Shen Yiyi is a modern-day office worker who has given up trying. Her main gig is writing steamy romance stories and ranting about men; her side gig is surfing the internet and flirting with online friend CC. Then one day, she’s unexpectedly hired by tech giant Blue Sky Corporation! On her first day, the dashing, mixed-race CEO Chen Che arrives out of nowhere, eyes the cilantro stuck in her neatly curled hair, and smiles. “Miss Shen, would you like to study abroad on the company’s dime?”
She thinks she’s hit the jackpot. In fact, she’s walked right into a trap.
Chen Che may seem like a cool, domineering CEO and research genius, but behind the scenes, he’s her goofy online friend CC! To complete his “pure love experiment report,” he spends a fortune sending her traditional Han clothing, charters a plane to take her back to her village for Lunar New Year, and even holds his nose while eating cilantro hot pot with her. Shen Yiyi stares at the gold bracelet in her hands, eyes wide with shock. “Is poverty relief the latest trend among CEOs?”
Beneath the sweet trap, undercurrents churn.
The white-moonlight rival shows up to declare war, her gold-digging ex Su Pingping secretly deletes her files, and even her former online boyfriend appears to recite an excerpt from one of her steamy stories with deep feeling! Shen Yiyi grabs her keyboard and makes a midnight getaway, only to stumble upon the file for Subject No. 7 in Chen Che’s lab:
“Experimental conclusion: The subject has a low threshold for attraction and is susceptible to financial incentives.”
She tears up the check and laughs bitterly. “So I’m the clown in your data?”
Clutching the gold medal from the Global Tech Expo, Chen Che panics when he can no longer measure her heartbeat. Only when her older sister returns from studying abroad and shoves Shen Yiyi onto his private jet does he hear: “While she was studying English all night, you were in the lab feeding mice?”
Later, the research fanatic changes.
He squats at the village entrance, weaving a straw scarecrow with a gold chain for her, then declares his love through a megaphone: “The experiment failed. I’m your control group now!” Even his mother, who used to look down on her for being so unsophisticated...
