ATLAS TRANSLATES

Chu Zhi paused, swaying as she turned around. His chest pressed tightly against her back, her loose hair caught between them, getting slightly mussed.

Lu Jiaheng raised his hand, curling his index finger to brush her long hair to one side, revealing a glimpse of her delicate pale neck.

Chu Zhi turned sideways, saying seriously: “I can’t. I snuck out secretly – if I don’t go back, my dad will kill me.”

“…” Lu Jiaheng reserved judgment on whether it would be her or him getting killed.

Lu Jiaheng turned her body back around and pulled her into his arms again: “Then just let me hold you for a while.”

Chu Zhi stayed quietly in his embrace as he held her. The cake was laid out in front of them when she elbowed him: “Go get the food and some utensils.”

Lu Jiaheng didn’t move.

“Hurry up!” Chu Zhi urged him.

He finally reluctantly loosened his hold and stood up unwillingly, going to the kitchen to get plates and utensils, along with some containers, before sitting down beside her.

He opened the containers one by one. Chu Zhi took the knife to cut the cake, slicing a piece and placing it upside down on a plate before pushing it to him.

Her slender white fingertip grazed the edge of the cake, getting a bit of frosting on it.

Lu Jiaheng watched the hand that pushed the plate over, suddenly leaning in close. He grabbed her hand, carefully removing the cream-covered knife, then brought it to his lips. His tongue darted out, slowly licking the frosting from her fingertip.

The soft, wet sensation glided slowly and lingeringly down her fingertip as his tongue curled around the frosting. A spot of white clung to his bright red tongue before being skillfully drawn into his mouth.

Lu Jiaheng released her hand and licked his lips, eyes half-lidded like a demon who had just finished feeding: “Sweet.”

“…” Chu Zhi’s face and ears turned red, feeling as if she had been seduced.

She quickly pulled her hand back behind her, the spot where he had licked tingling numbly. She secretly rubbed it with her thumb – it was still slightly damp: “How could you—”

Lu Jiaheng lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the fruit cheesecake.

Though the cake wasn’t large, it was elaborately made, covered in a layer of cranberry jam with light pink transparent jelly cubes scattered across it. In the center was a delicate chocolate Eiffel Tower, intricately carved.

Lu Jiaheng reached out and pinched the tower’s spire to pluck it off. The four corners were covered in cranberry jam. He held it up to Chu Zhi: “Open your mouth.”

With this distraction, Chu Zhi completely forgot what she had been about to say. She was a bit distressed – she didn’t want the jam from the other three corners to get on her lips, but she couldn’t fit all four corners of the chocolate tower in her mouth at once.

She tilted her head awkwardly, carefully licking off the cranberry jam first.

Lu Jiaheng watched with darkened eyes.

With a light crunch, Chu Zhi bit off one corner of the Eiffel Tower from his hand, innocently chewing the chocolate with wide eyes.

Comparing the two, Lu Jiaheng felt particularly perverted, particularly shameless, particularly despicable.

Lu Jiaheng closed his eyes briefly before inserting the Eiffel Tower back into the cake. He leaned in close, looking at her from a short distance.

Chu Zhi could even see her own small, wavering reflection in his pupils.

Three seconds of silence.

Chu Zhi moved first.

She raised one hand to firmly cover her mouth while her other hand reached forward to push against his forehead.

She looked at him with slightly reproachful eyes, mumbling: “Don’t bite me…”

“…” Lu Jiaheng let out a low laugh, grabbing her wrist that was pressing against his forehead and pulling it down to hold it. He leaned in close again: “I won’t bite you.”

As the words fell, his thin lips pressed against the back of her hand in a feather-light kiss.

Their eyes met as he licked his lips and said softly: “Chu Chu, happy birthday.”

For a whole week, Lu Jiaheng mysteriously found an extra cup of coffee on his desk every evening.

A week later, Lu Jiaheng attended a meeting as an observer for the second time, and this time Old Master Lu was finally present.

As the meeting was nearly over, Lu Jiaheng noticed the secretary beside him was the same one as last time.

Looking down, the coffee in the mug before him smelled rich and fragrant.

He turned his head, catching the young lady’s gaze.

Lu Jiaheng raised an eyebrow, stretching out his long legs and leaning back slightly, casually pushing the coffee cup forward a bit.

Lu Jiaheng had been spending over twelve hours a day at the company for a week straight. Though he was quite restricted working under Lu Hongsheng, he had gradually become familiar with some basic procedures. He still pulled up a chair in the corner to listen to each department head report their work progress.

Last time he hadn’t understood anything and had silently played the role of invisible man. Now with Old Master Lu presiding, Lu Jiaheng felt the air quality in the meeting room had improved significantly.

Lu Hongsheng was also active today, like a burning flame, using the project proposal in his hand to sound the trumpet of revolution, full of fighting spirit and energy.

Lu Jiaheng was happy too – having someone above felt quite pleasant, and even his own comments increased.

Specifically, it went like this—

Lu Hongsheng: “Many eyes are on that development zone land, the sooner we get it the better.”

Lu Jiaheng: “Tch.”

Lu Hongsheng: “The land price there isn’t high, and there’s no competition threat from the same industry.”

Lu Jiaheng: “Hehe.”

Lu Hongsheng: “With universities nearby, the main target demographic is students. For commercial tenants, we can try to choose some young, fashionable boutique brands.”

Lu Jiaheng covered his mouth with one hand, lounging casually in his chair, his gaze drifting to the window as he muttered, though loud enough for everyone in the meeting room to hear: “The clouds are so white today.”

Lu Hongsheng: “…”

After the afternoon meeting, Old Master Lu kept Lu Jiaheng behind alone.

The old man sat leisurely in his large chair, looking as composed and calm as if Jinghen hadn’t been sailing smoothly lately. Lu Jiaheng behaved himself: “Grandfather.”

The old master spoke deliberately: “I hear you’ve been working quite hard lately, and studying diligently at school too.”

Lu Jiaheng stayed quiet, his thumb lightly scratching his brow bone as he waited for the old man’s next words.

“Skipping physical education exams to attend freshman ideological and moral education classes, getting held back to make up exams.”

“…” You really do have eyes and ears everywhere.

Old Master Lu spoke flatly: “You’ve seen what your father has been like this past week. I can’t give you many years’ time. If you’re not up to it either, I’ll accept it even if Jinghen no longer bears the Lu name in the future. You’re a clever child – playing around is fine, but you should understand what’s most important and when.”

Chu Zhi found this holiday quite boring.

For almost half a month, she lived a decadent life of eating, sleeping, and playing mobile games, never leaving the house. Though she had nearly maxed out the favorability ratings with several handsome characters in her phone games.

She didn’t dare message Lu Jiaheng – they could only contact each other after 9 PM each day. Occasionally he would video call her.

In just half a month, he looked like he had lost weight. His jaw was sharper, his eye sockets deeper. The video wasn’t very clear, but she could still see the faint shadows under his eyes.

Chu Zhi frowned, urging him to go shower and sleep.

The next day, Chu Zhi unusually didn’t roll around in bed. She got up early, her phone gallery full of screenshots of recipes, and dragged Mrs. Deng up for cooking lessons, saying she wanted to learn how to cook.

Though she said she was learning, she mostly just watched from the side as ingredients went into the wok, occasionally stirring things with the spatula.

Even so, Chu Zhi still got two small burns on her hands.

After struggling all morning, at noon Chu Zhi took out some thermal lunch boxes and packed up the dishes one by one.

She knew where Lu Jiaheng’s company was and took a taxi to the lobby, but was stopped at reception and not allowed to go up.

Chu Zhi had originally wanted to give him a surprise, but had no choice but to take out her phone and call Lu Jiaheng.

It should have been lunch break time by now. People were gradually starting to come out of the bright office building lobby. The women wore neat, beautiful professional attire – many wearing only coats despite the winter cold.

Their makeup was so perfect you couldn’t find a single flaw, their hair carefully styled. Each one exuded the unique charm of a mature woman.

Chu Zhi silently looked down at her own bear-like thick down jacket with little bear patterns sewn on it, and even two small bear ears on the hood.

Without comparison there would be no sense of inadequacy – the hurt came so suddenly.

Just thinking about how Lu Jiaheng’s colleagues all looked like this, staying in this environment for the entire winter break, Chu Zhi suddenly felt a very strong sense of crisis.

Before she could think more about where this sense of crisis came from, Lu Jiaheng had already come out of the elevator.

The young girl was really eye-catching in her white down jacket, light brown scarf wrapped tightly around her, looking all warm and cozy like a little penguin.

The little penguin stood at the entrance with her head lowered, looking somewhat dejected from afar, lost in thought about something.

Lu Jiaheng’s lips curved up as he walked towards her.

The little penguin raised her head and saw him.

He looked quite different from how he did at school. Though he still carried an air of lazy casualness even in his neat shirt and suit, it was as if suddenly, they were no longer people of the same world.

Chu Zhi lowered her head again.

Then couldn’t help raising it to secretly look at him again.

He looked a bit handsome.

Lu Jiaheng stopped and bent down to hold her hand. She wasn’t wearing gloves, but having just gotten out of the taxi it wasn’t too cold, only her fingertips were a bit icy.

He enclosed her hand in his, looking down: “Why did you come?”

Chu Zhi blinked: “Where do you usually eat?”

Lu Jiaheng actually hadn’t eaten lunch in many days.

He led her inside, “It varies,” he paused, lowering his head with raised eyebrows, “you came to have lunch with me?”

Chu Zhi smiled brightly as she held up her bag: “I made food for you!”

Lu Jiaheng was stunned.

The young girl was delighted. She was extremely afraid of cold, wrapped up like a little bun as he led her into the elevator. She said happily: “I made sweet and sour ribs! Well, I didn’t really make them myself, but I did flip them!”

“Do you like sweet and sour flavors? Try it, my mom makes the best sweet and sour ribs!”

“No, not my mom – I mean me, me!”

“I got up at seven this morning, I only slept for seven hours, I’m so sleepy.”

“Lu Jiaheng, how many floors does your company have? Why is it taking so long to get there?”

She cradled her little lunchbox like a treasure, mumbling away, unclear whether she was talking to him or to herself.

There were several other people in the elevator who couldn’t help but smile at this scene, finding the young girl soft and sweet, extremely adorable.

Chu Zhi wasn’t paying much attention to others. Using his hand that was holding hers, she rubbed her eyes with the back of his hand: “Lu Jiaheng, do you have your own office? I want to sleep.”

He had been smiling listening to her chatter the whole way, but at this point he finally paused.

Lu Jiaheng licked his lips and looked down at her meaningfully: “Baby.”

Chu Zhi looked up: “Hmm?”

He raised his free hand with his index finger pressed against his lips, making a soft “shh” sound: “Let’s not talk about that here – you can tell me privately later.”