Chased by My Heartless Ex - Chapter 60

Li Rui displayed an unnatural inability to control the public opinion for the first time.

After years apart, Xu You had climbed higher and become more beautiful than she had imagined. Her jealousy sprang from the depths of her heart. She had clearly been waiting for Xu You to fall into the abyss, yet upon meeting again, Xu You stood tall and straight, becoming her superior and thoroughly overshadowing her.

Even though she had already spread Xu You’s past story to everyone, with Xu You standing right in front of them and her position clearly established, Li Rui couldn’t muster a genuine smile.

This thought sprouted like tender spring shoots growing wildly on branches. She was consumed by dissatisfaction and envy; opening her eyes brought nothing but displeasure, and opening her mouth released a sour tone.

She was going to go mad, otherwise, she’d suffocate!

The idea of losing control rose from the depths of her heart, and Li Rui’s mind was seized by this wicked thought: “Yeah, it’s been years. You show up and parachute right into the team leader position, how impressive.”

Xu You wasn’t foolish; she could detect the sarcasm in Li Rui’s words. But she didn’t get angry, nor did she take the bait.

Covering her lips with a light laugh, the sparkle from the diamond on her metal buckle flashed in Li Rui’s eyes, intensifying the envy in her gaze. “You’re joking,” Xu You said. “Team leader or not, it’s just a title. Honestly, I don’t really care.”

“Oh, by the way, Sister Qian, it’s been years, and you’ve already moved into your own office!” She lowered her hand, beaming brightly, completely ignoring Li Rui’s ashen expression.

Qian Doudou, always low-key, adjusted her glasses. “After the company went public, I led a small project, and the response was good, so I got promoted two levels. Xiao Li was also part of the team, and she’s doing well now, promoted to deputy team leader.”

Li Rui detested the word “deputy” more than anything.

When she started university, she was the deputy class monitor, always overshadowed by someone else.

In club activities, she was Xu You’s deputy, with no autonomy, she had to follow Xu You’s lead in everything.

Now, Xu You had parachuted in as the official team leader, while she had worked herself to the bone and was still just a deputy. No matter how she thought about it, she felt a suffocating frustration, unable to vent.

She couldn’t openly clash with Xu You in front of her colleagues. With Qian Doudou’s position clearly established, she couldn’t overpower or outmaneuver her. The workplace was full of shrewd people; if sides were taken, she would undoubtedly be left isolated and unsupported.

Biting the soft flesh inside her cheek, Li Rui couldn’t glare at either of them. Instead, she lowered her eyes and shot a vicious glare at the bag in Xu You’s hand, startling the man in front of the trio into quietly retreating from the prime viewing spot.

A working professional’s skill: no matter how unhappy, keep the hardship hidden inside.

She forced a stiff, fake smile and looked at Xu You. “Yeah, climbing the ranks alone without any help is just so hard. We’re both classmates, but my luck isn’t as good as yours. Sigh, I’ll just have to rely on myself to keep climbing.”

Clearly a one-stop shop for playing the victim and throwing shade, Xu You chuckled inwardly. Li Rui really wasn’t thinking straight, getting confused at such a young age.

She didn’t mind playing the good person and jogging her memory a bit.

“How can you say that? Sigh, your family background is pretty good too. I heard all about when we joined the company together back then. I’m the one who should envy you. The only reason I got to parachute in this time is because I went to Europe for grad school. The higher-ups thought my qualifications were decent enough to make an exception and appoint me as team leader. One mistake, and I’ll be fired, I can’t compare to your iron rice bowl at all.”

Xu You didn’t speak loudly, but she made sure the nearby gossipmonger could hear.

Li Rui had deliberately stirred up conflict against her, trying to make colleagues distance themselves from her with negative opinions. In that case, she couldn’t be blamed for giving her a taste of her own medicine.

The matter of connections wasn’t something she fabricated out of thin air. Back when she was still working, she had already sensed it. Among the group of people who had interviewed them together, after her investigation, the head of the technical department was undoubtedly involved. At the time, since they didn’t interfere with each other, she hadn’t paid it much mind. But now that the other party was trying to harm her, why not drag them both into the mud? Let no one have an easy time.

Qian Doudou, standing at the center of the storm, clearly sensed the intense tension between the two. She had always leaned toward Xu You’s side. Recently, Li Rui’s work enthusiasm had been low, and the quality of her drafts had declined. Such an attitude toward work was something she couldn’t stand. On top of that, instead of focusing on her tasks today, Li Rui had been busy spreading rumors. Unable to hold back, Qian Doudou chimed in.

Pretending to scold Xu You, she said, “You can’t just say things carelessly. It affects the harmony of our department. If there’s something, discuss it with her privately. If this escalates, it’ll be difficult for both of you, not to mention those so-called people behind the scenes.”

“Right,” Xu You replied obediently.

The fiery wild rose had turned into a gentle, sweet kitten. With her beauty amplifying the effect, she instantly captured the hearts of the male colleagues who were eavesdropping with perked ears.

Previously, they had only heard what Li Rui said. If Li Rui told them the new colleague had been parachuted in, they believed it. If she said the new colleague had an affair with the boss, they spread the rumor. But after hearing the conversation between these few, he completely overturned his previous assumptions.

They had all come from art backgrounds. Studying art was expensive, and going abroad, forget tuition, the cost of living alone was staggering. To submit an outstanding portfolio, a six-figure sum was the baseline. For a little princess from a wealthy family, being doted on and carrying a million-yuan bag was reasonable. Returning after studying abroad and being parachuted in was also reasonable.

Moreover, she could step down just like that. In contrast, Li Rui had joined around the same time as him, and he had also participated in that well-received project…

The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

He had been foolishly used as a pawn by this woman with connections and cunning schemes, even having his position snatched away. The mere thought of it made him want to vomit blood.

“You’re slandering me!” Li Rui retorted.

Convinced that her shady actions were deeply hidden and unnoticed by anyone, her ignorance gave her a false sense of confidence. She only panicked for a second, a flicker of helplessness flashing in her eyes, before quickly reverting to her usual brazen and arrogant demeanor.

“If you have evidence, show it. Anyone can make up lies,” she sneered, taking a step closer to Xu You. “Do you think our colleagues are idiots? That they’d judge me based solely on your one-sided story? What a joke.”

She might not have been genuinely laughing, but Xu You truly let out a heartfelt chuckle.

“Exactly. Without evidence, it’s just baseless fabrication. So why am I the one labeled as having connections?”

Xu You stopped just short of spelling it out, her innocent eyes gliding smoothly in their sockets before deliberately, or perhaps unintentionally sweeping over the colleagues who had gossiped about her and were now standing unusually close.

She didn’t pay much attention to the others’ expressions. Her main focus was, in the end, lingering for a few seconds on the male colleague’s head, intensifying their conflict in one go.

Dogs biting dogs, how entertaining.

He, who had been eavesdropping, had already bottled up a bellyful of resentment, waiting for the right moment to explode. From her elevated position, Xu You could clearly see the veins bulging on the back of his hand as he suppressed his emotions.

With her goal achieved, Xu You had no intention of wasting any more of Qian Doudou’s work time. She had said just enough.

“Tsk, I was joking, don’t be mad.” She poured fuel right onto Li Rui’s burning anger. “We’re all colleagues here, making a scene would embarrass the whole company. Didn’t you say you’d help me clear my desk earlier? Since our positions aren’t clearly defined as superior and subordinate, no need to trouble yourself. Just show me the way, I’ll handle it myself.”

Li Rui nearly gritted her pearly white teeth to dust, wishing she could just sink them into Xu You’s slender neck right then and there.

In that moment, she did resemble Zhou Siyu, both harbored an intense craving for Xu You. The only difference was Zhou Siyu’s desire was driven by attraction, while Li Rui’s was purely homicidal.

“I’ll clear it for you.” Impulse aside, tidying the desk was a task directly assigned by Zheng Ran, and it couldn’t be handled carelessly. She stomped her high heels like a sledgehammer pounding the floor, leading Xu You to a spacious single workstation by the massive glass window, an area twice the size of her own cubicle.

This spot had been vacant for a long time, and Li Rui had long coveted it. Not long ago, she’d been summoned there expecting to hear the good news of her promotion, only to be hit with one piece of bad news after another.

Suppressing her impatience, she crumpled the waste paper on the desk into balls and tossed them into the trash bin, putting so much force into her movements it was as if she were crumpling Xu You up and throwing her in too.

A layer of dust coated the desk. Xu You, seemingly unbothered, set her bag down in one corner and stood empty-handed by the window to take in the view outside.

When she left, it was the dead of winter, the broad-leaved trees in the compound were bare and skeletal. Now, upon her return, hints of green dotted the branches. Spring was approaching.

The season of hope had quietly arrived, yet she found herself trapped in Beicheng once more, filled with despair.

Such is the unpredictability of life and the myriad forms of human experience.

Before she could properly dwell on these sentiments, she caught Li Rui eyeing her bag out of the corner of her eye. Immediately setting aside her melancholy, she prepared to resume battle.

“You could pretend to accidentally knock my bag onto the floor,” she suddenly spoke up, startling Li Rui into freezing mid-action, her guilty hand mere centimeters away from the Hermès bag.

Li Rui had only briefly entertained a mischievous thought: with Xu You admiring the scenery and their colleagues focused on work, if she “accidentally” knocked the bag over, who would blame her? After all, she was helping Xu You.

She never expected her subtle movements to be perfectly reflected in the glass, allowing Xu You to see everything clearly.

Having her inner malice exposed in front of everyone naturally made her bristle with defensiveness.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Oh, my mistake then,” Xu You didn’t take the bait. “But just a reminder, repair costs for bags at this price point can be quite high if they get scratched or damaged, and their collector’s value plummets. Since you buy luxury items, you should know that.”

Li Rui mostly owned entry-level luxury goods. The bag Xu You carried was one she’d only ever seen, and coveted while scrolling through apps. Repeatedly suppressed, she was nearing her breaking point.

The younger Xu You had been kind and gentle, choosing to endure provocations and criticism with patience whenever possible. But the grown version had long discarded such useless compassion. Given the chance to press her advantage and defeat her opponent in one move, she refused to waste any more time or energy on prolonged conflict.

“Oh, and by the way,” she lowered her voice, ensuring only Li Rui could hear her deliberate, measured words, “I do have some evidence. That guy of yours… he’s in the tech department, right? From what I know, tech salaries are the highest at YUYOO, aside from the top floor executives.”

“Or perhaps… he’s just not that generous with you.”

A verbal kill shot, delivered one syllable at a time.

Li Rui could no longer hold back, dropping her things and rushing out the door. The glass door of the design department swung violently from her forceful push, and colleagues who had been pretending to work could no longer hide their curious glances, some exchanged looks, while others stole glances at Xu You.

Xu You maintained her standard professional smile, knowing that those who couldn’t keep their composure were bound to lose.

She clapped her hands lightly, deliberately drawing everyone’s attention. “It’s my first day here, and I’m sure I have a lot to learn. I’ll be counting on everyone’s help going forward. I’ve just asked Sister Qian to add me to the department group chat, so today’s drinks are on me. Please send your orders in the group, and I’ll place a bulk order later.”

Her beauty was almost too striking, but when she spoke, the corners of her mouth lifted into a sweet smile that carried a hint of youthful charm, bridging the distance between them.

Li Rui’s value lay in enriching their slacking-off routines, but Xu You was genuinely treating everyone to drinks. It was clear who offered more immediate benefits.

“Thank you, Team Leader Xu!”

“You’re so generous, Team Leader Xu~”

“Don’t mention it, just let me know if you need anything.”

Everyone enjoys a bit of praise, and Xu You savored the compliments for a few dozen seconds. Whether sincere or not, she took them at face value, feeling thoroughly pleased.

“Alright, everyone, hurry up and decide what you’d like to drink. We shouldn’t let this disrupt our work, especially since I’m still settling into this position,” Xu You promptly wrapped things up. Without hesitation, the group chat quickly filled with everyone’s drink orders.

Qian Doudou sat in her private office, the glass door left ajar as she listened to Xu You’s interactions with the team. She felt genuinely happy for her.

Xu You was exceptionally talented, if she hadn’t left back then, she might have gone even further than Qian Doudou. Her only flaw… no, it wasn’t a flaw, but the one thing that could hold her back in the workplace was her straightforwardness, a kind of earnest sincerity typical of recent graduates.

Now, she addressed Qian Doudou as “Sister” like everyone else, knew how to use public opinion to her advantage, and understood the importance of winning over her colleagues. Judging by these small but telling actions, she had matured into a savvy professional.

At this thought, Qian Doudou sighed. The innocent Xu You had been endearing too. Who on earth had turned their sweet Youyou into such a seasoned player?

On the top floor, in the CEO’s office, Zhou Siyu sneezed.