Book One by the Lady Who Never Grew Fangs

Two “odd ones out” are tucked away in the General Affairs Section of the city's Development and Reform Commission. Zhou Yan is the section chief. He comes from a privileged family but prefers to wear a plain white shirt. He seems carefree, yet holds the “ledger of life and death” for project approvals across the city. His colleagues say he is a young nobleman wasted in the bureaucracy. Only he knows that the highlight of every day is watching Lin Wei, the new government recruit, make reports more elegant than code. Lin Wei is a small-town striver who walks into the government compound with a faded canvas bag on her back. To everyone else, she's a bookish type who keeps her head down and works hard. No one knows that her computer hides encrypted programs, or that the things she types aren't just briefing documents, but invisible code that can expose irregularities in the data. She's known poverty and hardship, but the words “Go out there and make your mark” from her family have kept a fire burning inside her, even in this city of steel and concrete. One emergency overtime shift lets him see how effortlessly she handles complex models; during a field visit, she discovers the sharp insight beneath his casual demeanor. “Section Chief Zhou, I've checked the report.” “Call me Zhou Yan.” “...Zhou Yan, I think I've found a lead on that suspicious fund.” From working side by side in the office to sharing a bowl of hot soup after overtime; from his parents smiling as they hand her dumplings to her finally daring to look up and say, “This time, let me be the one to come to you”... The rules of bureaucracy can't stop them falling for each other, and the gap between their family backgrounds can't come between them. When the “secret powerhouse” heroine meets the “ideal man” hero, a romance that begins with reports and ends in true love slowly fills with warmth and tenderness.