The Epoch of Miyu

The next day, Xu Miyu put on her most formal and presentable professional suit and accompanied Ji Feng to the high-end summit.

Before the event, she had felt somewhat excited because Ji Feng had mentioned that the scale of this conference was grand, and the attendees were all either wealthy or influential figures—either coming from resourceful families or having achieved significant success in their respective fields through their own efforts. Such occasions were rare, presenting a valuable opportunity for her to broaden her horizons and expand her social connections.

However, once she entered the venue, Xu Miyu's excitement turned into nervousness, even a touch of stage fright.

The hall was filled with elites, all dressed in custom-made attire and exuding an air of sophistication. Many people approached Ji Feng to greet him, and the topics they discussed during their cheerful conversations were completely incomprehensible to Xu Miyu. Acquisitions, IPOs, registration-based systems, selected tiers, stocks, funds, northbound capital… Watching them engage in lively discussions and continuously share their insights, Xu Miyu felt utterly insignificant at that moment.

She quietly surveyed the opulent, palace-like summit venue, resplendent and magnificent. This was a place she could never have entered on her own merit; it was a summit she could never have attended solely through her own abilities.

Standing in the palace-like venue, she confirmed her own insignificance and acknowledged that without Ji Feng's influence, she wouldn't even be able to touch the fringes of such high-end circles.

What unsettled her the most was that such summits were commonplace for Ji Feng and the people gathered around him, who were discussing topics she couldn't understand.

For her, however, attending such a summit felt like an overreach, even an act of social climbing—further proof of the vast gap between her and Ji Feng.

Xu Miyu clenched her fists, suppressing the sense of being out of place as if she had wandered into the wrong conference hall, and forced herself to blend into this palatial environment.

She overheard the talented individuals chatting with Ji Feng shift from discussing domestic and international economic insights to lighter personal topics. As the conversation progressed, they teased Ji Feng: "Brother Ji, we've all found partners now. The next gathering will be one where we each bring a companion. What about you? Still holding onto your solitary and aloof bachelor status?"

Ji Feng swiftly and subtly glanced at Xu Miyu, making her heart skip a beat.

But Ji Feng only smiled and said nothing.

Xu Miyu lowered her gaze.

Someone else continued teasing Ji Feng: "Brother Ji, you've stayed single all this time. Aren't you planning to lower your standards a bit? Be careful—sticking to your strict criteria might leave you alone forever."

Ji Feng smirked lightly and told them to stop making a fuss. Then, he handed his wine glass to Xu Miyu and told her he was going to the restroom.

As Xu Miyu took the glass from Ji Feng, she also bore the scrutinizing gazes directed at her by the others.

"May I ask who you are?" someone who had arrived later asked, having missed Ji Feng's initial introduction of her to the group.

But even those who had been there earlier, despite having heard Ji Feng's introduction, still seemed uncertain about her identity—

"Ah, I heard Brother Ji introduce you earlier, but I must have missed it. Are you Brother Ji's new assistant?"

For a moment, Xu Miyu felt a pang of sadness. Among these dazzling individuals, she seemed to leave no definite impression or trace.

She smiled, her bright expression belying the sigh in her heart. "Yes, I am President Ji's new assistant. My name is Xu Miyu."Her smile did catch the attention of others, and taking advantage of Ji Feng's absence, they engaged in some casual conversation with her.

As the conversation flowed, the initial stiffness and unease gradually faded. Xu Miyu skillfully steered the topic toward the others: "I overheard you all mentioning earlier that our CEO Ji has exceptionally high standards for a partner? Just how high are those standards?" She adopted the demeanor of a subordinate eagerly gossiping about her boss while he was away.

Someone immediately chimed in with a laugh: "If your boss's standards for a partner claim to be second in the world, then no other standards dare call themselves first. That’s how high they are."

Xu Miyu couldn’t help but ask further, her curiosity piqued: "Are they really that high?"

A woman’s display of curiosity often stirs a man’s desire to explain, as if satisfying her inquiries is a way to showcase his own wisdom and strength.

So, someone promptly elaborated on Xu Miyu’s question: "First and foremost, she must be young, beautiful, intelligent, and kind, with no blemishes in her life’s trajectory."

After this person finished, another added: "She also needs to come from a suitable family background and have an impressive educational pedigree."

Yet another quickly supplemented: "She must possess talent, capability, and understand etiquette and social grace."

Xu Miyu listened with her mouth slightly agape. With each criterion mentioned, her heart sank a little deeper. By the time they were done, her heart had plummeted to the depths of an abyss, beyond retrieval.

She didn’t meet a single one of these standards.

She was neither young nor beautiful, and her life’s record was marred by the flaw of a divorce.

Family background? Not only did she lack such a thing, but she also came from a dysfunctional and troubled family.

Education? She was merely a graduate from a third-rate university.

Capability? After graduation, she had spent six years as a homemaker.

As for talent, excellence, social grace, and etiquette—she had none of these.

Suppressing the suffocating heaviness in her chest, she forced a casual smile and asked: "It sounds even stricter than the criteria for selecting an imperial consort. Is CEO Ji joking? He wouldn’t actually take these conditions seriously as his standards for a partner, would he?"

But Ji Feng’s friend replied earnestly: "It does indeed resemble the selection of an imperial consort. But as someone who works closely with CEO Ji as his assistant, when have you ever seen him joke? He truly does adhere to these standards seriously. Otherwise, look at him—to this day, there’s not a trace of a woman by his side, and he’s remained single all this time. He’d rather be alone than settle for less. Unless he meets someone who fits his criteria, he’d prefer to stay single."

Listening to these words, Xu Miyu’s heartbeat grew heavier with each passing moment.

She thought to herself, isn’t she the woman currently by Ji Feng’s side? Yet no one found it the least bit surprising. It could only mean that, in their eyes, they never once connected her to the possibility of being Ji Feng’s choice.

In their eyes, she simply couldn’t be Ji Feng’s choice, so there was no need for any surprise.

Xu Miyu pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm her frantic heartbeat, and wondered: What about Ji Feng himself? She didn’t meet a single one of his standards. So, in his heart, was she a choice he made willingly, or was she a reluctant compromise to the standards he had set for himself?

On the way back from the summit, Xu Miyu spoke very little.

Ji Feng took her hand and asked her what was wrong, but she was too distracted to hear him. Thinking that she might be tired from the mental strain of attending such a high-end summit for the first time, he didn’t press her further.Returning to the apartment, Ji Feng entered the bedroom after his shower and found Xu Miyu lying on her side facing away from the door, as if she had accidentally fallen asleep waiting for him.

Turning off the lights, he lay down beside her, then removed the towel wrapped around his waist before reaching through the darkness to fumble with the ties of her nightgown.

The ties came undone in a few quick motions, and his hand slipped inside through the open collar.

Beneath his palm, her skin was smooth and fair everywhere.

He wrapped an arm around Xu Miyu’s shoulder, turning her onto her back.

Impatiently, he folded her into position, eager to press forward, but she abruptly blocked his path.

With her hands clasped together over herself, she whispered softly, “Let’s just sleep…”

In the darkness, his breathing slightly uneven and his voice hoarse, he replied, “Move your hands away, and we can sleep right away…”

As he spoke, he tried to pull her hands aside. But the moment he moved them, she immediately brought them back to shield herself.

Realizing she had just uttered a sentence with a double meaning, she quickly clarified, “I meant we should really sleep, not do that…”

Her tone was light and coquettish as she spoke, her eyes shimmering softly in the moonlight, exuding an irresistible allure. Her feigned reluctance was utterly captivating, making Ji Feng even more restless with desire.

She was getting better and better at handling him.

In the darkness, he curled his lips into a smile. Fine, he admitted he was hooked by her little game of playing hard to get—it only heightened his excitement.

He pulled her hands away again, not giving her another chance to withdraw and cover herself.

Then, with patience, he explored gently, waiting until she was comfortable before pressing forward with force.

Xu Miyu let out a low, involuntary sound in the darkness.

At first, she could still think clearly, but soon she could no longer withstand his movements.

Her mind gradually drifted away from her body, while her body clamored with pleasure.

At the peak, she was so overwhelmed that tears even welled in the corners of her eyes.

Afterward, she hugged herself tightly and slowly turned over, turning her back to Ji Feng. She felt frustrated with herself—her mind hadn’t wanted it, yet in the end… She thought her body was too weak-willed. A simmering anger rose within her, which she then directed at Ji Feng.

After a long while, Ji Feng finally sensed that something was wrong.

He turned on the light, turned Xu Miyu’s shoulder toward him, and saw tears at the corners of her eyes. Unlike the physiological tears from her earlier excitement, this time she seemed to be genuinely crying.

He froze in surprise.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Xu Miyu wiped her tears haphazardly and replied with a nasal tone, “It’s nothing.” It was just that, in that moment, she suddenly felt he might not like her as much as she thought—that he was really just fond of the act itself.

Ji Feng frowned as he looked at Xu Miyu, watching as fresh tears streamed from the corners of her eyes she had just wiped.

He began to feel bewildered.

“What’s really going on?” he asked again, his brow furrowed.

Xu Miyu continued to insist it was nothing, reaching out to turn off the light and murmuring, “Let’s sleep.”

Ji Feng turned the light back on, staring intently at Xu Miyu, determined to get an answer about what was wrong.

Xu Miyu reached to turn off the light again. Ji Feng switched it back on, this time with most of his patience gone, asking in confusion, “Miyu, what’s going on with you? Why are you suddenly being so unreasonable?”

A wave of grievance surged in Xu Miyu’s heart. She sat up and accused him, “How am I suddenly being unreasonable? I just said I wanted to sleep, but you insisted on luring me into doing that with you!”Ji Feng froze in place, caught between bewilderment, a mix of amusement and exasperation, confusion, and a hint of embarrassment.

"Are you saying that even though you felt comfortable when we were together just now, it's my fault?"

Xu Miyu also felt tangled up—her mind and body each sulking over their own grievances, each experiencing their own extremes of joy.

"Fine, next time you say you want to sleep, we won't overthink it and just close our eyes to sleep, okay? Now tell me, why were you crying? You haven't gotten tired of me so quickly, have you?" Ji Feng asked teasingly at the end.

The emotion pent up in Xu Miyu's heart finally burst forth: "Why can't I cry today? Is the only thing we can ultimately do or want to do together just that? Can't what I do include crying when I feel like it?"

Ji Feng now felt that Xu Miyu was indeed being inexplicable today. Not wanting to argue with her, he replied seriously, "Alright, alright, cry if you need to. Next time, unless you initiate wanting to do it, I won't take the initiative again. Is that okay? Does that prove that being with you isn't just about doing that?"

He turned off the light, pulled her down to lie beside him, covered her with a thin blanket, and said, "Alright, go to sleep now."

After a while, he fell asleep.

Listening to Ji Feng's steady, calm breathing, Xu Miyu found herself completely unable to sleep.

Staring at the ceiling in the darkness, she thought sadly, what exactly happened tonight? Where did this truly baffling conflict between them even come from?

She turned to look at Ji Feng beside her on the pillow.

In the dark, his face wasn't clear, but the contours of his forehead and nose were already etched in Xu Miyu's heart.

Gazing at his sleeping face, she spoke to him silently in her mind.

Are you attracted to me just because I was your first woman? Since your first time was with me, does your perfectionist nature create a kind of pathological mindset, making you feel you have to be with this woman from now on?

Xu Miyu turned back to look at the ceiling.

If that were really the reason, it would make her feel deeply embarrassed. Ashamed that perhaps what they shared wasn't normal liking or love, but a pathological relationship—maybe he had a profound, unconscious fixation on his first experience, and because his first time was with her, he felt compelled to like her and be with her.

Xu Miyu stared at the ceiling. She recalled again what those elite talents who knew Ji Feng well had said during the day. According to Ji Feng's extremely high standards for choosing a partner, he was looking for a perfect woman to be with, and to uphold those standards, he'd remained single all this time. Yet she was full of flaws, miles away from perfection.

So was it possible that he was actually with her reluctantly, making many compromises—disapproving of her yet still drawn to her? Especially since he'd never been with a woman before, after experiencing intimacy with her, under the influence of his first-time complex, he might have temporarily compromised his standards and chosen her.And then? After this emotional knot gradually unravels and disappears, will he continue to compromise on those standards? Will he still stay with her, who has so many flaws? In the future, if he meets a perfect girl, will he suddenly come to his senses and leave her without hesitation to run toward that perfect lover?

The more Xu Miyu thought about it, the more sad and panicked she felt, as if the imagined scenarios had already happened.

She hated herself like this—insecure, lacking confidence, overthinking, and being overly sentimental. She detested this version of herself to the core.

Before, after her divorce, she had gradually regained her confidence through work upon re-entering society. So why, since starting a relationship with Ji Feng, had that confidence vanished, turning her into someone she herself despised?

Where had things gone wrong?

Lying in the darkness, listening to Ji Feng’s steady breathing, she stayed awake all night.

The next morning, Xu Miyu got up with dark circles under her eyes.

Ji Feng frowned at her appearance. "Did you not sleep well last night? Then rest at home today. I’ll call Xue Rui over."

Xu Miyu was slightly taken aback by Ji Feng’s frown. For a moment, she couldn’t tell whether he was concerned about her or just wanted her to stay home because she looked miserable.

While helping Ji Feng with his tie, she couldn’t resist asking the question that had been lingering in her mind all night, keeping her awake.

"Will you ever fall for another woman in the future?" she asked, as if casually.

Ji Feng lowered his eyelids and glanced at her. "Why ask that all of a sudden?" How was this question any different from the one before—"Will you still like me five years from now?" Why ask it again? He couldn’t understand.

As she tied his tie, Xu Miyu quickly looked up at him, smiled, and said, "I just thought of it and really wanted to know the answer."

Ji Feng frowned. "What kind of answer do you want to hear? The truth, or something nice?"

Xu Miyu’s smile faded.

Ji Feng countered, "What about you? Will you ever fall for another man in the future?"

Xu Miyu replied, "No."

Ji Feng immediately curled his lips into a smile. For some reason, the moment Xu Miyu saw that smile, she felt there was a hint of mockery in it.

"Are you sure?" Ji Feng asked, looking at her. "Before you got married in the past, did you ever think you might get divorced someday? Did you swear to only love the man who would become your husband for the rest of your life? But later, you still got divorced, didn’t you? And besides him, you later fell for me too. So, Miyu," Ji Feng paused, speaking seriously, "we’re both adults over thirty. Why bother asking such childish questions that only kids care about, just to torment ourselves? If I were to insist that I’ll absolutely never fall for another woman in the future, that would be lying to you and to myself. And if you fully believed that, you’d be deceiving yourself too. Absolute statements like that are nothing but lies." After another pause, Ji Feng took a breath and said solemnly, "Miyu, I don’t want to make a promise that’s essentially a lie for an absolute question. But I can tell you seriously that at this moment, I genuinely like you, and I’m focused only on you."Xu Miyu's fingertips trembled slightly as she finished tying the tie.

She withdrew her hand, hiding the uneasy tremor in her fingers.

His last two sentences had been spoken with genuine emotion. But what about his earlier words—did they mean he might indeed develop feelings for someone else in the future? And to illustrate how such an outcome would be normal, he had rationally used her previous marriage as an example right in front of her.

Rational people always inadvertently come across as heartless. His rationality was truly terrifying. And she felt the humiliation of having her carefully concealed divorce scars reopened before her eyes.

What she wanted wasn't his rational honesty, his reasoning, or his lecturing.

What she clearly wanted was just a simple promise that could provide her with a sense of security.

Yet he had chosen to reason with her so rationally, just to argue that both of them might eventually develop feelings for others.

She saw Ji Feng out without saying a word, unusually refraining from bidding him farewell.

When he didn't hear her voice, Ji Feng matched her silence as if in a fit of pique, turning and leaving without a word.

For several days in a row, since Xue Rui happened to be around, Xu Miyu didn't go upstairs. Previously, Ji Feng had suggested she spend more time observing and learning in the hotel's planning department when she had the chance. So, using that as an excuse, she stayed in the planning department for several consecutive days, following the managers and supervisors to learn the entire process of event planning.

Ji Feng also deliberately avoided thinking too deeply about who was giving him the cold shoulder and whose behavior he was responding to. Since Xu Miyu wasn't proactively coming to the top floor, he didn't proactively call her up either. After work, he didn't go to her apartment. And she didn't call or message to ask why he wasn't coming or when he planned to.

He still vividly remembered what he had said that night: from then on, unless she asked for it, he wouldn't offer it willingly.

Although he had been referring to that particular matter between a man and a woman at the time, it now seemed to apply to more than just that.

But in the days that followed, Xu Miyu persistently refused to come to the top floor, staying instead in the planning department to busy herself with event planning. Ji Feng ultimately couldn't hold back and went to the planning department under the pretext of checking on the progress of the activities.

To his surprise, when Xu Miyu saw him in the planning department, she put on a thoroughly professional demeanor, as if the days without seeing him had been perfectly tranquil and pleasant for her.

Ji Feng turned around and went straight back to the top floor.

He grew increasingly irritable, and his habit of wanting to throw things at the slightest provocation resurfaced effortlessly.

Xue Rui had initially been thrilled to return to the group headquarters, no longer needing to serve a moody, cold-faced, sarcastic boss up close. But a few days ago, he had been abruptly summoned back. He had thought it would only last a day or two, but to his dismay, Ji Feng hadn't let him leave for several days in a row.

And during those several days, he hadn't seen Xu Miyu at all. He had assumed she was temporarily occupied with something, which was why Ji Feng had dragged him back to fill in as the personal assistant. But after witnessing the overly formal interaction between Ji Feng and Xu Miyu in the planning department—one pretending to inspect work, the other pretending to report—he realized things might not be so simple.

In hopes of escaping Ji Feng's clutches sooner and returning to the carefree happiness of the group headquarters, Xue Rui decided to take a risk and ask Ji Feng directly—

"Boss, if I may be blunt, are you and Mi Yu having some kind of disagreement?"Ji Feng sneered, "What quarrel could I possibly have with her?"

With that single sentence, he shut Xue Rui down completely.

But just as Xue Rui was shrinking back from the rebuke, Ji Feng spoke again: "If there's any quarreling to be done, it's her quarreling with me." After saying this, he coughed lightly, as if speaking of such intimate matters as lovers' spats had scalded his tongue.

Xue Rui watched Ji Feng's troubled and irritated expression, then tentatively asked, "If Mi Yu is giving you the cold shoulder, could it be that you've done something to upset her?"

Ji Feng immediately retorted, "If anyone's upsetting anyone, it's her upsetting me. How could I possibly upset her? That's absurd."

Seeing Ji Feng's tsundere demeanor, Xue Rui thought to himself, "Alright, it's pretty clear now that you're the one who offended her."

"Young women can be quite sensitive when they're truly in love. A little sensitivity often leads to minor emotional outbursts. If you take the initiative to coax her, things will smooth over," Xue Rui advised patiently.

But Ji Feng frowned. "I'm always the one being coaxed and catered to by others. Besides, she's not some young girl."

"..." Xue Rui nearly choked. He found it baffling that Ji Feng could even have a girlfriend. The man couldn't even lower his pride during a simple disagreement.

After a moment's thought, Xue Rui posed the crucial question: "Boss, what exactly happened between you and Mi Yu the day before you called me back?"

Seeing Ji Feng frown and press his lips tightly together, Xue Rui quickly added, "If you tell me what happened and what was said that day, I can help you figure out how to handle Mi Yu."

At the word "handle"—a term men often default to when assuming they've done nothing wrong, naturally forming an alliance to deal with troublesome women—Ji Feng's attitude softened.

He recalled that Xu Miyu had seemed a bit off since the evening before their disagreement, though she hadn't been confrontational at that point. The real tension seemed to have started the next morning when he was leaving. She refused to speak to him or say goodbye. After waiting in vain for her to say something, he had simply turned and left.

But before her silent treatment, she had asked him a question: "Will you like other women in the future?"

Starting from that question, Ji Feng recounted the entire conversation between himself and Xu Miyu to Xue Rui.

After listening, Xue Rui clutched his chest, gasping for breath.

He had never encountered such a clueless straight man. In the world of romance, he thought, straight men were practically biochemical weapons. They hurt sensitive, emotional women and dragged down men like him—who were popular with women and understood how to cherish them.

Xue Rui tried to enlighten Ji Feng on how to answer these seemingly trivial but ever-present questions women love to ask, including but not limited to:

"Will you fall in love with someone else in the future?"

"If your mother and I both fell into a river, who would you save?"

"If I gain weight someday, will you still want me?"

"How long will you love me?"