CH 9

“You’re trading Andy?”

“It’s okay, Andy is about to quit soon to emigrate to Canada anyway.”

Du took off his glasses and rubbed his temples, “Just how many more things are there on your side that I don’t know about?”

“Why would you care about such trivial things? I’ve had my eye on those two people for a long time, they’re very capable and in good health, totally qualified. So when Andy told me that he was getting ready to emigrate, I thought up this next step. Oh, and I got Ammy into the Human Resources department, of course by borrowing your clout.”

Du threw Jiang Jun a cigar and lit one for himself. “So I heard. You’re really quite affectionate and loyal, why spend so much effort on a secretary?”

“It seems like a little bit of human kindness, right?” Jiang Jun held the cigar and reached into her bag to find a lighter. “She kept a low profile, so let’s just take advantage of the situation for our own benefit, and help her. Or did you really want the second most powerful person on the MH Board of Directors to personally call the HR department to recommend his sister-in-law?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve seen a picture of her and her sister before, the one of Tomas and his wife at the reception that I attended the last time I went to New York.”

Du smiled and took out a match to help Jiang Jun light her cigar. “No wonder Linda died at your hands. Even with so many years of experience, she was fooled by a little girl.”

Jiang Jun didn’t know what Du’s purpose was in bringing up the past now, so she held her cigar and blinked innocently. “I remember that she was ruined by your own hands.”

Du laughed softly. “If you hadn’t set up such a trap, she wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

“She forced it. I just wanted her to leave MH, but you had her leave investment banking completely.” Jiang Jun stated the facts objectively, but she felt upset when she thought of the past, and said angrily, “Are you regretting it now? Back then why didn’t you just put her in your golden house* and just keep her.” [T/N* an idiom describing a fancy house to keep one’s mistress]

Without warning, Du stood up and grabbed her head, forcing Jiang Jun to look directly at his face. “She had been with me for six years, but I still cruelly let her go. Do you know why?”

They were so close to each other that Jiang Jun could smell the alcohol from Du’s mouth and the cologne-laced sweat from his body, but she was undaunted. “That’s because you felt that I was more valuable for your use that she was, and you chose me over her.”

Things that have no value to Du are abandoned, just like Linda, his former mistress and key assistant, and his feelings.

“You’re only half right.” Du let go of Jiang Jun and sat back in his seat, as calm as ever.

If Jiang Jun were a twenty-year-old girl, he probably would have fooled her, but she was thirty years old and had long since recognized the differences between dogs, humans, wolves, and werewolves.

There are two people beside her who look like humans, but are actually first-class shapeshifters who are wolves in their bones. One is Du and the other is Yuan Shuai. The two of them have different ways of doing things, but in essence are the same: vicious, valiant, and avaricious.

Jiang Jun used to think that every shapeshifting species was like her, with bitter reasons for being forced to change, but she understood now that the metamorphosis of the top boss did not require a reason. Du and Yuan Shuai were both like this. They were from famous families and were very handsome, suave, and personable. They didn’t care at all for the three basic ambitions of money, power, and sex. If they really needed a reason, it was just: looking for excitement. On the other hand, when it came to Jiang Jun, the reasons behind her transformation were so common that she was too ashamed to even reflect on them.

Sometimes Jiang Jun felt that she was really lucky. Yuan Shuai was her brother and Du was her boss. Living under the eyes of these two great gods, she had no chance to be a regular mortal.

“Tell me what’s going on with you. I saw that you put in for vacation, do you have any plans?” Du took it upon himself to clear away the dishes, leaving only some cold dishes to go with the wine.

Jiang Jun said honestly, “What plans could I have? Originally, I was planning to go see the aurora borealis, but now I’m going home to visit.”

“Go home?” Du became noticeably excited, “You still have a home? And parents?”

“Did you think that I jumped out of a crack in a rock?”

“More or less. I actually thought you transformed from a fox.* I’ve never heard you talk about it, what did you do before? I’ve never heard you say you want to go back home during the Spring Festival, either.” [T/N* Fox spirits in Chinese mythology often change into beautiful women]

“Don’t talk about personal matters. I’m going to go back now, see you tomorrow.” Jiang Jun didn’t want to continue talking, so she got up and took her coat.

“How about if I gave you prizes for answering the questions?” Du conjured a box out of nowhere; it was the Habanos Collection.* [T/N* Cuban cigars]

“You can ask, but I won’t necessarily answer.” Jiang Jun was a smoker, and she couldn’t resist the temptation.

Du laughed. “These little things, they’re really addictive. What woman is crazy about these?”

Jiang Jun was obsessed with cigars because of Du.

At that time, she had just been promoted to VP, and was still a good family girl who occasionally smoked a small cigarette to refresh herself and relieve stress. Du called her into the office and handed over a cut cigar as they talked. The young Jiang Jun, who had not yet grown out of her childishness, held the cigar in her mouth and took out a lighter to light it. Du looked at her as if he were a male version of Wang Xifeng looking at Liu Laolao,* plucked the cigar directly out of her mouth, struck a match, and held it horizontally to slowly rotate and smoke it. [T/N* Two characters from Dream of the Red Chamber, Wang XiFeng is a very capable and worldly woman, while Liu Lao Lao is the unsophisticated, country rustic granny ]

Jiang Jun was so embarrassed that she had to pretend to be sophisticated and to watch him do it without giving anything away. Du held the smoked cigar in his mouth, struck another match, and continued to light it. Jiang Jun was dumbfounded at the time, why was smoking a cigar so troublesome? She used to take this same kind of pine wood long match out of Yuan Shuai’s pocket, and he probably had used it for the same purpose. To think that she had used it to light the incense in the bathroom…it was really a pity. Du took advantage of Jiang Jun’s wandering thoughts and stuffed the burning cigar into her mouth. Jiang Jun subconsciously inhaled and before she understood what was going on, she burst into tears and coughed like crazy, unable to stop.

Du handed her a handkerchief and continued to watch the monkey show while he smoked his cigar. After Jiang Jun slowly recovered, Du pointed at himself and then used exaggerated movements to demonstrate the correct way to inhale. Jiang Jun really didn’t know what he was going to do until the cigar was back in her mouth again, and she took a puff like he did, holding the smoke in her mouth. The rich, mellow, and thick aroma made her a little dizzy, so dizzy that when she realized that they were both smoking the same cigar, she was foolish enough to bluntly ask Du, “You don’t have any infectious diseases, do you?”

Du said a lot to Jiang Jun that day; it was nothing more than heaping praise to win her over. He claimed that from the beginning, he knew that Jiang Jun would not let him down. Cultivating capable personnel was just like smoking a cigar: a good cigar had to be slowly lit and slowly roasted.

From that day on, every few days Du would give her a box of cigars, until Jiang Jun couldn’t help but fall in love with the feeling of swallowing down the clouds and the fog, and became a true addict. Through the haze of the smoke, Du’s face in front of her appeared even stranger. He was not as handsome as Yuan Shuai but his facial lines were soft, and the new glasses made him look more like a professor teaching Chinese at a university, cultured and refined, gentle and modest. Of course, this was just his standard human skin, and he was a wolf: a big, bad, wild wolf.

~ ~ ~

[T/N I know this chapter appears extra short, but I’m posting it simultaneously with Chapter 10. These originally were all one part anyway, I’m not sure at what point they were broken into the 53 total chapters on the ebook site that I’m translating from, but you can tell by the chapter titles (and Part 1, 2, 3, etc.) what was originally published together.]