Chapter 4: The Friend Request

Wow, Julian had registered a WeChat account with that number!

And it was actually searchable!

Wide-eyed with a mix of shock and pleasant surprise, Clara felt a sudden flurry of emotions ripple through her heart.

Having lived in the shadows for so long, it was only natural to crave some form of direct contact.

Yet her social standing and status simply did not allow for any real intersection between their lives.

Hovering her fingertip tentatively over the "Add to Contacts" option, Clara forced herself to rein in her racing thoughts.

The employee handbook explicitly stated that property staff were strictly forbidden from harassing homeowners; once a homeowner filed a complaint, the employee faced immediate termination without severance.

However...

What if she added him using a fake identity?

Wouldn't that bypass the employee rule entirely?

Surely Julian wouldn't be so idle as to track down the person sending a friend request and investigate who was lurking behind the screen, right?

Besides, adding him as a friend didn't mean she was going to harass him!

She would just quietly browse his Moments and things like that.

Back and forth her mind wrestled, leaving Clara completely undecided.

There was also another problem: Julian might not necessarily accept a friend request from a stranger.

Staring intently at his profile picture for a long moment, she decided to check out his Moments first.

She wondered if he had enabled the privacy setting that restricted non-friends to viewing only his last ten posts?

Her hopes were instantly dashed. Tapping into Julian's Moments homepage revealed nothing but a flat, empty line, causing her to pout in bitter disappointment.

Next, she skillfully used the phone number to run searches across various major social platforms.

Alas, absolutely nothing came up.

Oh well, if it doesn't show up, it doesn't show up.

A second-generation elite sitting at the absolute peak of the pyramid was bound to place a heavy emphasis on privacy protection.

Even with all her frantic online digging in the past, she had never been able to unearth a single photograph of him, and information about him online was exceedingly scarce.

Though, a rumor circulated in a very tight, private circle—allegedly originating years ago from an internal employee at Yinteng Group—claiming that their newly appointed boss was outrageously handsome and exceptionally young.

Clara wholeheartedly agreed with that whispered rumor; Julian was indeed breathtakingly good-looking.

As for his age, she visually estimated that Julian couldn't be more than a few years older than her, putting him well under thirty.

Finishing up her online searches, Clara promptly dove straight into her online courses for upgrading her junior college degree to a bachelor's.

After graduating last year, she had been brutally beaten down by the job market, coming to the visceral realization that any formal company required a bachelor's degree as an absolute baseline. Even if she didn't want to raise her educational credentials, she had no choice if she wanted to make lateral job moves in the future.

Working as a property butler was not a career she could sustain for a lifetime.

In the blink of an eye, her next day off rolled around. Clara arrived right on time at the restaurant where she had agreed to meet Chloe.

Chloe had beaten her to the spot, and the table was already crowded with a battery of equipment.

"Are you shooting purely for video, or streaming while shooting?" Clara asked.

Unlike her, Chloe had graduated this year and chosen not to look for a traditional job, becoming a full-time restaurant-review vlogger.

"Pure shooting," Chloe said with a cheeky, confident smile. "And the merchant is treating us to this meal for free."

As a review vlogger whose most popular short-form video platform boasted over two hundred thousand followers, Chloe frequently received free collaboration invites from local restaurants due to her restaurant-rating niche.

"Awesome, that saves me a meal's worth of cash," Clara said happily.

"Look at you, all thrilled." Chloe pulled out her phone and texted a link to Clara. "I've got another free promotional review video to shoot in a few days at a high-end Japanese restaurant that runs about a thousand yuan per person. Want to come along?"

"Not a chance!" Clara flatly refused.

Once, when she was tracking Julian, she had grown curious about what the Japanese restaurant he frequented tasted like. Desperate to experience a slice of his daily life, she had splurged nearly half a month's salary there, only for the food to almost bring her to tears of regret—it tasted awful.

It was her first time ever eating high-end Japanese cuisine, and it left her with severe remorse.

"It's a thousand yuan per head! And it's free!" Chloe emphasized. "Haven't you ever tried it? Let me take you to broaden your horizons!"

"Already tried it. Not my thing—I can't stomach raw food."

"…Fine, suit yourself."

While the two chatted, the waiter began bringing out the dishes one after another.

Clara focused entirely on eating, while Chloe chattered away into the lens, reviewing and explaining the food as she bit into each dish.

After the meal, Chloe suggested, "Let's wander around the neighboring mall for a bit to walk off the food?"

"Sure, hold on a sec."

Seeing Clara pull out a tube of lipstick and a small mirror from her bag, applying the color with a level of intense, laser-like focus that felt entirely uncharacteristic of her former self, Chloe blinked rapidly in confusion. "Since when did you pick up such high-maintenance habits?"

"Applying lipstick gives you a healthy glow and makes you look energetic." Clara turned squarely toward Chloe, letting her properly inspect the vibrant enhancement the lipstick provided. "Doesn't this shade look great?"

She had only started dipping her toes into makeup this year, still lingering at the beginner's stage of the holy trinity: daily tone-up cream, eyebrow drawing, and lipstick, all in a bid to make herself look a bit prettier.

"Are you... kidding me?" Chloe scanned Clara up and down. "With bright red lipstick like that, if you put it on too thick, it makes you look mature and garish. Tone it down."

In her professional opinion, Clara possessed a textbook soft-featured aesthetic, meaning she wasn't suited for flashy, loud styling, nor should she plaster too many brightly colored cosmetics onto her face.

"Really?" Clara instantly began to doubt her own aesthetic judgment.

"Really." Chloe nodded emphatically. "Wipe it off."

"..." Clara silently reached for a tissue and rubbed the lipstick away.

Packing up her equipment, Chloe told the owner they were done shooting, then led Clara over to the nearby shopping mall.

The mall catered primarily to ordinary consumers, with item prices locked safely within a budget average people could afford. Clara browsed back and forth, but perhaps her tastes had elevated—she couldn't find a single thing that caught her eye.

"How about we head over to Stellar Plaza?" she asked, turning to look at Chloe, who was currently fidgeting with a small trinket.

"Wait, girl, did you strike it rich?" Chloe asked in astonishment. "Why are we going to Stellar Plaza again?"

Stellar Plaza was a luxury concentration camp exclusively built for the wealthy, where price tags looked like they didn't matter, trailing behind endless strings of zeros. They were both ordinary people with tightly capped incomes.

"The stuff there just looks better."

"…And the prices look even better."

"Even if we just look and don't buy, it's good for broadening our horizons." Even if she wanted to buy something, Clara couldn't afford it anymore anyway.

Chloe nodded. "Alright, fine."

They were already out anyway; wandering through one place was no different from another.

The moment they stepped through the main doors of Stellar Plaza, a wave of opulent extravagance hit them head-on. Chloe didn't feel particularly intimidated, but looking down at her own suddenly inadequate, budget-tier clothes, she sighed regretfully, "Why couldn't my reincarnation luck have been a little better?"

"My thoughts exactly." Clara figured her reincarnation luck wasn't entirely atrocious, just not quite good enough.

Entering the mall, Chloe followed right behind Clara just like last time.

Clara didn't step foot inside the boutiques; instead, she stood on the outside looking through the glass at the merchandise displayed in the display cases.

Curiosity piqued, Chloe asked, "Why aren't we going inside?"

Clara answered with brutal honesty, "I don't have the confidence. Saves me from getting side-eye from the clerks."

Store clerks spent every day dealing with wealthy clients; their gazes were razor-sharp, letting them sniff out a customer's purchasing power at a single glance. When she came here last time and gritted her teeth to buy a bag costing over ten thousand yuan, she had still caught plenty of snide looks from the staff.

"Fair point." Remembering the cold glares she had endured last time as well, Chloe let out a depressed breath. "When will I ever strike it rich? Is starting to buy lottery tickets every single day going to do the trick?"

"If you weren't born into it, it's pretty hard to get," Clara muttered. She wanted to strike it rich too, but the ceiling for ordinary people was so agonizingly low that even maintaining basic subsistence was a struggle. Blabbing about getting obscenely wealthy every day was no different from daydreaming.

"Right through the heart." Chloe put on an exaggerated, tearful pout before her attention was instantly hijacked by a wristwatch glowing inside a nearby display window. "Holy crap, am I seeing this right? Seven zeros?!"

"Yep, you're reading that right." Clara knew exactly which watch Chloe was staring at.

"That's enough to buy us two or three apartments," Chloe sighed in envy. "It must be nice to have money."

Clara remained silent, casting a sideways glance at the brand logo.

Vacheron Constantin.

Even the cheapest watch from that brand was completely out of reach for an ordinary person.

Standing right beside the display window now, gazing at the luxury item trapped behind the glass...

In truth, it felt remarkably similar to how she secretly watched Julian from the shadows—like an ordinary person coveting an outrageously expensive, gorgeous luxury item that was utterly unobtainable no matter how hard she tried, leaving her with no choice but to simply look and walk away.

Yet every time she thought about it, a surge of raw irritation bubbled up inside her.

Why couldn't Yinteng Group just collapse?

And then Julian would go bankrupt, forced to sell off everything at a heavy discount!

After sighing over the extravagant lifestyle of the rich, Chloe felt it was a bit awkward to keep camping out right in front of someone else's storefront. She nudged closer to Clara and whispered, "Let's switch shops, otherwise the clerks are gonna start—"

Mid-sentence, her gaze dropped downward, and she realized Clara wasn't staring at the watch at all—she was completely transfixed by her phone screen.

Driven by a natural instinct of curiosity, Chloe peeked over at Clara's mobile display.

The screen was parked squarely on a page showing that a stranger's WeChat account had been successfully found, featuring the option to send a friend request. Instantly, Chloe demanded, "Who's this?"

With her mind completely wrapped around everything concerning Julian, Clara had pulled out her phone instinctively, just like she had over the past few days, using his phone number to search his WeChat out of pure habit.

Even though that number yielded nothing else besides WeChat across the internet, the digital bridge made her feel so close to him—so close that a mere flick of her finger could grant her access to him. It meant she didn't have to hide like a thief when catching glimpses of him in the villa district, constantly terrified that he would recognize her face and catch her in the act of tracking him.

"Just..." Clara paused for a fraction of a second. "The person I like, like I told you before."

She had confessed to Chloe back when she first fell in love with Julian at first sight.

"Oh, him!" Since they had been best friends since elementary school, this was the first time Chloe had ever seen Clara take an interest in anyone, making it unforgettable. "Congrats on finally getting his contact info! But wait, why haven't you added him yet?"

Bound by deep self-awareness, Clara hadn't dared to reveal Julian's true identity.

After all, a chasm separated her and Julian; saying it out loud would sound like a common toad trying to eat swan meat, inviting mockery and making Chloe mistakenly assume Julian was just another ordinary guy.

"I..." Clara massaged her brow. "I'm afraid of disturbing him."

"What's there to be afraid of? You only get a start if you take the initiative! Who knows, it might actually work out!" Chloe offered her own hard-earned dating experience as advice. "Besides, managing to get his contact info in the first place takes real skill!"

Before she could finish, seeing Clara's hesitant expression, Chloe had zero patience for cold feet. With lightning-fast reflexes, she tapped a few times on Clara's screen, successfully completing the friend request dispatch, and declared, "What are you scared of? Just add him and be done with it!"

Staring at the newly changed interface on the screen, Clara froze in place.

Unaware of the massive historical milestone she had just triggered, Chloe kept dishing out advice: "Back in the day, that's exactly how I reeled my boyfriend in. Chasing a guy is as easy as piercing a layer of window paper!"

"This..." Clara suddenly lost her voice.

The request had already been sent; there was no taking it back now.

A sudden, dizzying wave of anticipation washed over her.

What if... what if Julian actually accepted a stranger's request?

Over the next several hours, Clara checked her WeChat every few minutes.

The result remained identical: absolute silence.

Until she returned home, realized her phone was running low on battery, plugged it in inside her bedroom, and stayed out in the living room to watch TV with her parents.

As the night grew late, her mother reminded her that she needed to wash up and go to sleep since she had work tomorrow. Clara rubbed her temples with a trace of lingering irritability.

She had been hit with two complaints by that sickening old man last week, bringing her total up to four for the month. Her pay was officially guaranteed to be docked by five hundred yuan, making her loathe this job more with every passing day—yet she couldn't afford to lose it.

Pulling her emotions back in line, Clara walked back to her bedroom to grab a change of clothes and get ready for bed.

Right before heading to the bathroom, she casually picked up her phone to sneak one last look for any new notifications.

The moment the screen lit up, a notification banner from WeChat popped into view.

Heng has accepted your friend request!

Chapter 5: The Fake Identity

Up on the top floor of the Yinteng Group headquarters, inside the president's office.

Having talked endlessly until his throat was dry, Wei Hongwen decided to take a break and reach for the cup of tea poured on the coffee table. That was when he noticed Julian sitting opposite him, casually playing with his phone and treating him with an even greater level of indifference than before.

Pulling his hand back, Wei Hongwen asked cautiously, "Julian, were you even listening to me?"

He had come here today carrying a mission: to help his grandfather persuade Julian into co-developing a project. If Julian wouldn't participate, even a modest financial investment or some shared resources would make his family deeply grateful.

To secure this meeting, he had waited from daylight until evening, finally getting an audience with Julian only after the young CEO finished his heavy workload.

If Julian hadn't absorbed a single word of his pitch, he was going to have to repeat the whole thing.

"Mhm," Julian responded indifferently.

"Then... what do you think about this proposal?" Despite being peers who had known each other since childhood and shared some history, Wei Hongwen still adopted the posture of someone asking a favor, his tone deeply respectful.

"Talk to my assistant."

"You got it! Thanks!"

With just a single sentence from Julian, the deal was practically in the bag. Wei Hongwen's expression shifted instantly, and he sipped his tea in high spirits. Even so, his peripheral vision kept drifting back to Julian, whose intense focus on his phone was simply too intriguing to ignore.

"Julian, what are you looking at?" he asked out of curiosity.

"A cat," Julian replied without raising his head. His eyes remained locked on the phone screen as his fingertip slowly swiped down, until a prompt finally slid into view:

*Non-friends can only view the latest ten posts in Moments.*

After that, his finger swiped back upward, displaying the Moments posts he had just looked at once more.

Among them, a post featuring both selfies and candid shots of a smiling girl made his gaze linger for a moment longer.

Growing a bit bolder, are we?

Daring to come and add him on WeChat now.

"A cat?" Wei Hongwen was baffled. He distinctly remembered that Julian had detested furry pets since childhood. "When did you start keeping a cat?"

The moment those words left his mouth, he caught Julian casting an indefinable, faintly playful sidelong glance his way.

The next second, Wei Hongwen found himself locked in the crosshairs of a pair of ice-cold eyes.

"We're done here. You can leave."

Faced with the prompt dismissal, Wei Hongwen didn't even have time to dwell on the question he had just asked. He dropped his teacup onto the table and offered another hurried expression of gratitude: "Thanks!"

Stepping out of Julian's office, he glanced back over his shoulder a few times.

Even though he and Julian shared a past, he couldn't deny that the chasm between them was widening by the day. Yinteng Group had been soaring to new heights ever since Julian took the helm, while his own family's company had slumped into a semi-moribund state following a disastrous strategic misstep, causing their social standing to plummet.

In a sense, he had been reduced to someone who had to rely on Julian's moods to make a living.

Yet, despite the widening inequality of their positions, Wei Hongwen felt no bitter imbalance in his heart.

Having the chance to eat off Julian's plate was an opportunity countless people would kill for.

His objective achieved, Wei Hongwen's mood grew even brighter, his footsteps practically bouncing with glee.

Gancing over at the door Wei Hongwen had just closed behind him, Julian was once again left alone in the office. He backed out of the restricted Moments homepage, returned to the notification tab, tapped accept, and promptly disabled every channel that allowed people to add him as a friend.

Since her courage had grown so big, he wanted to see just how far it stretched.

At the exact same moment, holding a change of clothes in one hand and her phone in the other, Clara repeatedly stared at the notification—**Heng has accepted your friend request!**—trying to convince herself it wasn't just a hallucination born of tired eyes.

No matter how many times she checked, a brand-new tab sat securely in her chat list.

Tapping into it revealed the system prompt:

*You have added Heng. You can now start chatting.*

Julian had actually accepted her friend request!

Unable to suppress her disbelief, Clara rubbed her eyes.

When Chloe had initiated the friend request for her, the verification message had simply been a single, casual digit: *1*.

From Julian's perspective, she was an absolute, textbook stranger!

So what on earth was she supposed to say right now?

Or should she first double-check whether the person on the other end was the real Julian?

With her thoughts spinning in a jumble, she decisively utilized the transfer feature.

The moment she opened the transfer page, the third character of his real-name authentication popped up right behind his nickname, matching the single character "Heng" in his display name. Clara's pupils widened slightly.

Next, she tested a five-figure transfer amount.

WeChat immediately prompted her to verify the other party's surname, asking her to input it manually.

Typing in "Gu", a message flashed instantly: *Input correct.*

At that exact moment, fireworks seemed to burst inside Clara's mind, sending a tingling, electric thrill cascading through her veins.

The person on the other end really was Julian!

She actually had his contact info!

Returning to the original dilemma: what should she say?

Or should she say nothing at all and just lurk quietly on his contact list?

The trouble with lurking was the constant risk of getting purged at any moment!

With the clock ticking, Clara wrung her brain dry without coming up with a single solid opening line, completely unable to cook up a convincing fake identity on the spot.

Fortunately, Julian didn't send a follow-up message demanding to know who she was.

She realized that now that she was interacting with him face-to-face across the digital divide, she was actually getting a bit timid.

Normally, when she watched him from the shadows, stalked him, and secretly wished for his financial ruin, she was acting like a stealthy, law-breaking outlaw. But direct contact didn't allow for any of that; she had to present herself as a proper, respectable person and keep her dark, twisted side locked away.

The reason was simple: nobody liked a creep who wished ill upon them.

*Hello!*

After agonizing for a moment, Clara sent a simple greeting.

She figured that once Julian asked who she was, she would drop her fabricated cover story.

To her utter dismay, she waited and waited, but half an hour slipped by without a single reply from Julian.

During that stretch of time, she ended up scrolling through his Moments all over again.

Seeing that it was nearing 11:00 PM, Clara finally gave up and headed off to wash up.

She wrapped up her bedtime routine much faster than usual, but still, no reply sat waiting for her on the screen.

Was Julian that insanely busy?

Did he just snatch a second to glance at his phone during a busy gap and then toss it aside?

As drowsiness began to creep in, Clara decided she had better just go to sleep, praying that when she woke up tomorrow morning, Julian wouldn't have deleted her.

As it turned out, the moment her head hit the pillow, her nervous system snapped awake; she tossed and turned, completely unable to fall asleep.

Her actual hours of sleep that night could be counted on one hand.

Consequently, waking up the next morning was an absolute form of torture. The first thing she did was check her phone—still no reply from Julian.

Had he ignored her? Or outright deleted her?

Terrified of the latter, she instantly tapped into his Moments page to verify.

She could still see his posts; she hadn't been blocked or deleted.

Then why on earth wasn't he replying to her?

Throughout her morning commute, Clara's mind was consumed entirely by that single question.

Yet, she hadn't anticipated that the moment she stepped through the gates of the villa district, her phone would ping with a WeChat notification sound.

Clara scrambled to pull out her phone and opened the app.

**Heng:** *Hello, who is this?*

Julian had replied to her!

In a flash, a wave of jubilation surged through her, making her feel like leaping into the air.

Honestly, no amount of lurking or stalking could ever compare to direct contact.

Because observing and tracking someone from the shadows was inherently clandestine, making it nearly impossible to understand them up close. Direct contact was entirely different—it meant she was legitimately, openly infiltrating his world.

After clocking in, Clara leisurely began drafting her reply.

*Good morning!*

*Mr. Vance, I'm Bai Tianqing, an investigator with Fengyue Auction House.*

Fengyue Auction House was a fairly prestigious establishment within City A's elite circles. She had trailed Julian there twice and thoroughly dug up information on it online. Choosing to impersonate an employee from there felt like the safest bet, especially since Julian seemed genuinely fond of purchasing items through them.

*Forgive me for adding you out of the blue, I hope I'm not disturbing you!*

*I'm conducting a survey regarding your client experience with our auction house. If there was anything during your visits that made you uncomfortable, I'd like to log it and feed it back to management so we can improve and ensure your future experiences are top-notch!*

Having constructed her fake identity and wrapped it in a righteous, bulletproof excuse, Clara sent the message off and wanted to pat herself on the back for being a genius.

Meanwhile, inside his regular chauffeured vehicle on his morning commute, Julian cast a dark, inscrutable gaze over the four newly arrived messages.

Fengyue Auction House?

Bai Tianqing?

Adding him as a friend without using her real identity, opting to fabricate a fake one instead?

And before fabricating a fake one, she forgot to delete the photos leaking her real face from her Moments?

Julian tapped back into Clara's Moments page. Unlike last night, what met his eyes now was a completely blank screen.

*The user only displays the most recent three days of Moments.*

His brow furrowing slightly, he locked his phone screen and turned his gaze back to the scenery outside the window.

The entire morning drifted by without Clara receiving any further response from Julian.

During lunch break, everyone gathered to eat their respective meals. Kelly, sitting right next to Clara, noticed that even while eating, Clara's eyes were glued to her phone screen—specifically parked on a WeChat chat window—and teased with a chuckle, "Waiting for someone's message?"

At that, Clara flashed Kelly a bright smile. "Yeah, waiting on a message."

Between spells of waiting, she kept refreshing to confirm whether she had been deleted.

"By the way," Kelly leaned in a bit closer. "Do you have any of the homeowners on WeChat?"

Clara only had one WeChat account and hadn't gotten around to setting up a burner to add Julian. Since she was already friends with Kelly on her main account, if Julian ever happened to interact with her in the comments or likes of a mutual post, her fake identity would instantly blow up.

"How could we possibly have that?" For the two years Kelly had been managing Villa No. 9, she hadn't even seen the homeowner's face in person more than a handful of times, usually communicating solely through his butler. "Little nobodies like us, how could we ever be worthy of appearing in a big shot's WeChat contacts?"

As an ultra-luxury enclave, every resident of Grand Manor was fabulously wealthy. To ordinary people, they practically lived like immortals in a heavenly palace, completely out of reach for mere mortals.

Clara let out an awkward, dry laugh. "True. I don't have any homeowners on WeChat either."

"You asking this... don't tell me the butler of Villa No. 8..." Terrified of being overheard by management while gossiping behind someone's back, Kelly dropped her voice to a near-inaudible whisper. "Giving you a hard time again? Are you trying to find a way to communicate with the owner directly?"

Hearing that old man's title made Clara want to roll her eyes into the back of her head.

Working this dead-end job was utterly sickening, and a good fifty percent of the credit belonged entirely to that old man.

She hoped the old man went bankrupt and lost his job tomorrow!

And that she'd never have to lay eyes on him here again!

Haltingly, Clara sighed with a mix of reality and pretense, "Living is so hard."

"Tell me about it! Taking crap every single day for pennies." While Villa No. 9's butler didn't make things difficult for Kelly—maintaining easy day-to-day communication and a laid-back personality—their department manager was a total freak, and she had her share of toxic colleagues too, leaving Kelly thoroughly sick of her job as well. "I just want financial freedom."

"I'm greedier than you. Not only do I want financial freedom, I also want..." Clara swallowed the rest of the sentence back down.

Because she couldn't possibly say it out loud...

Her ultimate, grandest wish was for Yinteng Group to collapse, for Julian to go bankrupt and plummet down into her exact same social stratum, leaving him within arm's reach so she could finally catch him.

She certainly couldn't let anyone hear that kind of talk at work!

Chapter 6: The Summit Stakeout

[Not bad.]

After more than half a day, those were the only two words Julian sent back in reply.

Judging by that response, he was likely extremely busy and simply not a man of many words. Of course, there was another possibility: he couldn't be bothered to waste time on someone insignificant.

Even so, Clara was still thrilled.

[Thank you for your cooperation. Wishing you a pleasant life!]

Concluding the conversation, she swiftly searched up Fengyue Auction House to check for any public promotional channels. She hit follow on a few so she could conveniently send Julian auction catalog details in the future, allowing her to pull off her fake identity with flying colors.

With those preparations out of the way, Clara dove back into her work, conducting her daily public-area patrol—one of two mandatory rounds.

As she passed Villa No. 9, gazing at the magnificent, palace-like architecture before her, a blend of envy and fantasy rippled through her.

If only she were the mistress of this place!

Just as she was about to slip into the blissful haze of daydreams, the walkie-talkie clipped to her uniform crackled to life with an order.

"Clara, head to the rockery fishpond."

It was Victor Wu's voice.

"Got it, Manager."

Snapping out of her reverie, Clara changed direction toward the rockery.

Truth be told, the scenery within the villa enclave was top-tier, featuring artificial mountains, flowing streams, and plenty of small wildlife.

The moment she approached the rockery, a flock of birds resting on the peak scattered into the air.

Her attention, however, wasn't on the birds, but on a group of workers in gray overalls nearby.

They were carefully hauling cargo, and she leaned in to take a closer look.

"The company bought a new batch of fish and they've just been delivered. Keep an eye on them while they stock the pond," Victor's voice crackled over the radio again, clarifying her instructions.

Still, acting as a babysitter for fish was mind-numbingly boring.

With nothing better to do, she pulled out her phone, snapped a photo of the fish, and ran a visual search.

Anything casually tossed around inside a luxury villa district was wildly expensive to an ordinary person. Clara still hadn't fully adjusted to the chasm of wealth disparity, and she was genuinely curious about the price tier of these particular fish.

When the search results revealed that a single one of these fish cost upwards of tens of thousands of yuan, her soul practically left her body.

The cheapest thing in this entire luxury estate was undeniably their team of property staff!

"Babe, what are you up to?"

Since it was her day off, and lunchtime had rolled around, Mrs. Lin interrupted her street-side stall setup as usual to head home and cook. The meal was ready, but after calling out for her daughter a few times with no response, she decided to knock on her bedroom door.

Hearing the knocks, Clara set down the piece of clothing she was trying on and went to answer. "Mom, what's up?"

"Calling you to eat." Mrs. Lin cast a quick, sweeping glance at her daughter before looking past her into the room, where a small mountain of clothes was piled onto a chair. "Are you heading out later?"

"Yeah," Clara nodded.

Adding Julian on WeChat had proven to be a brilliant move—it made tracking his movements infinitely easier.

Two days ago, she had spotted a post on his Moments about a newly announced business summit in City A.

As an office worker with just over a year of experience under her belt, she didn't know much about the corporate world, but the phrase "Business Summit" practically screamed an event attended by elites from every industry. She guessed Julian would likely be attending.

She still had one vacation day left for the month, and with the end of the month fast approaching, she decided to cash it in today to go broaden her horizons at the venue and stake out Julian along the way.

"Who are you meeting up with?" Judging by the clothing mountain, Mrs. Lin could tell her daughter had been agonizing over what to wear. Remembering how uncharacteristically happy Clara had been on multiple occasions lately, and how much more attention she was paying to her appearance, she pressed further, "Is it a guy?"

"Not a guy," Clara shook her head.

"Well, come eat then." Mrs. Lin gestured for her daughter to grab lunch first and worry about dressing up afterward. "What time are you heading out?"

The summit was scheduled to start at 3:00 PM, and driving there would conservatively take half an hour. Clara calculated the time. "Two o'clock."

Better to leave early to avoid any unexpected traffic jams or delays.

"Fine." Mrs. Lin had originally planned to make her daughter clean up the house after lunch so she could rush back to the food market to deliver her husband's meal, but since it was already past twelve, it wasn't fair to dump housework on her right now.

After the meal, Clara retreated to her room to meticulously curate her look.

After trying on the prettiest and most flattering outfit, she applied a layer of sunscreen and rosy-pink lipstick to her face, let her curly-ironed hair cascade over her shoulders, slipped on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses for disguise, and drove her car toward the hotel hosting the summit.

The summit turned out to be far grander and more magnificent than she had imagined. Countless media personnel lugging heavy professional cameras were streaming into the hotel in an orderly fashion. Previously, she had only ever witnessed such scenes on TV and the internet; experiencing it live filled her with curious fascination as she observed the setup.

Too bad she didn't have an invitation letter to get inside the actual venue, leaving her with no choice but to wander around outside.

As 3:00 PM approached, Clara still hadn't caught a glimpse of the man she wanted to see.

To make matters worse, she felt thirsty and desperately needed a drink, which meant she couldn't keep pacing around aimlessly and had to hunt down a convenience store.

The exact second she turned her back to the hotel's main entrance to scan the street for a nearby shop, a Rolls-Royce Cullinan rolled slowly to a halt right at the threshold.

Two doormen simultaneously pulled open the left and right rear passenger doors. Kevin Kai stepped out, eager to keep pace with his boss.

However, he hadn't anticipated that after stepping out of the car, the CEO wouldn't immediately start walking; his gaze remained firmly fixed on a specific spot in the distance.

As an assistant, rushing his boss was out of the question. Keeping quiet, Kevin simply stepped behind Julian and cast a casual, sweeping glance in the direction the CEO was staring at.

With the summit entry window almost closed, the crowd outside was sparse.

That opening gave Kevin's sharp eyes a clear view of a slender, delicate figure standing up ahead.

She looked remarkably familiar—so familiar that it instantly re-ignited his curiosity.

Who on earth was this girl?

He had already spotted her tailing the CEO on several occasions.

Yet Julian always remained entirely indifferent, vaguely giving off the impression that he was indulging her.

Hearing the sound of footsteps nearby, Kevin snapped his focus back, handed his invitation to the staff for inspection, and hurried inside to catch up with his boss.

At the exact same time, unable to find a convenience store nearby, Clara pivoted back around.

She pulled out her phone, ordered a food delivery to be dropped off at a nearby pin, and found a bench to sit on.

The clock struck three, leaving Clara utterly baffled.

Did Julian not come to the summit?

If she had known he wasn't going to show, she wouldn't have slept in today; she should have woken up at the crack of dawn to stake out the entrance of the villa estate instead.

Still, since she was already here, and the surrounding area looked lively enough, maybe she should just wander around?

Her delivery arrived. Clara unwrapped the packaging, grabbed her milk tea, and ambled down the street, sipping and window-shopping at the same time.

The autumn sun was gentle and the breeze refreshing. In weather like this, doing absolutely nothing while drifting around like a street wanderer felt wonderfully cozy and relaxing.

After making a large circle, she inadvertently found herself back near the hotel's main entrance.

The summit seemed to be reaching its finale, as a cluster of people began filing out of the hotel lobby.

Clara hadn't intended to stare, but a tall, imposing figure instantly hooked her attention.

The man leading the group, surrounded by a deferential entourage, was none other than Julian!

He had come to the summit after all.

Separated by a distance, without intentionally tracking him down, and wearing her disguised outfit, she didn't need to duck and hide like she did back in the villa district. Clara openly and unabashedly watched him, pretending to be nothing more than an idle passerby killing time.

Today, Julian was dressed in his evergreen, immaculate suit.

Even just looking at his straight, commanding posture was enough to make hearts race.

The corners of her lips curved upward, her eyes brimming with a smile.

That smile, however, didn't last long before it vanished completely.

Perhaps once the brief rush of excitement faded, she had to face raw reality once again.

The insurmountable chasm between the two of them.

Any random position close to him in his circle was a height she might never climb even if she spent several lifetimes trying. In this lifetime, she stood virtually zero chance of approaching him the way his entourage did right now, let alone making him look her way with genuine recognition.

Right—Julian had never once truly looked at her.

Who pays attention to a background extra?

Insecurity silently sprouted from the depths of her heart. Feeling somewhat deflated, Clara kicked at the pavement before turning around to gaze up at the azure sky.

Under that exact same expanse of blue, he was both agonizingly close to her, and yet worlds apart.

Meanwhile, wearing a professional, polished smile, Kevin Kai addressed the group of executives seeing Julian off: "Gentlemen, our CEO has another engagement on his schedule. We'll see you next time."

Whenever the CEO showed his face in public, Kevin was long used to crowds swarming around him.

After all, the sheer scale of Yinteng Group was so massive that anyone who managed to latch onto even a fraction of a connection could feast like royalty—who would willingly give up a chance to cozy up to the boss?

"Understood. Goodbye, Mr. Gu."

With Kevin's cue, and since the summit hadn't formally adjourned yet, the group offered their polite farewells to Julian, tactfully stepping aside and heading back into the venue.

The doorman stepped forward to open the car door, and Kevin waited quietly for Julian to board.

Instead of getting in right away, Julian glanced sideways at the girl who had been watching him earlier and had now turned her back to him.

Her courage hadn't grown quite as much as she thought.

She had added him on WeChat, adopted a fake identity, and yet she wasn't proactive about chatting at all.

Aside from throwing out a conversation starter and trading a few perfunctory lines, she had never initiated another message since, quietly turning into a ghost on his contact list.

Noticing the direction of Julian's gaze—and more importantly, who he was looking at—Kevin kept his thoughts locked down tight.

The next second, that slender, delicate figure marched away toward the opposite street corner without ever looking back, and Kevin watched the CEO climb into the car, his curiosity spiking to absolute critical mass.

If the person tailing the CEO hadn't been a young woman in her early twenties, practically radiating the vibrant energy of a college student, he wouldn't have cared nearly this much. But the problem was that she was a young woman, and far from plain-looking.

While he hadn't examined her face up close, her figure, facial contours, and overflowing youthful aura made it obvious that she was quite an attractive person.

A pretty young girl, coupled with the CEO's unusual indulgence of her—and the fact that no such woman had ever orbited the CEO before, at least not anyone special from his vantage point—led Kevin to a wildly daring, boundary-pushing hypothesis: Could she possibly be the CEO's girlfriend?

Come to think of it, he had been by Julian's side for five or six years, watching him claw his way to supreme power through the brutal bloodbath of the heir succession battles, and subsequently wield an iron fist to purge the internal corporate parasites with sweeping structural reforms. The one thing he had never witnessed throughout all those years was a girlfriend.

In the past, Julian's relentless, twenty-four-seven workaholic tendencies had occasionally made Kevin wonder if the man's eyes and heart could only hold work, rendering him utterly devoid of romantic sentiment.

That thought led him to another burning puzzle.

If that girl really was the CEO's girlfriend, when on earth did the CEO find the time to date her, and why did they act nothing like a normal couple?

And what kind of bizarre hobby did this girl have that made her love trailing the CEO around like a shadow?