Chapter Thirty-Nine: New Game
When Fan Xiaoge left, Xiao Yu and Faye bid a long goodbye.
“Meoww?” Will we get to meet again?
“Squeakk.” Not so sure.
“Meow.” Faye is not happy.
“Squeak.” I don’t have a choice – a freeloading-hamster can’t choose his own fate.
The two small pets went on chatting for about five minutes. In the end, Yan Jin was the one who ended the conversation by painstakingly snatching Xiao Yu back from the cat’s paws.
Xiao Yu waved his little paws as he bid farewell. Faye, who headed in the direction that Fan Xiaoge left long ago, also bid her farewell by swaying her tail side to side. The faraway sunset doused Faye’s fur with a layer of golden red as the white cat kept turning back while she walked off. Her azure eyes were filled with reluctance, as if she was experiencing a life and death situation.
“Meow…”
Three days later, the latest business news reported about Fan Xiaoge’s father arrest for bribery. After that, the marriage of convenience between the Yan and Fan families went completely silent as if it had sunk into the deep ocean.
When the news of the Fan family came about, Yan Jin was in his room using a bag of walnuts to tempt his hamster to run on the wheel. The man merely smiled, ending the episode just like that.
They had spent too much energy to finally be able to survive under the sunlight. But there would always be darkness behind light – someone would have to fight from within the darkness, and their willfulness had ended up causing a little girl to carry all the burden.
His only mission now was to make this battle end even quicker.
The lazy sunlight shined into the house, warm and harmonious – it was yet another afternoon without worries.
Xiao Yu watched as Yan Jin’s mood seemed to get much better after he took the phone call. Immediately, the hamster began plotting.
He started to run slower, and finally acted like he could not run anymore. Xiao Yu came down from the running wheel and resentfully tugged on Yan Jin’s sleeve.
“Squeakk.”
Yan Jin squinted his eyes as he curled his finger and tapped on Xiao Yu’s little head that only had thoughts of goofing off.
“There’s about ten minutes left. Once you’re done running, you can have the walnut. If you’re really this lazy, then I’ll take away the snack.”
Dealing with the strictly impartial and incorruptible Yan Jin, Xiao Yu was left with no other choice but to obediently finish running the remaining time.
During this period, Yan Jin would always find time to monitor Xiao Yu’s exercise activities. Aside from playtime, the hamster would need to run on the wheel for at least twenty minutes, or he would not have any snacks to eat. Xiao Yu’s rations had already been cut down, as the hamster could barely find a single piece of melon seed in an entire day’s worth of meals. If he could not even have his snacks, then Xiao Yu would surely bid farewell to his desire for good food.
Xiao Yu held his walnut in his paws as he nibbled bit by bit – this was like two days’ worth of snacks, he must consume them slowly.
After the last episode of hiding food in his cheek pouch, Yan Jin would randomly pinch Xiao Yu’s cheeks every other day to check on him. Furthermore, it would be done without any warning, making the hamster too terrified to hide food anymore.
That was too frustrating. In the past, before the supervisors conducted any checks, they would at least give some notice beforehand. Now that he was no longer a human, he couldn’t even be given any warning in advance.
Xiao Yu angrily rejected becoming Yan Jin’s walnut opener.
But it was not that bad. After all, Yan Jin was an extremely busy chairperson. Other than being strict on his weekends, Yan Jin would normally be more relaxed on working days. When the chairman came home at night, he would monitor the hamster’s exercise, but if he had returned home late, then he would let things go.
There were two more months before the Autumn Conference Release. From Xiao Yu’s point of view, there was more than enough time. After all, he had experience from his previous life, as well as Nannan, who was even better than all of his subordinates combined (along with the gay buddy whose name and achievements were not mentioned).
But for Yan Jin, the Autumn Release Conference was perhaps the biggest event that put their entire yearly profit to the test – it would not be enough even if he put in one hundred percent of his energy. After the overseas order incident, YL’s morale had significantly risen. Using that vigor, this would be a great opportunity to charge their way through the Autumn Release Conference.
Xiao Yu did not plan to occupy YL’s exhibit quota for the conference. Firstly, he did not remember much about the products from his previous life. Should he end up making something too similar to SI’s exhibit product, then it would be a mess. Secondly, his original intention was to fill the gap for the mystery designer. He clearly remembered that the mystery designer had only participated in the Ragnarok competition for this conference and did not release any other exhibits.
However, after he was reborn again, Xiao Yu had some new ideas. He planned on asking Nannan to draw for him. As for whether he would give any to Yan Jin as an exhibit, he would consider it again.
In his previous life, SI had placed great importance on original jewelry designs. They had sent their most outstanding group of designers to participate in the competition. It was a pity that among the final selection of products, they had decided to reject Xiao Yu’s proposal.
Xiao Yu came to an agreement with the company’s decision, leading the group of designers to create something that their leaders wanted to display. But behind their backs, he had secretly drawn something that he really wanted to design instead and ended up sending the drawing in under the individual category. Who would have guessed that he did not even pass the voting selection?
The company eventually found out about it and Xiao Yu was deducted six months’ worth of bonus.
Deducting his bonus was not a big issue. What made him really upset was the fact that he had not passed the voting selection.
For a long period after that incident, every time Xiao Ye thought back to the voting results, he would always feel very unsatisfied. It was even worse considering the fact that he had not properly designed the proposal ring. He had not passed the voting selection simply because his design was too professional, so his design was unable to present a clear idea or showcase its actual worth.
The long professional write-up, along with a few large pieces of drawing explanations – they may work for the judging panel, but members of the public were surely incapable of understanding them.
That incident was a big blow to Xiao Yu. Everyone thought that he had failed because he overestimated his abilities, and attempted to bite off more than he could chew. However, only Xiao Yu himself knew that his failure was simply because he had no experience with such a competition. Eventually, he wondered on more than one occasion, if the company was willing to support him and assigned him a team-mate or a senior from the same industry that did marketing, would he still have lost such a good opportunity because of such an obvious mistake?
Xiao Yu was not an overconfident person – the reason he had come to such a conclusion was because in that competition for the original jewelry design, there was one exhibit that was almost identical to his own design, and it had won the voting selection with a simple introduction and a single completed drawing.
That’s right, it was that mystery designer.
It was also this original jewelry design competition that made Xiao Yu completely aware of YL’s Mr. Mystery, and thus began his investigation that lasted more than half a year.
After recalling his previous horrible memories, Xiao Yu angrily munched off a mouthful of walnut.
Yan Jin watched as his hamster became inexplicably angry. The chairman habitually reached out to smooth his fur, his actions completely natural.
Yes, he was already used to the fact that his hamster had a very complex train of thoughts and would sometimes get angry without any reason.
Xiao Yu shook his head as he dodged Yan Jin’s harassment.
Too angry. He had revived again with great difficulty, and yet he had to attack ‘himself’ and support his own competitor company, YL.
If it was to prevent Lin Zhou’s evil schemes from prevailing……
Wait.
Xiao Yu suddenly realized a very big question – wasn’t the issue with Lin Zhou already settled? Why did he still need to enter the original jewelry design competition as the mystery designer?
The hamster felt slightly guilty at the fact that he had swapped identities with the mystery designer, which was why he decided to help YL settle the overseas millionaire’s order as the mystery designer.
But that was just an additional motive. The most important goal was to prevent Lin Zhou’s evil plan from prevailing, right?
YL had now won the deal, and Lin Zhou’s face had also been slapped swollen by the defeat. So why did he need to help YL?
The more Xiao Yu thought, the more he felt that something was wrong. Eventually, he even stopped munching on the walnut as he sat on the table, racking his brains.
KachaKachaKacha –
The camera flash snapped nonstop.
Xiao Yu turned his body away and faced his butt towards Yan Jin.
“Squeakk!” Stop taking photos! One more shot, and I’ll never draw for you again!
Yan Jin handed over another walnut.
Today’s portion of snacks had already been given – Chairman Yan’s motive was as clear as the sky.
Xiao Yu slapped away the walnut with his paw – I’m annoyed, not peeling.
—
On Monday, Yan Jin went to work as usual.
Xiao Yu climbed out of his little nest with sleepy eyes. He closed the cartoon that Yan Jin had put on repeat on his iPad, then logged in to his QQ.
There was no news from Nannan. He was probably still not back from his trip.
Country L was very suitable for couples to visit together for vacation. Xiao Yu hoped that Nannan would be able to find inspiration for a couple ring from that place.
Xiao Yu was struggling very hard. Without the motive to slap Lin Zhou’s face by defeating him, he felt weird for helping his sworn enemy, YL. If his goal was to fulfil the dream of winning the voting selection, then he could in fact enter the competition under another fake identity.
But, he did not really hate YL anymore at this moment. and, he did not really hate Yan Jin… After all, the real culprit was Lin Zhou. Because of his appearance, even the mystery designer had disappeared. If things continued to develop, who knew what could have happened in the future? So, it would probably be a better choice to use the mystery designer’s identity to make up for this timeline?
Those thoughts loitered in Xiao Yu’s mind throughout the whole night, making him unable to sleep well.
Eventually, Xiao Yu, who had no idea what to do, logged in to Yan Jin’s QQ.
Yes, Yan Jin’s QQ, that side account named Grey-White SS.
This was not the only time that Xiao Yu had logged in to Yan Jin’s side account. In fact, it was quite interesting to talk about. Yan Jin’s profile picture was originally a cat, then it became a ritual to change it every day, and it would always be Xiao Yu.
Hmm, he had been stalked and photographed every single day.
For example, today it was a picture of a round-shaped hamster hugging a golden walnut, staring adorably into the camera.
Xiao Yu went through the friend’s list and found Lin Zhou.
After the deal was over, Lin Zhou apologized very sincerely, expressed that he had failed to recognize someone’s great abilities, and had tactfully ask about the origin of the mystery designer.
Yan Jin accepted the apology but ignored the rest of the content.
Lin Zhou also understood that Yan Jin’s impression of him had already dropped to an all-time low. It would not work if he had used the previous method of catching the chairman’s attention, so Lin Zhou thought of a roundabout route, like finding a common interest.
Ding – Your friend has invited you to play a game together. Come on and join in the fun!
Xiao Yu looked at the new notification as he wasn’t really sure if Lin Zhou was lucky or otherwise.
The notification was muted, which meant that Yan Jin had already blocked Lin Zhou, which also meant that this notification would never be shown, and Yan Jin would never ever see it again.
Right now, it was he who had logged into Yan Jin’s QQ and just happened to be looking through Yan Jin’s conversation with Lin Zhou, which was why he could receive that notification.
For him of all people, to receive that notification.
Xiao Yu chuckled coldly.
Interesting, truly interesting. The ill-fated relationship between them seemed to be never-ending.
Xiao Yu had played that game before and was very good at it. In his previous life, he was assigned to a bad group of horrible teammates, which made him uninstall the game out of frustration.
Now that Lin Zhou had mentioned, it felt nostalgic.
An idea began to brew in Xiao Yu’s mind and it quickly formed into a plan.
……
[Grey-white SS]: You play this game too?
[Lin Zhou]: Yeah. Chairman Yan plays it too?
[Grey-white SS]: I’m using my other side account to play it. It’s too difficult to get the levels up.
[Lin Zhou]: My level’s quite high, why don’t I open a side account and lead you?
[Grey-white SS]: Then I’m grateful for that. Add my side account XXXXX, this is the account that I use just for gaming purposes. It’s a newly created account, so there aren’t many friends added.
[Lin Zhou]: Alright, added.
[Lin Zhou]: Chairman Yan’s nickname looked interesting. Is there any meaning behind it?
[Grey-white SS]: Literally what it means, Fish and Hamster – you can’t have both.
