—”You don’t understand me at all.”

This sentence was like a soul-capturing curse, hovering over Xie Jinghe’s head for days. It gently stirred the air, whipping the cold currents into a howling hurricane.

In the eye of that hurricane, he saw Shi Linchuan’s back.

The man stood in the middle of vast, desolate ruins. Beneath his feet were cracks stretching across the ground, as if every shadow of those fissures hid some unspeakable secret—gloomy and heavy.

He just stood there.

From far away, Xie Jinghe called out his name.

And then, the man turned around.

He looked gentle and steady, his thin lips pursed, his mouth curved into a soft arc. His eyes were hidden behind those black-framed glasses, the lenses reflecting a bright white light that was dazzling to look at.

Xie Jinghe felt like he was about to be dizzied by the glare.

However, the next second.

The man’s figure became like the surface of a lake wrinkled by a sudden gust of wind, his features turning distorted and blurry. Xie Jinghe blinked, desperate to see more clearly, but discovered…

The clumsy, heavy glasses on the man’s face were gone, revealing a pair of sharp, piercing eyes. Every glance he cast was as cold as wind and snow, and even the smile at the corners of his lips was filled with infuriating sarcasm.

“Hm? Crying from anger again?”

As soon as the man’s voice faded, he snapped his eyes open!

Xie Jinghe: “…”

Light stole in through the gaps in the curtains, painting the bedroom in a soft, non-intrusive dim yellow.

Xie Jinghe lay flat, staring at the ceiling for a long while. The final scene of the dream still lingered in his mind… along with the man’s flippant, indifferent tone, a balloon had fallen.

Heavy, pressing down on him.

Xie Jinghe silently rolled over, finding, as expected, that the space beside him was empty.

Upon realizing this, the balloon pressing on his chest exploded with a bang, scattering a bed full of disappointment and bewilderment, along with a bit of indescribable grievance.

Shi Linchuan wasn’t there.

At this point, a week had passed since that subversive night.

The tattoo on the root of Xie Jinghe’s left thigh had healed quickly. It had scabbed and peeled over the last two days, but he and the owner of that tattoo remained deadlocked, stuck in a state of suspended silence.

It was a bit like a cold war.

Thinking of this, Xie Jinghe sat up, unable to help himself from picking up the man’s pillow. He clutched it to his chest, treating it as Shi Linchuan himself, and skillfully executed a grappling lock, rolling from the head of the bed to the foot.

He rolled back and forth several times before stopping.

“…Bad man.”

He hugged the pillow, took a deep breath of it, and said as much.

Just at this moment.

The phone lying on the bedside table rang suddenly, accompanied by a buzzing vibration. Xie Jinghe quickly reached out, pressed the side of the phone, and turned off the alarm.

The screen lit up.

It was exactly 8:00 AM.

Underneath the digital clock display was a yellow virtual sticky note with black text, containing only a single line of a reminder for today’s tasks:

[10:00 AM, appointment with NO1 President Pei to discuss the management contract.]

Tong City had spent the last few years committed to developing its entertainment industry. The NO1 office building was located in the South District Comprehensive Industrial Park, which had been completed just a few years prior; the location was prime, and the environment was comfortable.

The entire building was divided into several blocks, containing showrooms, office areas, dance practice rooms for the company’s artists, recording studios, photography studios, and more…

When Pei Yue first brought a group of artists with her to jump ship to NO1, she had signed quite a few more people over the years. Now, their roster was packed with first- and second-tier actors, singers, and several high-traffic internet influencers.

The momentum was extremely strong.

Especially this year, two movies invested in by NO1 had exploded in popularity, not only making a fortune but earning quite a bit of fame as well.

After all, in this day and age, traffic is money—all of it easily convertible into profit.

Therefore, NO1 was quite a name among the many entertainment companies, to say nothing of Pei Yue, the Executive President, who was a well-known gold-medal agent in the industry. Her biggest calling card was having brought up two Film Emperors; her ability, naturally, went without saying.

However, what the outside world talked about most regarding NO1 was still that mysterious boss who basically never showed his face, and that president’s office that had sat empty for three years.

Not only were outsiders curious, but all the employees in the company were curious as well.

The staff had various theories in private, divided into several schools of thought: the “Political Elite” theory, the “Wealthy Heir” theory, and the “Eight-Nation Mixed-Blood Aristocrat” theory…

Some senior management even jumped in on the fun, organizing an anonymous group to set up a betting pool, letting everyone guess when this mysterious Big Boss would finally appear.

Today was a very ordinary workday.

Just past 9:00 AM.

An anonymous message ignited the heat in the group.

“People of NO1, that exclusive executive elevator has been swiped and used… as everyone knows, the only person with access to that floor is…!!”

“Holy shit,”

“Holy shit,”

“Holy shit, is he coming for real?”

The chat count hit 99+ in the blink of an eye.

There was no nutritious information, just a long stream of copy-paste responses and shock stickers. Very soon, everyone reached a consensus and asked in unison:

“What does the Big Boss look like? Man or woman? Are they good-looking??”

A moment later.

The sequence was broken.

“I was late for work just now and saw President Pei walking with a man in a black suit from a distance. I paid closer attention and realized they took the executive elevator.”

“You guys know, President Pei always takes the regular employee elevator, so excluding all impossible factors, the remainder must be the truth!”

The next second, someone came out to complain.

“Friend, don’t make the foreplay so long, or I’ll go check the backend to see who was late today… you know [Smile.jpg]”

“Holy shit, it’s the leader.”

“I dare not speak…”

And so, the person who had broken the sequence panicked in a second, hastily sending a kneeling emoji and revealing the truth in very concise language.

“…Handsome.”

“No, I should say, fucking handsome!!”

14th Floor, President’s Office.

Shi Linchuan stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the streetscape below. The people on the ground looked tiny, like ants, as if they were just moving black dots.

His reflection was faintly cast upon the glass.

He was dressed very formally today; the black suit was tailored perfectly, adorned with two sapphire cufflinks. His hair had been styled as well, looking meticulous.

Except for the new pair of thin, gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, Shi Linchuan’s attire was identical to his original world.

Clean, crisp, and looking completely devoid of warmth.

At this moment.

He wasn’t the only person in the office.

Pei Yue was sitting on the guest sofa. She held her phone, which had been vibrating non-stop, and looked at it for a while before suddenly lifting her eyes to the man standing behind the desk.

“Boss, people are saying you’re an ‘iceberg-style’ handsome guy.”

Hearing this, Shi Linchuan glanced back at her.

Though he didn’t speak, his ink-black,漆-like pupils clearly reflected two words.

—Boring.

This reaction was well within Pei Yue’s expectations.

She fiddled with the small square object in her hand, endured for a moment, but couldn’t help her curiosity, asking jokingly: “Boss, you wouldn’t be this ‘iceberg’ to the one at home, would you?”

After saying this, she added: “How does he put up with you? Have you guys not had a fight?”

Shi Linchuan glanced at her again, his thin lips parting slightly.

“Are you very free?”

Well.

This reaction was also well within Pei Yue’s expectations.

She shrugged, stood up, and as she walked toward the door, she let out a long sigh:

“Fine, fine, fine. I, this irrelevant person, will withdraw now so I don’t delay you two husband-and-husband folks from having a heart-to-heart.”

Pei Yue’s voice faded away.

After a muffled thud.

The office door closed.

The entire space became terrifyingly quiet, leaving only the sound of Shi Linchuan’s own breathing. He stared at the scenery below, his hand hanging at his side gripping an obsidian-colored phone, the screen kept in an “always on” state.

The phone interface showed a map of Tong City.

There were two red dots on the map—one stationary, the other blinking, moving at a steady pace toward the stationary one…

Very quickly.

The two red dots were about to overlap.

At the same time, Shi Linchuan saw a familiar silver-gray nanny van pull into the main gate of the industrial park.

He knew—

Xie Jinghe was in that car.