Su Qingyan is Gu Yanshen’s executive assistant at a Shanghai tech giant. Within a year of joining the company, she has secured a place in its inner circle. Outsiders call her a “parachuted-in pretty face,” claiming she uses her beauty to seduce the boss and wondering when he’ll get tired of her and kick her out.
They wait two years. Su Qingyan doesn’t resign. Instead, she gets promoted and transferred to lead an independent overseas project. The upper class privately scoffs that it’s clearly just a face-saving way of saying she’s fallen out of favor.
But no one knows that on a stormy night in the underground garage of Lujiazui’s CBD, a passerby captured an intimate moment: inside a black Maybach, the usually stern and restrained President Gu leaned forward under an umbrella, one hand shielding the back of a young woman’s head as he kissed her through the rain, tenderly yet with restraint. The blurry photo spreads, and #GuYanshen’sMysteriousFemaleCompanion trends online.
At that moment, in the Gu family estate, beneath warm yellow lights, Gu Yanshen wraps his arms around Su Qingyan from behind and lays his hand over hers as she holds a fountain pen, guiding her stroke by stroke as she writes: Gu Yanshen.
“We’ll make it public once the project wraps up, okay?” he murmurs against her ear. Su Qingyan stares at the headline on her computer, “Xingtu Technology’s Overseas Project Lead Su Qingyan: A Mysterious Background,” and bites her lip. “Let’s wait a little longer. I want to earn a promotion through this project.” Gu Yanshen tightens his arms around her, resting his chin on the crown of her head. “Afraid they’ll say you got ahead because of me?” “I want them to know I deserve you, and I deserve this position.”
Three years later, Gu Yanshen attends an industry summit with his wife. A reporter asks, “President Gu, what was the hardest part of pursuing President Su back then?” The man looks at the woman beside him, her smile gentle, his eyes full of affection. “Waiting for her to say, ‘I deserve it.’”
