Chapter 3 – Write Me an IOU

Yan Dun was grateful that An Chi stood up for him, though he wasn’t especially surprised.

After all, everyone knew An Chi cared deeply about saving face. If Hua Daimao’s secretary mocked Yan Dun, that was basically equivalent to Hua Daimao mocking An Chi directly. There was no way An Chi would tolerate that.

Hua Daimao smiled lightly.

“That’s an interesting way to put it, President An. I’m the one who got drenched in alcohol, yet somehow I’m the bully?”

Hua Daimao’s secretary raised his voice.

“I think your employee was deliberately trying to throw himself at President Hua and scam him for attention!”

An Chi’s expression darkened immediately.

“Your dog sure barks loudly. Aren’t you going to control it?”

Hua Daimao’s secretary choked on his words.

“Y-you—!”

That was just the kind of person An Chi was: arrogantly rude no matter the occasion. But nobody could do anything about it, because it was part of his “character setting.”

No one could overpower “the setting.”

However, as another domineering CEO, Hua Daimao had his own setting too.

His setting was:

“No matter what crimes he commits, he will always escape punishment—unless it’s already the final chapter.”

To put it simply, Hua Daimao was the “final boss villain” of this CEO world. He barely ever did any actual business. Instead, every day he was either hiring assassins, murdering people personally, arranging kidnappings, carrying out kidnappings himself, and enthusiastically dancing on the edge of the law in order to compete with the male lead for the Mary Sue heroine.

Meanwhile, the police in this CEO world were even more useless than the police in Japanese detective novels.

At least in Japanese detective stories, the police show up promptly at the crime scene. Their deductions might be idiotic and they never solve anything without the protagonist, but at least they try, right?

But in this CEO world, the police were basically invisible.

Kidnapping, shootings, murder, imprisonment—absolutely nobody cared!!!!!

Only at the very end of the story would the police suddenly spring into action like clockwork and somehow arrest the villain within a hundred words.

In other words, as long as the story hadn’t reached the finale yet, Hua Daimao could casually murder or kidnap people without consequences.

Of course, Hua Daimao couldn’t kill An Chi, because An Chi was the domineering CEO male lead. Male leads couldn’t be killed.

But crushing a tiny supporting character like Yan Dun would be effortless.

Knowing all this, Yan Dun trembled in fear.

He absolutely did not want to offend Hua Daimao.

So Yan Dun quickly apologized.

“It was my fault. I accidentally spilled wine on President Hua. I sincerely apologize and hope you’ll forgive me.”

After speaking, he even bowed.

Hua Daimao smiled.

“In that case, for President An’s sake, let’s forget about it.”

With that, Hua Daimao left grandly with his secretary.

Only then did Yan Dun finally breathe a sigh of relief.

But An Chi still looked displeased.

“Why did you apologize like that?”

Yan Dun smiled awkwardly.

“It really was my fault. But honestly, I was panicking just now. Luckily President An spoke up for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

An Chi answered in an extremely domineering-CEO manner:

“You’re my person. It’s only natural for me to protect you.”

Yan Dun felt genuinely touched.

Inside, he thought:

I’m never calling my boss an idiot again.

My boss is the best boss in the world!

Thinking of that suddenly reminded him of his real-world boss.

His boss in reality had also been young and handsome, just like the bosses in novels.

But the real world was far crueler than a novel world.

His real-world boss had struggled bitterly while starting the company. He slept in the office almost every day. Business dinners weren’t glamorous or fun either; just drinking alone was enough to cause stomach bleeding. As the boss’s secretary, Yan Dun had followed him everywhere and truly sympathized with him.

After enduring endless hardship, the company had finally gone public.

His boss had even said to him:

“When you first joined the company, I promised I’d help you achieve your dream of earning a million a year. Now I can finally—”

Before he could finish speaking, the car accident happened.

Boss…

I wonder how he’s doing now?

Yan Dun’s eyes grew slightly moist.

He remembered when he had first graduated and interviewed for the job. Back then, he had honestly told his boss that his dream was to earn a million annually.

His boss had smiled at him then—a smile so handsome it made Yan Dun’s heart pound wildly on the spot.

It was that single smile that made Yan Dun reject offers from major corporations and join this tiny startup instead.

Even now, Yan Dun didn’t really understand what he’d been thinking.

Probably seduced by good looks.

One coworker eventually got fed up with the hardships of startup life and jumped ship to a large company. Before leaving, he mocked the boss as one of those “empty promise” types who constantly talked about dreams and motivational nonsense, brainwashing employees by insisting he would definitely succeed.

The boss, however, was extremely composed. He didn’t argue back and merely said calmly:

“I wish you a bright future.”

That coworker tried persuading Yan Dun to leave too.

“Little Yan, isn’t it your dream to earn a million a year? Do you seriously think this crappy little company can help you achieve that?”

Yan Dun replied:

“If I joined a big company, I wouldn’t achieve it there either.”

Everyone fell silent.

…That actually made sense.

After the coworker left, the boss seemed somewhat downcast.

As his secretary, Yan Dun brewed coffee and brought it to him, trying to comfort him.

“Don’t mind it. Most of the employees really admire you.”

The boss smiled faintly.

“You know that’s not what I care about.”

Yan Dun found that strange.

If you don’t care, then why are you making that face? You’re totally pretending not to care…

“Here.”

The boss handed him a slip of paper.

Curious, Yan Dun took it—and discovered it was actually an IOU.

After reading it, he laughed helplessly.

“Boss, this isn’t legally binding!”

The boss looked surprised.

“Shouldn’t your first reaction be feeling touched?”

“Oh…”

Yan Dun thought about it and nodded.

“I am touched.”

The IOU read:

“I, An Zao (ID number), hereby owe Yan Dun (ID number) an annual salary of one million…”

Yes.

Yan Dun’s real-world boss was also named An Zao.

The exact same name as the overpowered chairman in this world—the domineering CEO’s older brother.

Sigh…

If that An Zao were as powerful as this An Zao, things would’ve been so much better.

If that had been the case, his boss wouldn’t have suffered so much.

Yan Dun had experienced the hardships of entrepreneurship together with his boss. As the boss’s personal secretary, he knew better than anyone how exhausting it had been. If the boss spent eight out of ten days sleeping at the company, then Yan Dun slept there too. Otherwise, they were traveling on business together.

The two of them practically lived side by side every day.

Because of that, Yan Dun understood his boss’s hardship better than anyone.

And likewise, he also understood his boss’s intelligence and ambition better than anyone.

That was why he knew his boss wasn’t one of those bullshit “dream-selling” managers.

His boss was genuinely incredible.

He had simply needed time to prove it.

And finally, time had proven An Zao’s success. Yan Dun’s dream of earning a million a year was about to come true too—

Only for the two of them to get caught in a car accident together.

Every time he thought about it, Yan Dun felt miserable, his nose turning sour.

I wonder if Boss is dead or alive now…