The White Crane Group was made big by Xu Ting. He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to steer the rudder by reading the wind and exploring the water to avoid reefs. It took a lot of hard work to build up a chain of hundreds of restaurants from a single cafeteria to the present day.
When Xu Ye, who inherited the business from his father, first entered the business, he was assigned to be a small manager in a cafeteria chain, where he was involved from the bottom in the extremely trivial tasks of stocking and selling, setting up the shop, assigning work and managing accounts. He was a quick and serious learner and even worked as the kitchen’s assistant for two months, wandering around the kitchen every day in order to understand the freshness of different ingredients and their preparation. Two years later, he was promoted to regional manager, responsible for the management of dozens of stores in the entire southeast region.
These days, young master Xu had been in a bad mood these days. His subordinates all speculated that it was because of the quality of materials used in one of the shops, which has led to complaints from customers. But Lily, the secretary, felt that there was another reason because when she entered the manager’s office several times to deliver coffee, she found him staring at the phone from time to time as if he was waiting for a call.
At the meeting on Friday afternoon, he was clearly agitated. He sat in the middle of the huge conference table with a dark face, listening to the turnover analysis made by his subordinates, his eyes shifted from the PowerPoint presentations several times to his mobile phone, which was sitting next to the folder on the table.
This made Lily a little curious. She had been the secretary of the Young Master Xu for a full year, and many female staffs were jealous of her to be able to use her closeness to obtain some favour. At first, she did have a few thoughts in her mind, thinking that with her good looks and body, she might be lucky enough to get his attention and become the wife of the young master. So she dressed up carefully every day and seized every opportunity to show off her moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and physical qualities. Later, she realised that she was just like a peac0ck spreading its feather, and didn’t get any special attention from him at all. As time goes by, a lot of frustration builds up. It wasn’t until she saw him playing with the young master of the Liu family that she realised that he didn’t like women, and finally regained some confidence.
This prince was usually indifferent to everyone, and he didn’t have any regular companions around him. However, he had been looking at his phone incessantly for the past few days. Could it be that the peach finally blossomed? Lily handed him the compiled materials as she guessed in her heart.
“Are these all the things need to be signed today?” Xu Ye frowned as he looked at the thick pile of paper.
“The first three are to be given to the Chief Financial Officer at a later date.” Lily classified them carefully.
As the weekend approached, the anxiety in Xu Ye’s heart became stronger and stronger. The delay in the arrival of the masked man’s text message almost exhausted his patience. He was looking forward to that text message, so the wait became a torment. He forced himself into his work, concentrating on the A4 papers in his hands, but in the end, he only read the rough outline and signed his name. “We’ll talk about the rest next week, you go out first.” He closed the folder, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.
At this moment, the phone rang suddenly.
Xu Ye suddenly opened his eyes, grabbed the phone and said, “Hello.”
The person on the other end said something briefly, and all Lily heard before she left was the young master Xu Ye, who had always been calm, almost yelling, “What do you mean you can’t find anything?” She closed the door fearfully to cut off the sound. As a secretary, she naturally knew what to do and what not to do.
The caller was Liu Jing. Xu Ye entrusted him to investigate the masked man but Liu Jing found nothing. This made Xu Ye feel it was hard to believe. With their connections, they couldn’t get anything about that man.
“If you go any further, you’ll be in deep shit, Ah1A Chinese prefix used with a shortened form of peoples’ given names to express familiarity, roughly equivalent to Mister or Miss. Ye. It’s not easy to reach out to the east of the city, not to mention the fact that you won’t get anything, and you could break your arm there.” Liu Jing warned him like this.
The clue pointed to the east side of the city, where the Black Eagles were based and where the club was located.
He sighed a little reluctantly. Indeed, he should not go any further.
Dinner was served in a nearby restaurant. He went round twice without taking anything from the seemingly extensive buffet and ended up with a little mushroom soup and a small lamb chop. In fact, he was so tired of dealing with quality incidents and the media these days that he slept very little and had little energy, so much so that he didn’t even bother to drive and asked his driver to take him home.
He had long been tired of Xu Ting and Zhou Jia’s separate pursuits and moved out to rent a place as soon as he entered university. Xu Ting handed him the key to a villa, but he refused to accept it. Later, he earned his own money and bought a duplex flat, which he designed and decorated himself. Although the space was not big, it was very comfortable to live in.
Xu Ye, who was physically and mentally exhausted, took a shower and fell asleep. When he woke up at night, he fumbled with his phone to check the time. When he saw the screen clearly, he lost all sleepiness in an instant.
A new message appears on the screen.
“Saturday morning at 9 o’clock, Building 8, Hanguan, Huashan road, north of the city.—Your master”
Xu Ye sat up, read it carefully several times, and saved the number in his contacts. He filled in the masked man in the name field and later changed it to Y. He remembered that it was the word on the masked man’s room sign.
Hanguan. He knew that place, it was a villa area with extremely beautiful scenery. It was built about 10 years ago on one of the best pieces of land on the edge of K city, surrounded by mountains and lakes. The developer was the Golden Eagle Group, which was laundered by the Black Eagle Group. The house in Hanguan had not been listed for sale, and there had been no news of its transfer in the past few years. A year ago, a pampered son of a wealthy family in the circle boasted that he wanted to get a suit by the seaport, but he failed after exhausting all methods and connections. In the end, he had to admit defeat and dance a striptease in front of them, making everyone laugh for months.
Could the masked man really have something to do with Black Eagle?
His black pupils behind the mask, his slender fingers holding the whip, and the vaguely dangerous aura emanating from him, if any, made people feel excited.
Xu Ye tossed and turned in thought for a long time and finally drifted off to sleep.
When he woke up the next morning, the time displayed on his phone was past 8:45. The excitement of last night also made him forget that he hadn’t set an alarm for Saturday, and the exhaustion of the past few days made him oversleep.
Even without the traffic, it was obviously impossible for him to arrive before nine o’clock.
When he thought of this, he was a little depressed. After some consideration, he decided to reply to a text message first.
“Master, I’m sorry. I’ll be half an hour late because of a company emergency.—Your slave”
He used a very respectful tone to organize his words, and after it was successfully sent, he began to get up and get dressed without delay.
When he arrived at Hanguan, it was ten minutes before half past nine.
This villa area had a lot of security and could be described as heavily guarded. The security guard in black politely asked Xu Ye to get off the car and stood in front of an electronic eye. The security guard then pressed the ‘8’ button, picked up the phone and asked, “Sir, is this your guest?”
The other party gave an affirmative answer and seemed to say something else.
The security guard replied, “Yes, sir.” Then he turned back to a nearby black Audi and opened the door of the passenger seat, “Sir, let me take you in and my colleague will park the car for you.”
Xu Ye tossed the keys to another security guard and got into the car.
The whole area was large, but there were only a few buildings. The distance between the villas was very far, coupled with the lush greenery, the view was obscured by the tall trees, and only parts of the roofs can be seen from the driveway. It got very good privacy.
In front of a courtyard with a ‘No.8’ bronze plate, the car stopped slowly. The security guard opened the car door for him and then rang the doorbell for him. “If you’re leaving, please let us know to come and pick you up.” After that, he bowed and left without another word, very well trained.
The electronic lock opened and made a clicking sound. Xu Ye pushed the door open and entered.
The high ceiling made the living room on the first floor look very spacious, and the huge floor-to-ceiling window design provided an open visual effect. The sunlight shone through the white gauze curtains obliquely, weakening the clear black and white colours of the whole room. The use of soft decorations such as beige and grey softens the colour of the room, and the placement of a large number of green plants echoes the tall trees outside the glass window, adding to the vibrancy of the room. The fireplace and hanging antler-shaped decoration bring some Scandinavian style. The furnishings in the house were simple, clean and tidy, and made people feel very comfortable.
Xu Ye quickly looked around, and his eyes fell on the black leather sofa, facing that person.
The man was sitting and looking at the tablet computer in his hand. He still wore a mask on his face, which was dark blue and covered most of his face. It was decorated with some tiny diamonds that glowed in the daylight.
When he saw that pair of deep, unreadable eyes staring at him indifferently. Xu Ye couldn’t help becoming nervous, and opened his mouth to call, “Master.”
“Are you done with the company’s affairs?” The man’s voice was still calm and relaxed.
“Yes.” He felt a little guilty when he answered, after all, lying was not his strong point.
“Good.” The man stood up, “I will show you around this place, which is where you will come every week from now on. I will tell you clearly and distinctly what is expected of you in your designated area. You can ask questions during this process.”
“Oh.” After Xu Ye responded, the man glanced at him. He pursed his lips and changed his words, “Yes, master.”
The man began his explanation. “This house has been built with appropriate materials to block out sound and sight to ensure that nothing inside the house could be seen by prying eyes. You are safe and secured here, so I ask that you remain naked in this room.”
This request made Xu Ye a little nervous, mixed with some inexplicable excitement.
—I really have some masochistic constitution. He thought with some self-loathing.
“Do you know how to cook?” The man paused in the open kitchen.
“I can do some, but I can’t cook well.” After all, he had been a kitchen assistant for two months, so he could make something edible. As for the taste…
The man thought for a while and said, “From now on, you will prepare breakfast every Sunday. I will let the chef come over for other meals, but I ask you to learn as much as you can.”
“Let the chef cook?!” Xu Ye’s eyes widened, “But just now you asked me to stay naked…”
The man smiled, “I will give you special permission to hang a long nightgown on the hanger on the first floor, and wear it when the chef comes. If you feel uncomfortable, you’d better learn to cook and satisfy my tastes as soon as possible.”
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Thank you for translating this story! I have read Book 3 and it was great. I’ve been hoping for someone to translate Book1. Thank you!