Jiang Yiyi immediately followed suit, and the lighting effect looked somewhat better than before.
“Wow, as expected of the Big Senior Brother,” Jiang Yiyi expressed gratitude.
Su Yun gave some additional suggestions, joining forces with his junior brother to help the blind client see the light.
After that, quite a few colleagues came to him for help, and he was as busy as a reading pen, pointing wherever help was needed.
Once he finished resolving the colleagues’ problems one by one, Fang Ko emerged from the innermost office and clapped his hands: “Who has time to go to the entrance and pick up the food delivery?”
Hearing that there were midnight snacks, the lifeless office area instantly boiled with excitement, with several young guys scrambling to take the errand.
“Wow, Boss, did you strike it rich today? Yesterday’s midnight snack was still Shaxian snacks, and today it turned into Michelin. This span is so huge it feels like dreaming,” the colleague carrying back the food delivery yelled.
Hearing this, a crowd swarmed into the meeting room, intending to see what kind of dream material it was.
Su Yun was also pulled into the meeting room by Jiang Yiyi.
When Fang Ko entered, he was instantly dumbfounded at the sight of the table full of high-end food boxes, shakingly asking the colleague who fetched the delivery: “Confirm you didn’t pick up the wrong one?”
“No mistake, Building A, 26th floor, isn’t this entire floor ours?” the colleague replied.
Looking at the logo on the food boxes, Su Yun found it somewhat familiar. Looking closer, he realized it was precisely the logo of the Western restaurant where he had dined with Si Yan today.
He had checked the menu, and that restaurant had a very high per-person cost. These deliveries amounted to at least twenty portions. Such a lavish midnight snack was something he saw for the first time in his two years working at Huan Fang Equation, and it didn’t look like something Fang Ko would do.
Looking at Fang Ko’s reaction, eight out of ten times he had hooked some deep-pocketed financial backer.
“Boss, you didn’t order this?” Yang Ximing also discovered the anomaly.
“No,” Fang Ko scratched his head with an out-of-the-loop expression. “Our new boss ordered it. Didn’t we win an award in the original art creative grand prix held in Country B? I wanted to hook, cough, have everyone celebrate a bit, who would have thought he’d order these.”
“Wow, the new boss really is generous,” someone said.
“A single bite of food bought you off,” another person said.
“I checked, this bite of food is no cheaper than the price of gold,” someone else popularized the knowledge.
“Fully resurrected,” Jiang Yiyi swallowed a bite of cake, not forgetting to grab a piece for his Big Senior Brother. “Big Senior Brother, this tastes so good, you should try some.”
Su Yun looked at the cake in his hand emitting a faint orange fragrance and fell silent.
“This cake box is the same as the one you brought up earlier, Xiao Yun. Is it the same place?” Yang Ximing was currently using a knife and fork to dissect a piece of beef short rib.
The food was all packed in insulated bags, and delivery hadn’t affected the flavor. Yang Ximing ate to the point of exclaiming that his soul had been sublimated.
“Seems like it,” Su Yun tasted a bite of the cake, and the flavor was identical.
However, he didn’t think much about it, only treating it as a coincidence, and even drank a bowl of borscht brimming with beef cubes.
“Is the new boss planning to be courteous before resorting to force?” Yang Ximing turned back to ask Fang Ko. “After going to KG, are we going to switch to hell mode?”
Someone complained: “Having to interface with several clients every day, I feel like I’m already living in hell.”
Eating his seafood baked pasta, Fang Ko said with heartfelt grief: “Am I usually not good to you guys?”
The complaining person lowered their head to eat steak, muttering under their breath: “Michelin is good.”
The midnight snack was eaten in a lively atmosphere.
When they finished eating it was nearly midnight, and Fang Ko suddenly showed mercy, driving away those who still wanted to linger at their workstations to work overtime: “Go on, go on, get off work, work is endless, do it tomorrow.”
Su Yun secretly hid in his office, intending to optimize the resource designs of Stellar Journey, but was caught red-handed by Fang Ko: “Do you know how many young people like you die suddenly each year from overworking?”
“I know,” Yang Ximing, who was waiting for Su Yun to finish work, answered seamlessly.
Hearing the data reported by Yang Ximing, Fang Ko lowered his head to glance at his own phone, shocked: “You even know this?”
Wiping his nose with his thumb, Yang Ximing bragged: “Why else would they call me the little living dictionary?”
Fang Ko poked him: “Isn’t it gossip little prince?”
Yang Ximing was curious: “Boss, didn’t you used to lead the charge in working overtime? What’s wrong with today?”
Fang Ko closed his phone, facing the ceiling at a 45-degree angle with sadness in his eyes: “Someone just sent me an article about the rapidly rising sudden death rate in recent years, along with a research report on hair loss caused by staying up late. The cases inside were too tragic to witness, I don’t want to die young, and I definitely don’t want to go bald.”
Su Yun and Yang Ximing went up to comfort him: “You’ve already started going bald.”
Touching his steadily retreating hairline, Fang Ko dragged others down with him: “You guys are close to it too.”
Yang Ximing slickly flipped his bangs: “Rest assured, we won’t, at least Teacher Xiao Yun won’t.”
Su Yun nodded, indicating that was correct.
As they took the elevator downstairs, seeing Fang Ko dwelling on the matter of his hairline, Yang Ximing inquired: “Who was it, sending you that kind of message in the middle of the night?”
Fang Ko displayed the expression of someone who had made a poor choice of friends: “A devil who takes advantage of genetic superiority and disregards the life and death of others.”
[Author’s note]
Si Yan: Saying that about me in front of my wife, are you being polite?