WMSR – QT Chapter 28

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 28

By

siofra

Chapter 28

The very purpose of launching his own startup and pouring every ounce of effort into scaling his company was simply so he could one day stand beside Chen-gege on equal footing. Holding fast to that core objective, how could he ever bring himself to solicit Chen-gege’s direct handouts?

Of course, he was well aware that over the years, the under-the-table assistance funneled his way by Chen-gege had been far from negligible. Without Chen-gege’s quiet backing in the shadows, his company could never have expanded with such unbroken momentum. Yet accepting those unspoken expressions of Chen-gege’s care was entirely different from actively opening his mouth to beg for rescue the second he hit a roadblock. He knew full well that whatever constituted an insurmountable crisis for him was likely nothing more than a casual, wrist-flick exercise for Chen-gege to resolve. But everything he did was engineered precisely to prove his worth in front of Chen-gege. If he immediately ran for help the second trouble struck, his entire endeavor would be stripped of its meaning.

Therefore, he was never—absolute, under zero circumstances—going to utter those words.

Sharing the exact same banquet space with Bai Yichen was a uniquely precious milestone for Su Yuanhang—the tangible fruit of a long, grueling climb, and a vital, hard-fought stride toward closing the distance between them. Consequently, he savored every single second of the evening, never once harboring the thought of straying even an inch from Bai Yichen’s side. And indeed, he executed that plan to perfection.

As for the primary networking mandate that supposedly justified attending corporate galas, it was unceremoniously tossed straight out the window. Fortunately, even though he made zero proactive moves to schmooze the crowd, his permanent station locked right beside the young heirs apparent of the Bai and Song conglomerates meant everyone stepping up to offer toasts to Bai Yichen and Song Junchi inevitably paused to exchange pleasantries with him as well. In the span of a single evening, he ended up making a sprawling web of connections—an outcome infinitely superior to charging blindly into the fray himself, sparing his dedicated assistant any risk of a full-blown mental breakdown.

Watching yet another wave of well-wishers retreat, Bai Yichen turned a smiling gaze toward Su Yuanhang: “That President Yang who just left—his firm is a prime candidate for synergistic business ventures with yours. I have his direct private line; I’ll forward it to you later.”

Su Yuanhang lowered his head to sip his wine, offering a muffled, understated acknowledgement.

“I’ve been meaning to drag you to gatherings like this for ages. They do wonders for your company’s networking footprint. Who would’ve thought you’d resist every time? Look—plenty of tangible upsides, right?”

In the past, Bai Yichen had repeatedly nudged Su Yuanhang to join him at such mixers, but those heavy-handed attempts at career-lifting had been flatly rebuffed by Su Yuanhang—a regret that still lingered faintly in Bai Yichen’s mind. Had he caved earlier, Xiao Hang’s corporate trajectory would undoubtedly have accelerated even faster.

Meanwhile, the assistant standing quietly in the background playing wallflower suddenly whipped her eyes wide open. What? He offered before? To bring President Su to events like this?

Yet the sentence destined to deliver an even more violent shock to her heart arrived immediately after. The gentle, refined heartthrob—whom she had just identified as the young master of the Bai Group—tilted his head toward her boss and murmured: “Running into any stubborn bottlenecks on the business front? If so, you can bring them straight to me. No need to stand on ceremony with me. If you’d rather not have me intervene directly, I can always just bounce a few strategies around for you.”

The sheer tenderness and dripping pampering wrapped in that tone made the poor assistant’s heart flutter violently. Just what kind of cosmic relationship binds her boss to the young master of the Bai Group?!

Apparently deciding the assistant hadn’t ingested enough chemical trauma for one evening, Song Junchi—who had been silently gnashing his teeth at the sight of that surname-Su pest exchanging sweet nothings with Yichen—refused to remain left out of the spotlight. Muscle-flexing with a toxic blend of half-baked malice and performative chivalry right in front of Yichen, he piped up: “That’s right. If any thorny issues pop up, feel free to toss them your Song-ge’s way, too. We go way back, after all.”

Beneath the surface, Song Junchi despised Su Yuanhang with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but this exact persona of acting as Su Yuanhang’s doting protector in front of Bai Yichen was a performance he had rehearsed since childhood. Even Bai Yichen had never once detected a single flaw in his delivery, let alone an oblivious outsider like the assistant. The poor girl reached out in a daze to clutch at her chest, feeling as though she had accidentally front-row-seated herself into a high-budget romance drama—with the sole twist that the breathtaking, ethereal female lead had been swapped out for her boss, whose beauty transcended mortal gender lines.

In stark contrast to the assistant’s flooding shoujo-manga daydreams, Su Yuanhang’s internal landscape remained entirely unburdened by pink fluff. The moment Song Junchi tossed out his honeyed offer of “assistance,” Su Yuanhang instantly decoded the toxic malice lurking beneath the surface and slapped down an immediate, unhesitating rejection. As for Chen-gege’s proposal? Su Yuanhang felt the tips of his ears burn with an uncontrollable, traitorous flush. He offered a slight shake of his head, followed by a tentative nod, before finally murmuring: “There are indeed a few thorny matters I’ve been wrestling with. If Chen-gege wouldn’t mind taking a look over them for me, that would be amazing.”

Hearing that, Bai Yichen immediately and enthusiastically mapped out a schedule: “I’m generally free most nights after eight o’clock. Whenever you run into a puzzle, feel free to swing by at that hour.”

Su Yuanhang beamed back a brilliant, bashful smile: “Mhm, alright.”

That sequence of developments nearly caused Song Junchi to spontaneously combust from sheer rage. Insidious—absolute, unadulterated treachery!

Just as Song Junchi scrambled in panic to execute damage control by wearing a thick enough face to chime in: “Yichen, actually, I’ve got a few things I’ve been struggling to make a call on too…”—over in a quiet corner of the banquet hall, a slender, delicate hand raised a smartphone, executing a lightning-fast, ultra-discreet click. The motion was so muffled that even individuals strolling past failed to register the sound, let alone the trio completely engrossed in their intense conversation.

Having successfully bagged her shot, the owner of that hand retracted her device, revealing a young, vibrant, strikingly attractive face. Staring down at the image captured on her screen, a sudden wave of ecstatic adrenaline flushed her cheeks a mottled, excited crimson. Realizing the trio remained utterly oblivious to her covert operations, she readjusted her angle, edged slightly closer, and rattled off a rapid-fire series of shutter clicks.

Once she finally accumulated a satisfactory portfolio of framing angles, the chic young woman in the designer cocktail dress pushed aside any remaining hesitation about disrupting the gala. Logging straight into a familiar, muscle-memory-engraved online forum, she furiously tapped out a brand-new thread—[EARTH-SHATTERING DISCOVERY! The legendary A-U F3 from back in the day are STILL together?! PICTURES PROVE EVERYTHING!!]

The glamorous beauty was a proud alumnus of A University who had graduated several years prior, having once served as a loyal foot soldier within that infamous campus secret society. Post-graduation, her elite educational pedigree and razor-sharp execution allowed her to rapidly rise through the ranks as a trusted confidante to her company’s CEO. Consequently, when her boss found himself lacking a female companion for this high-profile gala, he had naturally dragged her along as his plus-one.

A short while ago, her CEO had run into an old acquaintance and wandered off into an extended session of mutual reminiscing, leaving her free to roam the hall. Bored out of her mind, she had casually scanned the room—only to spot three towering hunks standing together like twin beacons of magnesium light. To her utter disbelief, upon closer inspection, she realized the trio of distinctively styled heartthrobs looked astonishingly, unmistakably familiar. That realization birthed the very thread currently scorching the internet.