Chapter 8: The Fender-Bender

In the dead of night, that slender, frail figure remained, half-obscured and indistinct.

The girl seemed captivated by something, crouching down to study an object on the ground.

Already tiny to begin with, her crouched form made her look even smaller—like a fluffy tuft of cotton that could be completely swallowed up in a single, gentle grasp.

Sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window, Julian's gaze drifted down toward the courtyard below as long-familiar memories surfaced in his mind.

When, exactly, had she started persistently haunting his steps, turning herself into a tiny, ever-present tail?

It traced back to her very first attempt to tail him, a little over three months ago.

Crouching and completely absorbed in watching a tiny squirrel, Clara was blissfully unaware of the gaze fixed on her from high above.

While it didn't strictly count as committing a crime, she was still terrified of getting caught red-handed and having to explain why she was skulking around here like a phantom. Her heart flip-flopped anxiously until she finally watched the Bentley pull away and the gates of Villa No. 9 seal shut.

Only then did she let out a breath of relief, returning to the simple joy of watching the little squirrel nibbling on its meal.

Certain that there wasn't another soul around, Clara slipped away in a flash.

After logging two extra hours of overtime, she finally made it back home past ten o'clock.

She had expected that after washing up, exhaustion would drag her straight into a deep, dreamless sleep. Instead, the exact opposite happened.

She was spiraling into anxiety.

What if Julian actually has a girlfriend?

With that single question playing on loop in her mind, Clara tossed and turned for ages, her descent into sleep agonizingly slow and her rest deeply fractured.

The next morning, she dragged her sleep-deprived body out of bed and forced herself to go to work.

The second she clocked in, Clara decisively ordered a cup of iced coffee.

Just as she was about to close out of the delivery app, a WeChat notification flashed banner-style at the top of her screen.

Heng: [Mm, I saw it.]

The sales pitch she had mentally written off as sinking without a trace had not only landed, but actually received a reply. Her jaw dropped in sheer astonishment.

So... what was she supposed to say back?

After a moment of careful deliberation, Clara tapped her fingertips against the screen, weighing every word.

[Morning! Thank you for the support, Mr. Gu!]

[By the way, are there any particular auction items that catch your eye?]

Both times they had conversed previously, Julian's response times had been glacial, so she fully expected him to take ages to reply this time around.

To her utter shock, Julian replied instantly.

Heng: [No.]

Clara raised her brows slightly, rereading his curt response a few times over.

Having never interacted with Julian in the real world, and judging entirely by his habitual air of cold detachment and severe facial features, she had pegged him as an unapproachable, frozen-hearted archetype.

After all, the supreme ruler of a multi-trillion-dollar corporate empire and a veritable titan of capital wasn't exactly expected to be warm and accessible.

Yet through his replies, she got a faint impression of approachability—almost as if he lacked that intimidating wall of distance.

The corners of her mouth curved upward into a genuine smile.

[Got it!]

[Thanks again for your support!]

Pushing too hard with a "sales pitch" was a surefire way to invite annoyance. Ending the conversation right at the sweet spot was the safest bet to keep from getting unceremoniously blocked, right?

"Clara."

Lost in her wave of happiness, she heard Kelly calling out from the adjacent desk and turned her head.

"You've been..." Kelly gave Clara's face a once-over, taking in the radiant, beaming smile plastered across it, and asked with profound confusion, "Why are you smiling so brightly?"

Clara kept mum, maintaining her grin.

Since she couldn't get close to him in the real world, letting her interact with him in the digital realm was a harmless little joy she deserved to indulge in.

Still...

She needed to keep her eyes wide open the next time she tailed him to find out once and for all if Julian had a girlfriend.

He absolutely could not have a girlfriend, or she was genuinely going to lose her mind.

After spending a few days thoroughly failing to concentrate on her actual job, Clara took her scheduled day off.

Early that morning, she drove out, parked along the roadside near the main gates of the villa enclave to conceal herself, and waited to see if Julian would leave right on time at eight o'clock. In the middle of the wait, she let out a string of massive yawns.

She had been dragged into a late-night voice call by Amanda Zheng until the early hours of the morning. Having only caught four or five hours of shut-eye, she was severely sleep-deprived and bone-tired.

She didn't stay tired for long, however.

The familiar Cullinan rolled out through the security gates. The mere thought that Julian was sitting inside acted like a jolt of high-octane stimulant, instantly banishing her exhaustion and filling her with wired, jittery energy as she tailed closely behind him.

Because it was peak morning rush hour, traffic was exceptionally brutal, plagued by brain-dead drivers cutting lanes without signaling. It cranked the difficulty of tailing him up to eleven, turning someone who normally didn't have road rage into a screaming mess of road rage.

Right after some an incompetent driver cut her off without warning, she was about to navigate a turn at the upcoming intersection. While straining her eyes to carefully monitor the road conditions ahead, she let out an enraged yell: "Are you out of your mind?! If you don't know how to drive, get off the road!"

Right at that exact micro-second of distraction, she failed to brake in time and bumped squarely into the rear of the vehicle ahead.

Instinct taking over, Clara slammed hard on her brakes.

Her car insurance covered all the standard liabilities, but the second her eyes landed on the luxury emblem of the car she had just tapped, a cold wave of dread washed over her. I'm done for.

"How the hell do you drive?!" The owner of the car slammed on their brakes as well, jumping out with a string of curses and stomping over to bang furiously on her window.

"..." Clara forced an apologetic, face-saving smile, rolled down her window just an inch, and squeaked out, "I am so sorry."

"Get out of the car!" The driver glared daggers at Clara. "Do you have any idea how much paint you just scraped off?!"

It was a brand-new car with a down payment alone costing upwards of half a million yuan, barely broken in on the road. Suffice to say, having your prized possession mangled like this was enough to push anyone over the edge.

Since the collision was entirely her fault and the other party looked like an absolute brute of a man, Clara didn't dare step out of the car. She babbled multiple apologies in rapid succession before hurriedly dialing the police and her insurance company to handle the mess.

The delay wasn't particularly long in the grand scheme of things, but by the time she wrapped up, the Cullinan was long gone without a trace.

Instantly, she ruffled her hair in a fit of pure aggravation.

Unfortunately, that wasn't even the worst part.

After inspecting the scene, the insurance adjuster walked over and delivered the gut punch with a grimace: "Ms. Lin, due to the specialized nature of repairs required for this particular luxury brand, the costs fall outside your policy's coverage limit. After factoring in our payout, you're going to have to cover the remaining balance out of pocket—roughly thirty thousand yuan."

"!!!" Clara froze, staring dead at the adjuster in sheer disbelief.

Thirty thousand yuan?

If this were a few months ago, she could have scraped thirty thousand together without blinking.

But after her relentless shopping sprees, her savings were essentially wiped out. Between her salary from last month and a few miscellaneous leftover bills, she had roughly ten thousand yuan to her name, total.

To someone in her position, thirty thousand yuan was nothing short of an astronomical figure.

Should she borrow from friends? Take out a microloan? Or swallow her pride and ask her parents?

An eternity seemed to pass as Clara massaged her throbbing temples in absolute despair. "Fine, I understand."

"I'll stay here to finish up the paperwork. You can head off to whatever you need to take care of," the adjuster told her before immediately walking back to negotiate further with the enraged car owner.

Struck by a bolt-out-of-the-blue disaster that saddled her with an unexpected thirty-thousand-yuan debt, and with the Cullinan completely vanished from sight, Clara completely lost the will to track Julian. Even though she could reasonably guess he was probably heading straight to Yinteng Tower, she had zero mental bandwidth left to care.

She drove straight home and collapsed face-first onto her bed in a state of pure existential defeat.

"Hey, Amanda, are you doing okay for cash right now? I wanted to ask to borrow twenty thousand yuan. I can start paying you back in installments starting next month, clearing the whole thing in three or four months. Would that be okay?" Clara dialed Amanda's number, asking to borrow money with a heavy heart.

She had never picked up the habit of living on credit; she didn't even own a credit card.

As for asking her parents? She couldn't bring herself to do it.

Her parents worked themselves to the bone day in and day out just to make an honest living. She was a grown adult who had been working for over a year now, yet she hadn't contributed a dime back to them—asking them for a bailout was a bridge too far for her conscience.

"What's wrong?" Amanda asked, her tone laced with surprise. "Are you in some kind of emergency?"

Having known each other for over a decade, Amanda trusted Clara far beyond the value of twenty thousand yuan. Having built a successful career since her college days as a well-known lifestyle and review blogger on social media with a six-figure savings cushion, she certainly had the cash to lend—she was just dying of curiosity over why Clara needed it.

After recounting the entire fender-bender saga to Amanda, Clara let out a long, pathetic sigh. "I must be stuck in the worst retrograde of my life!"

"Oh honey..." Amanda offered her deepest sympathies. "Note to self: drive ten times more carefully from now on! I'll transfer the money to your WeChat right now."

"Thank you so much!" Clara gasped out in profound gratitude.

The moment the call ended, Amanda's WeChat transfer notification chimed through.

Staring at the freshly arrived twenty thousand yuan, Clara awaited the moment the insurance company would contact her to settle the payment. At the same time, she mentally calculated how many months of free labor she was now locked into to pay off this single accident, lying face-down in miserable defeat.

Meanwhile, inside the Cullinan cruising down the highway:

"Where is she?"

The young master's voice suddenly drifted from the backseat. Even though he hadn't specified a name, Uncle Wu instantly understood that "she" undoubtedly referred to Clara.

The girl had gone and tailed the young master yet again today!

"Ms. Lin... she..." Uncle Wu glanced into the rearview mirror. He had half-expected to catch sight of that battered little car trailing nervously behind them, but to his surprise, the clunker was nowhere to be found.

As he looked closer, the young master's dark, penetrating gaze swept across the mirror, prompting Uncle Wu to quickly mentally retrace where he had last spotted Clara. "I don't see Ms. Lin anywhere, sir. Maybe I was driving too fast and she lost us."

Before he even finished his sentence, a subtle, hard-to-pinpoint chill of displeasure seemed to wrap around the cabin. Uncle Wu prudently retracted his gaze from the rearview mirror, avoiding direct eye contact with the young master.

"Have someone look into what happened."

The girl had never once lost him halfway through a pursuit before. Julian's instincts told him something was wrong.

The order was given, and Uncle Wu immediately responded with utmost respect: "Right away, sir."

After dropping the young master off at Yinteng Tower, it didn't take long for the investigation report to land on his phone. Uncle Wu made the call immediately. "Sir, Ms. Lin was involved in a minor traffic accident along the way, which is why she fell behind."

"A car accident?" Julian frowned slightly. "Is she hurt?"

"No, sir. It was just a minor fender-bender. Ms. Lin is completely fine."

"Mm."

Call concluded, Uncle Wu hung up the phone, a lingering sense of bewilderment gnawing at him.

Was the young master actually going to keep letting Clara tail him?

He hadn't even driven significantly faster than his usual pace today—it had been a relatively steady commute.

Yet when he suggested to the young master that he might have driven too fast and caused her to lose the trail, the young master had looked distinctly displeased.

Does this mean that the next time Clara decides to trail him, he's supposed to intentionally slow the car down to make it easier for her to keep up?

Lacking any clear direction and completely unable to read his young master's mind, Uncle Wu found himself genuinely troubled.

When a person gets troubled, their attention inevitably locks onto the source of that trouble.

Over the course of the following week, whenever Uncle Wu entered or exited the villa enclave, he found himself subconsciously keeping tabs on Clara.

He watched her chatting cheerfully with her fellow uniformed property staff members as she crossed his path, wearing a bright, sun-kissed smile that looked utterly disconnected from the sneaky, clandestine shadow she cast whenever she was tailing the young master. It made the whole dynamic deeply baffling.

What on earth was Clara's game?

Whatever her goal was, he figured that the next time she decided to tail the young master, he'd better keep his foot light on the gas pedal.

Sure enough, a few days later, Uncle Wu spotted that familiar battered car in his rearview mirror. He eased off the accelerator just a fraction, keeping a vigilant eye on her to make sure she didn't lose the trail or get into another accident, nipping any repeat of the last disaster in the bud.

Chapter 9: The Private Teahouse

Clara currently had one monumental mission: figure out once and for all whether Julian had a girlfriend.

To that end, during her latest stakeout, she paid excruciating attention to everyone he interacted with.

However, when he walked into an exclusive, members-only

Chapter 10: The Pink Slip

With both of his previous obligations wrapped up, there was no reason to linger at the teahouse. Julian led his assistant toward their next scheduled destination, entirely unaware that the girl was standing right by the main entrance.

The moment she spotted him, she snapp