Chapter 2#

The Cowardly Office Worker 2#

After briefly explaining the company’s measures regarding this matter, Jian Lixu’s gray-brown eyes fell upon the pale, slightly curled-up Shen Anyu across from him, and he paused.

“Mr. Shen,” he said in a warm tone, “I won’t disturb you any further.”

As those words fell, the tense atmosphere that had filled the room seemed to dissipate like smoke.

Shen Anyu let out a breath of relief and raised his head, not daring to look at his wife beside him, gesturing with his hands—

Let me see you out.

Jian Lixu said politely, “No need to trouble yourself. Take care of your injuries.” He picked up his suit jacket from the sofa, murmured a few words about watching over his wounds, and walked toward the door.

Shen Anyu initially wanted to follow behind Shen Xifu and see Jian Lixu out together as a matter of courtesy, but his dizzy brain forced him to stay where he was.

With a faint “click,” the door was closed.

Shen Anyu stared at Shen Xifu’s receding figure, knowing she was seeing Jian Lixu downstairs.

Only then did the tension that had risen to his throat finally settle back into place.

According to the plot in the story.

Jian Lixu, who had used the excuse of escorting his injured subordinate home but was in truth there to meet the subordinate’s wife, should now be having his first interaction with Shen Xifu downstairs as she saw him out.

Using the pretext of checking on the injured subordinate, he would exchange contact information with Shen Xifu.

9106, transformed into a ball of light, floated beside Shen Anyu, anxiously urging him to get up and go to the balcony to observe the detailed development of this scene.

After all, as a “background character,” one must steadfastly pass through the protagonists’ entire world, including every node of their emotional changes.

Whether sweet, or awkward…

Shen Anyu’s head was unbearably groggy. He reached out and grabbed 9106, which was spinning around him and making him dizzy, and said in a weak voice: 【Can you have a little compassion? In the state I’m in, walk to the balcony? Even standing up is a question mark.】

9106: 【QAQ, Host…】

“……”

Shen Anyu sighed, thinking of his five social insurances and two housing funds, and silently braced himself against the sofa, struggling to stand up, swaying step by step as he walked to the balcony.

The timing was just right.

Downstairs, Jian Lixu and Shen Xifu were walking out of the residential building one after the other, stopping beside a black car parked under the streetlight.

From Shen Anyu’s position, he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

He could only see Shen Xifu’s slender, tall back. After briefly exchanging a few words with her, Jian Lixu lit a cigarette in the night.

The smoke blurred the sharp lines of Jian Lixu’s brows and eyes.

【Does the male lead smoke?】 Shen Anyu asked.

Shen Anyu, who had worked under Jian Lixu for nearly three years, had never discovered that Jian Lixu smoked at all.

9106 lay on his shoulder, speaking softly: 【I don’t know. It wasn’t written in the original novel.】

“……”

Whether it was Shen Anyu’s imagination or not.

For a brief moment, Jian Lixu’s gaze seemed to pierce through the smoke and darkness, landing directly on him.

Even though Shen Anyu knew Jian Lixu couldn’t see him—after all, it was the fifth floor, and he was deliberately hiding in the corner—he still instinctively took two steps back.

Like being stared down by a beast deep in the jungle, an involuntary shiver ran through him.

Only after watching the two downstairs exchange contact information did Shen Anyu slowly turn around, dragging his heavy body back to sit on the sofa.

Waiting for his wife to come home.

Twenty minutes later.

Shen Xifu, wearing a long skirt, pushed open the front door.

When she saw Shen Anyu on the sofa, seemingly having not changed his position at all, Shen Xifu called out, “Honey.”

Shen Anyu raised his head to look at her, but still dared not meet her eyes.

He hadn’t forgotten the question that had been interrupted by Jian Lixu and left unanswered earlier.

“Why do you keep staring at me?” Shen Xifu asked.

She walked closer step by step.

At this moment, Shen Anyu was supposed to play the role of a husband who had discovered that his wife had seemingly changed her heart.

He should be angry, uneasy, even frightened, or directly ask his wife why she had added his boss’s contact information.

But the complete lack of warmth in Shen Xifu’s eyes before him made it impossible for Shen Anyu to make a single sound. He even forgot that he already suffered from a speech disorder. He opened his mouth, but Shen Xifu had already walked up to him.

“Aren’t you going back to the bedroom?” Shen Xifu said. “Or do you not have the strength?”

Before Shen Anyu could express what he wanted, his entire body was already gathered into Shen Xifu’s arms.

A wife who looked so slender and frail.

Yet she could completely envelop Shen Anyu in her embrace.

Every time this happened, Shen Anyu always felt a sense of dissonance.

As if.

He was the one who was Shen Xifu’s wife.

And Shen Xifu, as the wife, was playing the role of his husband.

In the bedroom.

Shen Anyu was placed on the bed by Shen Xifu. She reached out and brushed aside the fine black hair on his forehead, forcing Shen Anyu to expose his eyes and meet her gaze.

There was no way to avoid it.

Shen Xifu’s slightly cool fingertips traced the corner of Shen Anyu’s eye, then cradled his face. “Husband saw it earlier, didn’t you?”

She didn’t even need Shen Anyu’s answer, continuing on her own: “Tell me now, what did husband do today, alright?”

This was a routine process that Shen Anyu had to go through every day after getting off work.

Unchanging for three years.

Since the day the two of them got married.

Whether Shen Anyu had gone to work or not, or whether Shen Xifu was home that day or not, Shen Anyu was required to recount to Shen Xifu in the evening what he had done during the day.

Shen Anyu had resisted before.

But every time he voiced his refusal, he would be met with Shen Xifu’s tearful “I love you.”

His young and beautiful wife seemed not to understand why her husband would refuse her. Even her smile carried a touch of sorrow, yet she still silently prepared everything for her husband day after day.

With Shen Anyu’s cowardly and dull personality, he could never hold out more than two days before crumbling under Shen Xifu’s attitude.

Now, looking into Shen Xifu’s eyes.

Shen Anyu let out two hoarse “ah, ah” sounds, as if telling her that he couldn’t speak right now.

Trying to use this method to evade the daily routine.

“Sorry, I forgot…” Shen Xifu lightly kissed the corner of Shen Anyu’s mouth. Her dark, profound eyes stared at him for a long moment. Then, she reached out and turned off the bedroom lights, whispering, “Do you want to rest?”

Words like a nightmare.

By the time Shen Anyu realized what was happening, it was already too late.

Shen Xifu’s slightly cool fingertips brushed against his earlobe, the ticklish sensation sending a numb tingle down Shen Anyu’s spine, causing him to turn his head away in a flustered dodge.

“Ah, ah…” Shen Anyu made vague, indistinct sounds, wanting Shen Xifu to turn on a light—even a desk lamp would do.

But his wife, shrouded in darkness, gave no response.

The oversized suit jacket that Shen Xifu had personally changed him into earlier today was being pulled off Shen Anyu’s body.

The dim indoor environment seemed to have no effect on Shen Xifu’s vision at all.

“N-No…” No…

Shen Anyu grabbed Shen Xifu’s wrist, a thin layer of anxious sweat forming on his forehead. He let out two indistinct “ah, ah” sounds, telling Shen Xifu that he would talk, that he would tell her what he did today, what happened.

With a “click.”

The lights in the room came on.

Shen Anyu instinctively closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was undoubtedly relieved.

Except by now, the ill-fitting suit jacket on him had long been tossed to the floor, leaving only a thin white shirt and the black tie tied around his neck.

His forehead hair was disheveled, and on Shen Anyu’s pale face lingered only the relief of having narrowly escaped disaster.

Shen Anyu made a flustered series of hand gestures, carefully asking Shen Xifu to hand him his phone so he could type out and explain everything that had happened today, including the question she had asked earlier that he hadn’t answered while Jian Lixu was there.

At eight in the morning, he had taken the sandwich Shen Xifu had made and walked out the door.

……

At noon, after finishing his usual trivial work, while slacking off, he had sent Shen Xifu a few routine check-in text messages as he always did.

In the afternoon.

The team leader had announced on short notice that there was a dinner gathering related to a project they had handled before, so he had pulled a few colleagues to go along with him.

Unfortunately, Shen Anyu happened to be among them.

He had thought it was just an ordinary dinner, that he would only be there to fill a seat, so Shen Anyu hadn’t reported it to Shen Xifu.

But he hadn’t expected an accident to occur.

At the dinner.

Shen Anyu sat beside the team leader, doing his best to play the part of a wooden log—gloomy and quiet, only opening his mouth to say a couple of words when someone needed to be humored.

But who would have thought.

Halfway through, one of the partners at the table suddenly started making trouble.

He pointedly called out Shen Anyu, who was sitting beside Jian Lixu, and demanded that he pour him some wine.

Shen Anyu was stunned. His instinct was to follow the team leader’s instruction and stand up to pour the wine, but the sudden interjection from Jian Lixu beside him saved him from the awkward situation, allowing him to sit back down.

“And then?” Shen Xifu held Shen Anyu, her chin resting on his shoulder.

Then?

Shen Anyu cautiously glanced at Shen Xifu, lowered his eyes, and silently typed.

——【Right after President Jian finished speaking, the partner flew into a rage.】

As a cannon fodder character, he became the perfect outlet for the man’s anger.

The reason was simple: this partner, who had even fewer scenes than him, was a cannon fodder character in the original novel who had long held a grudge against the male lead, Jian Lixu. With a belly full of pent-up rage, he ultimately took it out on him, an innocent subordinate.

In the instant the bottle came crashing down, Shen Anyu nearly thought he would be meeting the King of Hell right then and there.

But fortunately, Jian Lixu had blocked it in time and quickly taken control of the situation, sending him to the hospital.

Allowing him, a mere background character, to continue following the plot, to make it home safely, and to face his extremely possessive wife.

“So… from start to finish, husband never once thought of me?”

“……”

Shen Xifu said, “Because you thought it was a small matter, you didn’t report it, and so after the accident, you were brought home by some strange man?” Her tone suddenly turned cold.

Shen Xifu lifted Shen Anyu’s chin, forcing the young man, who radiated cowardice from head to toe, to look at her. “What else have you been hiding from me, Shen Anyu?”

Shen Anyu: “……”

He knew it.

Shen Anyu pressed his lips together, even feeling somewhat grateful that he had a speech disorder. Otherwise, he had no idea what he might have said right now.

In the past, in order to please Shen Xifu and to secure a peaceful environment for himself, whenever Shen Anyu did something that displeased her—even when he didn’t understand what she was angry about—he would still have to go against his own will and say a lot of terrible things…

Now, Shen Anyu only let out two vague “ah, ah” sounds, indicating that he had a speech disorder.

But Shen Xifu simply unlocked her phone and placed it in Shen Anyu’s hand.

“Husband needs to think carefully about what you’ve been hiding from me before. Don’t make me have to find out on my own… And,” Shen Xifu said, “you—and the ‘strange man’ who brought you home tonight—how exactly do you know each other?”