The Moon Shines on Me (GL) - Chapter 13

Silence fell over the dining table after the dishes were served. Shen Yuan was looking down, eating the spare ribs in black bean sauce, when a black truffle prawn ball suddenly appeared in her bowl. She turned her head to look at Gu Shiwei and met the gaze that Gu Shiwei hadn’t managed to retract in time.

“Eat more, you’re too thin,” Gu Shiwei said, then smiled and picked up the teapot to refill Shen Yuan’s tea.

Assistant Chen was currently trying to “play dead” with her head down when she suddenly realized her own cup was also full.

Oh no. Her boss had apparently poured tea for her too.

Assistant Chen looked at Shen Yuan’s face and found that compared to her own panic, Shen Yuan was as calm as an alien.

Why was it that they were both probationary employees whose tea was poured by the big boss, but she wasn’t panicking at all!

Is this even reasonable?

Chen Ping absentmindedly turned the glass Lazy Susan, trying to reach for the chicken far away.

But it was a little hard to turn.

Hmm?

She put some force into it and finally managed to turn it, but before she could pick up the meat, Chen Ping suddenly realized what she’d done. She stiffly turned her head to look at Gu Shiwei, and when she saw Gu Shiwei’s chopsticks suspended in mid-air and her finger pressed down on the glass Lazy Susan, Chen Ping’s last hope finally died.

What had she just done? Her boss was trying to get food, and she turned the table…

Even if she were fired tomorrow for stepping into the company with her left foot first, Chen Ping wouldn’t have a single word of complaint.

Truly.

W-w-w-w.

“Pfft.”

“I’m sorry.”

Shen Yuan looked up and saw this scene, and couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m so sorry, CEO Gu! I didn’t mean to! I didn’t notice you were trying to get food!” Assistant Chen immediately stood up and bowed, her face flushed.

Gu Shiwei stared at Shen Yuan’s upturned mouth for a few moments, then casually said, “It’s fine, Assistant Chen, sit down.”

Chen Ping secretly glanced up at Gu Shiwei, confirmed that she really wasn’t angry, and was instead in a very good mood, before finally sitting back down, utterly heartbroken.

Maybe I should call my mom later and cry, saying I’ve been fired 🙂

Maybe Mom will tell me we have billions of dollars in family assets waiting to be inherited 🙂

Chen Ping ate the meal in fear and apprehension, and by the end, both Gu Shiwei and Shen Yuan had put down their chopsticks.

Chen Ping looked down at the half-bowl of rice left in front of her, and a faint sense of doom once again welled up in her heart.

“It’s okay, no rush, take your time, there’s still a bowl of sweet soup coming,” Shen Yuan said considerately.

“Okay.”

After hearing Shen Yuan’s words, Assistant Chen shoveled the rice even faster.

Fortunately, she finished the remaining half-bowl of rice before Shen Yuan finished the sweet soup, or she truly would have been in despair.

The Break Room

Back at the company, Gu Shiwei directly hooked her arm over Shen Yuan’s shoulder and led her into her own office. Assistant Chen stood outside, looking at the closed office door, a string of question marks popping up in her mind.

What is going on?

It was one thing for CEO Gu to eat with Shen Yuan, but why were they spending the lunch break together too? What exactly was their relationship?

Assistant Chen racked her brain but couldn’t figure out what was happening, so she simply went back to the assistant’s office for a nap. Might as well enjoy the company’s free air conditioning while she hadn’t been fired yet.

President’s Office.

Shen Yuan was led by Gu Shiwei into a partitioned area. Beyond the partition was actually a two-bedroom, one-living-room suite. The suite not only had a bed, a sofa, and a balcony but even a small bar area.

“Shen Yuan, you can take your nap here at noon,” Gu Shiwei led Shen Yuan inside. “It’s quiet here, and no one will disturb you. I’ll call you at two-thirty to punch in.”

Shen Yuan stared at Gu Shiwei’s face, a confused expression on hers: “What about you?”

“I still have some things to deal with in the outer office. You rest first.”

Gu Shiwei didn’t have a habit of taking a nap, and besides, she had a lot of things to handle, so after bringing Shen Yuan in, she turned and left.

After Gu Shiwei left, Shen Yuan chose a smaller bedroom and went in.

She set her alarm and climbed onto the bed.

The bedding was very clean and fresh; it must have been a newly changed set.

Shen Yuan was a little anemic, and as soon as she lay down, she couldn’t help but feel drowsy.

An hour later, Shen Yuan groggily opened her eyes. She sat up in bed and hugged the quilt for a while to wake up.

As her mind cleared, she surveyed her surroundings. Seeing the unfamiliar furnishings, Shen Yuan was stunned for a few seconds before remembering that she was sleeping in Gu Shiwei’s lounge.

Shen Yuan sat on the bed for a bit longer until her alarm went off, then she slowly got out of bed.

When Shen Yuan walked out of the lounge, Gu Shiwei was still busy working at her computer.

Seeing Shen Yuan emerge, Gu Shiwei immediately got up and walked over. “How are you awake so quickly? You still have thirty minutes before work. Do you want to go back in and sleep a little more?”

An hour was already long enough, and Shen Yuan’s brain felt a little fuzzy from sleep. She shook her head and said, “Thank you, no need, I’ll go back to my office.”

“Wait.”

Gu Shiwei suddenly took a step closer.

She lifted her hand and smoothed it over the top of Shen Yuan’s head a few times, pressing down a few strands of hair that were sticking up.

“Your hair is messy.”

Shen Yuan: “Oh, thank you.”

Perhaps because she had just woken up, Shen Yuan’s cheeks were flushed, and the redness spread from the fine down on her cheeks to behind her ears.

Gu Shiwei stared at her face for a moment, then couldn’t help but brush it with her knuckle. “Why is your face red?”

Shen Yuan paused.

“It might be… the air conditioning was too warm when I was sleeping just now.”

After Shen Yuan spoke, her eyelashes fluttered and dropped.

Gu Shiwei tested the temperature of Shen Yuan’s nape and asked, “Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”

Gu Shiwei’s hand on the skin of her nape was a little cool, and Shen Yuan flinched from the cold.

“No.”

“Good, as long as you don’t have a fever.” Gu Shiwei withdrew her hand. “What do you want to eat tonight?”

Shen Yuan had just woken up, and her mind was slow. She tilted her head in thought for a few seconds before saying, “I’d like to eat braised tofu.”

Gu Shiwei: “Anything else? I’ll call the cook ahead of time.”

Shen Yuan: “That’s all.”

Gu Shiwei: “Okay, go on.”

Shen Yuan: “Mm.”

The Assessment

After Shen Yuan returned to the office, she pulled out her memo app and recorded the approximate expenses for the day.

In the afternoon, Shen Yuan received an assessment task issued internally by the department. The completion of this task was crucial to her successful transition to a full employee one month later. Besides her, several other probationary employees and interns also needed to undergo the assessment.

Unfortunately, the number of full-time positions was small this time. According to Lu Qingwan, their department only had one spot.

But their department had a total of four probationary employees and interns combined.

Shen Yuan looked back at the intern, Luoluo, in the corner and indeed saw that her face was pale; she must have also received the notification.

The assessment period was one month. Without affecting their daily work, they needed to independently complete an original art piece within this month.

Shen Yuan had three years of prior experience as an original artist, and coupled with the fact that she graduated from the top Jinghai Academy of Fine Arts in the country, independently completing an original art piece outside of her work schedule wasn’t too difficult for her.

After receiving the theme, Shen Yuan spent the entire afternoon conceiving the character design and the setting. However, due to the abrupt change in art style, Shen Yuan’s previous experience and techniques were proving somewhat irrelevant.

During the three years Shen Yuan worked as an original artist at the big company, her images were brightly colored and the overall style was biased toward a sunny and warm aesthetic. But ever since leaving that company, Shen Yuan had never drawn in that style again.

Shen Yuan was now more proficient in black-and-white ink wash style, and she intended to use the ink wash style for this assessment task.

Shen Yuan was busy with the assessment all afternoon, and when she suddenly looked up, she realized it was already 6:10 PM.

She scanned the people in the office and found that they were all still hunched over their computers, working intently, with no sign of leaving for the day.

Shen Yuan expressionlessly lit up her phone screen and reconfirmed the time. It was indeed 6:10 PM.

They had been off work for a full ten minutes.

Just as Shen Yuan was about to press the screen off, a new message popped up in WeChat.

Zhaō: “Message me when you’re done.”

Shen Yuan walked out of the office, pulling off her ID badge and putting it into her bag. Once in the hallway, she freed up a hand to press the chat input box and replied with a voice message in a lowered voice.

Y: “I’m done. I’ll wait for you in the garage.”

In the President’s Office on the other side, Gu Shiwei had just turned off her computer when her phone screen lit up.

She picked up the phone and saw it was a voice message from Shen Yuan.

Touching the screen lightly, Gu Shiwei immediately unlocked it and listened.

A deliberately lowered but very pleasant voice came through the earpiece.

Not only that, Gu Shiwei vaguely felt that the voice sounded somewhat familiar.

In her memories, there seemed to be a voice just like it, whispering calmly and indifferently through the earpiece.

Gu Shiwei frowned, trying to grasp that distant voice, but the next moment, the door to the President’s Office was knocked on.

“Come in.”

The assistant walked in holding a stack of documents: “CEO Gu, these are the documents submitted from below.”

Gu Shiwei raised her chin in a gesture: “Put them there.”

“Yes, CEO Gu.”

Interrupted like this, Gu Shiwei found it even harder to catch that familiar feeling.

She pondered for a moment, still unable to figure it out, and had no choice but to leave the office and enter the elevator dedicated to top management, heading straight to the underground parking garage.

As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, Gu Shiwei saw a slender back dressed in a modern Chinese-style shirt.

Even leaning against a pillar, Shen Yuan’s back was straight. Her waist was incredibly thin, loosely gathered by the semi-sheer white shirt, tucked into a well-fitted pair of narrow-cut jeans. Below that were two straight, long legs, so thin that they couldn’t quite fill out the narrow-cut jeans.

“Shen Yuan, have you been waiting long?”

Gu Shiwei walked over and patted her on the shoulder.

Shen Yuan turned her head, saw Gu Shiwei had arrived, and put away her phone, saying, “Not long, Miss Gu arrived very quickly.”

“Get in the car.”

Gu Shiwei hooked her arm affectionately over Shen Yuan’s slender shoulder and tucked her into the passenger seat of the Rolls-Royce.

Gu Shiwei closed the car door, about to turn around, when her peripheral vision suddenly caught a familiar figure staring blankly at them.

Chen Ping had things to do today, so she didn’t work overtime. Upon reaching the underground garage, she first saw Shen Yuan.

Chen Ping was just about to go up and say hello when she saw her own CEO suddenly walk up to Shen Yuan with a smile, say something to her in a low voice, and then Shen Yuan was circled by Gu Shiwei and walked a couple of steps, personally having the car door opened for her and being tucked into the passenger seat.

Chen Ping was completely stunned. A greater question emerged in her heart: what on earth was the background of a probationary employee who could have the CEO personally open the car door and put her into the car?

Gu Shiwei saw her staring, raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Assistant Chen, is something the matter?”

Chen Ping quickly waved her hands: “N-nothing. Have a safe trip, CEO Gu.”