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Chapter 122: Chapter 122: The Boss Gave Too Much
Beneath the moonlight, in the quiet room.
Lu Sheng wraps her arms around Li Muchen’s neck, practically clinging to his body.
The man’s slender yet powerful hands stroke the girl’s ink-black hair, tainted with the scent of alcohol, feeling as if his breath might stop at any moment.
So close.
Close enough that he could even see the fine fuzz on her face.
Moonlight seeps through the window, casting a soft silver radiance and illuminating the girl’s stunning beauty.
Her eyes are hazy, as if deliberately letting herself go, yet somehow they still appear pristine and flawless.
With each movement, her breath is fragrant, carrying a bold and teasing allure.
The string of reason in Li Muchen’s mind finally snaps, and in the next second, he kisses her almost uncontrollably.
From the chair to the bed.
Their deep kisses and tight entwinement.
He finally understands why the girl calls this a punishment.
The moment he forces himself to stand up using sheer willpower, Li Muchen takes a deep breath.
He resolves never to let any female creature besides this girl come close to him again.
Because this punishment is truly agonizing.
"...I know I was wrong," Li Muchen steadies his breathing, "I’m going to take a shower first, wait for me."
Seeing the man who is usually so adept in high society, trying to escape in near disgrace for the first time, the girl’s lips curl into a satisfied smile.
He is indeed the man she chose.
Upstanding in his masculine virtues and also very adorable.
After Li Muchen finishes his shower, he finds the girl waiting for him with a small gift box.
Li Muchen encloses her in his arms and asks in a low voice, "...What is this?"
"A gift for you." While saying so, Lu Sheng hands the small box to Li Muchen.
Li Muchen opens the box to find a pair of rings.
The smaller one is a woman’s ring.
A loop of thorns forms the band, and nestled among the thorns is a rose inlaid with a ruby.
Under the moonlight, the ruby gleams with a luxurious deep red luster, giving the blooming rose a dangerous but tempting allure, an exquisite design.
The larger one is a man’s ring.
Its overall shape is a pair of interlocking bird wings forming the band. It doesn’t look exaggerated but instead conveys a sense of profound destiny.
Before Li Muchen could speak, Lu Sheng asks first, "Have you ever heard of a bird called the thornbird?"
The thornbird is a peculiar creature in nature, possessing a beautiful and overwhelming song that surpasses all other living beings, but it sings only once in a lifetime.
From the moment it leaves its nest, the thornbird tirelessly and obsessively seeks out thorns. Once it finds what it desires, it will impale itself on the longest, sharpest thorn and then sing out loud.
"So... the meaning of these rings is an unabating love?" Li Muchen looks at Lu Sheng.
The man before her has pinpointed the design concept she had once envisioned.
Li Muchen lifts his hand, taking the woman’s ring from the box, inspecting it carefully under the light, then gently takes Lu Sheng’s hand.
The original owner’s hands were actually somewhat rough, having done manual labor and gathered herbs, never having been cared for meticulously.
However, after Lu Sheng’s rebirth, nourished by her Soul Power, every inch of her skin has become fair and delicate.
Compared to Li Muchen’s hand, her hands are very small, his broad palm able to easily encompass her fist.
Under the moonlight, Li Muchen bows his head and kisses the back of the girl’s hand almost reverently.
He slides the ring onto her right hand’s ring finger and then places the man’s ring on the same finger of his left hand.
"If that’s the love you wish for, I think, I won’t disappoint you."
Li Muchen speaks with utmost earnestness, their hands with the rings interlock their fingers.
Half an hour later.
Lu Sheng, having just finished her bath and climbed onto the bed, is about to snuggle into Li Muchen’s embrace when she suddenly receives a WeChat message from Lan Yu.
Asking her where would be a good place to set up the café.
At a glance, Lan Yu truly seems interested in the Shengjing garden fair event, and she’s truly putting her heart into it.
Not only did she volunteer to be the captain of their team in the afternoon, but now, so late into the night, she’s still thinking about it.
For this garden fair, the school allows each team to freely choose their location according to their project, be it in an empty classroom or on the sports field.
The advantage of the sports field is that it’s spacious, but it requires set construction. Classrooms save both effort and money, but they kind of limit the flow of people.
[Considering the crowd-drawing power of our team’s good looks, it’s better to settle for the sports field, otherwise there won’t be space to squeeze when there are too many people.]
[However, with the sports field, setting up the scene on-site along with tables, chairs, benches, props, coffee machines, that’s going to cost a big sum of money.]
[The school doesn’t allow spending from our own families’ money, forcing us to seek sponsorships, plus having to write a sponsorship proposal, really a headache.]
[If we are to seek sponsorships, we should aim for a million; which generous boss would give a million to sponsor a day’s event by high school students?]
Li Muchen hears Lu Sheng’s phone constantly chiming with message notifications and leans in to ask in a deep voice, "What’s wrong?"
Lu Sheng passes his phone to him and then explains about Shengjing’s plans to hold a garden fair for the school anniversary, and how they’re preparing to set up a handsome guys’ coffee shop for the event.
Li Muchen reads the chat history and pauses for a moment.
"If you need sponsorship, I’ll have Chen An arrange it tomorrow, using the Li Group’s name to sponsor."
"As for the proposal, Chen An is good at that, I’ll have him write it for you."
Lu Sheng can’t help but look up at him: "... You seem to be the dupe Lan Yu was talking about, oh, and Chen An, too."
"But if we do it this way, isn’t it like I’m taking a shortcut? You helping me is almost no different from using my family’s money."
"How can it be," Li Muchen says earnestly, "You were just introducing your project to me, that’s already you seeking sponsorship."
"As the President of the Li Group, after hearing your introduction, I think your ideas are very creative and worth investing in."
"The money given to you is not for free; I need you to advertise for our companies under the Li Group outside the coffee shop that day."
"The more popular your project is, the more exposure our company gets, and that’s the feedback a business hopes to achieve through corporate sponsorship."
"Putting aside our relationship and our location of conversation, the entire sponsorship process is reasonable and legitimate."
That’s the logic...
But Lu Sheng didn’t really feel that the Li Group, one of China’s leading enterprises, would need their small high school event for promotion.
However, she was too lazy to quibble and under Li Muchen’s direction, she simply forwarded Lan Yu’s WeChat to Chen An.
And so, Li Muchen took Lu Sheng’s phone.
While the man held the girl in his arms, coaxing her to sleep, a pitiful executive assistant tearfully got up from bed and turned on the computer.
As Li Muchen’s right-hand man, Chen An was always on call 24/7.
He had wanted to refuse his boss’s request, but the offer was way too good.
Not only did his salary for the month double, but he also got ten extra days of annual leave. Who could resist that?
On the other hand, Lan Yu was so worried she couldn’t fall asleep.
To write a sponsorship proposal, she not only had to describe their project’s value in an incredible way, but also clarify what needs to be acquired, what personnel arrangements are necessary, and an estimate of the expenses.
This had nothing to do with intelligence; she simply had no experience in starting a business or writing such things, utterly lacking any notion of it in her head.
It seemed they could only discuss together after school tomorrow.
But there was an urgent time pressure, for tomorrow upon waking, it would be Thursday already. With the school anniversary next Wednesday, they had less than a week to prepare.
Whether it was writing the proposal, seeking sponsorships, or the subsequent hiring, purchasing, and setting up, all were time-consuming tasks.
At two in the morning, as Lan Yu was drowsily about to put away her phone, she suddenly received a WeChat notification.
It was a friend request.
She clicked to view it; the requestor’s WeChat name was [Chen AnChen].
...Chen An? This name seemed somewhat familiar.
On closer inspection of the additional message with the friend request—
[Miss Lan, hello, I am Chen An, the Executive Assistant to the President of Li Group. Our group would like to fund the school anniversary coffee shop project you’re leading. Please accept my friend request.]
Li... Li Group??
Sponsoring their project???
In the darkness, Lan Yu held her phone with its glowing screen, eyes widened, her drowsiness thoroughly scared away.
