Half past midnight.
In the most bustling office building in the city center.
The slight clicking sounds of the keyboard echoed in the quiet space.
The cold light of the computer screen reflected on the face, distorting the features somewhat, like a cyberpunk mask.
In the midsummer season, the central air conditioning in the high-end office building ran around the clock, with the temperature set at eighteen degrees Celsius.
The artificially created cold air, on this summer night, even made one feel a chill slowly seeping into their bones.
It was very late.
Even though their industry was notorious for its excessive overtime, known for being extremely competitive, it was rare for anyone to still be working at this hour.
In the information age, even if overtime was necessary, most people could choose to work remotely from home.
In their spare time, they could have a late-night snack, wear pajamas, and pet their pets.
Much more comfortable than staying at the office.
Staying in the office at this late hour, especially when alone.
It felt even colder and gloomier, genuinely a bit creepy, and those with a slight fear might scare themselves quite badly.
So at this hour, there were only two people left in their office.
Soon, one of them finished up their work, yawned with a face full of fatigue.
Shut down the computer, packed up their things.
When passing by the still-lit workstation next door, they stopped and asked, “Engineer Su, aren’t you leaving yet?”
Su Zhi responded with a light “Mm.”
The colleague stopped to look at him for a moment.
A model was being demonstrated on Su Zhi’s computer screen.
To highlight the contrast, exaggerated color blocks were used, and these colors spilled from the screen, constantly sweeping across Su Zhi’s face.
This scene should logically be somewhat comical, easily making the face of someone who had been sitting in front of a computer for too long appear even more haggard.
But none of this applied to Su Zhi.
Even after sitting at his workstation almost all day, with evident fatigue between his brows, his face under the colorful light blocks still straightforwardly made people think of the words “good-looking.”
A beauty that no normal person could deny.
Su Zhi was too outstanding in appearance, so good-looking that he stood out like a crane among chickens in their group of rough guys who worked overtime every day.
Not that he looked particularly feminine; Su Zhi’s appearance clearly identified him as a male at first glance.
No misunderstanding there.
It’s just that he seemed to carry an elusive aura.
Always giving people the feeling that he should be walking on a campus, or talking about romantic topics with someone.
Oh, oh, the colleague remembered, it was like what some female colleagues described as a kind of “delicate” cool temperament.
It made people want to protect him, and even more, want to destroy him.
Straight men: ???
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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But these malicious gossips soon stopped.
Su Zhi used his solid professional skills to prove that he didn’t need any backdoors.
Moreover, he was a member of the overtime team, staying at the office until midnight was standard practice for him.
90% of the time, he was the one who stayed the latest in the entire company.
He could be said to be using the best-looking face to be the most ruthless workaholic.
Colleagues admired him inwardly and then quickly distanced themselves from him.
They were afraid that staying too close would force them into the same intense work routine.
Their hairlines weren’t as resilient as Su Zhi’s and needed careful care.
The colleague preparing to leave asked, “How much more do you have left? Should I wait for you so we can leave together? It’s too late, it’s not safe.”
Su Zhi replied, “No need, it’s too much trouble. What’s unsafe for a grown man like me?”
The colleague hesitated.
Thinking, maybe not for other men, but for you, not necessarily!
For some reason, Su Zhi was especially popular among some men who were attracted to the same sex.
In their industry, where the rate of straight men was far above average, a new same-sex suitor appeared every three days.
He could be called a walking gay magnet.
Moreover, the quality of those suitors was often quite high.
What ordinary people would consider as outstanding, among Su Zhi’s suitors, would only be average.
The most memorable was when the boss of the neighboring department had 9,990 roses delivered to the office to confess to Su Zhi.
This directly shattered the worldview of their group of straight male colleagues.
What? In their famously straight male-dominated industry, there were so many traitors???
Suddenly, they felt their chastity was in grave danger.
Very dangerous.
It took a rational colleague to wake them up: “You’re overthinking it, gay men also care about looks, look in the mirror and get real.”
Straight men: …Fair point.
The boss who confessed to Su Zhi was actually quite good-looking, kept his body in great shape, and according to colleagues who had been to the gym with him, he even had six-pack abs.
In the age group of thirty to forty, he could be said to outshine his peers.
And importantly, this boss was a genuine executive.
Coming from a family of wealth for generations, with assets so substantial that they were beyond the imagination of these working people.
By all accounts, he was a high-quality candidate for a partner!
Some straight guys were secretly moved.
Involuntarily thinking: If there was really more money involved, then maybe it wouldn’t be impossible!
And then, just like he had rejected other suitors, Su Zhi turned him down without any hesitation.
He seemed even straighter than straight men.
In short, it was quite fantastical.
If it weren’t for their company’s formality and lack of shady practices, Su Zhi would have been harassed out of the job long ago.
The straight male colleagues were deeply shocked.
But seeing Su Zhi’s apparent disdain for those suitors, each time watching him impatiently turn them down with a cold face, they felt he was probably cursing them in his mind.
Maybe, although very popular among men, Su Zhi was indeed a straight man at heart.
Otherwise, there was no way to explain his rock-solid demeanor, unmoved by the many high-quality male suitors.
However, they hadn’t seen Su Zhi date any women either.
He seemed to always be alone.
Seeing that Su Zhi had no intention of finishing up, the colleague could only say:
“Well, alright then, I’ll head out first. Be safe, try to get home early if you can. It’s summer, and electrical circuits are more prone to problems. Didn’t the news just report an incident over in Jiang’an?”
Su Zhi seemed to smile, his smile a bit blurred in the light and shadow of the screen: “Mm, okay, thank you.”
After the colleague left, the office became quiet again.
So quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Su Zhi’s gaze was on the screen, slightly shifting with the model’s movements.
But if you looked closely, you would notice his pupils were somewhat unfocused.
Yes, he was slacking off.
At midnight in the office, reading as overtime, writing as slacking off.
Exactly the kind of behavior everyone criticized, obviously able to finish work on time, but dragging it out to seem like they were working hard, while actually just wasting time.
But because his appearance was too deceptive, and his work was indeed completed excellently, he had never been found out.
Su Zhi didn’t have any particular reason for doing this; most of the time, he didn’t even realize he was procrastinating.
It was just a subconscious reluctance to go home.
After all, going home meant another empty, cold place.
A single apartment in the high-rise, with uniform style, uniform specifications, and decoration.
Su Zhi didn’t think going home was any better than staying at the office.
His thoughts drifted aimlessly for a while.
Suddenly, his phone screen lit up, a message notification that had been delayed for a long time due to signal obstruction.
[Lawyer: Mr. Su, the dividend from the trust fund for this quarter has been issued, expected to be credited within three working days, single amount 5,000,000.00 yuan. Please check and confirm.]
Su Zhi’s gaze seemed to flinch at the message.
He reached out and dismissed it.
A trust fund is a means often used by wealthy families to plan finances for their descendants.
Mostly because the descendants are too rebellious or incompetent, fearing that handing over all the wealth at once would lead to squandering, so they put part of it into a trust fund, disbursed at regular intervals.
This ensures that the descendants have a baseline living security.
Su Zhi had such a trust fund where he was named as the beneficiary.
Dividends were issued quarterly, with the first few years being smaller amounts, a couple of million yuan per quarter.
Later, as various investments appreciated, it gradually increased to five million.
This trust fund was not a family heritage, but specifically for Su Zhi.
When he turned fifty, he could apply to withdraw the remaining assets in one go, a final sum Su Zhi never calculated, couldn’t calculate, and didn’t want to.
In short, despite looking like a corporate drone.
He was actually quite wealthy, with liquid assets probably more than the company’s boss.
However, this enormous fund was not set up by Su Zhi’s parents.
His parents died long ago and didn’t leave him that much money.
Su Zhi’s family used to be wealthy, but that was quite some time ago.
His family went bankrupt completely when Su Zhi was nineteen.
It was the same year he met Xie Yi.
The one who later established the trust fund for him.
Also, a complete lunatic.
They had no blood relationship.
Su Zhi was not Xie Yi’s legal heir; if there was any special relationship, it would be that they had been involved for a while.
To be precise, Su Zhi had been entangled by the madman Xie Yi, reluctantly involved for a while.
Frankly, although the frequent and strange same-sex pursuits were annoying.
Colleagues often joked that he might need legal help.
But in terms of ruthlessness and craziness, those suitors were not even a tenth as bad as Xie Yi.
Most of them could be dismissed by Su Zhi himself.
How crazy was Xie Yi?
If it weren’t for his untimely death in an accident, Su Zhi strongly suspected that he would still be kept in that villa by Xie Yi, entangled in an ambiguous relationship with him.
To the extent that when Su Zhi heard the news of Xie Yi’s death, his first instinct was to think it was a rumor.
What complicated Su Zhi’s feelings even more was that just a few days after Xie Yi’s death, he received a call from Xie Yi’s personal lawyer.
Months before the accident, Xie Yi had already left all his assets to Su Zhi.
He had also meticulously planned out the financial arrangements, ensuring that Su Zhi would continuously receive money through a trust fund.
This kind of foresight and planning was very much in line with Xie Yi’s usual style.
Setting aside the instances when Xie Yi would go crazy and put Su Zhi in such a state that he would tremble reflexively from just a light touch afterward, he did seem like a gentle and considerate lover.
Thanks for the update 🥰
Wah I’m excited!
Lover!? Oh no that is absolutely toxic 😰 Hope he isn’t the ML