PM Chapter 14

最佳契合 (Perfect Match) – 十九瑶

Chapter 14

　　Nine months later, Monday.

7:40 AM, Yuanjiang City’s central business district.

The train station is packed with people. White-collar workers dressed up nicely are streaming up the escalators and flooding the intersection. As soon as the light changes from red to green, the crowd spreads out in every direction, like a thick rope untwisting.

In the middle of everything stands the Jiusheng Twin Towers, a well-known building in the area. Their glass exteriors stand 300 meters high, reflecting the new morning light.

It’s early, but a heavy low pressure is already over the 55th floor of the East Tower. The employees were already exhausted from the weekend, and now they’re ready to face another battle. No one talks when they see each other in the pantry. They communicate simply with their eyes and little gestures—tight lips, a shake of the head, a sigh, and slumping shoulders. No one says a word, but everyone knows how the other person feels.

The elevator doors open. A bellhop from the sales department pulls out a cart full of sweet-smelling fresh flowers, wafting the fragrance along the hall. It doesn’t help the employees, who are completely depressed, get their spirits up.

Because in twenty minutes, the most difficult man to deal with on the planet—Zheng Feiluan—will arrive.

⋮

　　At 7:41, a harsh scolding cuts through the heavy air.

A young woman in a white skirt suit, a Chanel bag slung over her shoulder, and a paper cup of coffee in hand, stands blocking the flower cart. Her eyes are wide, brows slanted sharply upward, glaring across the cart as she confronts the attendant head-on.

“Isn’t that Assistant Yu?” Employee A whispers. “The boss isn’t even here yet, and she’s already lost it?”

Employee B mutters, “Stick that close to President Zheng every day—anyone would go crazy.”

Assistant Yu, given name Yue. Female beta. She holds a master’s degree in hotel management from Yuanjiang University. Smooth, adaptable, and good at playing every angle. Nine months ago, she was promoted straight into headquarters, parachuted in to replace Cheng Xiu as Zheng Feiluan’s personal assistant. She was also the one who had once carried a bouquet of teddy-bear sunflowers to visit He An and Linglan on Zheng Feiluan’s behalf.

She had thought the promotion was a gift from the heavens—instant fame, a straight shot up the ladder. Who could’ve guessed that after only a few short months, the Zheng she admired would change overnight? He became unreasonable, nitpicky about everything. No matter how meticulous her work was, he could always tear it apart and find a dozen faults, dressing her down until she was drenched in humiliation, without her daring to argue back.

It was like walking on razor blades every day at work. It had gotten to the point where it was worse than hell itself.

At this very moment, Yu Yue is like a roadblock tiger. Her eight-centimeter stilettos are sunk deep into the carpet, toes lifted, heel jammed hard against the cart’s swivel wheel.

“Does your sales manager not understand human language?” she snaps. “I said it verbally and in writing—eighteen times. No roses, no lilies, no hydrangeas. Bellflowers, irises, baby’s breath—anything listed here—” She yanks out her phone, flicks through her notes, and shoves the screen right up in the attendant’s face. “All of it. Not. Wanted.”

The hellhop dodges quickly, narrowly saving his nose from being flattened.

He’s in a foul mood himself and fires back without holding it in, “Assistant Yu, believe it or not, every single flower supplied to floors one through eighty of the Jiusheng Twin Towers today is right here. We even made an exception and pulled one black tulip from the rooftop special supply for you. If you’re still not satisfied, there’s nothing more the sales department can do.”

“This is just as bad as last Friday’s trash!” she screams.

Her heel digs another centimeter deeper, nearly snapping with a sickening crack.

The bellhop rolls his eyes, “Assistant Yu, I know you’re President Zheng’s assistant, but you still have to be reasonable. This quarter’s guest rooms, lobby, and exhibition halls were all finalized by the floral designer. We have to follow the plan. Unless there’s a special circumstance, we can’t just change varieties and quantities whenever—”

“A special circumstance?!” Yu Yue explodes. “The flowers on President Zheng’s desk are ones he doesn’t like. And you’re telling me that’s not a special circumstance?”

“These have always been the ones we’ve had.” the bellhop shrugs, “Never saw President Zheng complain before.”

“That was before. This is now!” Yu Yue roars.

The bellhop responds, “If we buy extra varieties just for you, the books won’t balance.”

Yu Yue is about to lose her mind, “Please, I need ten flowers, not ten carts of flowers! Don’t you know how to account for reasonable loss? If you can’t, tell accounting to tear up the vouchers and quit today!”

She checks her watch—7:44. Sixteen minutes until Zheng Feiluan arrives. She doesn’t even bother arguing anymore. She dumps everything she’s holding onto the cart, spins on her heel, and bolts for the elevators. After a few steps, the stilettos slow her down. She kicks them off, grabs them in her hand, and keeps running barefoot.

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　　Employee A, who’s watched the entire spectacle, is baffled, “All this panic over one flower?”

Employee B pats him on the shoulder, “You were on a business trip last week. You missed the latest shift in the situation. Ever heard of a bloodbath caused by a single sheet of toilet paper?”

Employee A blinks, “T-toilet paper?”

Employee B tells it like a joke, “Are you familiar with Jincheng on Huaining Road? The top three model hotels in the last quarter. On Wednesday, they held a new landmark investment meeting there. During the break, President Zheng used the restroom. Just walked out and fired the whole cleaning crew. The manager was dragged down with them—pay cut, written self-reflection. People were mad. Can you guess why?”

“Why?” Employee A asks weakly.

“Because the tear in the spare toilet paper roll was folded into an angled triangle. And the direction was thirty degrees wrong.”

“……”

Employee B sighs, “It’s like the Minister of Education picked on an elementary school language class rep. I heard that Jincheng’s HR laughed at first because they thought President Zheng was joking. They kept trying to cater to his “sense of humor” and almost got the whole HR department fired too.”

“I really feel sorry for them.” Employee A says.

Employee B’s expression turns grim, “Feel sorry for yourself. Jincheng is hardly ever visited by President Zheng, who goes there only once a year. Here? He’s almost always around. Last Friday, he yelled at Yu Yue to the point that she cried just because there was a bouquet on his desk. When the word got out, not just his desk but also the potted plants in the lobby were trimmed to perfection. Not one curved yellow leaf could be found.”

Employee A shudders, “That’s terrifying.”

⋮

　　The elevator shoots down to the ground-floor lobby. The doors have barely opened a crack when Yu Yue rushes out in a panic—and slams straight into a girl.

The girl has a canvas backpack, flats on her feet, no makeup, and no badge. She’s peeking around nervously, clearly an intern reporting to the low-rise offices.

Yu Yue immediately spreads her arms to stop her and asks brightly, “Is this your first day here?”

“Y-yes.” the girl stammers, glancing at the high heels swinging from Yu Yue’s hand and nodding uneasily.

Yu Yue lifts the expensive patent-leather stilettos in front of her, her smile radiant and warm, “On your first day, I recommend wearing heels. They noticeably boost your presence. I just bought this pair on Saturday—new model. Forty-three hundred. I’ll trade you for your flats, okay?”

Ten seconds later, a white figure bursts out of the hotel doors.

Yu Yue, now wearing the slightly worn flats, checks her phone map with one eye, watches pedestrians and traffic lights with the other, and sprints five hundred meters east, charging straight into the nearest flower shop.

“Boss—anything not on this list, give me one of each!”

The florist takes the phone, scans the memo crammed with dozens of flower names, and gives Yu Yue a suspicious look, “You don’t want any of these? Miss, are you messing with me?”

Yu Yue flips open her wallet, pulls out a thick stack of red bills, and fans them between her fingers, “One flower each. A hundred per stem. As many as you’ve got.”

As long as Zheng Feiluan is happy, what’s a few thousand?

The florist’s grin twitches uncontrollably as he rolls up his sleeves, “Alright, alright. Wait here. I’ll get them.”

The clock on the wall keeps circling. The florist picks flowers one by one at a relaxed pace. Inside Yu Yue’s head, a countdown timer lights up red and starts beeping. She urges him again and again, but he just flips leisurely through the memo. Three minutes, five flowers.

At this rate, she’s dead for sure.

Yu Yue finally snaps. She snatches back her phone and dials a number she once wouldn’t have bothered to answer.

⋮

　　When the phone rings, Cheng Xiu is in a small inn in Luotan Town, rubbing Linglan’s little feet.

Luotan is a slow-paced southern town, bordered by Sunrise Sea to the east and Luotan Mountain to the west, famous nationwide for its Queen of the Night flowers. Early autumn is approaching now; the last wave of blossoms has just passed. There are few tourists. The morning is quiet, with only the occasional soft chirp from the trees—not even enough to scare away sleepiness.

Throughout the night, Linglan cried and fussed. He An held her and calmed her down until dawn, and he finally fell asleep in the morning. Cheng Xiu, afraid of disturbing him, took on his godfather duties and carried the bright-eyed little beauty into the courtyard.

Warm sunlight shines down. The swing frame is covered in lush bougainvillea. The flowers are white, and every blossom is moving in the wind.

Little Linglan is now eleven months old. She’s grown soft, fine curls—just enough to tie into a small bud of a braid that curves like a crescent around her head. The bamboo cradle rocks gently. She sits inside, gripping a warm bottle, nipple in her mouth, cheeks bulging and shrinking as she sucks hard. When she drinks too quickly, a huge part of her bib becomes drenched.

There is a fat, massive orange cat sitting on top of the swing frame with its tail dangling down. It vigilantly observes Linglan’s every move, protecting its precious little princess through the cracks in the vines.

The cat’s full name is “Six Hundred Sixty Pounds,” nickname “Liubailiu,”¹ the resident guardian beast of Olive Inn.

Even before He An, Cheng Xiu, and Linglan moved in, Liubailiu was already famous. It and its bougainvillea swing had appeared in Luotan Town’s image postcards, artsy blogs, and travel magazines. Everyone knew that Olive Inn had a lazy, fat cat that loved monopolizing its swing and never budged for anyone.

Until the day He An arrived with Linglan.

On Linglan’s very first day, Liubailiu broke its own swing.

As soon as he saw the problem, the innkeeper—a typical alpha—went and got a hammer. The next morning, half of the wooden board was dragging on the ground, and the other end of the rope was hanging empty. There was a sharp break that looked like it had been chewed.

Liubailiu sat next to it, flicking its tail and looking distinguished with a glint in its round amber eyes.

The innkeeper gave up on fixing the swing. After taking it apart, he put together a bamboo cradle and filled it with fluffy bedding.

Just like that, Liubailiu gave up its beloved swing to meet the even more beloved little Linglan.

⋮

　　Because of this soulful, fat cat—and its kind alpha owner—He An settled down in Luotan Town.

A simple, romantic environment can quietly change a person’s state of mind. Over the past nine months, Cheng Xiu had grown used to Luotan’s leisurely pace. Suddenly receiving a call from Yuanjiang City felt like a power drill tearing into a wall early on a weekend morning—every word deafening.

“Cheng Xiu, Cheng Xiu—do you know what kind of flowers President Zheng likes?”

Yu Yue’s voice is frantic on the other end.

Cheng Xiu drags over a battered old rattan chair and sits in it comfortably, “What kind of flowers does Zheng Feiluan like? No idea.”

He casually rubs Linglan’s little feet.

Linglan is sucking hard on her bottle, snorting softly. When her mouth can’t quite keep up, her limbs join in, and her soft little feet kick straight into Cheng Xiu’s palm.

Honestly, Cheng Xiu has zero desire to help Yu Yue.

After Zheng Feiluan fired him, he tried to give the next assistant some friendly advice. After all, Zheng Feiluan was… different among bosses—unlike those with consistent difficulty levels, he possessed the ability to transform into a demon at any time. It pays to be prepared, but Yu Yue thought highly of herself. She didn’t ask why Cheng Xiu had been fired and didn’t ask about Zheng Feiluan’s personality. She took the job right away and even made fun of Cheng Xiu to his face for not knowing how to take such a great opportunity, handing over a perfect job to someone else.

Cheng Xiu almost threw up blood, but he didn’t say a word.

At that time, He An was still in the hospital, on the brink of death. Even the NICU hadn’t released Linglan yet. He was too busy to care about her sarcastic comments.

He never thought that Assistant Yu, who was meant to be invincible, would only last nine months.

He asked what had happened. Yu Yue said that starting last week, Zheng Feiluan suddenly found the flowers on his desk unbearable. She swapped them out more than ten times, and he was still dissatisfied, yet he couldn’t say what he actually liked. Eventually he flew into a rage and yelled out a single line: If you can’t even handle something this simple, take your pay next week and get out.

The moment Cheng Xiu heard that, he knew things were serious.

He knew Zheng Feiluan well because he had been following him for more than four years. Zheng Feiluan was a textbook entrepreneur, focusing on the big picture and not caring about the little things. Desk flowers were the kind of thing that would never even enter his field of vision. Once, on a whim, Cheng Xiu had stuck a garlic bulb into the vase. Zheng Feiluan saw it and didn’t say a word. Cheng Xiu had never known the man had floral preferences at all.

In fact, Cheng Xiu couldn’t really find anything wrong with Zheng Feiluan, except for things that had to do with He An.

If something as trivial as an irrelevant flower could set him off, it meant his emotions were already completely out of control—no longer enough to deal with anything serious.

This was really bad.

“Haah…”

Cheng Xiu sighs.

Hearing the sigh, Yu Yue panics even more, “Cheng Xiu, think harder. Think carefully. Was there ever a flower he mentioned, praised, or bought before? If I can’t find even one he likes today, I’ll get fired! Have you ever seen an assistant fired over a single flower?”

Cheng Xiu laughs.

Fired over a single flower—what’s so strange about that?

At his most unstable, Zheng Feiluan fired a driver for speeding up too much at a green light, a cook for putting a little ginger in soup, a secretary for making documents look bad with four punch holes—and a former assistant who had saved his omega’s and daughter’s lives.

Serving a ruler is like serving a tiger.

There’s plenty more of this kind of life ahead.

Cheng Xiu yawns and says lazily, “Yu Yue, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I honestly don’t remember. I worked for President Zheng for so many years, and I’ve never heard him mention a favorite flower…”

He suddenly stops.

Sucking on her bottle, little Linglan sits in the cradle, her bright, dark eyes locked on him.

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Translated and edited by janemoyu (10/08/25)