Better to offend President Xia than his boyfriend

Summer had arrived earlier than usual this year. It was only May, and the heat had already left the grass drooping.

Xia Qinghe did have a few tricks up his sleeve. The apartment on the 108th Floor used the Xia Corporation's latest technology, with smart furnishings throughout. Inside, it felt just like spring, neither too cold nor too hot, with a spring breeze brushing against your face and none of the dry nose and parched mouth that came from too much air conditioning.

Lin Fengmian had slept well. Shuffling in his slippers, he gave himself a cursory wash and went looking for food. He knew Xia Qinghe would have breakfast ready.

Sure enough, he found a lavish breakfast on the dining table, but no Xia Qinghe.

That strange feeling grew stronger. What was that bastard up to? He used to practically want me sitting on his lap so he could hold me and feed me breakfast. Why was he nowhere to be seen now?

Lin Fengmian picked up a soup dumpling with his chopsticks, swallowed it in one bite, and took out his phone to call Xia Qinghe.

Xia Qinghe answered instantly, making Lin Fengmian smile. No matter how strangely that bastard behaved, at least he still answered his calls right away.

Pleased by this, he looked through the screen at Xia Qinghe, who wore a three-piece suit and sat upright in his familiar office. His tone was relaxed. "Why did you go to work without even having breakfast?"

Xia Qinghe's heart seized for a moment. Was it that I didn't want to eat? It was... it was that I'd gone crazy. I actually... wanted to kiss Lin Fengmian on the mouth.

That was his mouth! Not his cheek! Not his forehead! His mouth!!!

The frightening part was that he had thought about it more than once.

He had progressed from hands to legs, and then from legs to mouth.

If that wasn't madness, what was?

And that damned separation hadn't helped at all. He was still having improper thoughts about his best buddy, wanting more and more.

At this rate, he really would lose his best buddy.

His heart felt so weary, and his voice was full of exhaustion. "I'm not hungry."

Lin Fengmian couldn't be bothered to pursue the answer, and his pace eating the soup dumplings never slowed. Xia Qinghe simply stared as Lin Fengmian opened his cavernous maw and ate them one after another, each in a single bite.

Not only did he not find it ugly, but the sight left his mouth dry.

He wanted to kiss him even more. Even with that mouth glistening with oil, he wanted nothing more than to lick it clean himself.

He tugged at his tie and lowered the air conditioning by another two degrees. Unfortunately, it didn't help at all.

On the video, Lin Fengmian saw Xia Qinghe slap his own forehead with a crisp smack. When he moved his hand away, sure enough, the skin was bright red. "Even if you're not hungry, you don't need to beat yourself to death to prove your innocence."

Xia Qinghe choked on his words. Finally losing that unspoken understanding with his buddy felt awful.

"Nothing like that. Hurry up and eat. I was away for over ten days, and there's a pile of work to deal with at the company, so I won't bother you." Without waiting for Lin Fengmian to agree, he hastily ended the video call.

Only when his phone screen turned off automatically did Lin Fengmian finally let out a sigh. "My buddy has secrets of his own now and doesn't want to share them with me. Why can't I feel happy about it?"

In the past, Xia Qinghe would even tell him what color his poop was.

But now, he had finally stopped sharing his secrets with him, and Lin Fengmian felt a little sad.

Still, a buddy with secrets was still his good buddy. As he ate, Lin Fengmian put soup dumplings onto a plate, then fetched an unopened jug of milk from the fridge and brought them to the 107th Floor on his way to work.

He happened to run into a group of assistants gathered in the break room, chatting. Lin Fengmian nodded at them, then strolled calmly into Xia Qinghe's office, carrying the plate and the milk.

The president's office was as cozy as ever. It seemed the new personal assistant was taking good care of the place. Not only were the plants lush and green, but there were also fresh flowers beaded with dew, their many colors lending the office a little liveliness. He liked it very much.

"What brings you here?" Xia Qinghe had a fountain pen in his hand. Seeing the two-liter jug of milk weighing Lin Fengmian's hand down, he hurried over and took it from him.

Lin Fengmian set the plate of soup dumplings on the desk and slapped his forehead. "Damn, I forgot to bring you chopsticks. Oh well, use your hands, President Xia."

Xia Qinghe looked as though he couldn't bear to hear another word. Please, you're the boss here. Don't mention hands to me.

Hands trigger me now.

Lin Fengmian gave Xia Qinghe an unobtrusive look. In the past, that bastard would have jumped up and grabbed his hand to use as chopsticks, rather than looking at him with such a strange expression.

Lin Fengmian clicked his tongue inwardly. He really wasn't imagining things. Xia Qinghe really did have a little secret, one he couldn't tell him.

Lin Fengmian opened a drawer in Xia Qinghe's office and sifted through the car keys inside. "Where's your Cadillac?"

"I sold that ugly thing ages ago." After receiving it, he hadn't driven it even once before selling it to a dealership as a used car. Bai Qingwan had given it to him, so Xia Qinghe didn't want it. Even leaving it in the garage felt like a waste of space.

He hadn't wanted to look at it for another moment and had simply told the butler to drive it away and get rid of it.

"Take that silver-gray Pagani Zonda." Xia Qinghe gulped down a couple of mouthfuls of cold milk to cool himself off, then went to rummage through the car keys too.

"No," Lin Fengmian refused outright. "I'm going to teach drums at a training center. If I show up in a car worth over a hundred million, they'll think I'm a show-off."

"What show-off? You earned the right to drive it through your own ability."

"My ability to make good friends? Hahaha-" Lin Fengmian laughed his head off.

Xia Qinghe said, "Making a rich friend is an ability too. I had so many classmates, so why didn't I become best buddies with any of them? Knowing me is your ability."

Lin Fengmian said, "Makes sense, but... forget it. It's my first day at work. I can't let my boss find out how capable I am."

Apart from that Cadillac, Lin Fengmian really couldn't find a car worth less than five million. "Forget it. I'll go downstairs and take a shared bike. I'm off. I'm almost late."

"I'm coming back for lunch. Remember to cook."

Xia Qinghe agreed, in both pain and pleasure.

Lin Fengmian took the president's private elevator straight down to the first floor and dashed toward the shared-bike area. The two young women at reception watched a fragrant blur rush out.

The longtime employee told the newcomer, "Remember him. That's President Xia's boyfriend. Don't be stupid enough to stop him, or you'll lose this job with all its great benefits."

The newcomer swallowed in fright. Before interviewing for the receptionist position, she had heard that more than ten thousand résumés had come in from across the country. She had fought hard to get through all that competition and didn't want to be fired just because she failed to recognize President Xia's boyfriend. "I didn't get a clear look at his face."

What was she supposed to do?

"It doesn't matter if you didn't see him clearly. Just remember his scent. He smells of President Xia's cologne," the longtime employee said. "President Xia's practically marinated his boyfriend in his scent. I bet they do it all the time, or it wouldn't have soaked in so thoroughly."

"Huh?" The new employee blinked. Why did that sound a little like ABO novels, where a powerful alpha especially liked leaving his pheromones on his little omega, marking him as his property?

"You can recognize him by more than his cologne. You can also look at his face. President Xia's boyfriend is the most beautiful person in the whole company. Even Manager Yang, the beauty of our PR department, can't compare."

"No way. More beautiful than Manager Yang? How beautiful would he have to be?" When the newcomer had first met Manager Yang from PR a few days earlier, she had been stunned by her beauty and thought she was a big star. If he was even more beautiful than her, just how beautiful was he?

The longtime employee looked mysterious. "You'll know when you see him. He comes to see President Xia all the time."

"Anyway, just remember one thing: better to offend President Xia than his boyfriend."