Xu Chenghao and Jing Yicheng looked at each other, surprised that something like this had happened in between. Thinking back to his parents’ calm expressions when they left last time, Xu Chenghao had assumed that their silent approval and refusal to interfere was already the greatest form of tolerance. Who would have thought they even went as far as showing off Jing Yicheng!
Xu Chenghao felt both amused and warm inside. He patted Li Nian’s shoulder in comfort and said, “You’ve had a hard time. Come on, let Brother Cheng treat you to a meal.”
Li Nian glanced at them. “No need, I’ll just charge it to the company. I don’t want to eat with you guys.”
Xu Chenghao: “……”
Alright then. It wasn’t the first day Li Nian found them sickeningly affectionate. Xu Chenghao didn’t push further. After parting ways in the underground parking lot, he got into the car and immediately threw himself at Jing Yicheng.
Jing Yicheng caught him steadily. “Happy?”
“Aren’t you happy?” Xu Chenghao looked up at him.
“Happy… very happy.” Jing Yicheng rubbed his head, his gaze gentle.
The current attitude of the Xu family parents clearly showed they had accepted him and were willing to entrust Xu Chenghao to his care. How could Jing Yicheng not be happy?
Xu Chenghao chuckled twice. “I’m happy too.”
Jing Yicheng stroked his cheek and suddenly said, “Haohao, now it’s just waiting for you to nod.”
“Nod?”
“Nod to getting married.”
“……”
Xu Chenghao silently buried his head into Jing Yicheng’s chest, pretending he hadn’t heard anything, whining softly as he tried to muddle through.
Jing Yicheng could only sigh at this, gently patting the person in his arms in comfort before considerately changing the subject. “Alright, let’s not talk about it anymore. Just remember to call me when you plant chili peppers in the future. I can still afford to wait six months.”
Xu Chenghao silently nodded. As the car started moving, he sat in the passenger seat, appearing to rest with his eyes closed but was actually secretly contacting the system: System, this time we really need someone to come collect the chili peppers.
[Ding—System No. 2333 has received the request and is processing it. Please wait.]
Xu Chenghao waited in silence. After a while, he couldn’t help but gossip: System, do you know about the male and female leads’ fallout? The plot has gone so off track—are they really going to reconcile?
[Ding—The three-year period isn’t up yet, so naturally, they won’t reconcile.]
Xu Chenghao: ???
So all their life-and-death struggles right now are just because their genius son hasn’t grown up yet, and the reconciliation point in the plot hasn’t arrived?
Isn’t this a bit too rigid…
Xu Chenghao found it bizarre and started looking forward to seeing whether, three years later, the two of them would simply laugh off their grudges and reunite for the sake of their child… or if the male lead would regain his memories of the female lead while forgetting his current ones, which might actually allow them to get back together.
The system suddenly poured cold water on his thoughts:
[Ding—Rather than worrying about the male and female leads’ relationship history three years from now, I think the host should focus more on himself.]
Xu Chenghao sneered: More than anything, I just want to get rid of you right now.
He finally understood—the system was nothing but a shit-stirrer. When he wanted to leave, the system hinted that he could stay. When he wanted to stay, the system subtly suggested that making a decision too early wasn’t wise, as if deliberately keeping him restless and uncertain.
The more things went on like this, the more determined Xu Chenghao became to get rid of the system. After all, he didn’t consider himself a person with unshakable resolve—what if one day he got caught in a moment of weakness and wavered? No, he had to complete the mission as soon as possible!
As soon as he got home, Xu Chenghao dug out the little yellow duck pouting flowerpot that had been untouched for a month. After giving it a thorough cleaning, he refilled it with fresh soil, carefully buried the seeds inside, and watered it, waiting for the seedlings to sprout.
Jing Yicheng watched as the long-absent little yellow duck flowerpot reappeared, and a memory of their first meeting surfaced in his mind. He couldn’t help but chuckle softly. Seeing Xu Chenghao look over in confusion, he spun the flowerpot with his fingers and reminded him, “Haohao, look.”
Xu Chenghao lowered his head without understanding at first. In his view, the little yellow duck flowerpot hadn’t changed much—it still had its bright yellow body, pitch-black eyes, and red pouting beak… Huh?
He leaned in closer. After making sure he wasn’t mistaken, he exclaimed in shock, “It faded?”
Jing Yicheng nodded and teased, “Maybe you hit me on the head too hard back then, so only this spot faded?”
Thinking of the past, Xu Chenghao couldn’t help but laugh too. Rolling his eyes, he retorted, “I was just about to say your head was too hard, and it rubbed off the color!”
Hearing this, Jing Yicheng immediately bent down, attempting to bump his head against Xu Chenghao. Xu Chenghao quickly grabbed the little yellow duck and ran away. After a playful chase around the room, he was eventually captured by Jing Yicheng, who carried both him and the flowerpot straight into the bedroom to rest.
The next day, they each went back to their busy schedules.
Xu Chenghao carried the little yellow duck flowerpot with him, feeling as if he had returned to the days when he had racked his brain to grow chili peppers in hopes of going back. Back then, he would never have imagined that now, he was putting in the same effort to grow chili peppers—not to return, but to cut off his last escape route and free himself from the system.
——Thinking about it, it really was kind of amazing.
Xu Chenghao chuckled and snapped a photo of the little yellow duck, posting it to his social media feed. Moments later, everyone who followed Jing Yicheng’s accounts noticed something shocking—this usually cold and aloof Mr. Jing had suddenly changed all his profile pictures from their typical minimalist black to an adorable, pouting little yellow duck.
Everyone: ???
Did Mr. Jing… get hacked?
No matter how they looked at it, this pouting little yellow duck had absolutely nothing to do with him!
Out of concern (pure gossip), people started messaging him cautiously, trying to figure out what was going on.
Jing Yicheng, now proudly sporting a cutesy little yellow duck avatar, simply responded in his feed with a cold, single-line warning:
“Looking for death?”
Everyone: Whew, whew, false alarm—it’s still the original Mr. Jing!
Xu Chenghao nudged Jing Yicheng, asking what was going on. After a brief explanation, Jing Yicheng slyly suggested, “Haohao, look at how cute this little yellow duck is…”
Xu Chenghao: “Hm?”
Jing Yicheng: “Don’t you want to use it as your profile picture too?”
Xu Chenghao: “……”
If you want matching avatars, just say so.
Amused, Xu Chenghao exited the app, found the picture he had taken, mirrored the image, and edited in the words “Cheng-ge“ underneath. Without hesitation, he set it as his new avatar.
“Cheng-ge, satisfied now?”
Jing Yicheng was silent for a moment before suddenly changing his profile picture again, replying, “Satisfied.”
Xu Chenghao tapped on his new avatar and burst out laughing—beneath the little yellow duck’s pouting beak, there was now a single phrase: “Aha.”
Xu Chenghao nearly choked from laughing. It was the first time he realized Jing Yicheng actually had a sense of humor. Jing Yicheng, seemingly quite proud of himself, even saved both avatar images and posted them to his feed.
And so, just when everyone had relaxed thinking it was a false alarm, they saw another update from Mr. Jing:
Two little yellow duck emojis facing each other—one labeled “Cheng-ge” and the other responding with “Aha.”
Everyone: ???
So… it wasn’t a hack earlier? It was a public display of affection???
Jing Yicheng fooling around was one thing, but what shocked them even more was that Xu Chenghao actually reposted it, adding a long string of “Hahahahahaha” to express his amusement.
Li Nian: ???
Unable to hold back, Li Nian stormed into the office. “Boss, can we not be flirting during work hours? Have you signed the documents I sent? Checked your emails? You have a video conference in half an hour, the project managers are lined up waiting to meet you, and the finance department is practically holding their breath for your approval before they dare process payments—”
Xu Chenghao, feeling a headache coming on from all the nagging, quickly surrendered, raising his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright, work it is.”
Li Nian, finally satisfied, gave a firm nod. “Good. Work hard.” With that, he walked off confidently.
Xu Chenghao lowered his head and started signing the documents. Halfway through, something felt off. He suddenly looked up.
“Wait a minute—you weren’t even on your phone! How did you know?!”
Li Nian subtly quickened his pace.
Xu Chenghao smacked the desk. “Li Nian, you hypocrite!”
Bang! The door slammed shut without hesitation as Li Nian made a swift and clean getaway, not even bothering to look back.
Friends—always out to mess with each other!
Xu Chenghao huffed twice, thinking that if Jing Yicheng hadn’t been so busy lately and absent from the Xu Group, Li Nian wouldn’t be acting so smug. Just wait until Jing Yicheng was free again—Li Nian was so dead. Hmph!
But for now, work still had to be done. Xu Chenghao threw himself into managing the company, with only one thing occasionally distracting him—the Little Chili 5.0 mission.
Due to the increased success rate, the chili peppers’ growth cycle had noticeably lengthened. Xu Chenghao had even adjusted his schedule reminders from every six days to every nine. The moment the special alarm rang, it meant it was time to head to the greenhouse and chili field.
Oh, right… he also needed to notify Jing Yicheng.
After sending a message to let Jing Yicheng know he was going to the greenhouse, Xu Chenghao left the Xu Group in his car. On the way, he entertained a small thought—if Jing Yicheng didn’t see the message and didn’t show up, well, that wasn’t his fault.
It was a nice thought. But in reality, Jing Yicheng arrived at the greenhouse practically at the same time as him.
He had said he wouldn’t let Xu Chenghao plant chili peppers alone—so he wasn’t going to let him plant chili peppers alone.
Xu Chenghao sighed helplessly. He had no choice but to harvest the chili peppers under Jing Yicheng’s watchful gaze, replant them, and then rush straight to the base for the second round of harvesting and planting.
This time, the number of chili peppers was significantly higher than in the previous mission. The cloth bag had been upgraded to a medium size, and Jing Yicheng carried it, placing it in the trunk.
As Xu Chenghao got into the car, he couldn’t help but think about what to do if the quantity kept increasing in the future… At the very least, they couldn’t keep carrying them back and forth like this. Not only was it heavy and inconvenient, but there was also no place to store them at home.
The base was nearly complete, and its central management system was already up and running. After confirming with Jing Yicheng that the security measures were top-notch, Xu Chenghao made the final decision—once the next mission started, they would store all the chili peppers at the base. Since Jing Yicheng had personally approved the security, there shouldn’t be any issues!
Having solved one major problem, Xu Chenghao was feeling quite pleased—until he got home and encountered a new dilemma.
With the increasing number of fully grown chili peppers, the number of deformed chili peppers had also surged, outpacing the normal ones at a steady rate. Not only was it troublesome to sort them, but he also had no idea what to do with them.
Jing Yicheng said, “Sorting them is easy; a few little machines can handle it. I already sent a message to my assistant—they’ll be delivered soon. But… what do you plan to do with these chili peppers?”
Xu Chenghao teased, “Didn’t you used to love eating raw chili peppers? Why don’t you eat all of these?”
Jing Yicheng, unfazed, refused outright: “No, I only like eating you now.”
“Get lost!” Xu Chenghao kicked him. But looking at the half a bag of deformed chili peppers, he still felt troubled. “It’s a shame the company isn’t involved in the food industry. Otherwise, we could just send them to a restaurant.”
Hearing this, Jing Yicheng calmly replied, “If we don’t have one, we can start one.”
“…Huh?”
“Let’s open a Little Yellow Duck Sichuan Restaurant.”
T/N: I wanna see how the restaurant will turnout~
The duck&spice XDDD
Thank You for the new chapter (⋈◍＞◡＜◍)。✧♡