“The recent investments by Xuyang are focused on the mobile internet and chain restaurants,” Yu Zi opened a webpage and pointed it out to Xie Dongcheng.

“Indicating they want to make quick money?”

“Yes,” Yu Zi nodded. The mobile internet is a hot concept, once accepted by the market, its market value rises rapidly; while chain restaurants have fast returns and healthy cash flow. These are both what Xuyang is interested in.

Paul’s refusal was also very clear. Investment in wineries was bottomless and slow to yield results, with many uncertainties. Paul didn’t like risks, and they were full of them.

“I’m going to the office this afternoon, care to join?” Xie Dongcheng turned to ask him.

“Sure,” Yu Zi subconsciously agreed.

Xie Dongcheng’s chosen office was in a vacant office building not far from Fangjiayuan. Opening a corporate account at a bank required a relationship manager to conduct a site survey. Xie Dongcheng specifically had the agent find one with basic decoration.

They couldn’t afford a large flat, so they only managed to get a small office space of over 50 square meters. But during the start-up phase, it was more than enough.

The small office had no partitions, with an old sofa inside. Xie Dongcheng thought the quality was decent, so he kept it. Opposite the sofa was a glass curtain wall of the building, allowing plenty of sunlight to fill the room.

However, the floor of this office was a bit old, still using the ancient dark red wooden floor. Xie Dongcheng guessed that Yu Zi wouldn’t like it, so he had workers come over early to remove it.

That day, in the afternoon, he arranged for the workers to lay down brand new wooden floorboards, and then went to the furniture mall to pick out two carpets.

Summer in North City was extremely hot, and the parking garage at Fangjiayuan was on the ground. However, after just a morning of sun exposure, the car was already too hot to sit in.

Xie Dongcheng got off the car first and opened the windows. After the hot air inside the car dissipated, he turned on the air conditioning.

He sent Yu Zi a WeChat message: “I’ll ventilate the car first, you come down later.”

After a while, Yu Zi replied with an OK.

When Yu Zi came downstairs, he didn’t look good either. Xie Dongcheng guessed he was still upset about Paul.

Xie Dongcheng lowered the temperature of the air conditioning by another two degrees, drove out of the parking garage, and headed towards the main road. After driving for only a few hundred meters, Yu Zi suddenly came to his senses, “Where are you going? This isn’t the way to the office, is it?”

“To pick out carpets,” Xie Dongcheng turned to look at him, “We’re not going to the office first.”

Yu Zi didn’t know why he changed the destination at the last minute, but he followed him anyway.

The furniture mall was in the suburbs in the south of the city, and it took nearly an hour to get there by car. The blue square building looked like a huge LEGO block dropped into the suburban land.

The air conditioning inside the building was roaring, and when the glass automatic sliding door opened, Yu Zi was almost frozen.

He didn’t have the mood to go shopping, so he waved to Xie Dongcheng and then pointed to the massage chairs next to the exhibition area on the first floor, “You go look at carpets, I’ll rest here for a while.”

Xie Dongcheng didn’t insist on dragging him around to shop, so he nodded, “I’ll come find you later.”

Yu Zi made a sound of agreement and sat back in the massage chair, zoning out. However, he didn’t sleep very soundly. Every time someone passed by, their footsteps would make his eyelids tremble.

About half an hour later, Yu Zi felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He closed his eyes and took a while before he took out his phone from his pocket and opened his eyes to see it was a voice call from Xie Dongcheng.

“What’s up?” Yu Zi’s voice was a bit hoarse.

“Do you like beige?” Xie Dongcheng seemed to be walking, his voice slightly panting.

“Huh?” Yu Zi was confused.

“Beige,” Xie Dongcheng repeated.

“Oh, it’s okay.” Although Yu Zi didn’t understand why he suddenly asked this, his mind didn’t have time to process it, so he just responded.

“Okay.” Xie Dongcheng hung up after hearing his answer.

Yu Zi was still sitting in the massage chair, lost in thought.

Not even five minutes later, he saw Xie Dongcheng coming out of the stairwell. Behind him were two movers, each carrying a huge long cardboard box on their shoulders.

“What did you buy? Weren’t we here to look at carpets?” Yu Zi stood up from the massage chair and walked towards him.

“A bed,” Xie Dongcheng replied, then patted the square storage bag in his hands, “And this four-piece set.”

They had planned to look at carpets, but Xie Dongcheng ended up buying a new bed and a set of beige four-piece bedding. It was really bewildering.

Yu Zi followed behind him, watching him direct the movers to carry the bed board into the trunk of the car. Then he watched him open the driver’s seat door, start the car smoothly, and drive off.

“Why did you suddenly buy these?” Yu Zi asked, fastening his seatbelt in the passenger seat and turning to him.

“You’ve been saying the bed at home isn’t comfortable, right?” Xie Dongcheng stepped on the accelerator, and the car left the parking lot, heading towards the scorching sun, “The owner said these bed sheets are 100 threads, I don’t really understand, but they feel very comfortable to the touch, not abrasive.”

Xie Dongcheng’s words were indeed true. The small wooden bed, only one meter five wide, was too crowded for two people, and their hands and legs were always bumping into each other at night. If they wanted to try something new, there was simply no space.

“What about the carpet?” Yu Zi asked again, “Weren’t we here to pick out carpets?”

Xie Dongcheng smiled, “I found a gray wool carpet that I liked, but the size was too small. The owner said large sizes had to be customized, so I left a deposit. Then I saw a bed being sold next to it, so I bought it on the way.”

“Secretary Xie, you’re already recklessly spending money before you even receive your first month’s salary,” Yu Zi patted his shifting hand.

Xie Dongcheng cleared his throat, “Isn’t it you who said a personal secretary should fulfill the boss’s needs?”

Yu Zi scoffed, “That’s only part of it.”

Although he said so, his mood improved a bit compared to the morning.

After the two returned home, Xie Dongcheng took off his shirt and only wore a pair of basketball shorts in the living room. He rummaged around and found his toolbox.

Yu Zi leaned against the door frame, watching this sturdy man dismantle the old bed in the room in just a few moves. The originally square bed quickly turned into a pile of long wooden planks on the side.

He worked cleanly, leaving no clutter behind. The bedroom was soon emptied, and the floor was cleaned thoroughly.

Xie Dongcheng brought the newly purchased bed boards into the house. After opening the cardboard box, a pile of screws and nuts lay on the floor. Yu Zi felt overwhelmed just by looking at them.

Xie Dongcheng didn’t look at the instructions, but seemed to understand where each screw should go. In just over half an hour, he assembled a neat large bed from a pile of seemingly unrelated wood.

This bed should be nearly two meters wide, Yu Zi estimated that it was much larger than the previous one.

“Where’s the mattress?” Yu Zi asked.

“It’s too big, our car can’t fit it. A truck will deliver it later,” Xie Dongcheng wiped the sweat from his forehead and picked up his phone from the cabinet. Just then, the delivery call came in.

After another half hour of fuss, Xie Dongcheng followed a few movers to carry a huge mattress up to the fifth floor, carefully placing it on the newly assembled bed frame.

Xie Dongcheng gave each mover a bottle of water and a cigarette before sending them off.

Yu Zi watched him busy around, and those sturdy muscles looked even more attractive under the natural light.

He felt a little itchy inside, wanting to hook Xie Dongcheng’s neck with his hand, but Xie Dongcheng dodged.

“What’s wrong? Avoiding me?” Yu Zi glanced at him.

“Sweaty. I’m going to take a shower,” Xie Dongcheng shook his arm.

His right arm, which had become thinner due to the fracture, seemed to have returned to normal. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be even thicker than his left arm.

Xie Dongcheng was about to take a shower, but then he decided to unpack the new bed sheets and put them in the washing machine, then hung them on the balcony to dry.

A few minutes later, the sound of water came from the bathroom.

Seeing that he was going to take a shower, Yu Zi walked back to the bedroom and lay down face up. The bedroom had air conditioning and a small fan, much cooler than outside. Initially, he had some scattered thoughts, but after lying down, he only wanted to sleep.

He lay in the cool breeze, and within a few minutes, his eyelids drooped.

He didn’t know how long he had slept, but he felt as if there was someone beside him in his dream. That person gently lifted him up, rearranged the freshly dried bed sheets around him, and then put him back on the bed. Yu Zi’s skin touched the smooth fabric, soft, clean, with a faint smell of soap.

Then, in less than two minutes, the person’s palm covered his body, and rough fingertips roamed between his shoulder blades.

Yu Zi buried his face in the pillow and smelled the lemon fragrance from his body just after the shower, “Secretary Xie, what are you doing?”

“You said I’m your personal secretary, right?” He even rubbed his leg against Yu Zi’s waist.

Yu Zi lifted his head from the pillow, pinched the person’s chin, “Why are you becoming more shameless?”

Xie Dongcheng lay beside him, allowing him to knead, then stretched out his right hand to hold Yu Zi’s neck, bringing the two closer, “It’s mainly because the boss leads well.”

Yu Zi almost laughed. But the next moment, he couldn’t help but let out a muffled hum.

“Hey, don’t push your luck,” Yu Zi held his fingers that were on the verge of mischief tightly.

“Are you going to tie me up again today, boss?” Xie Dongcheng’s eyes even looked a bit innocent.

If he wasn’t shirtless, with his muscles tense, Yu Zi might have really thought he was scared.

“I don’t have the energy today. Let’s talk about it another day,” Yu Zi patted his head lightly.

“Then today, you just lie down and enjoy it,” Xie Dongcheng groped for a moment, then made a gentle move, eliciting a soft sigh from Yu Zi.

In the midst of a ridiculous day, Yu Zi woke up in the evening.

The soft beige bed sheets beneath him were already wrinkled, it seemed they needed to be washed again. Xie Dongcheng lay quietly beside him, his wrist still resting on Yu Zi’s waist.

Xie Dongcheng had been busy all day and slept heavily. Yu Zi didn’t want to wake him up, so he got up quietly and went to the living room to take out his old laptop.

Half an hour later, the sky outside gradually darkened. The bedroom door opened, and Xie Dongcheng also got up.

He walked behind Yu Zi and asked, “What are you looking at?”

Yu Zi handed the laptop to Xie Dongcheng, “Xuyang won’t invest, so we’ll have to find other investors.”

He knew there were several venture capital companies in North City, and they had no previous dealings with them, but at this point, they could only try their luck.

“I’ll take you tomorrow,” Xie Dongcheng readily agreed.

As July approached, the summer became hotter, with heat rising from the ground and the sound of cicadas echoing through the neighborhood.

Xie Dongcheng drove Yu Zi around from one company to another, from south to north, from east to west. The tire tracks of the used Toyota rolled through almost the entire city.

They printed many business plans and left a few copies at each company, just like distributing business cards.

But the result was the same as when they were running business for the restaurant. Each company had its own excuses; some said they were tight on funds this year, some said they had to wait for the superiors to come back to make a decision, but none of them could make an immediate decision.

As the temperature continued to rise, Yu Zi’s phone, left behind, never rang.

Xie Dongcheng thought of his experience with heatstroke in Bai Cheng and didn’t want him to continue like this. After running around for seven days, he forcefully brought him back to the office. The wool carpet he had ordered a few days ago finally arrived, but it was too hot, so it could only be rolled up on the side.

This office used the central air conditioning of the office building. Perhaps it was old, and the cooling effect was not too good, and it couldn’t dissipate the heat projected from the glass curtain wall with a wheezing fan.

Yu Zi leaned back on the simple leather sofa and picked up the form on the desk, with only Xu Zhuo’s investment company remaining on the white paper.

“Are you going?” Xie Dongcheng asked.

“Forget it,” Yu Zi waved his hand, feeling more uncomfortable having Xu Zhuo hovering over him than facing death.

The battle had not yet been won. But the promise he made to Wei Yunli had already been like water spilled out. With a loan of 400,000, he had already paid back 200,000, and now his funds were tightening again.

Yu Zi found himself standing on the edge of the cliff once more.

And just then, the glass door of their small office suddenly rang with someone knocking.

Yu Zi thought it was a delivery person and shouted towards the door, “Leave it at the door!”

The knocking paused for a moment, then resumed, this time more urgent than before.

Who would come to see him in broad daylight? Could it be someone from the office building management?

Xie Dongcheng sensed something amiss and got up from his chair, “I’ll go check.”

However, when Xie Dongcheng reached the door and glanced through the glass, he froze as he saw the person outside, unable to utter a word for a while.

From the inner room, Yu Zi shouted again impatiently, “Who is it?!”

But there was still no response at the door, just silence.

Losing patience, Yu Zi got up and walked to the door.

“What…” Before he could finish his sentence, he saw the person standing outside.

Yu Zi never expected that a year later, Yu Qing would actually come back.