Chapter 1
by VolareThe weather in September was still very hot, with no hint of autumn. As soon as Jiang Chen opened the car door, a wave of heat hit him, and he immediately felt himself sweating again.
When Xu Peiya called him, he had just finished exercising, changed out of his sweaty clothes, and taken a shower. The only clean clothes he had with him were a quick-drying shirt. She was in a hurry, so there was no time for him to go back and change. He drove over in this shirt and black workout shorts.
Already tall and leggy with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and excellent proportions, the tight-fitting clothes accentuated his muscular lines. He possessed a mix of a boy’s fresh handsomeness and a man’s hormones. Coupled with his sharply defined, heroic face, the two receptionists at the office building stared blankly as he walked in.
Since he was just dropping off a file, he didn’t bother parking in the underground garage but parked directly in the parking lot in front of the office building. After Jiang Chen registered, he entered the elevator lobby. There were six elevators in total. It wasn’t rush hour, so the elevator lobby wasn’t crowded. The air conditioning in the upscale office building was strong, and there was a faint scent of incense.
As soon as he entered, he saw the middle elevator ascending from the first basement floor, so he shifted his feet and stood there. At the same time, he took out his phone and sent a message to Xu Peiya: [I’m waiting for the elevator, coming up soon.]
Xu Peiya was obviously waiting for his message and replied quickly: [Okay, Brother, call me when you come up, thirteenth floor.]
Xu Peiya was his childhood friend. They even had an arranged marriage as children. Although they grew up together, they hadn’t developed any spark after more than twenty years. Seeing no hope, their parents didn’t push it, so they became good siblings, occasionally very close.
They were now seniors in college. During the Chinese New Year, Xu’s mother had intended for Xu Peiya to intern directly at their family’s company to prepare for taking over the company, but Xu Peiya refused. After a fight at home, she directly found a company and started interning, starting as an assistant designer. The two months of summer vacation had passed, and the internship should have ended, but she said there were still some things to hand over, so she often came back.
She had established a persona of a common girl at the company. Today, she had forgotten a file at school that she needed for a meeting. After thinking for a long time, she realized that among her friends, only Jiang Chen drove the most low-key car, was conveniently at school, and was the easiest to ask to deliver the file.
The company Xu Peiya worked for was called Eternity, a design company under the He Group. In addition to the design drawings from headquarters, each city had independent design points, and unique designs were launched each quarter based on the local culture. Xu Peiya wanted to be an independent designer, so naturally, she had to choose a high starting point.
After reading the message, the elevator “dinged,” and he threw his phone back into his pocket. He looked up, and the elevator doors opened from the side, revealing a pair of calm, indifferent eyes behind glasses.
A man was looking at him in the elevator. His features were excellent, and his lips were thin. But the most attractive thing was those eyes behind the glasses. They were typical peach blossom eyes, with double eyelids and a slightly round shape, yet the corners tilted upwards. When the man saw him not moving, he smiled slightly at him, and his eyes curved slightly, like the shape of spring breeze scattering petals. A bit of reflected light on the lenses fell into his eyes, even more like the undried morning dew in the stamens, the clear waves of light flickering in the sunlight, making his originally indifferent eyes instantly seem to carry a hint of indescribable lingering affection.
In that brief moment of eye contact, Jiang Chen’s heart seemed to stop suddenly.
The man’s hair was combed meticulously, fixed with hair gel. He wore a simple white shirt and trousers, the excellent tailoring highlighting his tall, slender figure. This business style diluted the vague emotions in his eyes, turning them into a gentle, elegant, and mature aura.
Seeing him not moving, the man took a small step back, seemingly thinking he was blocking him.
Jiang Chen then came back to his senses and hurriedly stepped into the elevator.
The elevator doors closed. He glanced at the buttons and saw that the fifteenth floor had been pressed. The thirteenth to fifteenth floors were all Eternity’s office floors. He reached out and pressed the thirteenth floor, and he felt a gaze lingering on him for a moment.
The elevator was very stable, rising floor by floor. There were only the two of them in the elevator, and neither of them spoke. It was very quiet.
Jiang Chen didn’t know why, but he suddenly had a strong urge to turn his head. He felt the person behind him’s gaze on him, as if it were tangible, causing a layer of goosebumps to rise where he was being watched.
“Do you work at Eternity?”
His voice was low and magnetic. It was just an ordinary inquiry, but Jiang Chen felt his mouth inexplicably start to produce saliva. He swallowed, resisting the urge to turn around and look, and replied, “No, I’m here to find a friend.”
Fifth floor.
“Hmm, the thirteenth floor… Is your friend in the design department?”
Jiang Chen “hmm”ed. He seemed to have forgotten how to use his usual social skills for a moment, and only told the truth about what he heard: “Bringing her something.”
Ninth floor.
The gaze behind him seemed to quickly scan him: “You have a very good appearance, are you interested in coming to the company as a model?”
This wasn’t actually the first time someone had said this. Someone had even wanted to bring him into the entertainment industry before, but he wasn’t interested and had refused without hesitation. But for some reason, when he heard it this time, he felt inexplicably happy and proud.
Then he heard himself say, “Thank you for the compliment, I’ll consider it.”
Thirteenth floor.
“Ding,” the elevator doors opened.
Jiang Chen stepped out of the elevator. It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed again that he breathed a long sigh of relief, and realized that he had been so nervous that he had been breathing lightly.
He called Xu Peiya. Soon, Xu Peiya came over. She held the documents in her hand, repeatedly calling him “Brother,” and said she would treat him to dinner another day. Jiang Chen hesitated for a long time, then asked, “What department is on your fifteenth floor?”
“Fifteenth floor?” Xu Peiya opened the document bag to check the files, and said absentmindedly, “Legal department, and the boss’s office, meeting rooms, and stuff like that.”
Office.
Was that man the boss of Eternity? Someone from the He family?
After confirming that all the documents were there, she breathed a big sigh of relief and complained in a low voice, “I didn’t know before, but now I know how difficult it is to be a working person. Just the office politics and social interactions are tiring enough. If you hadn’t brought it to me, if this document bag had been even an hour late, I would definitely have been scolded to death in the meeting later.”
Jiang Chen snapped back to reality and said half-jokingly, “Can the Young Miss handle this kind of grievance now?”
Xu Peiya smiled faintly as she held the document bag: “It’s my problem that I didn’t bring the file. This is called taking responsibility. Of course, I have other purposes. You’ll know in a while.”
At this moment, her phone rang. She glanced at the message and hurried inside: “I’ll talk to you later, I’ll go in first, thanks~”
Jiang Chen sat in the car for a long time, looking at the building in front of him for a long time. Now, recalling the few minutes of conversation in the elevator, a strong urge to see that man again made him reluctant to leave.
He should be in Eternity on the fifteenth floor. Did he still have a chance to see him?
But he couldn’t really go to the fifteenth floor to find someone he only met once, someone whose name he didn’t even know.
He repeatedly recalled the few sentences they had exchanged, pondering each word again. Then he suddenly felt a little silly. Why was he so concerned about someone he had only met for a few minutes and didn’t even know the name of?
At this moment, his phone vibrated. It was a message from Xu Peiya.
Xu Sister: [The design department is having a dinner party tonight, probably involving some drinking. Come pick me up tonight, don’t tell my mom.]
The nanny and driver at home would definitely let Xu’s mother know. To counter Xu’s mother, Xu Peiya had even given the nanny in her off-campus house a vacation, only hiring hourly workers to clean regularly.
It wouldn’t be safe for her to go back alone after drinking, so Jiang Chen could only reply:
JC: [Send me the address.]
Jiang Chen breathed a long sigh and started the car.
He arrived at the address Xu Peiya gave him at 10:30. It was a music restaurant and bar. After waiting for about ten minutes, Xu Peiya sent a message saying she had had a few drinks and asked him to pick her up.
Xu Peiya’s alcohol tolerance was average, but because she was a girl, and with her family’s reputation in Jiang City, no one dared to force her to drink. It seemed that she was really serious about this job.
Jiang Chen got out of the car. He had gone back to change his clothes and was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. It was very casual, but it had a youthful vigor. As he walked into the restaurant and bar, he saw Xu Peiya standing there, facing away from him. She was talking to a group of people, men and women. There was someone singing on the stage in the middle, and the lights inside weren’t very bright, so he couldn’t see the faces of those people clearly, but a tall figure stood out from the crowd.
He thought about it and called out, “Peiya.”
This sound reached the crowd and made everyone turn their heads. The moment they saw Jiang Chen, everyone started cheering in a low voice.
“Oh——someone really came to pick her up.”
“So handsome, if I had such a ‘friend,’ I would definitely want to go back early.”
“Xiao Ya——you’re not being fair, you’re hiding this from us.”
Jiang Chen only took a few steps closer. Before he could see the faces of those people clearly, he immediately recognized the tall figure. That feeling of his heart suddenly stopping came back again, and then he unconsciously felt a strange tension.
They had only met once in the elevator. He had changed his clothes, and the lights here were so dim. Could he still recognize him?
As he approached, the man’s face became clearer and clearer. He was still wearing the same clothes, but the buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned two instead of one like in the elevator, revealing a small section of his collarbone because of the casual movement.
The air conditioning inside was very strong, but because it was after work, the atmosphere here was lively, and everyone had had some drinks, so their faces seemed to be flushed. He was the same.
Those eyes that had been indifferent because of unfamiliarity now seemed to contain a shallow pool of water, swaying slightly with the smile on his face, but stirring up a ripple in other people’s hearts.
His gaze slid from his face to Xu Peiya: “Your boyfriend is very handsome.”