“Get the hell out and stand in the hallway, Gu Siqiao!”
Seventeen-year-old Gu Siqiao casually grabbed his school uniform jacket from the back of his chair, pulling it on as he strolled toward the front of the classroom.
The homeroom teacher scolded him endlessly: “Not doing your homework—do you think that’s something to be proud of, huh? Let me tell you, if you fail to hand it in again, you don’t need to stay in my class anymore. Go reflect on your mistakes facing the wall in the corridor!”
Scattered laughter broke out from various spots in the classroom.
Walking toward the doorway, Gu Siqiao didn’t forget to secretly wink at the students below, triggering even louder snickers.
This kind of laughter was different from mocking someone. Usually, when a person held significant prestige among the crowd but was considered a heinous offender in the eyes of the homeroom teacher, they would earn this non-malicious kind of chuckling.
“Hopeless!” The homeroom teacher was practically trembling with rage.
Gu Siqiao took leisurely, grand strides like an old man out for a walk, stepping out of the classroom and turning toward the back door.
As May arrived, the weather began to heat up. The classroom always smelled foul, so all the doors and windows were kept wide open.
“Fourth Brother,” seventeen-year-old Kang Shuai poked half his body out from the back door, calling out in a breathy whisper, “Catch!”
Whoosh. A parabolic arc soared through the air. Gu Siqiao scooped it up with a swift motion and stuffed the MP4 player into his jacket pocket.
The sharp voice of the homeroom teacher carried faintly into the hallway. Still venting her anger, she was likely using Gu Siqiao as a negative example to warn the rest of the class.
Gu Siqiao found a blind spot out of view, stood straight, untangled the headphone wire wrapped around the MP4 player, and plugged the earbuds into his ears.
This was Kang Shuai’s MP4 player—one that Kang Shuai had paid a heavy price to have his father bring back from abroad during the winter break. It had a large storage capacity, full functionality, and even an HD LCD screen.
Pressing the play button, Korean girl group music played into his ears.
After listening for a minute, he couldn’t stand it anymore and skipped the track. The next track was another girl group, then a boy group, a boy group, a girl group… until he finally skipped to “Storyteller Liang’s Collection of Horror Stories.”
And so, in broad daylight, Gu Siqiao leaned against the wall and listened to a story about a hotel murder and corpse-hiding case.
During the third period of the morning, the breeze carried heat alongside the herbal scent of green plants.
Each episode was about twenty minutes long. As he listened, Gu Siqiao closed his eyes. Just as the story reached the part where the detective was about to walk into the dark hotel basement at midnight, someone yanked his earbuds right off. Gu Siqiao jolted awake, opening his eyes: “What the hell are you—”
“Gu Siqiao!” An old face appeared right before him. “Standing as punishment can’t even tame you, and you brought contraband items?!”
It was his English teacher, Deng Yushan.
Deng Yushan was not only the English teacher for Class 2, but also the Head of Grade for Grade 11. Every grade at Jiangcheng No. 1 High School had two honors classes: Class 1 was an elite class based purely on academic merits, while Class 2 was a secondary elite class composed of second-generation kids from rich and influential families.
Thus, the school placing an experienced senior director like Deng Yushan in Class 2 to teach English was also a way to help the homeroom teacher keep this group of wild monkeys under control.
The two quarreled in the hallway, but in the end, Deng Yushan prevailed. He pulled out the MP4 player and earbuds along with the cord, then delivered a swift smack to the back of Gu Siqiao’s head: “Come to my office after school!”
“Why hit my head, Teacher!” Gu Siqiao threw a small tantrum. “This is the hairstyle I spent half an hour blow-drying this morning!”
“I think you’re asking for a beating—you haven’t been hit enough! Stand there properly!”
Deng Yushan walked away holding the MP4 player.
A certain vain male peacock straightened his jacket, which had been pulled loose during the struggle, feeling immensely frustrated.
With his only source of entertainment gone, Gu Siqiao turned around, leaning on the waist-high corridor wall to look outside.
The sky was azure blue. On the sports field, dozens of students were running laps on the red synthetic track, while students played soccer on the green field in the middle. From Gu Siqiao’s position, he could only see half of the field, making it impossible to even watch the match properly.
He turned back with regret.
Bored to tears, Gu Siqiao swept his gaze across the area, landing on the front door of Class 1 next door.
The door was half-open. Inside, rows of students sat upright—some looking up at the blackboard, others leaning down taking notes, each competing to be more earnest and focused than the next.
It sounded as though they were in the middle of a math class: “The solution method that our student mentioned just now was very inspiring to me as well. Setting up a coordinate system is indeed safer, but it is undeniably more time-consuming and involves a larger amount of calculations. However, if you don’t have absolute confidence during the exam, you should still set up a coordinate system as I demonstrated…”
Whoa. The elite class really was something else, Gu Siqiao thought.
Even using phrases like “the teacher was very inspired.” When had Class 2 ever inspired a teacher? At most, they inspired teachers to realize how many cheap tricks their students still had up their sleeves.
Gu Siqiao stared at the Class 1 classroom, lost in thought.
The distance was a bit far, and the faces of most of the top students were blurred in his view. However, there was a boy sitting in the first row near the door whom he could see clearly.
The other party was exceptionally focused, his calm gaze fixed on the blackboard. Looking at this face, Gu Siqiao felt a faint suspicion grow in his mind.
Why did he feel like he had seen this person somewhere before?
Gu Siqiao had connections with people from every class in Grade 11, and even possessed a broad network across the grades above and below him—with the sole exception of Class 1.
During student days, the elite class classroom—teeming with hidden talents—carried an aura like a grand sect of an imperial court. No matter how much of a big shot you were among the students, passing by here, you wouldn’t dare speak loudly for fear of disturbing the beings in the heavens.
Gu Siqiao narrowed his eyes, carefully scrutinizing the boy’s face.
The boy was quite handsome—the kind of handsome that other guys would readily admit to. The contrasting type was Gu Siqiao himself. Ever since he enrolled, love letters from girls had flown toward the youth like snowflakes, making him the synonym for cool, handsome, and uninhibited in the eyes of girls. Kang Shuai and the others gritted their teeth so hard they nearly shattered them, adamantly refusing to admit where Gu Siqiao looked handsome at all.
But this boy possessed another kind of stern, rugged handsome—handsome in a strict, proper manner.
Gu Siqiao scratched his head. He remembered that this face seemed to have appeared on the notice board at the school entrance. He passed underneath it every day, yet had never looked at it properly once.
So he decided that after class ended, he would head to the school entrance to confirm it with his own eyes.
Suddenly, the bell rang. Gu Siqiao’s spirits lifted, but then he realized that the corridor remained completely empty. The people in both classrooms hadn’t budged at all—it seemed as though no one heard the dismissal bell except for him.
What was going on?
Gu Siqiao was perplexed.
The bell rang once more. Gu Siqiao suddenly realized that this wasn’t the dismissal bell of Jiangcheng No. 1 High School, but a noisier, far more piercing ring that sent a wave of panic through his chest.
He turned his head. Through the gap in the door, the youth turned his head at the exact same moment. Those bright, energetic black eyes stared at him calmly and attentively.
“Gu Siqiao,” the youth said in a low, magnetic voice. “Remember to take some hangover medicine before you sleep.”
And then, Gu Siqiao woke up.
Daylight had broken completely. Gu Siqiao opened his eyes with effort, reaching toward the source of the noise to turn off his phone alarm.
He was lying on the living room sofa of his 300-plus-square-meter flat in Shiji Xinyuan. He hadn’t changed into pajamas, and his suit was crumpled like a rag.
Enduring the aching pain in his lower back, Gu Siqiao dragged himself up, awkwardly unscrewing a bottle of mineral water on the coffee table and chugging more than half of it.
He couldn’t remember clearly how he had gotten home, though fortunately, he had always had good drinking decorum—even if he drank too much, he wouldn’t completely lose consciousness.
His stomach still throbbed with a faint pain. Holding the water bottle, he grabbed his phone, opened WeChat, and out of habit wanted to message Secretary Liu to ask her to buy him two bottles of medicine, only to realize that she had resigned.
He began scrolling again. After searching for a few seconds, he set down his phone and ran a hand through his hair in annoyance.
Holy shit. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Xue Lou to add his WeChat yesterday?
*
At 8:40 AM, Xue Lou appeared outside the secretary’s office right on time.
Kang Shuai, sporting dark circles under his eyes, was waiting for him at the doorway with two cups of latte: “Morning, Xue Shen. First day—how does it feel?”
“It’s alright,” Xue Lou took the latte. “It’s just that quite a few people were looking at me along the way.”
“Normal. You’re the new executive secretary, and you’re a guy—every single single female employee is bound to glance at you.”
“There were both men and women. They kept staring at me when I got on the elevator.”
“Holy crap, you didn’t get on the wrong elevator, did you?” Kang Shuai almost choked on his latte. “That’s exclusively for the president and board members. We can only take it when we’re following along to deliver reports.”
“Is that so,” Xue Lou said awkwardly. “No wonder. I was wondering why there was no one inside.”
“Let’s not dwell on that.” Kang Shuai led him into the room, pointing at the newly added office supplies.
In just a single day, the room looked as if a fairy godmother had cast a spell over it—everything imaginable was fully provided.
“This one is for external lines, and this one is internal,” Kang Shuai pointed at the two landline phones—one black, one white—on the desk. “Remember, 3101 is the President’s office—meaning Fourth Brother.”
Xue Lou: “Got it.”
“I’ll add you to the work group chat in a bit, no rush. HR will grant the necessary permissions by this afternoon at the latest,” Kang Shuai took a sip of his latte. “Don’t forget to report your bank account number and social security records to finance.”
Xue Lou: “What’s wrong with your eyes? Insomnia?”
“Don’t even mention it. Last night I was…” Kang Shuai realized something and almost bit his own tongue. “I indeed don’t sleep well, haha.”
He pressed Xue Lou down to sit in the office chair: “There’s a folder on the computer desktop called ‘Work Handover’—it was all compiled for you by Secretary Liu. She’s resting at home due to her pregnancy and can’t come, but you can contact her anytime. I’m off now—my flight is at noon. Send me a WeChat message if there’s anything you don’t understand.”
Xue Lou wished him a safe journey. Just as Kang Shuai was about to leave, he turned back around and set a bottle of medicine on the desk: “Remember to give this to Fourth Brother.”
Twenty minutes later, the door pushed open once more.
For anyone wishing to visit the President’s office, the secretary’s office was an inescapable pathway.
Hearing the sound, Xue Lou looked up.
Gu Siqiao appeared at the doorway, clad in a dark gray peak-lapel suit, a light gray shirt, and a royal blue tie. He didn’t comb his hair into a slicked-back style to feign maturity; his hair was simply blow-dried and styled with a light grip. Paired with this outfit, he looked spirited and sharp.
Such a handsome, dapper outfit, paired with a vibrant, striking face that made it impossible for anyone to look away—no one would ever guess what kind of chaotic, hazy night he had spent just hours before.
“Yo, new employee,” Gu Siqiao’s eyes held a trace of a smile.
Xue Lou stood up, casually wiping the condensation from the iced latte off his hands onto his trousers.
“I thought you’d be too scared to come today,” Gu Siqiao teased, before waving his hand to signal him to sit. “Get back to your work.”
Just as he was about to step inside his office, Xue Lou walked around the desk and came over: “Your medicine, Gu…”
Xue Lou’s speech system glitched for a second. Gu Siqiao smoothly took the medicine bottle from his hand, opened the door, and closed it behind him in one fluid motion.
Xue Lou stared blankly at the plaque reading President’s Office for a moment before returning to his original spot.
He opened his phone browser, displaying the medicine name he had just searched online for Gu Siqiao’s bottle.
Xue Lou then turned on his computer. The moment he logged into WeChat, countless messages exploded with a flurry of notifications.
There was Kang Shuai adding him to group chats, group messages welcoming the new colleague to the company, requests from HR and finance to add him as a friend, and even two people who had no business overlaps with him yet boldly added him directly from the group chat.
Xue Lou didn’t reply to any of them immediately. He scrolled down and spotted the small three-person group chat he had personally created yesterday, named Making Progress Every Day.
Unprecedentedly, there was a new message inside.
Sent one minute ago, from Melancholy West Coast—meaning Gu Boyu:
Secretary Xue, there are no homework assignments after today’s pop quiz. Can I play with Sister Xinxin?
Ring, ring, ring! The phone rang. Xue Lou forgot whether it was an internal or external line, answering it directly: “Hello, good day. Yes. What debt acquisition? Could you please repeat that again so I can write it down…”
Clamping the receiver with his shoulder, he opened a document, listening while typing at rapid speed.
Amidst the intense dictation work, the words Gu Siqiao had spoken last night flew out untimelily. Xue Lou’s fingers paused, deleting the mistyped characters.
Belatedly, he asked himself—had he really been a bit too much of a busybody?