When Yan Jin entered his bedroom, he found himself in pitch-black darkness, which surprised him.
He wasn’t sure why his bedroom did not have a single light switch that was on.
Could it be that he had switched them off when he left?
However, Yan Jin wasn’t bothered with such small matters, he switched on the ceiling chandelier after he entered.
The scene before him was truly one of a kind.
The gray hamster was squatting on the table, curling himself up into a gray-looking furry ball, with his two little paws continuously rubbing his eyes making that area swollen red. On closer inspection, he could even see crystal-like water droplets on the short white fur that covered his chest.
Fishy?
Yan Jin put aside the things in his hand and quickened his pace towards Xiao Yu.
He watched for a while then shifted the chair closer and sat down, stretching one of his fingers to poke Xiao Yu’s sorrowful-looking back.
Xiao Yu turned around and slapped away Yan Jin’s finger.
Squeak—
What are you looking at, never seen a person (hamster) crying before?
If Yan Jin really heard Xiao Yu’s inner voice, he would have replied – he really hadn’t seen a crying hamster before.
Too bad Yan Jin did not hear that, so he tried to come up with a reason in his heart:
What’s wrong, you… miss home?
That sounded a bit weird.
Xiao Yu turned around and faced his butt toward Yan Jin. The latter continued to poke the hamster relentlessly.
Could it be that you miss your ex-owner?
Yan Jin continued to guess at an answer and came up with ‘he must be missing that tomato’ as a conclusion.
Speaking about the tomato, Xiao Yu suddenly recalled that Yan Jin had used the first tomato to stew that fish. The second one disappeared on that night itself, Xiao Yu was sure that he saw the shadow of that tomato in the tomato soup he had for dinner. However, he wasn’t bothered about it.
It was just a tomato, nothing to be bothered about.
Xiao Yu felt irritated, he just wanted his hamster self to be left alone in peace and quiet.
If he was a normal hamster, he would not have even cared about Yan Jin. But now that he was not just a normal hamster, not only did he not want to interact with Yan Jin, he wanted to stomp him to death.
Something was placed on the table that made a clear tumbling sound.
Then Xiao Yu’s entire body was picked up and was forcefully turned around.
This one won’t disappear anymore.
Yan Jin laughed.
It was a plump red tomato that had few green leaves on the stalk. Not even five centimeters in width, it was small yet adorable.
Xiao Yu wipe his tears away and stretched his paws to touch it.
It was fake, made out of soft clay.
Xiao Yu’s ability to identify any kind of material was close to the pinnacle of perfection. And that ability was developed because he would always subconsciously try and determine the material of any ornament he saw, even if it was a cheapskate fake tomato.
But Xiao Yu was indeed comforted by the uniquely fake, soft clay tomato.
Perhaps this tomato reminded Xiao Yu that those things belonged to the past. The current him was already
dead
; he was no longer a human. Plus, instead of shedding tears and being depressed over it, why not find a way to remind ‘himself’ of Lin Zhou’s ambitious, scheming heart?
After getting rid of the sadness, Xiao Yu’s mind started wandering again.
Yan Jin and Lin Zhou’s point of contact had stopped at a client-designer relationship. According to the conversation log, they did not have any other deeper interactions. Perhaps Lin Zhou only thought that this account belonged to a rich client, and did not know that the person behind this account was the Yan family’s Yan Jin.
The last conversation they had was almost half a year ago; they did not contact each other after the end of that five-set order. It was hard to imagine what would happen in the coming month that would make Lin Zhou suddenly get in touch with Yan Jin. Following that, these two villains would start colluding together as they began their schemes that would last almost eight months.
Yes, after all this while, Xiao Yu finally realized the problem with the time reversal. When he found out about this issue at first, he did not react to it and hence he did not think much about it. But now that his memories were starting to become clearer, he finally recalled that the mystery designer would soon snatch a foreign tycoon’s huge order in the upcoming month.
That order was important because it was not only a private made-to-order jewelry piece but also that the client’s identity was special. Hence, the client not only agreed to a huge remuneration but also a chance to collaborate with an international brand.
Xiao Yu was unsure about the actual amount of remuneration, but he still remembered how much effort he put in so that he could get this order. However, in the end, they failed.
Seeing that Xiao Yu was not crying anymore, Yan Jin was glad that he bought that little thing when he was buying hamster food. With a sigh of relief, he added more tomato-related stuff into his online shopping cart.
Moments later, when Xiao Yu came back to reality, he found Yan Jin already sitting in front of his computer and had logged into his QQ account.
Xiao Yu’s entire hamster body perked up as he quickly took a seat in front of the table, staring straight into the screen worriedly. He was worried that Yan Jin would find out that he had logged into his account.
Although he was sure that he had already deleted all trace of evidence, when a person did something wrong, they would eventually feel worried of becoming exposed.
Thankfully, Yan Jin was smoothly clicking away with the mouse. He did not seem to have noticed anything abnormal.
Relieved, Xiao Yu continued to stare at the screen. Then, he surprisingly found out that Lin Zhou had sent a message to Yan Jin.
Lin Zhou. Actually. Sent. Yan Jin. a message!
At this crucial point in time, a conversation after six months!
Xiao Yu’s entire hamster body was almost sticking to the screen as he stared, fixated on Yan Jin’s draft content, not moving a single inch away.
Fishy, I can’t see the screen with you doing that.
Yan Jin helplessly released the keyboard and tried to pluck Xiao Yu off the screen, but he would not budge.
Instead, with that tug, he managed to pluck Xiao Yu’s paws off the screen but in the next moment, the soft and slippery fur slipped off his hand and the whole gray fur ball remained still as he blocked the front of the screen.
Sensing Yan Jin’s touch, Xiao Yu turned his head around and stared at him with his black, glistening eyes together with his little paws rubbing together in front of him – it almost drove Chairman Yan to death from his cuteness.
Yan Jin reached his hand out for that faraway tomato and nudged it on Xiao Yu’s waist.
Take this and play with it for a short while, okay?
Yan Jin used an attitude that was meant for coaxing a child with a soft and gentle voice, persuading Xiao Yu to move away from the screen.
Xiao Yu’s mind went completely blank, unsure of what to do next. However, he ended up obediently taking that soft clay tomato from Yan Jin’s hand and walked to a spot slightly further away from the screen. He laid his entire hamster body flat on top of that tomato.
His inner heart could only be described as ‘unfolding on a magnificent scale’.
Lin Zhou really did contact Yan Jin. He knew that this was Yan Jin’s personal account. And he had clearly made his intention clear that he wanted to switch over to YL!
Witnessing words like, ‘getting suppressed in SI’, ‘talent not recognized’ and ‘SI is already corrupted from within, there’s no room for advancement’, Xiao Yu truly felt disgusted from the bottom of his heart.
He really did not understand what SI had done that was so wrong to Lin Zhou. And even more so, what had he, Xiao Yu, done wrong to him?
Lin Zhou claimed credit for his works and flaunted talent that was not even his to begin with, in front of Yan Jin. He even proclaimed that his efforts were not getting recognized.
Xiao Yu felt that he had reacquainted himself with Lin Zhou again – he had never ever seen someone who was so shameless.
But what made Xiao Yu confused was not Lin Zhou’s shameless act. It was Yan Jin’s answer.
Lin Zhou wanting to job-hop was not surprising, even if it was saddening, Xiao Yu was willing to accept the fact that Lin Zhou had betrayed them. Yet what he absolutely did not expect was that Yan Jin would react that way –
An attitude of complete rejection.
Lin Zhou sent an email to Yan Jin at first and then expressed his admiration towards YL and his loss of hope to Yan Jin through the online platform. Yan Jin also drafted a giant reply to Lin Zhou.
Without any politeness, Yan Jin’s reply was stern and unthoughtful. He first discussed Lin Zhou’s work (which was in fact, Xiao Yu’s work) and told him what YL’s recruitment standards were. YL would never reject anyone with potential but Yan Jin’s recruitment standards consisted of much more than that. For a person like Lin Zhou, who deemed his loss of hope as a company problem and planned to job-hop with his company’s confidential information, regardless of whether YL wanted him or not, Yan Jin himself would not respect him at all.
If one wanted to job-hop over, sure, go by the proper procedures. If he passed, then even if Yan Jin was the chairperson, he would still treat him fairly. But one should never think of getting into the company through contacts, afterall, they did not share any special relationship.
Xiao Yu watched as Yan Jin finished drafting that entire chunk of words and click the send button.
After a short while, Lin Zhou only replied with a single sentence.
I’ve learnt from your advice. I apologize.
At that instance, a subtle and delicate feeling emerged from within Xiao Yu’s chest, it even overshadowed his disgust towards Lin Zhou.
If he really had to say when he knew Yan Jin as a person, that could easily have backtracked to a long time ago. Back to when Yan Jin probably still did not know that he even existed, he already knew about Yan Jin from all kinds of sources.
But being able to truly understand this person, that only happened within these few days.
In the time he spent with Yan Jin these past few days, he began to realize that his assumption of Yan Jin being a bad guy was indeed… questionable.
Even if Xiao Yu was not willing to admit it, the truth was that Yan Jin had defended his own company’s designers and berated him thoroughly. And he could splash tea onto a young lady’s dream of marrying into a rich family. Yan Jin did not even bother with the simplest form of superficiality, how could he have planned such a time-consuming scheme in secret?
The competition strategies in the industry had no clear lines; the winners had the last word. After so many years of being a designer, Xiao Yu had numerous works stolen or plagiarized before, which was why he knew that rule. Under the dignified appearance of those imitators, they were all despicable and cowardly souls.
Yan Jin was on the extreme end.
Yan Jin was nasty, fickle, and arrogant.
He had a perfect background and ability which was why he did not have to purposefully create another encouraging, good-natured entrepreneur’s image. He was Yan Jin, just Yan Jin. As the chairperson of Yan enterprise, he gave his all. As Yan Jin, he was thoroughly arrogant, and behind his reckless and free-willed behavior was a strong and mature heart.
Even putting all this aside, now that Yan Jin had directly rejected Lin Zhou’s request to job-hop, that was solid evidence that Yan Jin was not involved in the plagiarizing incident.
