The dusk outside the window was gorgeous, music came from a distance, and the fountain splashed crystal-like light on the green grass. Fang Jin walked through the long, empty corridor and stood in front of the study door.

He raised his hand and before he could touch the thick dark brown mahogany door panel, he heard a familiar sound from inside: "Come in."

Fang Jin stared at the warm wood on the door, and after a while, he pushed the door open and walked in.

Gu Mingzong leaned in the leather swivel chair behind the desk, his expensive suit jacket was not buckled, and his long legs were casually placed on the edge of the table. He turned the hardcover hot-cover cowhide poem in his hand over a page and lazily said: "an, passby--"

"Mr. Gu," Fang Jin said with his head down.

Gu Mingzong asked lightly: "What do you think of this sentence?"

The peach wood door was closed behind him, and the vague voices in the distance disappeared. There was only the ticking sound of the floor-to-ceiling clock in the study, and there was silence.

Fang Jin swallowed into his dry throat.

“I thought you prefer the phrase: ‘hadasagiftd’.”

"——The hearts of people can only be won by people, not gifts." Gu Mingzong laughed, closed the book and threw it on the table: "Come here."

Fang Jin walked step by step to the wide desk, and Gu Mingzongshen leaned in the swivel chair, looking up and down like a resting lion, and then said for a while: "I've lost weight. How do Gu Yuan treat you?"

"... The eldest young master has strict requirements for his subordinates." Fang Jin said, and each word was circling around his mind before he went out: "It is probably because he has very high self-requirements, so he is inevitably strict with his subordinates."

As Mingzong didn't care: "It should be like this, but it's true that he doesn't care about others."

"No, I didn't say..."

Gu Mingzong raised his hand to stop him, then opened the drawer and took out the exquisitely printed gift list, and threw it to him:

"Your one."

Fang Jin knew that this would be the case.

There is an ancient shelf next to the antique floor-standing clock, and a delicately mounted horizontal couplet is hung on the wall, which is written in the four words "Political and harmonious" in the thin gold style. Although the brushstrokes and force are slightly weak due to age and wrist strength, the thin and refreshing shadows have already appeared.

Fang Jin still remembers that when he was writing this calligraphy, he was wearing white cotton pajamas, holding a pen, and stood in front of Chengxintang rice paper in the late Qing Dynasty; As Mingzong stood by and watched with great interest, his eyes still made him unable to forget the slightest.

It is the look of admiring a flower, a painting, or simply looking at a beautiful bird in a cage.

After writing the four words, Gu Mingzong seemed very satisfied and put them away directly. After a while, Fang Jin came back and found that it had been framed and hung on the wall.

This is almost a piece of characters that laymen thinks are good at first glance, but insiders can see moisture. However, there is no signature or signature. Most outsiders think that it was written by Gu Mingzong himself. There is no other comment except "Mr. Gu is really elegant!" and "good characters!". There is a contemporary calligraphy master even excitedly said that these four characters surpass most of their works, and they will be more advanced for ten years, comparable to the old works of Huizong.

Fang Jin wanted to say that I didn't write much in the past few years, and the congratulations were placed here. If the eldest young master saw them, wouldn't it be even more suspicious. However, after thinking about it, he swallowed the words back and said, "Thank you. But I came this time, and there is actually another thing I want to ask you."

As Mingzong signaled him.

Fang Jin took out the card clip from his trouser pocket, opened it to pull out the unlimited black card from Citibank, and gently pushed his two fingers along the desktop to Gu Mingzong.

"I want to ask you to take back this because I work in the eldest son's company now, and my monthly salary is enough to support my life. It's useless to keep this secondary card..."

Fang Jin's voice was very stable, but he could feel his palms were slightly wet. If Gu Mingzong reached out to touch him at this time, he would immediately find this abnormality.

However, Gu Mingzong did not do this, and he didn't even raise his eyelids:

"Let's go."

Fang Jin then breathed a sigh of relief from the bottom of his heart, and felt like a huge rock that had been removed from his heart.

Gu Mingzong smiled and said nothing, but changed into a more comfortable position: "I knew Gu Yuan would take you back this time. After all, he turned down nine out of ten people who had been transferred to the subsidiary company, and you were the only one who had left you. Being nice to you is equivalent to showing weakness to me. What do you think about coming back?"

Fang Jin hesitated and said, "I just saw Mrs. Chi outside."

Gu Mingzong was not surprised: "What did she say?"

"In front of Gu Yuan and Gu Yang, Mrs. Chi said nothing. Later, she met me alone in the auditorium. She asked me if I was in good health and who I am following now."

Gu Mingzong said "Hmm", "Did she mention her niece?"

"No--"

Fang Jin suddenly stopped and recalled the man in front of him who was accustomed to kill three birds with one stone. An incredible thought came to his mind: "Did you mean it..."

Gu Mingzong put his legs back on the ground, sat down and said with a smile: "Come here, let me see if you have lost weight."

Fang Jin was shocked and confused. After a moment, he slowly walked over and walked around the desk and stood in front of Gu Mingzong. At this time, the sunset outside the floor-to-ceiling glass window, and the afterglow dyed the sky golden red. Fang Jin turned sideways in the shadow of the angle between the antique clock and the desk, looking very thin. If you look closely, you can see his fingertips trembling slightly.

Gu Mingzong stared at him with a smile, as if waiting for something. The two looked at each other for a while, Fang Jin finally slowly knelt down beside the tall armchair, resting his hand on Gu Mingzong's strong knees.

This posture reveals an irresistible surrender in its gentleness.

Gu Mingzong originally had a lazy expression in his eyes that it was difficult to get interested in anything because everything was in control, but it changed slightly at this moment. He looked at Fang Jin for a long time before reaching out to rub the cold and delicate chin:

"What did you say I mean?"

Fang Jin's Adam's apple slid up and down for a moment, without making any sound.

"I deliberately pressed the time point and picked her and her son around so that she could see you follow Gu Yuan. Then she would feel that even you and I could send him to help him. This kid is really different now, so he should quickly stuff someone to his side; then she would give up my almost impossible goal and recommend her niece to Gu Yuan..."

Gu Mingzong seemed to feel very interesting and continued: "When Gu Yuan was born with a rebellious backbone behind his head, he would definitely resist. Chi Wanru and Gu Yang who could tolerate her are different. She is a person who will never give up until she achieves her goal. Gu Yuan will definitely not be able to help but snatch her..."

His powerful fingers followed Fang Jin's neck, stroked the bright and warm collarbone, and penetrated into the bottom of his clothes, as if he was playing with a very delicate, expensive and fragile porcelain.

Fang Jinbai's shirt collar had loosened two buttons. He gasped and suppressed the extremely subtle trembling of the ending sound:

“But why do you do this—”

"Because Gu Yang himself dared not fight with his elder brother." Gu Mingzong said: "He is too sleek and lacks courage. After Gu Yuan caught the handle, he only knew how to cede land and make peace by giving money to women. This clumsy method made me very dissatisfied with it. It was like two children playing house in kindergarten."

It turns out that he knew the open and secret struggle between the two Gu brothers these days!

A chill rose in Fang Jin's heart, but in contrast, a nerve inside his body gradually trembled and tensed under increasingly unrestrained caressing, so that even his breathing began to become unstable.

"I tell you that you are going to be a good assistant, be honest, do something, get a salary, and don't be swept by the storm." Gu Mingzong leaned over to Fang Jin's ear and smiled, "Look, it's good to be out of the matter with a cold eye."

When he said the last few words, the heat was exhaled on his sensitive auricle. Fang Jin suddenly grabbed Gu Mingzong's wrist. His fingers were cold and sweaty, and he also had unconcealed trembling. Even his fingertips were blue and white due to force.

Gu Mingzong turned his head to look at him, and saw that Fang Jin's temples were soaked in sweat, and his hair showed a soft and oily blackness; and his cheeks were as white as water soaked, so innocent and slaughtered, as if he was finally pinned under a butcher's knife and had nowhere to go.

"..." Fang Jin slowly turned his face and looked at him, as if his eyes were begging for mercy, and after a while, he whispered: "I...I have to go back later..."

Gu Mingzong smiled and patted his face, then stood up and looked down at him, saying, "I took it off myself."

·

The wind blew in the dim shadow, rubbing the cold earlobes and the neck covered with cold sweat, as if countless silences of sad voices were wrapped in the wind and swept past, and instantly disappeared into the dark and wet corners of the building.

The young Fang Jin sat on the steps, tears dripping down his tender cheeks. But he didn't dare to let go of his crying, so he had to hold back his sobs, and he made small hiccups from time to time because of excessive choking.

"Who are you?"

Fang Jin raised his head and stood a little boy wearing a jersey in a backlit place under the steps.

"…Who are you? Why are you crying?"

Fang Jin wanted to speak, but he was interrupted by a sob when he opened his mouth and had to shake his head.

The little boy walked forward in confusion and stared at Fang Jin for a while. He looked only eleven or twelve years old, but he was much taller and stronger. He probably had never seen Fang Jin's snow-white little tears. After a moment, he carefully poked Fang Jin's face with his finger:

"Hey? What the hell is going on?"

"..." Fang Jin said intermittently: "I...my parents... died...dead..."

The little boy was silent for a moment and said, "My mother is dead, too."

He sat next to Fang Jin and took out a neatly folded white handkerchief from his pants pocket: "Here, I'll give it to you."

Xiao Fangjin took it to wipe his face with sobs, but the tears became more and more, and soon the entire handkerchief was soaked. The little boy was shocked and shook his head and said, "You little girls just have a lot of tears. Why are you here? Who asked you to come in?"

"I'm not...I'm not a little girl... They want to sell me to this store..."

"Ah?" the little boy showed an exaggerated expression: "When will our family buy a little girl?"

"I'm not a little girl...wow!"

The little boy stared at Fang Jin's wet and beautiful little face without blinking, and said disgusted: "You are so ugly and you still cry, but you will be even more uglier if you cry. My name is Gu Yuan, what's your name?"

Fang Jin whimpered, Gu Yuan?

He is that Gu Yuan?!

The suffocating fear instantly enveloped Fang Jin's whole body, his heart almost stopped beating, and he even forgot to breathe. The first reaction in the chaos was to jump up like a rabbit and run.

"Hey!" The little boy was shocked: "Where are you going? Hey!"

Fang Jin jumped off the steps and ran desperately into the distance. He heard the little boy roaring behind him: "Hey—! Return the handkerchief to me! That's my mother's handkerchief!"

Fang Jin didn't even dare to turn his head back, as if he heard the footsteps behind him, as if the little boy was chasing him. But he was so scared that he had never run so fast in his life, only hearing the sound of the wind whistling through his ears, and then he tripped under his feet.

The feeling of weightlessness suddenly came, as if he fell from a cliff into a bottomless abyss.

"……ah!"

Fang Jin sat up suddenly, his chest fluctuated violently.

The dark orange light in the inner room was lit. Gu Mingzong sat on the other side of the big bed, looking at the laptop without raising his head: "What?"

"..." Fang Jin gasped and said hoarsely: "No... nothing, I dreamed of falling."

The interior room of the large study is one of the best places in the entire manor, because when he was young, he often worked until the early morning and then went to rest directly here. Therefore, the decoration is very luxurious and exquisite, with a matching bathroom, cloakroom, and tea room.

The rooms in the circular building are extremely spacious, and the bedside lamps are only on the side of the Mingzong, so most of the space is shrouded in a dim haze, and the thin white quilt is piled up on the bed sheets, showing a warm and clean light yellow.

As soon as the keyboard was typing, Gu Mingzong stopped and raised his hand and waved.
To be continued...