Chapter 3: The President and the Massage Chair 03

Tang Bin took Yu Mingcheng’s car and was driven back to the company along with Pang Yuqing.

Throughout the ride, he tightly gripped his phone, his palms sweating, but he dared not put it down.

—Inside the phone were the contact details he had exchanged with President Shang earlier.

By the time they returned to the company, it was already noon. Yu Mingcheng suggested they all go out for lunch.

Tang Bin didn’t want to eat. He wanted to go back to his office and write down the phone number several times, hide it, and keep it safe. So, he politely declined.

Fortunately, he wasn’t that naive. He knew he couldn’t mention that President Shang was his target, so he swallowed his nerves and lied, saying that he had unfinished work and needed to rush back to get it done.

Yu Mingcheng, already aware that Tang Bin was a workaholic and lacked social finesse, was a bit displeased at the refusal but didn’t hold it against him.

On the other hand, Pang Yuqing, who didn’t want to go to lunch in the first place, seemed slightly cheered up. He smiled and said, “Well, I guess you’re out of luck, Le Yang.”

He then turned to Yu Mingcheng and suggested, “I know a new restaurant on XX Road, not far from the company. How about we go there for lunch?”

Yu Mingcheng, driving and with a nonchalant expression, replied, “Le Yang’s going back to work, so it’s better if we stay in and eat. Let’s just eat at the company.”

“…Hmm.” Pang Yuqing’s smile froze on his face.

Sitting in the backseat, Tang Bin didn’t notice anything. He was focused on memorizing Shang Chengjun’s number.

The original owner was very smart and had a good memory, so remembering things came easily. Since Shang Chengjun’s number was sequential, it was also easy to remember. Tang Bin had already committed it to memory after just two looks.

But he was still afraid he might forget it in a moment of panic, so he couldn’t help but repeat it over and over again.

After all, this was the only clue that could help him complete the task. Tang Bin knew he was slow, so to complete the task, he needed to be far more careful and diligent than others. He didn’t find it odd that his behavior might seem strange to others.

After returning to the company, Tang Bin fulfilled the promise he made to himself yesterday—he bought Hu Xiaobing some delicious “gugu chicken” and sweet and sour pork.

It was a refined office worker meal, and it cost Tang Bin nearly a hundred yuan, which shocked Hu Xiaobing. He couldn’t believe the usually stingy Tang Bin was actually treating him to a meal.

The office was filled with the aroma of food. Tang Bin, enjoying the fragrant chicken paired with crisp pickled radishes and kimchi, ate happily while grinning at his phone screen.

“Wow! What’s that smell? It smells so good!” A colleague who had just finished lunch walked by and was immediately drawn in by the scent. They peered over at Tang Bin’s food, but in doing so, they saw his phone screen as well: “Hey, what’s this? Let me see. Could it be that our naive little Le Yang has finally figured things out?!”

The loud voice startled Tang Bin, who quickly turned off his phone screen.

However, the loud colleague had already attracted the attention of others, and Hu Xiaobing, chewing his rice, asked with puffed cheeks, “What? What’s going on?”

The colleague exclaimed, “How should I know? I don’t get it. Le Yang’s just staring at a string of phone numbers and grinning like a fool!”

Hu Xiaobing narrowed his eyes, took a slow bite of his rice, and casually asked, “Who’s that? Whose number is it?”

“I don’t know. It says something like ‘male lead’… I didn’t get a good look at it.”

Tang Bin: “……”

In an instant, his face turned bright red all the way to his ears.

Tang Bin lowered his head. Fortunately, the gossiping colleague had already been distracted by the food on the table. If he had seen Tang Bin’s flushed face… Tang Bin didn’t know why, but he felt like he would die of embarrassment.

The office was full of work pressure, and as a way to lighten the mood, everyone often joked around like this. The colleague wasn’t taking it seriously himself. He leaned in and, with a deliberate gulp, said, “Hey, brothers, give me a piece of meat, a big one! Ah—”

But Hu Xiaobing, sitting next to him, noticed the reactions of the people around him. He suddenly lost his appetite, his rice stuck in his throat.

He used his hand, still in disposable gloves, to grab a piece of sweet and sour pork that didn’t seem to have much of a glaze on it and pushed it toward Tang Bin, telling him to eat it quickly and leave.

Tang Bin, afraid of being teased again, wasn’t sure exactly what he was afraid of or why blushing seemed so awkward to him. But he was genuinely scared, and instinctively, he stopped staring at Shang Chengjun’s phone number. He obediently set his phone down and focused on eating.

Mmm, no wonder the original owner liked Gugu Chicken so much. The meat wasn’t dry at all, it was tender, slightly salty, spicy, and had a hint of sweetness that Tang Bin liked. It was definitely one of his favorite dishes.

Tang Bin was so immersed in the delicious food that he completely forgot about the earlier embarrassment. After finishing and cleaning up the table, he opened his computer and started reviewing the details of the Ruida project again.

If he wanted to achieve a happy ending with the male lead, first, they needed to have some interaction.

This was something the Peach Blossom Spirit had told him before.

He remembered it clearly, and vaguely understood that in order to “get closer” to the male lead, the only way was to do a good job with the current project.

Fortunately, his professional skills were fairly strong, and he was somewhat confident about finishing the project ahead of schedule.

“Come on,” Tang Bin muttered to himself, clenching his fist for encouragement.

In the afternoon, when everyone was back at work, Mr. Yu publicly announced Tang Bin’s appointment as the chief engineer for the Ruida project.

As soon as he finished speaking, a wave of murmurs erupted among the staff.

—Tang Bin had been with the company for a year, and his abilities were now undisputed. The only thing he lacked was experience, which made it hard for others to fully trust him.

Yu Mingcheng’s voice rose above the murmurs: “For this project, I hope the people in Team B will cooperate fully with Le Yang. Everyone has worked hard lately, but I won’t treat you unfairly.”

When the boss said that, it usually meant there would be bonuses after the project was completed.

Everyone immediately cheered.

“Alright, let’s get back to work. Le Yang, please come to my office,” Yu Mingcheng said, turning to leave. Tang Bin had no choice but to follow him.

The remaining employees either went back to work or stayed behind to gossip, with some even sidling up to Pang Yuqing and asking, “Boss Pang, what’s going on? We’ve always worked under your supervision. Why is the Ruida project being handed to him?”

“He has the ability,” Pang Yuqing replied, tilting his head with an air of superiority and a hint of disdain. “Did you not see how someone was throwing flirtatious glances at President Shang during the Ruida meeting? It made me sick just watching it!”

“Ah? Le Yang doesn’t seem like that kind of person…”

Pang Yuqing, with a sigh, shook his head. “You can know a person’s appearance, but not their heart.”

He waved his hand and said, “Alright, you guys should go back to work. We don’t have the talent like they do, so we can only accept our fate and work hard.”

The others dispersed. Many of them were more perceptive than the original owner, who was clueless and oblivious to these kinds of things.

Some people could tell that Mr. Yu had a soft spot for Le Yang, but Le Yang always acted like he didn’t understand, without ever responding.

Some thought he really didn’t get it, while others thought he was pretending to be clueless. But until now, everyone had been watching the drama unfold. Now, after hearing Pang Yuqing mention Le Yang’s connection to the President Shang of Ruida…

It didn’t seem likely.

Most of the office knew that Pang Yuqing had feelings for Mr. Yu, and he’d been making things difficult for Le Yang because of it.

The sarcastic comments he made now were probably out of jealousy, trying to spread rumors.

Everyone went back to work. As programmers, their work was based on skill, so they weren’t concerned about positions. Moreover, Le Yang was just temporarily assigned as the general project manager, and his salary wasn’t much higher than theirs.

So jealousy wasn’t really the issue.

Although some people were unconvinced, most of the others simply felt sorry for Pang Yuqing.

He wasn’t as skilled as others and couldn’t hold a long-term position in the office, so he resorted to slandering Le Yang.

Tsk.

Tang Bin followed Mr. Yu into the office. Yu Mingcheng first explained some things for him to pay attention to. Tang Bin knew how important these points were, so he seriously wrote them all down.

Then, he heard Mr. Yu ask him, “Ah Yang, did you know President Shang before?”

“Huh?” Tang Bin immediately shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

Yu Mingcheng studied him for a long time, seemingly trying to read something from his face.

But the delicate-looking man was staring at him with a pair of innocent, wide eyes, looking completely confused. No matter how he looked, there were no signs of lying.

“That’s good,” Yu Mingcheng let out a breath of relief. He stood up and patted the back of Tang Bin’s hand on the desk. “You should know who truly cares for you, and who is your real support.”

Tang Bin blinked in confusion. He really didn’t understand what Mr. Yu meant.

But when it came to support, Mr. Yu was indeed his boss.

But the boss wasn’t the male lead. What he truly needed was…

Suddenly, Shang Chengjun’s incredibly handsome face appeared in his mind, and Tang Bin momentarily lost focus.

He didn’t catch anything Mr. Yu said afterward.

“Go back to work,” Mr. Yu said with satisfaction, leaning back into his large chair.

He enjoyed the way Le Yang stared at him, not even blinking, just like before.

Tang Bin, granted permission to leave, darted out of the office like a rabbit, rushing back to his desk to continue working.

He needed to quickly create a work plan, which he would submit to Mr. Yu for approval before distributing tasks to his colleagues, ensuring the work could be completed smoothly.

This was actually a rather challenging task, but since he had been in charge of the Ruida project from the start, Tang Bin found this work to be second nature.

At 8:30 in the evening, he emailed the complete plan to Mr. Yu, and just like that, his long day of work came to an end.

The intense work from the afternoon and evening left his head aching a bit, and as Tang Bin yawned, he felt drowsy while taking the subway home after work.

His mind was focused on sleep, and he forgot all about dinner. Since he had eaten quite a bit at lunch and wasn’t hungry yet, he carried his briefcase and headed straight to his rented apartment.

The apartment was a shared rental between the original owner and another person. It was a typical two-bedroom, one-living room, one-kitchen, one-bathroom layout. He lived in the smaller bedroom, which was a bit cheaper than the master bedroom.

When Tang Bin opened the door, his roommate, Long Ke, was sitting on the sofa with a woman, hugging and kissing each other. The sound of the TV was so loud that it drowned out the sound of Tang Bin entering, and the woman screamed in shock when she saw him: “Ah!”

The roommate, Long Ke, was from the same village as the original owner. One of them had managed to get into university because of his high intelligence and had gone on to work in the impressive-sounding IT industry, while the other had dropped out early to work in the city, living a social life with complicated relationships, often bringing strange women home.

If Tang Bin had experienced human society, he would have found the combination of roommates rather absurd.

But he hadn’t experienced that, so he didn’t notice anything wrong.

He didn’t even know why the woman screamed as if she were frightened when she saw him.

Tang Bin was confused, but Long Ke had told him before not to worry about the women he brought home, so Tang Bin simply ignored her and continued changing his shoes to enter his room.

Long Ke, on the other hand, was very calm. “This is my roommate. What’s the big deal? Are you shy? Afraid of being seen by others?” he teased.

“You jerk! You’re so annoying!” the woman’s sweet voice sounded as she lightly punched Long Ke’s shoulder.

Seeing them being affectionate on the sofa, Tang Bin didn’t want to interrupt. After changing his shoes, he planned to head to his own room.

Fortunately, the woman didn’t completely mind having someone around. She got up first from Long Ke and returned to her room.

At this moment, Long Ke straightened up from the sofa and asked, “Done with work?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you eat dinner?”

“No, I have a bit of a headache. I want to sleep first.”

“Then go ahead and rest. If you get hungry later, I’ll make you some noodles.”

Long Ke was actually a pretty kind person. Although his tattoos and the thick eyebrows made him look intimidating, Tang Bin had always been a little scared of him.

However, Long Ke’s instant noodles were quite tasty.

Tang Bin happily agreed, telling Long Ke to go about his business. He then went to the bathroom for a shower, and afterward, he lay down on his bed, feeling refreshed and ready for sleep.

It was the hot and humid time of summer. Although the air conditioner was on in the room, not long after, Tang Bin felt like his whole body was drenched in sweat.

He was clearly very tired, but sleep wouldn’t come.

In addition to the heat, there were strange sounds coming from the next room, where Long Ke was. The faint sounds were mixed with the woman’s odd moans. The noises weren’t loud, but the more Tang Bin heard, the hotter he felt.

Eventually, Tang Bin couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and left the apartment, and coincidentally, he was also hungry, so he went out for a late-night snack.

After eating, he happened to arrive just as the mall was about to close. In a strange turn of events, he sat back down on the same chair he had slept in the night before.

Once again, he sank into the soft chair. After scanning the payment code, it felt as if several hands had suddenly appeared behind him, as if they knew exactly where he was uncomfortable. They massaged his sore neck and spine just perfectly.

The headache even began to ease.

Then, those “hands” traveled from his spine down to his lower back, and a strange sensation of his butt being squeezed and massaged made Tang Bin feel a little embarrassed at first. However, remembering that he had paid ten yuan for the massage, and it was probably part of the service, he gradually relaxed.

As he did, a weird sensation started from his tailbone, causing Tang Bin to let out a soft groan.

“Ah…”

Although the sensation was strange, it wasn’t unpleasant.

It felt as if he had fallen into a warm embrace, one that made him feel at ease.

Tang Bin slowly closed his eyes.

Later, he became so comfortable that he lost track of time, not even realizing how he ended up spending the night sleeping in the mall again.