Chapter Seventy-Six: The Family Bucket Set

The next day, Xiaoma once again rode the subway to work.

Nifeihong and Yuchengmin were both strange women. They had shaped Xiaoma’s outlook: attitude mattered, and once you started something, you had to see it through without quitting halfway. Until the side story of “The Personal Secretary of a Beautiful Boss” was over, he had to keep on pretending.

That was, in fact, what Nifeihong meant by the “essence of work.”

Work was a way of life, not necessarily a necessity. Some people’s attitude was money, some people’s attitude was proving themselves, and Xiaoma’s attitude was to keep up the act. The essence was the same.

In that sense, Sinan was the same. After the Sea God fiasco, he had not gone into a downward spiral and let everything rot; this morning Xiaoma saw him again at the company, and on the contrary, his enthusiasm and level of commitment seemed even higher than before.

To a certain extent, that was also what Nifeihong called “success is never accidental.” Sinan had problems in character, and like Feng Chenchen before him, he was one of those enchanting men, but in terms of business and work, he was almost flawless. As for character, Sinan seemed even more scheming than Feng Chenchen. For example, his attitude toward Xiaoma today was perfectly ordinary, with no unusual signs at all.

It had been only when Feng Chenchen rose to the very top of the industry and found his career nearly impossible to improve further that his thoughts became more complicated. Expanded to society at large, the same logic applied: when economic growth began to slow, all kinds of contradictions and problems would emerge. The principle was identical.

Being Yuchengmin’s assistant was much easier. Even Nifeihong had been able to handle it, so dealing with her was easier still.

Apart from not being allowed to stay away too long, and having to help her pass on or forward certain emails and documents, Yuchengmin rarely made things difficult for Xiaoma over trivialities.

Most of the time, she sat there with a calm, focused air, working on her computer. Her affairs were highly private, almost all handled by her alone.

Now and then she would let out a long breath, take off her anti-radiation glasses, pinch the corners of her eyes for a five-minute rest, and then begin another round.

More or less, that was how she spent the entire morning, at least as far as Xiaoma could observe through the glass.

The real executive of the company was Jiang Yaowen, while the true financial authority was Yuchengmin.

Watching her elegant profile through the glass, Xiaoma had no desire to meddle in whatever mess those two women were dealing with, but he decisively classified her among the ranks of enchanting women.

Near lunchtime, the phone rang. It was Yuchengmin calling from inside. On the line, she said, “Come in for a moment.”

Xiaoma put down the phone and hurried in with quick, eager steps. Yuchengmin removed her anti-radiation glasses and set them aside, then pointed at the computer. “I’m going to eat. You fix up the security side of my computer for me.”

Xiaoma could not help feeling a little awkward. If the great demon king wasn’t personally taking over, what exactly was he supposed to fix? How was he supposed to know? So he found an excuse. “Isn’t it not time for lunch yet?”

Yuchengmin, who had already started to leave, froze, stopped, and turned back. “This time the cafeteria is less crowded. Going now saves me time and patience. Understand?”

Xiaoma tactfully avoided the point. “That makes a lot of sense. But I can handle this for you. What do you want to eat? I’ll go get it for you.”

Yuchengmin frowned. “What are you kidding? I pay you at a senior salary so you can bring me lunch boxes? Don’t bring Nifeihong’s methods over here.”

Damn. That was the difference between her and Nifeihong.

Xiaoma hurriedly said, “Nifeihong is actually very cute, and she—”

“Go to hell with Nifeihong.” Yuchengmin cut him off, then pointed at her new laptop. “This is your job, and the reason I pay you a high salary. Fix it properly for me. I do not want a repeat of last time’s problem. Also, I don’t need you to evaluate Nifeihong for me. Clear?”

Xiaoma could only nod meekly.

“Good.” Yuchengmin then turned and went off to eat.

Xiaoma worked hard to find the right feeling, but the great demon king still did not possess him.

Xiaoma started acting strangely again. He took out his phone, opened the selfie camera as though it were a mirror, closed his eyes and tilted his head for three seconds, then turned to look at the screen. Still no demon king possession.

An idea struck him. Xiaoma decisively installed a major security suite onto Yuchengmin’s computer. After one round of scanning and operations, it was done.

In any case, that security suite claimed to solve everything. It still offered anti-malware protection, core crystal protection, and all sorts of other things that sounded mysterious and impressive.

Yuchengmin probably already regarded Xiaoma as one of her own, so she felt safe handing her computer over to him. Out of professional habit, Xiaoma was a little tempted to open her spreadsheets and data files to see exactly what was inside.

But he hesitated, suspecting that Yuchengmin might have deliberately set a trap to test him, Xiaoma-style. Falling for it would not be good.

So he restrained himself.

He believed this work had been completed perfectly. The security suite said it had repaired and closed certain vulnerabilities and so on, and that the system health score was a hundred. Xiaoma believed it without hesitation.

Fortunately, Yuchengmin had switched to a Windows machine this time. Otherwise Xiaoma would have been even more at a loss, because the old system could not use the security suite.

After finishing with the computer, he stood up again and took some fish food to feed her goldfish.

Damn.

He discovered he had fed too much, and hurriedly stopped, even reaching into the fish tank to fish out the excess food.

Otherwise, fish were dreadfully stupid creatures. They would eat whatever they saw until they burst themselves. If he killed Yuchengmin’s goldfish, that would not be a good thing.

On the other side, Yuchengmin sat in the nearly empty cafeteria eating lunch while holding her phone and watching the office through the camera.

She found that Xiaoma was an idiot and had almost overfed her fish to death.

Still, she then saw him flailing about and sticking his hand into the tank to “snatch back the food,” which looked utterly ridiculous. At the very least, his attitude was acceptable; he was trying to correct his mistake.

While eating, she gave a faint nod, counting it as a kind of indirect approval, then turned off her phone.

After lunch, the great beauty boss returned to the office and opened her computer. The moment she saw the screen, she was stunned. She immediately slapped the pen onto the desk and shouted, “Xiaoma, come in.”

After Xiaoma came in, Yuchengmin pointed at the computer screen with a look of exasperation. “I told you to improve my system, and all you did was install a security suite?”

Xiaoma broke out in a waterfall of sweat, but had nothing to say.

Yuchengmin looked at him for a moment, then could not help feeling a bit deflated. “So this is your work attitude?”

Xiaoma remained speechless.

Yuchengmin thought for a moment, then folded her arms. “You’re basically just a primary school kid in mindset. I can understand liking to strut your stuff and act all cool. But this is the workplace. Surely you don’t think I spent all this money just to hire someone to install a security suite, do you?”

“But I…” Xiaoma hesitated.

“Don’t you just want me to ask you a couple more times?” Yuchengmin waved a hand. “Come on, get out. I don’t want to beg you. I saw this kind of behavior all the time back in primary school.”

After watching Xiaoma slink out with his tail between his legs, Yuchengmin took out her phone and made a call. Once it connected, she asked, “How did the monitoring go just now?”

A man’s voice on the other end said, “Don’t worry, Boss Yucheng. I kept an eye on your computer the whole time. He didn’t mess with your files. He only installed some completely brainless security suite. I deliberately blocked his installation process, but he kept trying to install it again and again, still completely brainless.”

Yuchengmin felt slightly relieved. “Is that security suite any use?”

“If you uninstall it, the computer will lag a little less, but your machine doesn’t really need that bit of performance anyway, so it’s fine to leave it.” The man on the phone paused, then added, “But Boss Yucheng, why would you keep such a computer idiot by your side?”

“Fine, your job is done. Forget about this. The rest is none of your business.” With that, Yuchengmin ended the call.

She moved the mouse and clicked into the uninstall window for the security suite several times, but each time she lifted her head to glance at the nervous wreck sitting outside. In the end, a little deflated, she still left the suite in place.

If that brat insisted on pretending, there was nothing to be done. In the incident from before, Yuchengmin had vaguely sensed that he knew something—nothing central, but sensitive enough. So she had classified him as an enchanting man. Even if he was not useful, she would spend the money to keep him tied up in this demon-sealing tower and keep him under control.

Yuchengmin was a businesswoman, not an assassin. For the moment, this was what she considered the best solution...