Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Snake in the Hen House
It was a usual productive day at the main office of the Gusu Lan Group. Secretary Li Hua thought that perhaps it was a touch boring without the fairly frequent visitation of the spunky, flirty Wei Wuxian, husband to the CEO’s younger brother Lan Zhan. Although there was no Wei Wuxian in sight, Li Hua was glad that at least the CEO’s husband hadn’t come either.
While Wei Wuxian was fairly well loved by at least the majority of the office, his brother, and partner to CEO Lan Xichen was decidedly not. Staff of the well taken care of Lan group viewed their boss as woefully innocent and naïve, so they wanted to protect him at all costs.
They had all been terribly shocked upon finding out that he had gotten married, even more so to a partner with a reputation for violence and suspected ties to a local triad (although this second theory was based on his behavior and sense of fashion mainly). Many feared that Lan Xichen had been a lamb thrown to the wolf that was Jiang Cheng, and they were unsure of what to do about it, but they did the best that they could.
Just as Li Hua was looking on the bright side of today’s situation her hopes were dashed, because a few minutes later one Jiang Cheng of the Yunmeng Group entered through the front door.
A brief show of contempt flashed on Li Hua’s features as she watched Jiang Cheng saunter up to her post. He had shown up again in one of his unusual get ups. Today was a purple snake skin patterned long flowing untucked shirt, black skinny jeans held up by a belt that was barely noticeable underneath his shirt, and sneakers. He hardly resembled a CEO of one of the biggest rival corporations of the country. Not for the first time Li Hua was convinced that CEO Lan Xichen must have been forced into an arranged marriage, for business purposes, and felt sorry for him. She sighed internally consoling herself with the fact that at least CEO Jiang Cheng was good looking. She supposed that everyone had a redeeming quality or two after all.
“CEO Jiang how may I help you?” Li Hua questioned, doing her job, but wondering how much she could or would lie for her boss’s sake, bowing properly as Jiang Cheng coldly looked down at her from his taller height.
“I’m here to see Ceo Lan Xichen, albeit briefly.”
Li Hua debated lying about the level of workload that her boss actually had just to shoo the cold Yunmeng CEO away. She couldn’t believe that her romantic Lan CEO was married to a man that referred to his husband as if they were strangers! Once again she compared Jiang Cheng to his adopted brother and found him wanting. When Wei Wuxian showed up and asked for his husband it was always in cutesy nicknames or terms of affection, and generally it varied by the day. He was especially fond of asking for his Gege or Honey. Not that Li Hua usually needed to even bother actually calling for the other, because once Wuxian said one of his sugary sweet nicknames it was as if Lan Zhan could hear him since he would quickly run down to greet him. It was a terrible shame that the older brother seemingly would never get to have that kind of affection from his spouse. At least not in this life time.
Miffed by these thoughts Li Hua stuck one of her fingers on the phone in front of her hidden behind the desk so that she could pretend to call for Lan Xichen, but secretly shoo his husband away.
“Hello Sir, your-,” here she paused wondering how to refer to Jiang Cheng even though she wasn’t actually speaking to Xichen, she quickly settled on changing tactics by correcting herself, “Ceo Jiang Cheng is here to see you.”
She paused for a moment, pretending to listen to words from the other for a few seconds by counting them in her head before faking a frown, nodding, and saying,
“I understand Sir, I’ll let him know right away.”
At that she put down the phone, quickly releasing her finger from the button and half slamming the phone down in an effort to not be caught by the dial tone. With that she faked a sorry look and said,
“I’m afraid he says he’s terribly busy today so he’s unable to meet with you. He sends his regrets and hopes that it’s something that can be taken care of at home today,” she said. It was bad enough that CEO Xichen had to live with and probably get tortured by the guy at home, but Li Hua and many of the Lan employees would not tolerate their poor CEO being harassed at the office as well ,“Of course he is unsure of how late he’ll be staying so it’s nothing dire he asks that you not wait up.”
Jiang Cheng’s eyebrow rose looking at her suspiciously, causing the goose bumps to bloom across the secretaries arms. Despite her dislike of him she had to admit that even when he wasn’t glaring at people he was intimidating.
“Interesting that you got all of that from a three second conversation, you must be quite gifted at reading your boss’s mind,” he said icily, before snapping his fingers causing his subordinate to lift up a briefcase so that she could see it, “Ceo Xichen’s schedule notwithstanding I don’t exactly have all day myself, so if he’s particularly busy I’ll just leave this briefcase on his desk.”
Li Hua’s fake smile resumed on her face as she tried to figure out a way to get rid of Jiang Cheng in case her CEO was still in his office, which she suspected he was. She figured the easiest way to get rid of him was to offer to take the briefcase up herself,
“Ceo Jiang I couldn’t possibly let you run such an errand, after all you’re a very important person. Feel free to leave this briefcase with me and I’ll get it to him as soon as he has a free moment.”
Jiang Cheng stilled and looked at her for a long moment, with a gaze that was somehow fire and ice at that same time. When he finally turned his head Li Hua could only sigh in relief, but it was short lived, as CEO Jiang was seemingly on a mission today,
“No need, I’m sure you have plenty of your own tasks to manage on such a busy day. Since I’ve come this far I may as well complete my task. Besides I wouldn’t want it said of me that I waste Lan employee’s time,” he said with his nose slightly turned up at her, stopping her with a hand when she looked like she was about to try to persuade him to leave again, “No need to show us the way. I’ve been to his office before so I’m sure I know the way.”
At that he pointed towards the elevator in a signal to his subordinate to follow, taking the briefcase from the other while maintaining eye contact until the elevator closed.
Li Hua had frozen, heart beating wildly until she was no longer in sight. As soon as she got back her breath she ran back to her spot, picked up the phone, and dialed quickly. A husky male voice picked up as a panicked Li Hua yelled the coded office alert,
“The Snake’s headed for the Hen house. I repeat: The Snake is headed for the Hen house. Distract the Hen and get him out of his office! ”
Soon office workers were running here and there throughout the building as the Lan employee text chat was blasting from news of “the Snake’s” arrival. Yet the alleged “Hen” had no idea for the time being, and that’s exactly as the employee’s liked it.