Lu Chen had brought the food specifically because he wanted to eat with He Xiaoyuan. He had absolutely no intention of doing free labor for anyone else—namely, President Chang.
So in the end, President Chang “won” a large lunch box, neatly layered with rice, dishes, and soup. But He Xiaoyuan did not sit in the front passenger seat. Instead, he stayed in the back of the X7, eating with Lu Chen.
The containers of food were unpacked one by one and set atop the wide center console. Sitting side by side, the two ate and chatted, the car filled with the aroma of food and a warm, cozy atmosphere.
Out of habit, Lu Chen kept putting food into He Xiaoyuan’s bowl. This time, though, there were no serving chopsticks—and not enough chopsticks to go around—so he simply used his own. He even mentioned it casually, saying he hadn’t brought extras, clearly signaling for He Xiaoyuan not to mind.
He Xiaoyuan moved his bowl closer, accepting the food without hesitation. “No need for serving chopsticks,” he said. “It’s not that formal.”
Lu Chen lifted his gaze to the young man, something unreadable flickering in his eyes, then calmly picked up another bite and placed it in his bowl.
After they finished eating, they cleaned up together. Lu Chen retrieved Chang Bei’s lunch box from the front car, but didn’t leave right away. Instead, he drove He Xiaoyuan to a café near the industrial park to get coffee, chatting along the way about Chang Bei’s case.
There was one thing that had been bothering He Xiaoyuan. He’d asked Chang Bei before, but hadn’t gotten a clear answer. Now that it came up, he asked Lu Chen, “They haven’t even looked at the game. They only know the team developed an online mini-game—how can they be sure it’ll blow up?”
Lu Chen replied, “Under normal procedures, they do need to look. Big companies and small companies alike. But Barlei has already had more than one hit mini-game. They’ve got the ‘capital’ to wait until after an intent agreement is signed to reveal the game.”
And also, “If Chang Bei had seen it, with Sipruis’s capabilities, it’d only take two weeks from production to launch.”
He Xiaoyuan paused, then realized that made perfect sense. He silently scolded himself for missing something so obvious.
Lu Chen pulled open the café’s glass door, gesturing for He Xiaoyuan to go in first, and continued, “Chang Bei knows the other company’s production team. Barlei’s newly hired game director put out several hit titles in five years—young, too, and very familiar with the current market…”
When they went back, He Xiaoyuan got out of the X7 and handed the coffee to Chang Bei in the Volvo.
Chang Bei took it, thanked him, then teased, “If this were the cops staking out a suspect, you going in and out like that would be tipping them off. You know that, right?”
He Xiaoyuan handed him a pack of cigarettes. Chang Bei was instantly moved to tears and changed his tune on the spot. “Go on, then. Spend some more time chatting with your bro.”
Then he added, “Big cars are definitely more comfortable to sit in.”
He Xiaoyuan shot back, “If I go sit in the back, will President Chang dock my performance pay?”
Chang Bei tore open the pack, pulled out a cigarette, and stuck it in his mouth. “No docking, no docking. Go on—let the two of you bond.”
He looked exceptionally easygoing.
He Xiaoyuan went back to the X7 and stayed in the same car with Lu Chen. Every fifteen or twenty minutes, he’d come back down and feed Chang Bei some snacks—chips, drinks, sunflower seeds.
Chang Bei reached out from the passenger seat to take them. “So your bro runs a convenience store or what?”
He Xiaoyuan laughed. “He knows I’m with my boss, doesn’t he?”
Honestly, even He Xiaoyuan himself couldn’t help laughing when Lu Chen kept casually pulling out bags of sunflower seeds and chips to feed him.
Sitting in the passenger seat, He Xiaoyuan joked, “All we’re missing is a deck of cards.”
Lu Chen said, “We could call a delivery runner.”
That reminded He Xiaoyuan of something. “That new food delivery company that launched last year—did our company invest in it?”
Lu Chen replied, “Yeah. Series A came through us.”
Curious, He Xiaoyuan asked, “How much was the Series A?”
Lu Chen answered calmly, “Not much. Three hundred million.”
He Xiaoyuan’s eyes widened. “RMB?”
Lu Chen said, “U.S. dollars.”
He Xiaoyuan: ⊙v⊙
…
They waited and waited, from sunlight pouring down to city lights flickering on. Finally, a Mercedes with license plate ending in 88 drove out from the parking lot in front of Barlei’s building.
He Xiaoyuan spotted it and immediately stuffed the chips into Lu Chen’s arms, rattled off a quick “I’m going,” pushed the door open, and bolted for the Volvo up front.
Lu Chen found it amusing.
So energetic—definitely young.
Before long, the Volvo’s taillights flashed on and then off, and it sped away.
Not much later, Chang Bei parked the car in the open-air lot of a hotel. The Mercedes they’d been tailing pulled in not far away.
Chang Bei left He Xiaoyuan in the car to review a new proposal that Qin Chengfei had just sent over, while he himself went into the hotel to check things out.
By the time Chang Bei came back, He Xiaoyuan had already finished reading the new proposal on his laptop.
Chang Bei reached over and took the laptop from his knees. “Let me see.”
Then he said, “Barlei’s President Xu has a dinner here tonight. The private room’s on the second floor—Spring Harmony.”
He skimmed the screen as he spoke, then asked, “You’re done reading?”
“Yes.”
Chang Bei’s fingers slid over the trackpad. “I’ll take a look.”
He stared at the document for a bit, then suddenly turned his head and looked He Xiaoyuan up and down.
He Xiaoyuan: ?
Chang Bei withdrew his gaze. “Nothing.”
After another moment, still looking at the screen, he said, “If it were just you talking to Barlei about the licensing—let me put it this way—if it were up to you alone to explain the advantages of licensing this game to us, as laid out in the proposal, could you do it?”
He Xiaoyuan thought carefully. Not daring to oversell himself, he answered cautiously, “I could try.”
Chang Bei nodded. “That’s enough.”
An hour later, Chang Bei and He Xiaoyuan were standing at a corner of the second-floor corridor of the hotel.
It happened to be the moment when two nearby private rooms were wrapping up their dinners. People were streaming out, and the hallway was noisy.
Amid the din, Chang Bei faced He Xiaoyuan, straightening the wrinkles on his shirt at the shoulder, his expression solemn and earnest. “You’ve read the proposal, right?”
He Xiaoyuan didn’t quite understand. “I have.”
He glanced sideways at Chang Bei’s hand brushing his shoulder.
?
Chang Bei continued, “You bring your business cards?”
?
He Xiaoyuan blinked. “I don’t have any.”
Chang Bei said, “Everyone in the project team gets them—you have to apply through OA and have the company make them. You probably didn’t know. It’s fine; not having them today is okay.”
?
A bad feeling slowly crept up on He Xiaoyuan.
He looked at Chang Bei. “President Chang, you—”
Chang Bei shifted his gaze past him, as if he’d spotted something. A glint flashed in his eyes. Before He Xiaoyuan could finish speaking, Chang Bei pressed a hand to his shoulder, spun him around, and gave him a light shove in the back, sending him into the corridor.
“Go!”
He Xiaoyuan stumbled and barely steadied himself. He didn’t even have time to turn around and ask what Chang Bei was doing. When he looked up, the door to the Spring Harmony room was wide open, and several people were coming out. At the front was none other than Xu Guangming of Barlei Technology.
Not only did Xu Guangming look over—He Xiaoyuan, standing there awkwardly, ended up making direct eye contact with him. They were less than three meters apart.
He Xiaoyuan: “……”
Xu Guangming looked surprised, his expression clearly asking: Yes?
He Xiaoyuan: “……”
At that point, backing out wasn’t an option—and he couldn’t afford to waste an opportunity like this anyway. He straightened up, steeled himself, and walked forward.
“President Xu, hello. I’m He Xiaoyuan from the Sipuris project team. Could I take a few minutes of your time?”
Before he’d even finished speaking, his ears were already burning red.
That night, back in his dorm, He Xiaoyuan sat at his desk with his phone pressed to his ear, slumped forward with his head buried in the crook of his arm, looking like he wanted to die of embarrassment just thinking about it.
On the other end of the line, after hearing the whole story, Lu Chen held back his laughter. “So basically, Chang Bei ‘sold you out’—and after selling you out, you even helped him count the money?”
Just thinking about how he’d run into Xu Guangming, and how he’d awkwardly, haltingly tried to talk licensing with him, made He Xiaoyuan’s head feel ten times heavier.
The worst part was—he’d actually blushed. Bright red, ears and all.
Xu Guangming could tell—and he even smiled. Not just him; one of the people with him—maybe more than one, anyway—also laughed.
He Xiaoyuan: Ah! My very first case. The first time I was on my own. It came out of nowhere, I had no preparation, and I didn’t even perform well!
So awkward!
So embarrassing!
He Xiaoyuan: sob sob.
Those two little sobs in his head slipped out of his mouth without him noticing. Lu Chen heard them on the other end of the phone and really couldn’t hold it in anymore—he burst out laughing.
He Xiaoyuan: …
Ah! Even Brother Lu is laughing at me!
Still amused, Lu Chen comforted him. “What are you embarrassed about? Sure, it was sudden, but you handled it well. For a first time, it was very good. At least you didn’t chicken out on the spot, and you did what you meant to do.”
Then he added, “Wasn’t the whole point of waiting around all day just to get those few minutes of face-to-face time?”
He Xiaoyuan didn’t feel any better. “I had zero preparation. I didn’t say anything smoothly. I said a few things wrong, and I even stuttered.”
He paused, burying his face deep in the crook of his arm like a turtle pulling into its shell. “And I blushed! My whole face was red!”
Way—too—embarrassing!
How can talking business be like that?
How could it turn out like that?!
He Xiaoyuan couldn’t get out of his own mortification.
Lu Chen was laughing so hard he could barely take it, and still asked, “How red? Apple-red?”
Dragged along by the rhythm, He Xiaoyuan replied, “Persimmon-red.”
Lu Chen held back his laughter. “That is pretty red. Especially since you’re pale—it would stand out even more.”
He Xiaoyuan: “…………”
Ah!!
He Xiaoyuan was now red in the face and ears too, all pent-up emotion. He lifted his head, sat up, and felt a little unhappy about Lu Chen’s teasing.
With a bit of temper, he said, “Brother!!”
Lu Chen suppressed his laughter. “Alright, alright. Got it. I won’t laugh at you anymore.”
He Xiaoyuan flopped back onto the desk, face buried again.
Lu Chen’s laughter faded, his voice turning gentle, pleasant, and magnetic. “It’s over. Don’t dwell on it. Sum it up, learn from it, and you’ll do better next time.”
Muffled in his arm, He Xiaoyuan said, “But I really didn’t do well this time.”
Lu Chen replied, “You think so? I think you did great. At least you didn’t avoid it—you faced it head-on.”
He Xiaoyuan: Really?
Wasn’t he just comforting him?
Lu Chen smiled. “You already did very well. The first time I had to deal with a situation like that, I even got the other person’s name wrong.”
Then he added, “Chang Bei, Yang Yun, all of them got to where they are now step by step, stumbling through things when they were young.”
“You can’t expect yourself never to make mistakes, and it’s unrealistic to think you’ll be perfectly skilled without experience.”
“That’s just how work is. Nothing special about it—practice makes perfect.”
“Today you were awkward and halting when you suddenly had to face him. The second, third, fourth time you deal with him, it’ll get better and better.”
“Don’t be discouraged. Everyone goes through this.”
…
Listening, He Xiaoyuan’s embarrassment and shame gradually cooled and settled.
Lying with his head on his arm, phone pressed to his ear, he thought quietly: So even Brother Lu has moments when he’s not good at something—when he makes mistakes?
He found it a little hard to imagine Lu Chen getting someone’s name wrong.
He couldn’t picture it at all.
In his mind, Lu Chen was exactly how he’d looked that day in the project office—steady, commanding, powerful, with a strong presence. Just sitting there, and all the bosses naturally gathered around him.
It was a level He Xiaoyuan felt he couldn’t reach no matter what he did right now—someone he could only look up to from afar.
Listening to Lu Chen’s voice, picturing Lu Chen, thinking about him at the same time—
If before, it had only been admiration from a distance, nothing more, now he felt a quiet sense of anticipation. He hoped that one day, he could become someone like Lu Chen.
That thought carried him back to the hotel earlier. He wondered: if it had been Lu Chen in that sudden situation, how would he have handled it? How would he have talked to President Xu?
As he kept thinking, he realized there was no sound coming from the other end of the line.
After a moment, Lu Chen asked, “Did you fall asleep? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Without thinking, He Xiaoyuan replied, “I was thinking about you.”
The words were soft, his voice gentle and almost sticky—no matter how you heard it, it sounded wrong.
Lu Chen fell silent.
He Xiaoyuan: !
?
!!
He Xiaoyuan hurriedly sat up. “No, no—I didn’t mean it like that.”
He rushed to explain. “I meant I was thinking about what you would have done if it were you.”
“I didn’t mean that I was thinking about you.”
Lu Chen spoke slowly, with a hint of a smile, half-serious, half-teasing. “It’s fine. Thinking about me is normal.”
After a pause, he added, “I have that much confidence, at least.”
He Xiaoyuan raised his hand and lightly slapped his mouth—the mouth that had failed him so badly today. After that, he stood up, crossed the room toward the balcony, deciding to get some fresh air and clear his head.
Lu Chen followed up, unhurried. “Go ahead and think. It’s fine—I’m not petty.”
He Xiaoyuan laughed helplessly. “Brother, I really didn’t mean it that way.”
He’d already explained.
Lu Chen replied calmly, “Besides, there’s no need to think about it. We see each other at the office every day.”
He Xiaoyuan chuckled.
Lu Chen asked, “Feeling better now?”
Standing on the balcony, He Xiaoyuan stretched. “Yeah. Much better.”
Lu Chen said slowly, “You’re young, just started working. Your skin’s too thin. It’ll get better.”
Leaning his arms on the balcony railing, He Xiaoyuan asked, “Because after working longer, you see more of the world?”
Lu Chen corrected him. “Because your skin gets thicker.”
Then he gave an example. “If I were you, and I’d misspoken just now and said I was thinking about you, I wouldn’t have changed my words to explain.”
?
He Xiaoyuan blinked. “Wouldn’t that cause a misunderstanding?”
Lu Chen replied unhurriedly, “A misunderstanding? What misunderstanding? That you’d think I have personal feelings for you?”
He was completely open about it. “Then let it be misunderstood.”
He Xiaoyuan laughed, understanding at once. “So having thick skin means not caring, not correcting it, just letting it go—whatever happens, happens?”
Lu Chen: “Mm.”
Dragging out his words, He Xiaoyuan said, “Wow~~ lesson learned. Much obliged, President Lu.”
Lu Chen added, “President Lu will teach you one more thing: if someone screws you over at work, remember to screw them back. Otherwise, next time they’ll pick on you again.”
Was he talking about Chang Bei, who’d shoved him out there without a word yesterday?
He Xiaoyuan fell thoughtful.
The next day, Chang Bei walked into the office with a grin, eyes full of teasing as he stared at He Xiaoyuan. He Xiaoyuan didn’t respond or look back—he just sat at his computer, doing his own work.
“Xiao Yuan.”
Chang Bei stopped beside him.
He Xiaoyuan immediately shut his laptop, picked up the cup from the corner of his desk, stood up, and walked around Chang Bei toward the door.
Chang Bei froze for a second at the attitude, then watched He Xiaoyuan’s back for a few beats. After that, he quickly put what he was holding down at his workstation and hurried after him, his manner suddenly very ingratiating. “Xiao Yuan, Xiao Yuan.”
He Xiaoyuan pushed open the glass door without turning his head.
Chang Bei chased him down the corridor, practically flying. “Xiao Yuan, little bro, don’t be like that. Your Brother Chang didn’t do it on purpose yesterday. I’ve already shown my old face too many times over at Barlei—it doesn’t work anymore. That’s why I wanted you to go instead. I didn’t tell you beforehand because I was afraid you’d get scared and not dare to step up. I just gave you a push, right? Xiao Yuan, little bro—”
Just then, Lu Chen happened to be walking down the corridor toward the office.
Chang Bei failed to catch He Xiaoyuan, who’d turned into the pantry, and then ran straight into Lu Chen’s line of sight. He halted instantly, spun around like his shoes were greased, and retreated.
As he turned, he raised an arm high in a gesture of surrender, clearly meaning: my fault, my fault, my fault—this one’s on me.
From behind him, Lu Chen said sternly, “Not working—what are you running around for?”
Chang Bei sped up and scampered back to the office.
As Lu Chen passed the pantry, he turned his head and glanced inside. He Xiaoyuan was standing there with his cup, leaning against the counter, looking at him—and even shot him a lightly raised eyebrow, a playful raised-brow smile.
Lu Chen curved his lips into a smile as well, lifting his brow in return.