Chapter 7

Brother Lin slunk off.
He didn’t even dare take the elevator with them; he went up by the stairs.
Inside the elevator, Qin Yao felt a fierce surge of pride in her little lackey’s counterattack.
It was a strange, unfamiliar emotion.
“Nicely done,” she said.
Her soft, sweet voice carried a fizz of satisfaction, emotions so full they seemed about to overflow. It was completely different from the sour, jealous, coquettish act she put on in front of Chu Yan, which made him glance at her without meaning to.
Chief Assistant Li, always attuned to the president, noticed it too. His heart lurched.
Wen Jiu, for her part, kept stealing glances at the Young Lady and the male lead from the corner of her eye.
The male lead was tall. The Young Lady stood much shorter beside him. Wen Jiu’s eyes were almost crossing from looking up and down, up and down. One tall, one short, she was half afraid the elevator doors would open on two sets of mismatched eyes.
“Chu Yan, Wen Jiu is my person. Take care of her, okay?” Qin Yao said, still high-handed.
Technically, she’d brought Wen Jiu here to tail Chu Yan for her. She ought to keep that hidden, or at least prevent him from knowing Wen Jiu was her lackey.
That thought arrived a beat late, and Qin Yao’s eyes went round, like a cat caught stealing.
Of course, a proud little cat would never admit she’d stolen. Eating was simply her blessing upon the poor human.
Qin Yao lifted her chin, exposing the elegant curve of her pale swan neck. Her confidence was shaky at best, but her tone came out fierce: “Chu Yan, did you hear me?”
“Mm. This won’t happen again,” Chu Yan replied, using this as an excuse to clear out a few parasites in the company.
Mm? Mm? Qin Yao stared, stunned for a second, hardly able to believe it.
It was the first time Chu Yan had openly agreed with her.
Thinking of Wen Jiu’s “advice,” she glanced at Chief Assistant Li, then at Lan Mingyan, and finally reached out to hook her arm through Chu Yan’s, leaning in with a soft, sugary: “Chu Yan, you’re amazing.”
Wen Jiu: “…”
That was not how she’d taught it.
Lan Mingyan: Aaaaaaah. Aaaaaaaah.
Mom, her dramas and webnovels were coming true!
Cold-faced CEO and spoiled, clingy young lady… that kind of love was real.
Assistant Li: !!!
President Chu, you actually didn’t push her away.
President Chu, you weren’t like this before.
Taking the others’ stunned expressions as only natural, Qin Yao pressed even closer to Chu Yan.
This man was hers.
“Chu Yan, when are we getting engaged?”
“In a while.” The noble, aloof man met the girl’s upturned gaze. The fiery affection in her eyes surged over him, leaving him momentarily dazed.
It wasn’t… all that hard to accept.
His thin lips curved ever so slightly. That faint arc exploded like a firework in Qin Yao’s mind, dazzling and lingering, leaving her dizzy, like she’d fallen straight into a vat of honey with no way out.
Oh ho, the male lead smiled.
It was only for a second, but aside from the Young Lady, Wen Jiu, who’d secretly been watching, caught it too.
Young Lady, your springtime is coming.
Sob, sob, her lackey rejoiced from the depths of her soul.
All of a sudden, she finally understood that classic line from butler characters in CEO novels: “This old servant’s heart is greatly comforted.”
She was genuinely, sincerely happy for the Young Lady.
When the elevator reached the first floor, Wen Jiu tugged Lan Mingyan and Assistant Li out, leaving the space to the Young Lady and the male lead.
In the original story, it was a marriage-first-love-later setup, and Lan Mingyan only fell for the male lead in the latter half. Now, with Wen Jiu’s interference, they hadn’t even had their first fateful encounter. To her, Chu Yan was just the big boss at the top of the company.
Wen Jiu stepped out briskly, grinning, more hyped than any CP fan.
Assistant Li, on the other hand, was yanked out against his will.
Wen Jiu and Lan Mingyan were done for the day, but he still had overtime waiting. Being dragged out now only meant he’d have to wait for the next elevator.
“Thank you for your hard work, Assistant Li. Let me buy you a coffee,” Wen Jiu said, hauling him straight toward the cafe in the lobby, not giving him any chance to refuse.
She had no idea how many secretaries the president’s office had, but she’d caught the most important one. If she stalled him, it would give the Young Lady more time to bond with Chu Yan.
To make up for it, Wen Jiu didn’t hesitate to order the most expensive coffee on the menu.
888 yuan a cup. She figured there had to be actual gold flakes mixed in.
Assistant Li’s expression became… difficult to describe.
No matter how high their salaries were, they were still wage earners, not capitalists. An 888-yuan coffee was the kind of thing you’d never try in your life unless you’d gone insane. It was like throwing 888 cash onto the street and watching it roll into a storm drain, you’d toss and turn over it in your sleep for months.
But if he refused, it would feel like betraying his president and colluding with Qin Yao for nothing…
After three seconds of intense internal struggle, Assistant Li decided he could betray his boss, for the length of one cup of coffee.
Since she ordered one for Assistant Li, Wen Jiu naturally ordered the same for Lan Mingyan.
“Wow, Wen Jiu, you’re too good to me! But it’s so expensive… can we still cancel it?” Lan Mingyan was genuinely moved, but too terrified to touch a sip of that 888-yuan coffee.
“They can’t cancel it, only remake it,” Wen Jiu said, glancing back at the clerk’s stiff, fake smile, then quickly faced forward and sat up straight.
In the end, Lan Mingyan accepted the coffee.
Assistant Li lingered downstairs, timing it precisely, and only trudged back up after dawdling fifteen minutes.
Wen Jiu didn’t stop him.
“Mingyan, if you had really pounced on the president today, his parents might have assumed you were his girlfriend. Then you two might have gone along with it, gotten married first, fallen in love later, and you’d become the president’s wife.” Wen Jiu stared at the table instead of at her, eyes down.
Then she asked, “Would you be mad at me for ruining your marriage and your love story?”
Guilt.
Still guilt.
However she thought about it, she felt guilty.
“Even if that was something that could’ve happened, I think I’d regret it a few years down the line.”
“Wen Jiu, I actually noticed you’re not really that Young Miss’s biological sister.”
“Huh?” Wen Jiu was startled.
Careless, student-like Lan Mingyan had actually figured it out?
“You’re kind of like her assistant, but not quite…” She searched for the word for a long time before finding it. “In the novels I read, they have a name for that, it’s called a lackey!”
“No offense, Wen Jiu!” Lan Mingyan rushed to explain.
“I know. I really am the Young Lady’s lackey,” Wen Jiu said, relieved to have the topic shifted. She finally lifted her head and gave her a playful blink.
The sudden heaviness between them dissolved. The air conditioner’s cool breeze drifted across the room, carrying away that bit of awkwardness.
“The Young Lady pays me thirty-five thousand a month to be her lackey,” Wen Jiu added in a whisper, holding up the number with her fingers under the table.
Lan Mingyan’s eyes went wide and bright. She didn’t even need to exclaim out loud; her face said everything.
She swallowed. “I could be a lackey too. Maybe you can ask the Young Lady to hire me.”
The way she called her “Young Lady” rolled off her tongue as if she’d been doing it for years.
“I don’t need thirty-five thousand. Ten thousand is enough.”
“Don’t you dare ruin the market,” Wen Jiu scolded, outraged.
“I’m so jealous of you,” Lan Mingyan sighed.
“Right, where were we just now?”
Relaxed conversations like this always jumped wherever they pleased.
“Right. If I married into a rich family now, became the president’s wife, and strutted around the company, I’d probably be happy.”
“But then you have to deal with the big boss’s relatives. With a company as big as Chu Corp, you know there’ll be a ton of relatives, and none of them easy. My family’s not even middle-class, more like just scraping by. I relied on scholarships and student loans to get through school. If I marry into that, with such a huge wealth gap, I’ll just be at everyone’s mercy.”
“Unless something so serious happens that I literally have no choice, I’d never agree to marry into a rich family. I’m not stupid.”
“It’s fun to think about, but in reality? No thanks. Being the Young Lady’s lackey is more realistic than that.”
Lan Mingyan grabbed Wen Jiu’s hand. “Wen Jiu, if the Young Lady ever needs someone, remember to recommend me!”
Whatever sentiment Wen Jiu had just been feeling, she swallowed it right back down.
“End of the workday,” she announced.
That night, the Young Lady did not have dinner with Chu Yan. She came downstairs alone and drove Wen Jiu home.
She wore a smile the entire way, bright and sunny, like a sunflower.
Sitting in the passenger seat, a spark flashed through Wen Jiu’s mind, and before she could think twice, the words slipped out, “It’s been so long since you were this happy, Miss Qin.”
Her tone was full of fondness; her heart was on the verge of tears.
At a red light, they had two full minutes. Qin Yao turned her head to glance at her and transferred one thousand yuan.
“Huh?” Wen Jiu blinked. What was this?
“A tip.”
“Whenever the butler says that sort of thing, my mom gives him a tip. You’re my lackey, so I’ll give you tips too.”
In the space of a heartbeat, the question marks filling Wen Jiu’s face flipped into exclamation marks.
One thousand might not compare to the previous transfers of tens of thousands.
But still, a tip!
And not for flattery, even just saying a single sentence got her paid!
Wen Jiu realized she liked this job more and more. She was ready to be the Young Lady’s lackey for life.
Let the male and female leads break up. She would become a ruthless, cold-hearted “breakup warrior,” a cannon-fodder knight sworn to follow the Young Lady and guard her love.
The next day at work, Wen Jiu realized Brother Lin hadn’t come in.
Without him, the office was suddenly quiet and cozy. Compared to yesterday, the atmosphere was downright warm and friendly.
His desk was cleared out. She didn’t know if he’d come in early to clean it out or if he’d done it the night before. Even the computer had been replaced.
Their actual department supervisor gathered everyone for a meeting.
“Over the years, Lin You failed to make any progress. He shirked his own duties, pushed work onto others, and stirred up trouble, lording it over the office. After investigation, the company has decided to terminate his employment.”
“He’s made everyone miserable for years. To ask for your forgiveness, Lin You will be treating everyone at Ji Qing Pavilion after work today. Anyone who wants to go is welcome.”
After so many years of this, Wen Jiu didn’t believe for a second that the supervisor hadn’t noticed. He’d just waited for Chu Yan to speak up before kicking the man out.
Sure enough, he launched into a righteous speech to wash his hands clean: “When things like this happen, you should report them. There’s too much going on in the company, I can’t watch you all every second. If I’d known earlier, I’d have filed to get Lin You removed long ago…”
In one ear and out the other, Wen Jiu thought.
“This incident had quite an impact,” the supervisor went on. “Our department may need to be reorganized.”
Ten minutes later, he finally got to the point.