That afternoon, Qian Fei arrived at Li Yifei's company with the documents. The receptionist led her to the conference room. After a while, someone entered, and Qian Fei turned to see it was Li Yifei.
Li Yifei sat down across from her, staring straight at her, and asked, "Did you bring the documents?"
Qian Fei handed him the folder.
Li Yifei lowered his head to flip through the folder. After a while, still without looking up, he suddenly asked, "Still angry?" Then he raised his head, arched an eyebrow at Qian Fei, and said, "You hold a grudge longer than I do!"
Just then, someone else pushed open the conference room door—it was Zhao De.
Qian Fei looked at Li Yifei and said earnestly, "Manager Li, it's work hours now. Let's keep things professional."
Zhao De sat down with a confused expression, glancing between Li Yifei and Qian Fei before muttering, "What's going on? Feifei, relax. Even though Yifei passed the sponsor exam, got promoted, and became the head of the third department, our friendship from playing Landlord together won't change. No need to be so formal!"
He rambled on emotionally, but no one paid him any attention...
Li Yifei narrowed his eyes at Qian Fei with a dark expression, then lowered his head to flip through the documents again. "These are all photocopies. Where are the originals?"
Qian Fei replied, "The originals are at our company. If we're submitting the materials to the securities bureau tomorrow morning, I'll bring them directly then."
Li Yifei closed the folder, looked up, and said, "I need you to bring the originals now."
Qian Fei stared at him unblinkingly. "Is that necessary? The originals and photocopies have identical content."
Li Yifei said, "I'm certain I need the originals now."
Qian Fei glared at him without speaking.
Zhao De, overwhelmed by the strange tension between the two, couldn't keep up. "What's wrong with you two? Feels like you're picking fights with each other?"
Li Yifei and Qian Fei both glared at him simultaneously.
Qian Fei took a deep breath and stood up. "Fine, Manager Li. I'll go back to the company to fetch the originals now. Also, Manager Li, if there are any other documents you need, please tell me all at once. I don’t want to come back only for you to realize you need something else."
Li Yifei tapped his fingers lightly on the table. "Bring the originals first, then we'll see."
Qian Fei took another deep breath, pushed back her chair, turned, and left the conference room.
Li Yifei watched her walk away through the glass wall, then rubbed his forehead in frustration, frowning as he closed his eyes and let out a muffled sigh.
He was truly beyond saving. In the past, he would have found this kind of situation satisfying and vindictive when dealing with other girls. But now, with Qian Fei, why did he feel so annoyed and dejected?
Beside him, Zhao De nudged him. "Hey, Manager Li, are you out of your mind? Why are you deliberately making things hard for our Feifei?"
Li Yifei looked up. "You think I'm deliberately making things hard for her?"
Zhao De nodded. "Giving her that look and making her go back for the originals—isn't that deliberately making things hard?"
Li Yifei spread his hands. "Don’t you think the originals we’re submitting to the securities bureau tomorrow should be brought here this afternoon to have the seam stamps added?"
Zhao De paused. Now that he mentioned it, Qian Fei had indeed overlooked that part of the work.
"But couldn’t you have said it in a nicer way?" Zhao De said weakly.
Li Yifei glared at him. "She told me to keep things professional. Didn’t you hear that?"
Zhao De glared back. "And she’s told you to drop dead plenty of times too. Why haven’t you done that yet!"
●︶3︶●Qian Fei was seething with anger the entire way back. In her mind, she cursed Li Yifei over and over, from his uncle all the way down to his ancestors' graves.
When she returned to the company, she angrily retrieved the original documents. Just before leaving, she noticed other colleagues handling official seals.
She immediately smacked her forehead.
How careless of her! She had been so distracted these past two days that she had completely forgotten to affix the seam-sealing stamp to the documents.
With this realization, she began to feel that her earlier curses directed at Li Yifei might have been too harsh. She should have dialed it back by half—sparing his ancestors' graves and only cursing his uncle.
She found Xiao Yuan to handle the sealing process, stamped the documents with her company's seam-sealing stamp, and then hurried back to Li Yifei's office.
Li Yifei and she sat across from each other in the conference room, staring daggers, while Zhao De took the documents out to get them stamped.
Crossing his arms, Li Yifei spoke first, "Feeling particularly wronged, aren't you?"
Qian Fei replied as calmly as possible, "At first, yes. But it really was my oversight."
Li Yifei paused before saying, "I wasn't talking about today's document issue."
Qian Fei frowned. "Manager Li, I believe we've already discussed keeping things strictly professional during work hours."
Li Yifei glanced at his watch. "It's 5:10—already off the clock." He lowered his hand, interlacing his fingers and tapping them lightly on the table. "It's been long enough. Time to let go of the anger, don't you think?"
Qian Fei gathered her things and stood up. "Since it's after hours, I'll be leaving. Zhao De can take the documents to the regulatory bureau tomorrow."
With that, she turned and walked out of the conference room.
She heard footsteps behind her. Li Yifei had actually followed her out.
He trailed her all the way to the elevator.
Qian Fei ignored him.
The elevator arrived, and she stepped inside.
Li Yifei followed her in.
They stood side by side in silence. Staring straight ahead, Li Yifei said in a low voice, "Can we stop this? Any more and it'll damage our relationship."
Qian Fei also stared straight ahead, saying nothing.
Only after exiting the elevator and the building, when no one else was around, did Qian Fei stop, turn, look up at Li Yifei, and say deliberately, "Li Yifei, why don't you get it? Do you think when I said we should just be friends, I was joking? Or do you think I'm throwing a tantrum or playing hard to get? Could you stop being so self-centered for once? Could you try to genuinely respect someone else's perspective?" She paused to catch her breath, her voice filled with resignation. "Li Yifei, let me say this clearly one more time—I'm not playing games. I meant what I said. We're not right for each other."
With that, she turned and walked away, leaving Li Yifei standing there, stunned.
She was actually serious about this!
●︶3︶●
Li Yifei was starting to feel uneasy.
Based on his understanding of Qian Fei, she was someone with an incredibly good temper and a soft heart. She hated conflicts and always tried her best to consider others' feelings when speaking or acting, ensuring her words never caused discomfort. Given her overly accommodating nature, he never imagined she could actually steel herself to stand firm against him.
Had he really pushed a rabbit into a corner?He began to reflect on himself. Had he been too confident before? He thought that although Qian Fei hadn’t explicitly defined their relationship, she absolutely, without a doubt, had feelings for him. So, as usual, he indulged his temper and emotions.
Based on their past interactions, whenever he was upset, she would eagerly try to cheer him up—apologizing with a smile, cracking jokes, or cooking delicious food. She had always indulged his temper so much that it never even crossed his mind that one day she would look at him with absolute resolve and say, "Li Yifei, I’m serious. We’re not right for each other."
He once heard a female childhood friend say something: a woman’s tolerance for a man is inversely proportional to how much she loves him. The more she loves, the less she can tolerate flaws. If you’re not her boyfriend, she can calmly stand by and watch you cheat, talk nonsense, or play around with other women, even laughing at the spectacle. But once you become her boyfriend, if she can still stand by and watch you do those things with a smile, it means she doesn’t love you at all. Otherwise, she’d either cut you off and take care of you for the rest of your life, or sever ties with you completely and never look back.
Back then, he hadn’t taken those words seriously. But now, thinking about it, it felt like those words were describing him and Qian Fei perfectly.
In the past, he had zero tolerance for girls who threw tantrums or acted spoiled—they could go cool off wherever they pleased, he wouldn’t indulge them. While they might be heartbroken, he remained completely unaffected.
But this time, after the fight with Qian Fei, he felt genuinely drained.
He spent three days cooling off and waiting—waiting for Qian Fei to relapse into her "Mother Teresa" mode, like before, and come to him with her good-natured self to talk things out. He had even decided he wouldn’t make things difficult for her. Just one plate of her stir-fried eggplant strips, and he’d make up with her.
But three days passed, and Qian Fei showed no signs of relenting.
For the first time, he realized that once this "Mother Teresa" got angry, her temper was no joke.
Over those three days, he went from irritation on the first day, to anxiety on the second, to utter desolation on the third. By the fourth day, he couldn’t take it anymore. He came to the grim realization that he might be doomed to be at this woman’s mercy for the rest of his life.
His resolve of "not indulging her" finally crumbled on the fourth day, unable to withstand his longing for her.
On the fourth day, to salvage some dignity, he used the excuse of needing her to bring documents to the office and sent her a text: "Still mad?"
Those four words might have meant nothing to others, but for him, they could be considered a milestone in his life—he had never bowed his head like this to a woman before.
Just as he was begrudgingly lamenting his descent into spinelessness, Qian Fei actually told him she wasn’t throwing a tantrum—she was genuinely serious.
He found this outcome hard to accept. Psychologically and pride-wise, it felt like a brutal stab wound.
After the initial sting to his ego and indignation, he tried to imagine: if he were to be a man of principle and dignity, and from now on, just be friends with Qian Fei as she suggested—what would happen?
The more he thought about it, the more a dull ache settled in his chest.
He decided there was no way he could just let her have the last word. He couldn’t be the only one suffering from heartache.
●︶3︶●Everyone at Li Yifei's company had noticed that the rather pretty girl from their partner company had been showing up with increasing frequency lately.
The receptionist gossiped with some employees from the project department: "That girl in the conference room right now has been coming almost every day recently, always saying she's delivering documents to Director Li. Do you think she has a crush on our Director Li?"
Female employee #1 from the project department said: "I'd say there's an 80% chance! Our Director Li is young and accomplished—not only is he a sponsor representative, but I heard he also runs his own company on the side. Plus, he's ridiculously handsome. If I didn't know my place, I'd like him too!"
Female employee #2 from the project department remarked: "Even if she likes him, she should show some restraint. Isn't she being way too obvious about it?"
Male employee #1 from the project department teased: "Are you just jealous that she's prettier and has a better figure than you?"
Female employee #2 shot back: "What? Do you have a thing for her? If you do, stop pretending and just go for it!"
Male employee #1 from the project department grinned: "You know what? I kinda do! I'll ask for her business card when she comes out of the conference room!"
Zhao De, slumped over his desk, weakly shouted at the group of bored colleagues: "Alright, break it up! What's wrong with your eyes? Can't you see it's actually our Director Li finding excuses to torment that poor girl?"
●︶3︶●
Qian Fei felt like she was going crazy.
Ever since that day in the elevator when she had made things clear with Li Yifei, she felt he had started abusing his authority to retaliate against her.
Every day, he found some excuse—whether it was a missing document or some lacking certification—always managing to get their supervisor to point at her head and assign her to make endless trips to their partner company to deliver materials.
And each time she delivered the materials, it wasn't over yet. Li Yifei would make her sit in the conference room and go through the documents page by page with him, verifying everything down to the full-width and half-width punctuation marks, before finally letting her leave.
This routine lasted for three days. During that time, Qian Fei noticed that all the female employees at Li Yifei's company were giving her increasingly strange looks. Finally, in a cliché TV drama-like moment, while using the restroom, she overheard two female colleagues chatting in the other stalls and finally understood the meaning behind those odd glances.
Turns out, they were gossiping about how she had a crush on Li Yifei.
Their conversation also included other male colleagues' comments about her.
It ended with: "Do you think what Zhao De said is true? That our Director Li is deliberately tormenting that girl?"
Then Qian Fei heard the two women wash their hands and leave the restroom.
She rubbed her numb legs as she stood up, gritting her teeth and deciding that if her supervisor sent her to deliver documents again tomorrow, she would yell, "Oh no! My blood sugar's dropping!" and then dramatically faint on the spot. Whatever happened next, she didn't care—she was going through with it!
●︶3︶●
Ever since that day in the elevator when Qian Fei had said she was serious, Li Yifei found himself completely unable to reach her.
He texted her—no reply.
He called her—no answer.
He went to her apartment at Shoucheng International—she wouldn't open the door.
In a last-ditch effort, he decided to find the spare key and let himself in. He crouched down to check under the doormat, but instead of a key, he found a note that read: "Moved. Goodbye."
Li Yifei was furious. He refused to believe he couldn't make his presence known.After much deliberation, he came up with a plan—to find excuses for Qian Fei to deliver documents.
He communicated directly with her supervisor, who then pressured her to "cooperate well with General Manager Li from the partner company for the time being."
Every day, he waited for her arrival with secret glee, and whenever she came, he would detain her, nitpicking even the punctuation marks as if looking for faults. Several times, he saw her on the verge of losing her temper, but each time, she managed to hold back at the last moment.
Every time he saw her like this, he felt a little disappointed.
When they could argue, he accused her of being overly sensitive. Now, she wouldn’t even argue with him anymore.
Zhao De told him that female employees in the company had started spreading rumors, saying she kept finding excuses to visit the company because she had taken a liking to him.
He asked Zhao De, "And you just listened to that? Didn’t you defend her?"
Zhao De replied, "I did! I said it wasn’t Feifei who liked you, but you who couldn’t stand her and were deliberately giving her a hard time!"
He almost wanted to kneel before Zhao De for being such an idiot.
Irritated, he asked, "Why bother with all this nonsense? Couldn’t you just tell them directly that I’m the one who likes her?"
Zhao De froze for a moment before widening his eyes and exclaiming, "Huh? Really? You like little Feifei too?"
Li Yifei was genuinely annoyed this time: "Who else likes her? Is it you?"
Zhao De shook his head while holding his face. "I was too late! It’s someone from Project Team Two—he asked for little Feifei’s business card yesterday!"
Li Yifei glared at Zhao De, gnashing his teeth as he made a firm decision in his heart.
Starting tomorrow, he would change his approach to making his presence known.
He couldn’t let her come to their company anymore—he would go to hers instead!
Author’s Note:
To put it bluntly, Li Yifei still hasn’t learned how to date properly...
By the way, I’ve sent out points for all previous comments! Feel free to leave more comments and ask for points—I’ll send them out as long as the comments are at least 25 characters long!
I thought of a cheesy plot for Da Jun’s side story, and I’m actually quite fond of it. Haha, would you guys like to read it?
Thank you to all the beauties who still threw grenades and mines even during the days without updates!!!! Love you all!!!!!! Thank you, bowing!
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