"You'd have to be able to buy airplanes and cannons first," Yang Ce said sourly. "Are you buying or not?"

"Buying, buying—let's go, let's go!" Delighted, Jing Yu linked her arm through Yang Ce's and excitedly pulled him forward. Whether by design or accident, her soft breast pressed right against his arm, rubbing back and forth and sending a tingling itch through Yang Ce. He thought to himself, Damn, is this little fox spirit trying to seduce me again?

"What are you doing? Let go!" Yang Ce said, though in his heart he was actually a little reluctant. After all, who wouldn't want to take such advantage?

As the two of them tugged back and forth, they heard someone ahead call Jing Yu's name: "Xiaolu!"

Jing Yu looked up and saw Xiaoru, a colleague from the company, watching Yang Ce and her with a thoroughly gossipy look. "Xiaolu, ha, I finally caught you in the act! Hehe. I was wondering why you wouldn't go shopping with me on your day off—turns out you came to meet your boyfriend!"

Jing Yu was a little exasperated, but there was no way to explain. A few days ago she had caught a cold and had meant to sleep in and rest on her day off, but yesterday after taking some medicine the illness had cleared up, so she had come out for a stroll. She had never expected to be caught red-handed by her colleague Xiaoru.

"Tsk, don't you have a boyfriend too? What, instead of shopping with him, you come here to envy me?" Jing Yu retorted.

"Him? You know as well as I do—he's busy to death every day." Xiaoru shook her head. "Overtime all the time, and the boss won't even give him leave."

"But he earns a lot, doesn't he? Otherwise, on that tiny salary of yours, could you afford a V?" Jing Yu said with a grin, pointing at the bag Xiaoru was carrying.

Xiaoru smiled, clearly quite satisfied with her boyfriend. Then she looked at Yang Ce beside Jing Yu and felt a little puzzled. Wasn't Jing Yu's boyfriend supposed to be some big boss? Why was he a young fellow who looked about Jing Yu's age?

"Xiaolu, aren't you going to introduce us?" Xiaoru pointed at Yang Ce.

Jing Yu glanced at Yang Ce out of the corner of her eye, saw that he looked indifferent, and whispered, "Play along with me."

"Why should I?" Yang Ce shot back.

"Hmph. There's still one very important thing I haven't told you. If you don't want to hear it, forget it." Jing Yu threatened in a low voice. "But don't blame me if your romance fails."

Hm? There was more? Yang Ce was somewhat skeptical, but Jing Yu did seem clever as a little imp. Could there really be some caution she had not yet told him? Yang Ce did not dare take too big a risk. After all, Zhao Ying occupied a large place in his heart, and if this confession failed too, it would only be even harder afterward. So, weighing the pros and cons, he had no choice but to say, "Do whatever you want. Just don't go too far."

A trace of a smile appeared in Jing Yu's eyes. She tightened her grip on Yang Ce's arm and said, "Xiaoru, this is my boyfriend, Yang Ce."

"Hello, my name's Luan Xiaoru." Xiaoru nodded at Yang Ce with a smile. "I'm your Xiaolu's good sister, you know. You'd better treat us to lunch at noon!"

Since Yang Ce had agreed to play along with Jing Yu, he went with it and nodded with a smile. "Sure, no problem."

"Ha, Xiaolu, your boyfriend is really straightforward." Luan Xiaoru laughed. "Yang Ce, is it? I wonder where you work?"

Luan Xiaoru was dying to know whether the rumors at the company were true, so she began probing into Yang Ce's background.

"Heh heh, 'work' is putting it a bit grand. I'm just a student, at the same school as Xiaolu." Yang Ce said offhandedly. "Xiaolu's just working a bit during the holiday too."

"Oh, so you're a top student!" Luan Xiaoru was briefly taken aback, then her expression did not change as she spoke. In her heart, though, she wondered: could the rumors at the company all be lies? Had Jing Yu made them up herself?

Although Luan Xiaoru and Jing Yu were on very good terms, she could not deny that when Jing Yu had first arrived at the company, she had deliberately approached her partly because she had heard that Jing Yu's boyfriend was good friends with Director Hou at the company, and she had wanted to use that connection to see whether there was any hope of a promotion or a raise.

So now she could not help feeling a little disappointed. It seemed the rumors were just rumors after all, not to be taken seriously. She simply could not understand why President Hou was so good to Jing Yu—could it be that he coveted her beauty?

It could not be denied that Jing Yu stood out at the company. At first there had been no shortage of male colleagues pursuing her, but once word got around that her boyfriend was a friend of President Hou, they had all backed off one after another.

Who would want to get fired over something like that? She had heard that bosses these days were all petty. There was a story online about an employee who stole vegetables from his boss's QQ farm and got chewed out for it. So nobody dared to touch that kind of trouble, lest they accidentally bring disaster down on themselves.

But Luan Xiaoru was not the type to judge people by their status. Even after learning that Jing Yu's boyfriend was no big boss, she did not turn noticeably cold toward her, and her earlier assumptions were hardly unreasonable—anyone would have thought the same. Her friendship with Jing Yu was not built on that alone anyway; it was simply that their desks were next to each other and they were always together.

Yang Ce patiently accompanied Jing Yu and Luan Xiaoru through every shop on the commercial street. What annoyed him most was that Jing Yu kept trying things on and on—sometimes she would take a garment off, and a little later want to try it on all over again.

Yang Ce was quietly furious. It's not your money anyway—when someone else is footing the bill, just buy the lot and try them on at home to your heart's content. What's with all this dawdling? In the end Jing Yu bought no more than four or five pieces, while Luan Xiaoru bought a great many, a dozen or more. This time Luan Xiaoru had truly confirmed her own theory: Yang Ce was just an ordinary university student, not any kind of big boss.

"Xiaolu, it's noon. Aren't you two going to arrange something for lunch?" Luan Xiaoru asked with a grin once the shopping was done. She was not trying to fleece Yang Puqi; it was simply that she and Jing Yu were close, and having her boyfriend treat them was only natural. As for what they ate, she did not much care.

"Of course, Xiaoru. What do you want to eat? Don't be polite with him." Jing Yu shot Yang Puqi a glance and had to laugh inwardly. This guy was razor-sharp when it came to business—how did he turn into such a fool the moment feelings were involved? There he was trailing after her like a lackey. Heh, so even Jing Yu had a day like this! If Sister Xinyao ever found out, she would be insufferably smug.

"Heh, I want to go to Heaven on Earth for seafood," Luan Xiaoru said with a smile. "How about it? Works for you?"

"Xiaoru, you really do dare to ask." Jing Yu knew Yang Juehuan's finances well enough, so she was not worried. "Then let's go."

"I was only joking." Seeing Jing Yu take her seriously, Luan Xiaoru quickly waved her hand. "Any restaurant around here will do."

Luan Xiaoru had been to Heaven on Earth only twice: once when she met her boyfriend's parents, and once for the company's New Year dinner, when a banquet had been booked there. Jing Yu had not yet joined the company at that time, though.

Luan Xiaoru did not know how much the company had spent on that banquet, but she had heard that President Hou was quite close to the owner of Heaven on Earth. As for the time she met her boyfriend's parents, her boyfriend had spent over ten thousand yuan.

"It's fine, Xiaoru," Jing Yu said with a wave of her hand. "No need to save money for him."