The Taming of the Ruffian Hero

Chen Yuanxi still wore a polite smile on his face.

Shu Xiaoman cleared her throat and squeezed out a standard business smile. She took the business card from Chen Yuanxi with her hand and gave her business card to him, lowering her head slightly.

“Oh! You’re from YH Company. You can discuss it with my assistant in detail for orders because he should be clearer about that. If you want to talk to me about something personal—” Chen Yuanxi looked at his watch and said, “you have 10 minutes.”

“Mr. Chen, since I’m neither your relative nor your friend, how can I have anything personal to talk to you about? Please arrange for your assistant to discuss it with me.”

Chen Yuanxi fell into silence for about three seconds before he called someone and gave an order about something. Then he asked the driver to take Shu Xiaoman to the office.

After hesitating for a short moment, Shu Xiaoman got into the car and sat in the passenger seat.

Seeing that Chen Yuanxi was about to leave, tears streamed down her face. She wiped the tears from her face gently and tapped the window. “How have you been these years?” Shu Xiaoman asked with the most common and the most intimate words to greet him, an old friend she had not seen for such a long time.

“I’m fine,” Chen Yuanxi answered with a smile.

“Well…” Shu Xiaoman nodded and waved goodbye to Chen Yuanxi. She looked so serious, as if she were waving farewell to someone whom she would never see again.

“They asked us to compete with other companies for the bid through formal channels,” Shu Xiaoman reported to Zhao Yuan on the phone.

“Oh? It’s unbelievable that their company has a down-to-earth new leader!” Zhao Yuan asked meaningfully, “What kind person does Mr. Chen seem to be?”

“Just like you saw in the photo. He is the new deputy general manager of their company, and his surname happens to be Chen,” Shu Xiaoman answered.

“He—! Emm—” Zhao Yuan raised his voice a lot unconsciously.

Shu Xiaoman shook her head. She had thought that after such a long time, Zhao Yuan’s feelings for Lin Wenxi should have cooled down, but she was wrong. From the time he founded the company until now, Zhao Yuan had never been so nervous in front of an employee. He was almost incoherent, as he lost his mind and could not stay calm anymore. Shu Xiaoman could not imagine what would happen if he met Lin Wenxi.

In Shu Xiaoman’s memory, there was only once that Zhao Yuan had lost his mind. It was because of his cell phone that he had used when he was still a college student. The cell phone was missing for no reason during the relocation of his company. Zhao Yuan immediately ordered to stop the process and rummaged everywhere in the company until he found the cell phone in a trashcan in the corner. His former assistant was fired because of this, and after that, he employed Shu Xiaoman as his assistant. At the beginning, Shu Xiaoman was confused as to why Zhao Yuan had kept this cell phone for such a long time. It was not until she saw the familiar number when she was paying the phone bill for Zhao Yuan that she vaguely understood everything.

Zhao Yuan had used this phone number all the time when he was in university. It had been several years since he graduated from university, but he was still paying for the number.

Shu Xiaoman had secretly checked the cell phone once. Obviously, it had been wiped carefully every once in a while, so the screen was as bright and clean as a new one, apart from a clear scratch on it. Shu Xiaoman remembered that Lin Wenxi had been annoyed because Zhao Yuan answered a phone call and was on it for too long. He then scratched an “L” on the screen with a small knife. He said that it would make Zhao Yuan hold him to his ear every time he answered the phone.

Shu Xiaoman thought it was too childish, but she was very moved. However, in addition to being purely moved, she felt a fire within her, as if she wanted to burn everything out.

Shu Xiaoman thought that she would read messages of love between Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi on his phone, but to her disappointment, she only found some common greeting messages between average friends. They were so polite and formal and she could even not understand how they had become so close later. Shu Xiaoman was a little confused. “Are they really a couple? Who really loves the other one and who doesn’t?” she wondered.

Calls from all the other people in the contacts had been set up to be rejected. Only for one number had the call records and text message records not been changed yet.

“Mr. Zhao, what’s wrong with you?” Shu Xiaoman asked with concern.

“I’m okay. You can prepare for the bidding right now,” Zhao Yuan said.

“Okay. Mr. Zhao, I met someone today. Guess who,” Shu Xiaoman added.

“It must be Chen Wanxin. Then you will ask me why I didn’t tell you we were getting married, right?”

Shu Xiaoman frowned slightly. Zhao Yuan seemed too smart!

“Yes. As your first assistant, I think I have the right to know it in advance so that I can arrange the related issues!” Shu Xiaoman said.

“You’re both my only assistant and my college classmate, so you know everything about my past. If you still think the same way as years ago, what will your reaction be if you know that I’m going to marry Wanxin?” Zhao Yuan asked.

“Zhao Yuan, I’m not that stiff. I know we should put the company first. Even if you marry Wanxin, I know you are doing it for the good of our company. How can I do something bad to you?” Shu Xiaoman smiled slightly, pursing her lips.

“Good! Since you’re on business, I believe you will put personal feelings aside,” Zhao Yuan continued.

Shu Xiaoman admired her boss so much. He was both smart and handsome. His only Achilles’ heel was Lin Wenxi, who had already come back from abroad.

“Mr. Zhao, you know me well.” Shu Xiaoman laughed loudly. She said, “Let’s get down to business. Mr. Zhao, since Mr. Chen did not want us to take shortcuts, we can only bid through formal channels. But to be frank, we can get these orders by relying on our company’s competence. You always do insider business with the Chens. I wonder when you will confess these to me. After all, I’m your closest companion in work.”

“All the Chens’ members have one thing in common, that is, if we rely on our ability, we can only cooperate with them one time. On the contrary, if we do insider trading with them, they will give us repeat orders all the time. You can go through the normal formalities. If we can’t win the bid, I will meet Mr. Chen in person,” Zhao Yuan said confidently, seeming to have resumed his composure.

“It’s unnecessary. I can fix it.” Shu Xiaoman laughed secretly, covering her mouth with her hand. She knew that Zhao Yuan was a man of his word. If something unexpected happened in the bidding, he would go to meet Lin Wenxi. If that was the case, one of the two would be out of control. That was the last thing she wanted to see.

At the Chen mansion—

Chen Wanxin was sitting squarely in the studio and making a copy of a photo of Huang Xiya, which had been taken many years ago.

“She is so pretty!” Chen Wanxin thought with a slight smile. Huang Xiya, Chen Yuanxi’s mother, had been very beautiful when she was young. Her beauty was perfect and pure. No wonder Chen Yuanxi had been so charming and delicate before. His brows and eyes resembled her mother very much. When she began to draw Huang Xiya’s nose, Chen Wanxin frowned slightly. “Why didn’t Lin Wenxi inherit all his mother’s looks? His nose and lips look quite similar to mine, and the same as dad’s!” She really wanted to cut off his nose and poke his mouth until it was crooked. While drawing, Chen Wanxin remembered how much she had suffered for the name of “Chen Yuanxi”.

At the beginning, Chen Wanxin thought that Chen Yuanxi’s name was not suitable for a boy. It made people feel that the owner of the name was too gentle and weak. A boy should have a name that would make people feel that this person was generous and calm. She persuaded Chen Tianjiao, saying that his son should follow his father’s decision in changing his name.

Chen Tianjiao had suggested several names to his son, like Chen Ziting, Chen Ziyuan, Chen Zimo, and so on, but all were declined by Chen Yuanxi. Even though he had not gained a foothold in the Chens, he dared to refuse his father rightfully.

Chen Wanxin was very depressed about this. Chen Yuanxi joked with her, “Sister, have you heard the story of the old monk and the young monk carrying a woman across the river? It’s not me, but someone else who can’t forget the past. I’m done with the past, so it has nothing to do with me if you still can’t win his heart.” Hearing that, Chen Wanxin was so angry that she almost cried.

Fortunately, Chen Yuanxi had been in the U.S. for almost all of the last six years. He would come back occasionally for business, but only contacted his father and seldom returned home. Therefore, they did not have much time to see each other, and she was not bothered. However, not long after Chen Yuanxi’s return from the U.S., he gained the trust of both the family’s elders and the servants. It threatened Chen Wanxin’s place in the family. Chen Wanxin often goaded Chen Yuanxi by mentioning Zhao Yuan in front of him, but it did not work. Whenever she called him Brother Yuanxi, she was filled with anger, because the name sounded like the combination of the names “Zhao Yuan” and “Lin Wenxi”. She could do nothing about it and had to smile to Chen Wenxi in front of people, pretending that they were getting on well with each other. How could Chen Wanxin do nothing after suffering such a dumb loss?

She had never believed that Chen Yuanxi had nothing to do with Zhao Yuan. She put Zhao Yuan’s photos in his room, on his sleeves, and everywhere she could think of to observe his reaction. To her surprise, Chen Yuanxi was very calm when he saw the photos. Chen Wanxin knew that such children’s tricks might neither shake Chen Yuanxi’s determination nor stop him from quickly taking over their family’s business. “He has put his hands on our family’s business! Dad was out on a business trip…” Chen Wanxin thought.

Chen Yuanxi was hesitating for one thing recently. Because of the needs of a real estate project, there was still a house in the north of the city that needed to be demolished. Only after the house owner agreed to move out could their project go ahead.

Chen Wanxin and the project leader, Luo Yang, managed to assign this task to Chen Yuanxi.

If they had faced the same situation before, Luo Yang would have provided some additional conditions. If the house owner still refused them for demolition, they would find an opportunity to trick the owner and his family out of their house and begin to demolish the house forcibly. He had been very familiar with this. Furthermore, the house owners could not find a way to plead their grievances. However, in recent years, the government had put a lot of effort into discipline rectification, especially on the punishment of forced demolition. Therefore, Luo Yang was much more restrained than before. He heard that although Chen Yuanxi had done a good job in the U.S, he did not have any criminal record there. None of their family members could have a clean background. So he would do nothing but just wait and see what Chen Yuanxi would do.

They did not give any information to Chen Yuanxi about the house owner to be relocated, and they did not assign a helper to him either.

When Chen Yuanxi was still patiently communicating with the house owner before the owner would like to open the door for him, he heard the rattle of the bulldozer near him. Luo Yang stood high on the side of the bulldozer and placed one hand on his hip triumphantly, smiling at him. It seemed that Luo Yang had arranged for a demolition crew to follow him, and even the media had come. Once they began to forcibly demolish it, people would only see Chen Yuanxi on camera.

“I’ll fight you to the death!” The person who was in the room rushed out and was about to hit Chen Yuanxi. However, when he got closer to Chen Yuanxi, he suddenly let out a cry in surprise, “It’s you! The evil son of the Lins!” Then he grabbed Chen Yuanxi by the collar, his eyes widening with anger.

Chen Yuanxi looked at him carefully, and found that he was the dean of studies of his university!

The reporters immediately took this opportunity to take photos.

Beads of sweat oozed from Chen Yuanxi’s forehead. He sneered inside. “She made a move so fast!”

The bodyguards on both sides were going to beat that man, but were stopped by Chen Yuanxi’s yelling. Chen Yuanxi stretched his arms out and stood firmly in front of them. Although these bodyguards were not familiar with him, they knew that he was Chen Tianjiao’s son, so they did not dare to move on, and they only looked at Luo Yang, awaiting his instruction. All of this was photographed.

The dean of studies cried bitterly behind him. He ran to his side and shouted, “Director Lin, I’m sorry that I didn’t educate him well!”

Chen Yuanxi’s shoulders shivered slightly. He had not heard someone call his father “Director Lin” in a long time. It had been such a long time! Now several years had passed and everything had changed.