At ten in the morning, while signing the marriage registration form, Jiang Zao’s mind was entirely occupied with the company planning meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
It was only when the other party flicked the back of her hand with their knuckle that Jiang Zao snapped back to reality.
Under the staff member’s suspicious gaze, she awkwardly completed the final stroke of the “Zao” in her name at the signature line.
Then came the filing, the stamps, the official steel seal, and the process was done.
Today marked the first day of her marriage.
Jiang Zao shoved the little red booklet into her bag and rushed off to the company, all too aware of the limited hours of personal leave she had requested.
~~~
This summer had been unusually muggy and hot, defying the norms. The north was sweltering with humidity, while the south baked under dry heat.
Ever since summer arrived in Qinnan City, the outdoor temperature had felt like well over thirty-eight degrees Celsius every day. Sun-baked and wilted, Jiang Zao caught her breath when she reached the office before heading to the cafeteria right at the tail end of lunch hours.
Her close colleagues had already lined up her meal for her. Ever since joining Yunsheng, Jiang Zao had shared nearly every lunch with these three.
There was Li Li, the whimsical dreamer with a heart full of girlish fantasies; Tang Peng, the cold-faced work machine devoid of mercy; and Zhang Kexin, who slaved away solely to fund her idol-chasing habit.
Li Li and Zhang Kexin had been poached to Yunsheng alongside Jiang Zao from their old company, Feida Logistics. Of their Foodie Squad, only Tang Peng was a true native of the Yunsheng Planning Department.
Spotting the generous heap of fermented black bean pork ribs on her tray instantly lifted half of Jiang Zao’s heat-drained spirits.
“Thanks, Pengpeng,” Kexin said, catching her expression and grinning around her chopsticks. She volunteered the explanation. “She nearly threw down with Liu Wanli from the next group over snagging those ribs for the three of us.”
“They’ve never gotten along anyway, and now everyone’s shipping them as ‘Pengcheng Wanli.'”
The bizarre ship name made Jiang Zao want to laugh. She sat down, grabbed her chopsticks, and gave a devout little bow to Tang Peng, whose face had darkened. “Thanks for the hard work.”
Tang Peng sighed and asked, “Why’d you take leave today? First time ever. You okay?”
Jiang Zao paused, then shook her head with a brief explanation. “Just a minor errand.”
Li Li shoveled rice into her mouth while scrolling her phone, then blurted out, “Guys, right before noon, when I was heading upstairs with my coffee delivery and got in the elevator, I ran into the CEO.”
Everyone kept eating their own meals, apparently unimpressed.
Zhang Kexin teased, “What garish trendy label was he rocking today? The big boss outshines the models.”
Li Li looked up, her face turning serious. “A rare crisp white shirt—and get this, he was holding a marriage certificate.”
Jiang Zao choked hard on her rice, while the other two instantly dropped their chopsticks. “Ah!?”
Tang Peng tugged at her lips in a smirk. “Red certificates come in all kinds. You can’t just spot one and assume it’s a mar…”
“It’s a marriage certificate! I was right next to his left side, and those three characters on the cover stood out crystal clear.” Li Li glanced at her phone. “There were at least five or six people in the elevator at the time, and now it’s blown up in the Gossip Group. Everyone’s asking if anyone caught a glimpse of the bride…”
“And he was beaming ear to ear, poring over it forever, like he wanted every single person nearby to get a good look.”
Li Li spread her hands in an incredulous laugh. “When I stepped out of the elevator, he was still staring at it.”
Zhang Kexin’s eyes went wide. “What!? Isn’t he the one who’s sworn celibacy for the company’s sake, conning fresh grads at campus job fairs every year with that face and his eternal bachelor vibe? Getting married out of nowhere??”
Jiang Zao chugged her coffee, her clear black-and-white round eyes slowly shifting left and right as she quietly sized them up.
After the initial shock, the other three fell silent, exchanging glances as if some unspoken agreement had passed between them.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Tang Peng summed it up. “Which woman drew the short straw like that? Must be blind.”
Jiang Zao, who hadn’t chimed in yet, poked at the rice in her bowl and suddenly added, “But you know, holding a marriage certificate doesn’t prove it’s his. Maybe he just…”
“…likes scrolling Xiaohongshu for fun.”
The other three: “……”
And there it was—Miss Jiang’s signature dad joke.
Did she genuinely think she was hilarious? So out of left field!
Under normal circumstances, this conversation would probably involve pitying the prime bachelor catch being off the market, followed by some envy for the lucky woman monopolizing the handsome guy.
But when the topic was Xie Lisheng—eighty percent of the company’s staff would echo that exact same shudder of dread.
Tang Peng always leaned toward the worst-case scenario and guessed, “Maybe it’s just another of his pranks on some poor employee. Isn’t that his MO?”
“Whoever slacks off and gets caught by him is in for a world of mental torment within three days, until they’re begging for forgiveness and swearing off their work flaws from the heart…”
“Which poor girl drew the short straw?”…
“Last time, that guy from Marketing snuck off to the bathroom to slack off and try snagging concert tickets for his crush. He botched it, wrecked his clicking hand, and didn’t even score them. Meanwhile, President Xie sent someone to fetch him for a quick one-on-one, but they couldn’t find him. Xie ended up waiting fifteen minutes, throwing off his whole schedule.”
Tang Peng shrugged. “So President Xie bought resale tickets for his entire department to go see the show. Everyone except him.”
The star-chasing fanatic Kexin widened her eyes, instantly relating. “How can one person be such a devil and a saint at the same time?”
Timid little Li Li hugged her arms, rubbing them nervously. “He’s got the face of a novel protagonist but the generosity of a scheming villain. Living with someone that petty and vengeful would drive you insane. What dirt does he have on his wife?”
“Enough of that,” Kexin said, glancing at Jiang Zao’s outfit for the day. “Hey, I just noticed—you’re wearing a white blouse too. It suits you so well; bright, clean colors really bring out your vibe!”
Jiang Zao scraped her finger along the edge of her plastic cup, the rhythm a bit off-kilter under the trio’s scrutiny. She gave an awkward smile. “Well… we’ve got that big meeting with the CEO this afternoon. Figured I’d dress up a little.”
Tang Peng snorted. “If you stand out too much and catch the eye of our psycho boss, that won’t end well.”
Her gaze swept over the woman across from her—Jiang Zao in her crisp white blouse, her skin practically glowing, that innate clarity shining through even more.
Jiang Zao was the most effortlessly beautiful woman Tang Peng had ever seen.
Pure and gentle, like a slender green onion shoot. She could be a bit airheaded at times, but one smile from her gripped your heart tight.
Tang Peng sometimes felt sorry for her—in this day and age, a face like that would rake in way more cash streaming or doing social media than rotting away in an office job like marketing.
She added, “Good thing our psycho boss is married.”
Jiang Zao chewed on a spare rib, blinking.
Li Li sighed. “I thought about suiting up too, but then I realized the Decision Conference has nothing to do with us. What’s the point?”
“Grand Eunuch Zhou submitted those three proposals,” she went on, “and not one of them was as good as Jiang Zao’s. Why’d they get shot down? Just because those guys know how to brownnose and wine-and-dine?”
Jiang Zao reminded her softly, “No proof, so—”
Li Li clapped a hand over her mouth in panic. “Shh?”
Jiang Zao finished, “—keep it down.”
The other two burst out laughing, venting their pent-up frustration.
“But Jiang Zao’s so pretty,” Kexin said. “If the bosses notice her, maybe she could slip our rejected proposal back in.”
Tang Peng fumed at the thought. “Fat chance. Grand Eunuch Zhou’s too sharp for that. Only some of us from the rejected pitches get to sit in on the Meeting Room. The rest are benched.”
The four of them sighed in unison.
They’d clawed their way through school just to graduate, only to get whipped by office politics in the real world.
~~~
Sure enough, even though the Meeting Room could hold forty people, the department manager claimed space was tight. From their group, only Tang Peng got to sit in and listen. Jiang Zao, the lead planner on the axed proposal, was stuck riding the bench back at her desk in the office.
After their old team had merged into the Yunsheng Planning Department, Jiang Zao quickly noticed the cliquey vibe. There were even internal factions, with the manager and deputy manager heading rival camps.
The backstabbing caught the mid-career transfers off guard. Some adapted fast, but rookies like Jiang Zao—fresh out of school, still clueless about the games people play—often got sidelined.
She hadn’t made the cut with her proposal, but she’d still wanted to audit the Decision Conference. All the heads from related departments would be there; she might pick up something useful.
As she sat at her workstation, bored and scrolling, an assistant popped out of the office and asked her to run downstairs for the bosses’ coffee. Suddenly, Jiang Zao had her shot at the meeting.
Fifteen minutes later, panting and lugging two big boxes of hand-ground coffee, she pulled up short at the Meeting Room door. A dead silence hung inside, thick tension seeping out.
She sidled up to the colleague minding the door and whispered, “What’s going on?”
The colleague pulled a grimacing face and shook her head without a word.
The Decision Conference was in its early presentation phase.
The first two PPTs had just wrapped, and Xie Lisheng—seated front and center—already looked terrifying.
Maybe his aura was too intimidating, or maybe the third presenter wasn’t prepped, but halfway through, the head of Technical raised an execution question. The guy stumbled, couldn’t answer properly, and trailed off.
The room’s temperature plunged to freezing. You could hear a pin drop.
Xie Lisheng lowered his gaze to the paper report in front of him. His idle right index finger tapped slowly and rhythmically against the dangling microphone sponge.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The dull sounds hammered at everyone’s nerves.
The male employee standing beside the presentation podium had gone pale. He tried to push through and keep talking. “Uh, President Xie, it’s about… deepening the brand story…”
Xie Lisheng wasn’t sitting up straight. Having seen through the utter shambles of this decision-making meeting, he had fully slumped back into his chair.
He tilted the hand holding the folder, revealing his face. His drooping fox-like eyes shot out a sharp glint.
Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead. He fell silent.
“I’ll give you some time.” Xie Lisheng undid the second button on his white shirt and tossed the papers onto the table. “Shake the mush out of your brain and try again.”
Cold sweat broke out across the room.
It was over. The boss was truly pissed.
“And one more thing.” His tone was light as he glanced toward the meeting room door.
Jiang Zao and the others waiting outside suddenly tensed.
“Either come in or get back to work.” Xie Lisheng turned to the assistant behind him. “The proposal’s already this rotten. Do we really need a crowd of extras to hype up the Planning Department’s amateur-hour performance?”
Since Xie Lisheng’s next orders would undoubtedly be for the whole department, the assistant from the President’s Office quickly ushered the Planning Department folks inside to stand in the corner and listen.
And so Jiang Zao, still holding her coffee, was herded into the meeting room that felt like an ice cellar. She was utterly bewildered the whole time.
How utterly terrible was this proposal to get everyone chewed out like total losers?
“Seventy percent of your team came over from Feida, right?”
Xie Lisheng glanced at the roster, then swept his eyes over the room. His words cut deep. “If all I wanted was to swallow this pile of crap, I wouldn’t have poached you from Nancheng to Qinnan. The staff at Yunsheng Planning Headquarters could’ve handled it just fine.”
The Yunsheng Headquarters planners: “…”
The poached new hires: “…”
Talk about a blanket attack.
The subordinate employees in the entire meeting room looked like wilted eggplants after a frost—each face a different shade of misery.
“Pfft.”
Everyone turned in shock toward the corner of the meeting room.
Only when all those stares stabbed her way did Jiang Zao realize—
She had laughed out loud.
She looked up in a panic and met a gaze from someone who seemed utterly provoked.