Chapter 3

That night, an email appeared in Wen Jiu’s Chu Corp inbox, informing her to come in Monday to sign her contract and start work.
She checked the time it had been sent, it lined up exactly with when she’d run into Qin Yao in front of Chu Corp.
So she’d already been hired back then.
She didn’t know if Qin Yao had a hand in it, but after everything that happened tonight, she felt genuinely happy.
So she had to tail the male lead Chu Yan? Fine. She could do that.
Clutching her dreams, she drifted off to sleep, only to jolt awake at three in the morning.
Originally, the encounter between Chu Yan and the heroine Lan Mingyan had been a complete misunderstanding. The reason Qin Yao even found out about it, and mistakenly believed the two were secretly involved, was because of Wen Jiu, the lackey.
In the book, Wen Jiu never joined Chu Corp. She’d only been lurking in the parking garage waiting for Chu Yan, when she happened to spot him and Lan Mingyan in a tug-of-war.
Security caught her as an outsider and chased her off before she could see what happened next.
As soon as she got away, she messaged Qin Yao, saying Chu Yan had been pulling and grabbing at a female employee.
Most of the time Qin Yao seemed fine, but once it involved Chu Yan, she went completely off the rails.
By coincidence, the next day she and Wen Jiu visited Chu Corp and happened to see Lan Mingyan throw herself into Chu Yan’s arms. That moment triggered Qin Yao’s obsessive, unhealthy pursuit. From there, things spiraled out of control.
Now, clutching her phone and watching the time drag by, the more Wen Jiu thought about it, the more her heart pounded. She couldn’t fall back asleep. Before the first rays of dawn pierced the clouds, she was already on her feet, stepping out into the forming morning mist and heading for the Qin estate.
Beicheng really was a big city, you could still catch a ride at four in the morning.
Following her mental “strategy guide,” she picked up several famous, early-opening breakfast sets from different shops, circling Beicheng twice before finally arriving at the Qin residence.
The Qin family’s neighborhood was the most expensive villa district in the city, sprawling and vast. She’d thought security would turn her away, but apparently her face had already been registered in the system; she walked right in.
“Miss Wen, are you here to see the Young Miss?” the night-shift housekeeper asked, staring at her in disbelief, then glancing up at the sky.
Five a.m. The sky was only just beginning to lighten.
Carrying bags of breakfast, Wen Jiu met the woman’s wide eyes with her own, and both fell silent.
“Mm. I’m here to see the Young Lady.”
“Please come in, Miss Wen.” The housekeeper stepped aside and politely led her in, tucking the breakfast into the microwave to keep warm.
At three or four in the morning, Wen Jiu had been full of adrenaline. After running around for over an hour, the last of that energy was gone. The moment she sank into the soft leather sofa, exhaustion crashed down and she drifted off.
When she opened her eyes again, it was half past seven.
The main house of the Qin villa was quiet. Housekeepers moved through the space on feather-light feet, barely making a sound.
“Wen Jiu, the butler said you came at five?”
At the top of the stairs, Qin Yao called to her from afar.
She practically flew down the steps, so shocked she didn’t even bother with the elevator.
A housekeeper set breakfast on the table at just the right moment, including the sets Wen Jiu had brought.
“You even brought me breakfast? Did you really run out in the middle of the night to buy it for me?” Qin Yao recognized at a glance that the food wasn’t from their own kitchen.
Wen Jiu, still groggy a second ago, snapped fully awake.
She was here on a mission.
She stood from the sofa and faced Qin Yao across the living room.
But when she opened her mouth, she realized she had no idea how to begin.
She couldn’t exactly say, We’re all characters in a book, and you’re the supporting female lead.
“What are you standing there for? Come eat,” Qin Yao said, waving her over like she was summoning a cat.
After running all over and barely sleeping, Wen Jiu really was starving.
Qin family breakfast was a feast for the senses, and paired with the specialty snacks she’d bought, the spread felt like a miniature imperial banquet where she could pick and choose to her heart’s content.
“Miss Qin, if President Chu already liked someone… would you ever consider pursuing someone else instead?” Wen Jiu asked carefully.
She needed to test just how deep Qin Yao’s feelings for the male lead ran.
“Chu Yan isn’t allowed to like anyone else. He can only like me,” Qin Yao replied without a second’s hesitation.
“Besides, he’s so cold. Girls don’t like that type. And he doesn’t let any woman get close to him. I’m the only one he’s ever treated differently since we were kids. Doesn’t that prove he secretly has a crush on me?”
Wen Jiu had been tiptoeing her way into the question, but by the time Qin Yao finished, a giant question mark was flashing over her head.
Uh… the book never said Chu Yan secretly liked Qin Yao.
“I get it. President Chu likes you, so you’re just responding to his feelings, chasing him openly so he’ll finally realize, and you two can be honest with each other?” Wen Jiu’s frozen smile twisted into something barely recognizable as she forced out the sentence.
“Exactly.” Qin Yao’s face lit up with a “you really understand me” expression, sweet as honey.
“Miss Qin, I’ll sound President Chu out at Chu Corp. I’m very worried he’s the type who doesn’t know how to express himself and ends up confusing you. What if the person he likes is actually someone else?”
“…”
That was a perspective Qin Yao had never once considered.
Her slender brows drew together, and her pretty face darkened. She mulled over Wen Jiu’s words for a long time.
“Then it’s his fault, for letting me misunderstand him for so many years.”
Joy sparked in Wen Jiu’s eyes.
Did that mean… she could actually let this crush go?
Qin Yao thumped the table. She was afraid of pain, so her fist only tapped lightly, not even disturbing the water glasses.
“I’ve decided. I’m going to marry him.”
The joy drained right off Wen Jiu’s face. Faced with that unshakable resolve, the clouds of worry gathered again over her forehead.
A melon forced off the vine is never sweet, but Qin Yao was determined to bite into it anyway.
Her path was blocked. All Wen Jiu could do was go see whether the male and female leads’ side of the story could still be moved.
Never in her life had she looked forward to a Monday this much.
Wen Jiu skimmed the contract, saw nothing suspicious, and signed as fast as her hand would move. She was in a hurry to get to her desk.
Maybe it was that invisible string between “novel characters,” but somehow a cannon-fodder like her ended up placed right beside the heroine. They were separated only by a partition, lift your head and there she was, look down and there she still was.
“Hi! I’m Lan Mingyan. And you’re Wen Jiu, right? Your name is so cute.”
Her name might have had the character “Ming” in it, but Lan Mingyan wasn’t some cool moon glowing in a halo of colored lights, she was a little sun, warm and bright.
She was from the south, her voice lilting and soft, every word like a feather lightly scratching your ear. Her face was a perfect little bun, ridiculously adorable. She didn’t look even 1.60 meters tall, neither fat nor skinny, with a very respectable chest and a seriously good figure.
Even knowing this was supposed to be a pure, sweet romance, the moment Wen Jiu laid eyes on the heroine, her eyelid twitched. Immediately, she sensed the problem.
The author had clearly been having fun, Lan Mingyan was built like a walking male-fantasy heroine.
“Hello. Yes, I’m Wen Jiu.” Wen Jiu beamed at her and returned the greeting.
First order of business: befriend the heroine.
Wen Jiu’s face was oval with almond eyes, faint baby hairs visible on her pale skin. She radiated friendliness and zero threat, her clear eyes exactly like those of a fresh graduate just stepping into society.
Lan Mingyan liked her instantly. She tugged Wen Jiu along to teach her the ropes at work and even invited her to have lunch together.
On the surface, Wen Jiu was all smiles. Inside, her heart hurt.
The heroine was such a good girl too. She really didn’t have the heart to sabotage her.
If that was the case, then she’d just have to target the male lead instead.
Tie him up and deliver him straight onto the Young Lady’s bed.
“Wen Jiu, did you order takeout?” Lan Mingyan came back from delivering some documents and happened to be stopped by the delivery guy, so she brought Wen Jiu’s lunch up for her.
When she’d gone to that private restaurant on Friday, Wen Jiu hadn’t paid attention to the name or the packaging. But the moment she opened the box and saw the familiar plating and smelled the familiar scent, she knew, this was lunch the Young Lady had arranged to be delivered.
Colleagues from the same department, close enough to catch the aroma, drifted over.
“Wen Jiu, is this from Ji Qing Pavilion?” The first to speak was a man everyone called Brother Lin.
In the novel, his presence had been even weaker than Wen Jiu’s. He got cannon-foddered offstage before she did.
She’d forgotten the details, only vaguely recalling that he constantly targeted newbie Lan Mingyan. Later, after Lan Mingyan became the CEO’s wife, he’d both screwed up at work and bullied the president’s wife, naturally, he was fired in no time.
“Ji Qing Pavilion doesn’t do delivery, right?”
“They do,” someone replied. “But only for top-tier members. I just went to Ji Qing Pavilion last Friday. I was this close, but still didn’t make it to the highest membership tier.” Brother Lin stood beside Wen Jiu, holding forth as if he were the one eating this lunch.
Lan Mingyan couldn’t stand this type of behavior, but there was always someone eager to flatter him.
“Brother Lin, you’re really something. I heard even a simple smashed cucumber dish at Ji Qing Pavilion costs over two hundred yuan. Normal people can’t afford it.” That was a younger guy in the department who regularly buttered Brother Lin up, young in age, but already thoroughly snobbish.
Wen Jiu thought back carefully, she and the Young Lady had gone to Ji Qing Pavilion on Friday too, but she was sure she hadn’t seen Brother Lin there.
His face fit his personality, greasy hair, big head, very distinctive. In that elegant, classical restaurant, a person like that would have stood out like an ink blot on silk. No way she’d miss him.
Seeing Wen Jiu stay silent, Brother Lin thought he’d hit a nerve and kept up his lecturing tone.
“Wen Jiu, a young girl like you, just entering society, probably isn’t the type who can qualify for that delivery membership.”
He didn’t say the rest out loud, but left plenty of room for the imagination.
It was Wen Jiu’s first official day, and she’d worn one of the outfits Qin Yao had bought for her. Tasteful and refined, but very expensive, half the people here would need an entire month’s salary to afford it.
Beicheng was full of rich people. Some came to work not to survive, but for “life experience.” At first, the office had been watching Wen Jiu from a distance, assuming she was another rich kid “experiencing” the workplace.
After Brother Lin’s little speech, a few coworkers started looking more closely at Wen Jiu’s things.
Her water bottle? Very ordinary. One of those 9.9-yuan “free shipping” types from some random app.
Her black pen? Not even the dozen-yuan ballpoint sold at the nearby stationery shop, much less an expensive fountain pen. The workmanship was rough; you could probably get a handful online for ten yuan.
Her mini desk fan? So basic it didn’t even look as good as the 29.9 one Lan Mingyan had bought.
And despite the pricey outfit and pricey food, she didn’t have an expensive handbag, just a canvas tote you could see on any street corner.
…One item after another, the comparison really did make it look like Brother Lin might have a point.
Maybe she was being “kept,” and just hadn’t had time to swap out all her things yet.
The fawning young guy realized it too. His gaze on Wen Jiu turned openly disdainful.
Wen Jiu: ?
In her previous life, the worst thing that had happened at work was the boss delaying salaries. Coworkers were cold, but no one had made up dirty rumors.
She wanted to file for workplace injury.
Because this absolutely counted as workplace injury.
She felt physically ill.
“You’re all too much. Her family can’t even treat her to lunch?” Lan Mingyan snapped, the first to step out and defend Wen Jiu, even though they’d only met that day.
Brother Lin disliked Lan Mingyan. She took things too seriously, terrible trait for the corporate world. His face darkened. He didn’t want to argue with her, so he turned and raised his voice to Wen Jiu instead.
“Wen Jiu’s family must be quite something, huh?”
“If they’re that impressive, you should take your colleagues to Ji Qing Pavilion sometime. Let everyone broaden their horizons.”
There was a trap buried in his suggestion.
No matter how Wen Jiu answered, she’d be wrong.
If she agreed, she’d have to pay, while Brother Lin got to bask in the glory as the one who “suggested” the treat. If she refused, it’d look like she was admitting his sleazy little rumor was true.