“Something wrong?” When Zhao Cheng arrived at the break room, Du Chengfeng was sitting upright in a chair, his gaze fixed out the window, deep in thought about something. In any case, something was off, Little Yue was also off, and he sensed something had happened between the two of them.
“Nothing.” Du Chengfeng, as if the person lost in thought a moment ago hadn’t been him at all, spoke with a perfectly normal expression and tone.
“Did Little Yue upset you? What happened just now wasn’t really her fault, she doesn’t know the rules around here.” Zhao Cheng, thinking Du Chengfeng was annoyed with Su Yue over what happened in the ring, couldn’t help speaking up for her.
What bad intentions could that little girl possibly have, she was just too protective of her boss.
“Why would you assume she upset me?” Du Chengfeng, having fully composed himself again, turned the teasing back on him.
“Then did you upset her? That doesn’t make sense either! The girl doesn’t even have a temper, and besides, you’re her boss, she wouldn’t dare.” Zhao Cheng felt something was off about Du Chengfeng right now. Even though the other man hid it well, they were brothers of many years, who could hide anything from the other?
Suddenly Du Chengfeng fell silent. The instant Su Yue had turned her head earlier, he’d still caught the sadness and hurt in her eyes.
He felt he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he had to admit, something still felt uncomfortable inside.
“You really did upset her? That doesn’t add up, what could you possibly have done?” Zhao Cheng looked Du Chengfeng up and down. No matter how hard he racked his brain, he never once thought in the direction of romantic feelings, after all, the gap between the two of them was simply too large.
“Is everything arranged for the overseas match?” Du Chengfeng didn’t answer Zhao Cheng’s question, changing the subject instead. As brothers of many years who understood each other well, Zhao Cheng didn’t press further, though the doubt in his mind only grew.
“Yeah, when are you planning to leave?” Zhao Cheng said. Arranging these details was exactly the kind of thing he, as the manager, needed to handle.
“In three days.” Du Chengfeng replied. He’d originally planned to leave in a week, but now he’d moved the timeline up, perhaps even he himself didn’t realize this was him unconsciously trying to avoid something.
“What should we do about Little Yue? Let her go, or keep her on at the gym as a cleaner?” Zhao Cheng asked. He’d need to go have a word with Manager Chen later, otherwise the moment they left, Manager Chen would bully her without restraint.
They’d be gone for at least two months. As a proper capitalist, there was no way he’d let someone draw a salary for two months doing nothing.
From start to finish, they’d never planned on bringing Su Yue along overseas, after all, she was someone unimportant, no point wasting money on her in that regard.
“If she wants to stay, let her keep working as a cleaner. If she doesn’t want to, it’s her choice whether to stay or go.” Du Chengfeng’s instinct was to send her far away, but then he thought of everything Su Yue had been through since childhood, and his heart softened a little.
“I’ll tell her tomorrow then.” Zhao Cheng nodded, agreeing with Du Chengfeng’s decision.
“Why tomorrow?” Du Chengfeng didn’t understand, wasn’t she right outside?
“She’s not feeling well, she took the day off.” Zhao Cheng, not thinking much of it, said it plainly.
“Not feeling well how? Is she sick?” Du Chengfeng frowned, his sharp sword-like brows knitting together. She’d been perfectly fine just now, how had she suddenly gotten sick?
“Probably because of the joke earlier, the girl’s thin-skinned.” Zhao Cheng cleared his throat lightly, recalling the excuse Su Yue had given for taking leave.
For a moment, Du Chengfeng didn’t know what to say. He had a rough idea of why she’d actually taken leave.
Meanwhile, Su Yue was walking down the street, feeling the sunlight was too glaring. She pulled out her phone and took a photo of her hand shielding the sun.
She posted it to her social media feed with the caption: The glaring sun, looking down over the earth, mocking and sneering.
Over in the break room, Du Chengfeng happened to be checking his phone and happened to see her new post.
Mocking and sneering, what was that supposed to mean?
Favorability -3
Su Yue, hearing the system’s announcement, froze on the spot. The system had never once told her that favorability, once gained, could also drop back down. She immediately questioned the system.
“That’s right, host. Where there’s addition, of course there’s subtraction too. Keep an eye on it, come on, you’ve got this!” The system’s voice had turned mincing and cautious. The host had already been unhappy, and now the favorability had dropped too, no wonder the host must be furious right now, so of course it had to try to win her over.
“That doesn’t make sense, I’ve been away from the gym for a while now, how could the favorability suddenly drop? What happened? It looks like she only posted one thing, a social media post?” She checked her feed again, could the post she’d made have upset him?
“Smack…” Su Yue’s left hand slapped down hard on the back of her right hand, and the right hand visibly turned red almost instantly, with signs of swelling starting to appear.
“Why are you so asking for it? What did you have to post something for? Points that took so much effort to earn, just gone like that, do you have any idea how much groveling I do every day for this?” Su Yue muttered curses under her breath, and the target of her cursing turned out to be her own right hand.
She swore she’d never post anything random on social media again…
System: had the host been driven mad by all this stress?
Still, the host really was ruthless, this ruthless even toward herself, let alone an enemy.
In this line of work, one had to be more ruthless than everyone else. Should it be happy it had found such a formidable host?
The next day, Du Chengfeng arrived at the gym an hour early. He scanned the room but didn’t see Su Yue anywhere. He felt a bit restless, not sure whether she’d even show up today.
Normally, once he arrived at the gym and finished warming up, he’d start training. Today, he went straight to the break room instead.
Before even a quarter hour had passed, the door to his break room opened, and looking up, he saw Su Yue standing at the doorway, a basin of water in her right hand and a mop in her left. He pressed his lips together, not sure whether to greet her or ignore her.
“Morning, Brother Du. I’m here to clean up.” Su Yue was also quite surprised to see Du Chengfeng, after all, this wasn’t the usual time he came to the gym.
Ever since her promotion, Manager Chen had hired two more cleaners, but the break room was still hers to clean. It wasn’t because she was especially diligent, it was simply another chance to rack up more favorability.
Too bad, to this day, no one knew that she was the one cleaning his break room. Had she known that, she wouldn’t have bothered.
After that one greeting, she started cleaning briskly. As for the person in the break room, did he even exist to her right now?
“Morning…” Du Chengfeng studied Su Yue carefully and noticed she seemed a little different today, she wasn’t smiling at him the way she used to.
That was probably for the best, better than her holding onto some fantasy she shouldn’t have. And yet, for some reason, he still felt something uncomfortable in his chest.
Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted to see?
Could it be he was coming down with some serious illness?
“You can just let the cleaner handle this room.” He felt he should say something, otherwise the two of them sharing the same space felt a bit awkward.
“Okay.” Su Yue’s hand, wiping the table, paused for a moment. Then she gathered up the things she’d brought and left the break room without a moment’s delay. As a good employee, of course she’d listen to her boss.
Du Chengfeng: …