Chapter 132: Chapter 59 (part 1)

It was the first time Fu Zheng had ever liked someone so much.

Although in hindsight it had taken him a little while to realize it thanks to not being very proficient at the whole business, now that he had admitted it to himself Fu Zheng wouldn't run away.

Determine the goal, make the plan, get the results. No matter what, he had always adhered to these rules - to know what he wished for, figure out how to get it, and then finally live the life he wanted.

Since he was in love with Ning Wan, then there was not a minute to lose. The next step was to win her, and then to take her for himself.

Fu Zheng was not Chen Shuo, and he had always disdained Chen Shuo's so-called 'familiarity breeds fondness' sort of strategy. When the battle dragged on for too long, complications often arise. Take for example how Chen Shuo had run into him.

On the other hand, Fu Zheng was thankful to the younger man for his emotional procrastination. It was precisely because he had never decisively professed his feelings that he and Ning Wan were still at the level of schoolmates plus coworkers.

Calmly and rationally, Fu Zheng analyzed the current situation. Thanks to that dog falling from the heavens, Chen Shuo was currently injured and out of the game. Now there was nothing to fear, no need to be distracted by the matter of putting down dissidents. All he had to do was concentrate on how to conquer Ning Wan.

But therein lay the problem.

Ordinarily, Fu Zheng would have a hundred ways at his disposal to show his intentions. And then slowly but surely, step by step... but now...

Now he was Fu Zheng, yet not Fu Zheng.

The man was the same, but his identity was fake. Since he wanted to make his intentions clear, then he needed to be honest with Ning Wan about everything, including his real history, family, and job.

Although Fu Zheng's real history, family and job weren't bad at all, this actually made him even more anxious. Thanks to the character design he had made up that had the 'same experience' as her, Ning Wan trusted him completely. If it was just moving from poverty to wealth, she might barely be able to accept it, but a subordinate becoming a boss might be too big of a gap to bridge...

Perhaps she wouldn't be able to accept his deception, and then with the natural boundary between superior and subordinate, even that familiarity between colleagues might disappear.

What he wanted was a girlfriend, not a wary, guarded employee.

He had just looked down on Chen Shuo, and yet unexpectedly, almost the very next second, Fu Zheng was now in Chen Shuo's shoes - Chen Shuo had never confessed for roughly the same reasons. Afraid that after he did so he would lose even his friendship with Ning Wan, that every interaction after would be awkward and embarrassed, he could only hold back and wait until he was completely sure.

Besides worrying that Ning Wan would push himself away if he confessed, Fu Zheng was also worried that his true identity might affect her decision. Ning Wan wanted to join his team. If he told her his true identity and confessed his feelings, would other factors sway her judgment about their relationship?

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Because no matter what, a boss taking advantage of his position, holding the future of his subordinate's career in his hands, while at the same time confessing to said subordinate, just sounded like a disguised version of workplace bullying.

A normal person might be more surprised than happy to encounter such a confession. Even if they didn't care for their boss and didn't want to be in a relationship with him, they would have to worry about whether their rejection would negatively impact them at work.

Fu Zheng didn't want that to happen. He wished for Ning Wan to consider his feelings for her without any external factors. He hoped that she will accept him simply because she wanted to.

So he was in an even worse situation than Chen Shuo's. It would be dishonest to conceal his identity and express his feelings first, because then even if Ning Wan agreed it would be like a buried lede that would easily lead to her losing trust in him. But if he first confessed his identity and then his feelings, that would be even worse. That might lead to internal strife at work...

It was the biggest headache of Fu Zheng's life. He had always liked to play his hand quickly, but now he could only hold back his troops for the moment. When he thought about it, he realized that he had always been able to make quick and accurate judgements in the past because the worst that could happen if he made the wrong decision was that he might lose a case. He hadn't cared about that, but he did care about Ning Wan. He didn't want to lose her due to a rash decision.

Fu Zheng pondered and brooded but couldn't come to any conclusions. Time passed in the blink of an eye, and Saturday came. As he battled with himself, every day like a year, Gao Yuan called--

"Fu Zheng, could you drop by the firm? I'm in a negotiation with an American client here... "

Gao Yuan had never studied in the United States. Although he had a solid legal foundation, English was his shortcoming. His reading and writing were fine, and his listening barely passable, but negotiating in English was a bit beyond him. Usually, his team had Wang Zhe, a boy who had obtained his J.D., the degree obtained to practice law in the US in the United States, but that young lawyer was getting married today.

"The American client originally had an appointment set for next Monday, but it was pushed up to today because they said we had to talk, but I can't drag the groom from his own wedding, can I? Why don't you help me out with this emergency?"

Because he had been hiding his identity and acting out a persona in front of Ning Wan, Fu Zheng was usually very careful about when he associated with Gao Yuan. When they discussed cases together, he tried to avoid being in Zhengyuan Law as much as possible, and when he occasionally went there to find Gao Yuan, he tried to stay low-key. To an uninformed outsider, it seemed just like the normal interactions of an intern and a partner. Since he still hadn't figured out how to confess the truth to Ning Wan, he was currently being even more careful, especially when it came to international conferences  that required teleconferencing equipment. Those could not be carried out in Gao Yuan's office, but had to be done in the conference room, the walls of which were made out of translucent glass.

"Just come on over. Today's Saturday, and most of the office is attending the wedding of that boy from my team. I'm the only one who has no other choice but to send a red packet and go work overtime at the office. Any other colleague who isn't at the wedding is on a business trip, so there'll be no one else at the office."

"Ning Wan, too?"

"Yes, yes. The two of them started around the same time. Except for a 'new little intern' like you who wasn't invited, everyone else will be there."

These words finally dispelled all of Fu Zheng's doubts. Besides, he really wanted to work to give his anxiety some outlet, so he readily agreed.