“You…” Song Yi hesitated for a moment, then changed the topic expressionlessly. “Are you new here?”

“I just arrived yesterday for my internship,” Wang Xiaoke replied, looking at Song Yi’s cold, coffin-like handsome face without the slightest doubt.

“Ding!” As the elevator chimed, Wang Xiaoke swiftly dashed to her workstation.

“Xiaoke, did you just come out of that elevator?” Liu Hai grabbed her, looking all mysterious.

“Yeah. What’s the problem?” Wang Xiaoke was puzzled. It was just an elevator ride—what was the big deal?

“You didn’t… meet anyone in there?” Liu Hai cautiously scanned the surroundings, his face full of gossip.

Wang Xiaoke had no idea what was wrong with him. She answered truthfully, “Oh, I just bumped into President Song.”

“And he just let you ride it?” Liu Hai’s eyes widened in disbelief, as though he had witnessed something shocking.

Wang Xiaoke felt uneasy under his gaze. “Stop looking at me like that. You’re scaring me.”

“I’m telling you, you’re in trouble,” Liu Hai said with a “good luck surviving this” expression, making Wang Xiaoke’s heart race.

“What did I do? Don’t scare me like this!” Wang Xiaoke was completely confused and on the verge of panic.

“Do you not know that elevator is exclusively for President Song?” Liu Hai asked. Wang Xiaoke shook her head honestly.

“That’s why I said you’re doomed.” Liu Hai looked at her sympathetically. “Our boss, President Song, has a serious case of germophobia. Last time, an employee accidentally got into that elevator and was fired the very same day.”

Hearing this, Wang Xiaoke surprisingly felt relieved. It seemed like a good opportunity to escape a month of grueling work. After all, if the company boss himself fired her, even Director Zheng wouldn’t have much to say.

“Is that it?” Wang Xiaoke thought to herself, secretly delighted while putting on a facade of suffering.

Liu Hai, ever the warmhearted elder brother figure, immediately continued, “How could it just end like that?”

Hearing this, Wang Xiaoke felt her heart sink, a sense of foreboding creeping in.

Sure enough, Liu Hai’s next words completely shattered her wishful thinking.

“After that, President Song even hired a cleaning crew to thoroughly disinfect and scrub every inch of the elevator. But that wasn’t the worst part—the scariest thing was that he also replaced the elevator panels entirely. Only then was the matter resolved.”

“That does sound like quite an ordeal for him,” Wang Xiaoke said, suddenly feeling deep sympathy for Song Yi.

Liu Hai, however, replied nonchalantly, “Of course, all the costs were billed to that employee.”

Now, Wang Xiaoke felt even deeper sympathy—for herself.

The first thing Song Yi did after entering his office was instruct his assistant, “Bring the young lady I just shared the elevator with to my office.”

“Understood, President Song.”

The assistant, hearing this, naturally assumed the germophobic CEO was about to fire someone again and thought nothing of it.

Having spent the entire morning living under the shadow of impending financial ruin, Wang Xiaoke was already teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. At every little sound, she suspected that Song Yi was coming to settle accounts with her.

Ring ring ring…

The sharp sound of the phone interrupted Wang Xiaoke’s self-pity.

She stared at the ringing phone as though it were a ferocious beast from ancient times, her expression one of despair, her face pale.

“Well, whether I stick my neck out or keep it tucked in, the result’s the same. Might as well face it.” Taking a deep breath, Wang Xiaoke mustered the courage to answer the call with a mindset of charging bravely toward certain doom.

“Hello, is this Miss Wang? Please come to the President’s office,” came a calm and magnetic male voice on the other end of the line.

Sure enough, what had to come had finally come.