The back seat of the top-tier Bentley was spacious enough for her to lie down and roll around freely. The Italian-imported calfskin leather was as soft as clouds, and the air carried a faint trace of Li Shenyuan's cool, refined scent—expensive, composed, yet undeniably distant.
But Su Xiaolan sat as if perched on a bed of nails, her entire body stiff, her breathing deliberately shallow. She kept her head lowered, her fingers clutching tightly at the heavy, understatedly luxurious paper bag branded with a discreet logo. It might as well have held two ticking emotional bombs instead of a tablet and a bag of chips—bombs that threatened to blow her precarious life to pieces.
Her fingers unconsciously brushed against the ridged packaging of the cheese-and-seaweed-flavored potato chips. The familiar texture gave her a fleeting sense of reality, a reminder of who "Su Xiaolan" was—an ordinary woman with ordinary desires.
Her favorite brand. Her favorite flavor.
How did he know?
Fragments of warm, dusty memories from the library surged forward—her younger self sprawled on a creaky old couch, golden chip crumbs scattered at her feet, giggling like an idiot over rented shoujo manga. The image burned her cheeks with humiliation. A wave of shame, mixed with something else—something infuriatingly impossible to ignore—twisted around her heart like thorny vines, tightening with every breath.
So all these years… he remembered even these insignificant details of her life?
Had he cataloged them like trivial data points in that brain of his—the one capable of calculating financial nuclear strikes?
Her gaze slid to the sleek, high-tech tablet beside her, a cold emblem of corporate efficiency and control. It felt like an invisible yet stinging slap across her forehead, instantly dispelling her ridiculous moment of vulnerability and dragging her back to the harsh reality.
The past few hours in the CEO's office replayed in her mind—trapped under Li Shenyuan's oppressive aura, "guided" (more like suffocated) by his so-called mentorship, her brain overheating like an overclocked CPU. And yet, against all odds, under that unbearable pressure, she had somehow produced a strategic analysis report so sharp, so logical, that even she couldn't believe she'd written it.
"Good work."
Three simple words, scalding her eardrums now, mocking her incompetence—or worse, marking some unspoken claim she refused to acknowledge.
"You'll both attend tomorrow's budget meeting. Present your analysis."
That sentence might as well have been a demon's curse, echoing in surround sound, making her scalp prickle and her stomach clench. Standing in front of a room full of sharp-eyed executives, explaining a report that had been wrung from her like blood from a stone? Just the thought made her want to dig a hole and bury herself alive.
"Miss Su, which building in Kwun Tong? Mr. Li insisted we take you straight to your door."
The driver's voice snapped her out of her spiraling thoughts. She swallowed, her throat dry as sandpaper, and forced out the address of her shabby apartment building—a place that clashed violently with the Bentley's opulence.
She gripped the bag of chips like a lifeline, the crinkling plastic digging into her palm, the pain a grounding anchor. As for the damn tablet—that symbol of "efficiency investment" and corporate enslavement—she shoved it back into the depths of the bag like it was radioactive.
The car glided smoothly through the neon-lit night, the city's glittering chaos doing nothing to calm the storm inside her. Exhaustion rose like a cold tide, threatening to drown her, but stronger still was the injustice of it all—the helpless fury of a salted fish yanked from its peaceful puddle.
Who did Li Shenyuan think he was?
A tyrant? A god?
How dare he bulldoze into her carefully curated life of mediocrity, shower her with those suffocating "efficiency investments" (the massage chair, the private elevator, this cursed tablet), drop a bombshell like "You're Su Xiaolan," and then crush her under the weight of his expectations?
Salted fish had dignity too!
She liked her little puddle. She liked lazing in the sun, munching chips, binge-watching trashy dramas. Why did she have to be dragged into his world? Forced under the spotlight, forced into high-stakes meetings, forced to become the office's favorite gossip topic?
This was workplace harassment in disguise!
The Bentley finally rolled to a stop outside her dilapidated apartment building. Peeling walls, flickering streetlights, a pile of rusty bicycles by the entrance—home.
"Miss Su, we've arrived."
She bolted out of the car like a fugitive, the chips and tablet bag clutched to her chest, not looking back even as the Bentley's engine purred away into the night.
Inside her cramped, dimly lit apartment, she collapsed onto her sagging couch—her throne, her sanctuary—and glared at the bag of chips like it was a traitor.
What was this? A bribe? A consolation prize for emotional damages? Or some twisted nostalgia trip for Li Shenyuan?
Did he think this would tame her? Make her his obedient little stress-relief toy?
Rage erupted, white-hot and blinding.
She ripped the bag open with a savage tear, the sound like a battle cry. The salty-cheesy aroma exploded into the air as she shoved a fistful of chips into her mouth, crunching down with enough force to shatter teeth.
Let him monitor her chip-eating habits! Let him remember her stupid preferences! Let him try to feed her like some trained pet!
She'd eat them alright—eat every last one!
Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the crumbs on her lips. She barely tasted them, her jaw working mechanically, her chest heaving with ragged breaths.
"Li Shenyuan, you—!" she snarled at the empty room, her voice cracking. "Who the hell wants to attend some damn meeting? Let them all rot!"
"Li Shenyuan, you—you monster! Give me back my couch! My salted fish life! My peace!"
"Give me back… my life, you bastard!"
The apartment echoed with her sobs, the violent crunch-crunch-crunch of chips being obliterated, and the raw, unfiltered fury of a woman pushed to her limits.
That bag of chips weighed far more than its physical mass.
It was a brand.
A mark of humiliation.
Proof that her carefully constructed mediocrity had been seen, invaded, and stolen by a man who thought he could reshape her world with a few expensive gestures and a bag of damn snacks.
Meanwhile, at Li Enterprises' headquarters…
Li Shenyuan stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, the city's skyline glittering like a circuit board under his feet. His phone screen glowed faintly with a message from the driver:
"Mr. Li, Miss Su has been safely delivered to her residence. Her mood… appeared unusually agitated. She took the tablet and the chips with her—clutching the latter very tightly."
His fingers lingered over the words: "the chips… clutching them very tightly."
For the first time in years, something foreign flickered in his ruthlessly analytical mind—uncertainty.
He had calculated efficiency, controlled outcomes, and dominated every battlefield—corporate or otherwise.
But he hadn't accounted for the emotional hurricane a bag of cheap potato chips could unleash.
Nor had he anticipated that his own meticulously crafted plans—plans that had labeled Su Xiaolan as nothing more than a "specialized stress-relief asset"—would derail so spectacularly.
The night stretched on, silent and vast.
And the storm, born from a bag of chips and two clashing souls, brewed in the darkness.