LA ⋆ Chapter 11: Just Messing With You

Probably in a haze of lost consciousness, he couldn’t accept losing his job. Shuitan’s words were like a straw, and driven by his subconscious, he sent those two messages.

In fact, even a drowning person knows that grasping at a straw won’t keep you afloat.

He didn’t really want to have any connection with someone like Cheng Ai beyond a work relationship. They were fundamentally from two different worlds. Cheng Ai should have thought the same way too.

But!

Why did he send so many question marks?

Wouldn’t the normal reaction be: Heh? You’re trying to sell yourself? Have you looked in a mirror? You want to be the boss’s wife? You really can come up with the most ridiculous ideas for the sake of work!

Besides, there was that man’s existence. Anyway. It shouldn’t have been question marks.

Making it seem like… he was confirming the truth of that sentence.

Sheng Yao held his phone and stared at it for a long time. Those missed calls, each one had rung for a full fifty seconds. The red text was particularly glaring.

Help, could someone tell him what to do now? Would the other person believe him if he said he’d sent it while sleepwalking?

He’d originally wanted to turn off silent mode, but after thinking about it, decided to keep it on. If the calls came again, he wouldn’t dare answer anyway.

When he was in school, Sheng Yao had poor sleep.

It was probably an occupational hazard of philosophy majors. Everyone in his dorm actually had sleep issues of varying severity. The seniors and seniors studying Western philosophy were especially prone to daily breakdowns.

After starting work, it was purely because he was exhausted enough that his schedule became rigidly regular, and he fell asleep easily.

Today, unusually, he was insomniac again. The terrible outcome wasn’t actually that scary. What he really hated was being left in suspense. Layoffs, work, savings, life—all of it pressed down on him until he couldn’t breathe. The thought of facing Cheng Ai made him embarrassed enough to want to crawl into a crack in the ground. He even hoped Cheng Ai would stay in the hospital a few more days.

Cheng Ai didn’t think that way. If he still had any sense of reason, he would have rushed straight to Sheng Yao’s place to demand answers.

The next day, the two of them met with dark circles under their eyes.

Sheng Yao flinched as soon as he opened the door. Cheng Ai had moved his leather boss chair to the entrance, and pushed the door open right into him.

“You scared me!” Sheng Yao patted his chest.

Cheng Ai was sprawled out on the boss chair, and suddenly stood up as Sheng Yao entered, pressing one hand against the door with a click as it locked.

Cheng Ai held this position, half-circling Sheng Yao in his embrace.

Sheng Yao didn’t meet Cheng Ai’s eyes directly, and ignored his movements, walking straight toward his desk. Cheng Ai’s other hand immediately blocked the way in front of him—a double wall-pin. Sheng Yao crouched down trying to slip under Cheng Ai’s arm, but Cheng Ai raised his foot to block the path.

“Stop hiding. Tell me,” Cheng Ai pressed down on Sheng Yao’s shoulder, keeping him in place, forcing him to face himself.

Sheng Yao let out a long sigh, looked up at Cheng Ai’s burning eyes, and continued playing dumb: “Tell you what?”

Cheng Ai: “Why you sent that kind of message yesterday.”

Sheng Yao’s eyes were dull, gradually taking on an air of indifference that belonged to the living-yet-dead. Anyway, he was going to be laid off, so he’d never really believed that confessing to Cheng Ai would save his job. After a moment of silence, he spoke: “Just messing with you.”

“What!?” Cheng Ai wasn’t about to let it go, still holding Sheng Yao’s shoulder, not letting him leave. “Why?”

Sheng Yao quickly improvised: “Got laid off, wasn’t happy, and then I remembered you like men, so I was messing with you.”

Cheng Ai’s mouth twitched, his eyes shifting rapidly, and finally he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. “I don’t believe you. You’re not that boring of a person.”

Sheng Yao said nothing.

Cheng Ai lowered his head, forcing Sheng Yao to meet his eyes: “Tell me the truth.”

Sheng Yao turned his head away from Cheng Ai’s face, looking at him sideways: “Okay, the truth is, I probably sent it while sleepwalking.”

Cheng Ai seemed genuinely angry this time and let go of Sheng Yao’s hand.

Sheng Yao went to his desk and opened his computer: “You still don’t believe me even when I tell the truth.”

Cheng Ai loosened his tie somewhat irritably and went back to his desk, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing aimlessly out at the view.

Sheng Yao glanced up. Had he actually gotten embarrassed? What kind of capybara was Shuitan? Wait, that didn’t make sense. If he were embarrassed, he’d pretend not to know, not ask face-to-face what it meant.

“Sheng Yao,” Cheng Ai suddenly spoke, “what exactly is unsatisfying about this job?”

“Huh?”

The leap and the phrasing left Sheng Yao completely baffled.

“I’m very satisfied with this job. Very, very, very satisfied.”

Cheng Ai turned around, his brow furrowed. “Then how could you…”

“How could I what?” Sheng Yao raised an eyebrow, logging into the office software. “President Cheng, you’re the one laying me off. Can I ask? Is it because I didn’t do something well, or because I saw you and that…” Or maybe it was purely because capitalists needed to squeeze out more surplus value, cramming three people’s work onto one person. He didn’t believe the company’s nonsense about poor performance.

“Then why have you been looking at job postings since the beginning of the year and submitting resumes.”

…

Silence.

Sheng Yao suddenly choked on the air.

What?

How did he know?

Wait.

Sheng Yao turned his head, narrowing his eyes in confusion: “Is that… the reason you’re firing me?”

Silence. Cheng Ai looked at Sheng Yao without speaking.

Sheng Yao rested his elbow on the desk, supporting his forehead with his hand. Looking at this reaction, yes, that was it. What, did he need to monitor employee loyalty too?

Sheng Yao swallowed and slowly said: “Because the general environment isn’t great, and I saw various departments laying people off, so I wanted to see what kind of positions are available now, in case I get laid off one day and have no idea what to do.”

Cheng Ai put one hand in his trouser pocket and slowly walked over to sit at the desk. “Do you have any ideas now?”

Sheng Yao shook his head: “No. The liberal arts field is oversaturated.”

Cheng Ai’s voice was low and cold, his emotion unreadable: “This is normal layoffs after the performance review. Some departments had excess headcount, a situation that formed before I arrived. It’s been three years and nothing changed. I don’t keep idle staff.”

He was… explaining to me?

Sheng Yao scratched his head. Although he really hated this situation, he was also genuinely struggling at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

“President Cheng, can I continue working here?”