Heartthrob, Your Image is Crumbling!

Chapter 625: Urban Love Story

By now, Zhou Yuwen was no longer the inexperienced youth he had been right after his rebirth. At twenty-four years old, his relentless daily workouts and the natural, commanding aura of a seasoned executive gave him an imposing presence.In the slightly dim light of the office, Zhou Yuwen meticulously laid out the logic for Gu Yaoyao, explaining exactly how she should deliver her presentation tomorrow.

"Did you catch all that?" Zhou Yuwen asked, turning his head, only to find Gu Yaoyao staring at him in a complete daze.

"?"

Gu Yaoyao suddenly realized her lapse in focus. She quickly wiped the infatuated look off her face and stammered awkwardly, "Y-yes, I understood."

"Are you sure you understood?"

Zhou Yuwen asked.

Gu Yaoyao lowered her head and stayed silent, a blush creeping up her cheeks. Truth be told, when people used to talk about how handsome Zhou Yuwen was in the past, she had never thought much of it. But today, she truly saw just how incredibly attractive he was.

Yet before she could dwell on those thoughts, Zhou Yuwen had caught her red-handed.

As for what she had actually understood?

She had not absorbed a single word.

Panic began to set in. She had completely forgotten that Zhou Yuwen was now a major boss, a man who could easily make tens of millions in a single minute. Yet here this busy boss was, willingly wasting his precious time to tutor her on her work, and she was actually sitting there staring at him...

Sigh, what an absolute sin.

Just as Gu Yaoyao braced herself, thinking she was doomed and that Zhou Yuwen would definitely be angry...

Zhou Yuwen merely shook his head in helpless amusement and sighed, "You really need to pay attention."

"?" Gu Yaoyao raised her head.

She found that Zhou Yuwen was not the least bit angry. Instead, he patiently walked her through the entire presentation once more.

When Zhou Yuwen finally paused to ask if she understood this time.

Gu Yaoyao nodded vigorously, earnestly indicating that she had truly absorbed it all.

"Mhm,"

Zhou Yuwen glanced at the time. In the blink of an eye, it was already two o'clock in the early morning. "It is already this late. This is my fault, I have severely delayed you from getting off work," he remarked.

"No, not at all! Being tutored by President Zhou has been immensely beneficial to me," she replied hastily.

Gu Yaoyao was not being sarcastic; there was a genuine element of flattery in her words. Hearing this, Zhou Yuwen shot her a somewhat surprised look.

"It seems Class Monitor Gu has finally grown up. You even know how to flatter people now," Zhou Yuwen teased playfully.

His teasing made Gu Yaoyao blush so deeply she was at a complete loss for words.

She had no idea how to explain away her blatant flattery.

In truth, there were simply certain things that were blurted out in specific situations without a second thought.

It was getting incredibly late. If Gu Yaoyao wanted to go home now, her only option was a taxi, so Zhou Yuwen offered to drive her back himself.

The two of them walked from the company to the parking lot, and Zhou Yuwen drove her all the way back to her rented apartment.

At first, a quiet silence hung between them.

The main reason was that Gu Yaoyao did not dare to speak casually in front of Zhou Yuwen anymore. Perhaps the minds of those in power were always this unpredictable. Sometimes she felt Zhou Yuwen was easygoing, as if he were still that sunny young man from their university days. But other times, she felt as though his very next sentence would be a harsh scolding about how slow-witted she was.

In short, keeping company with a leader was like walking beside a tiger.

When Zhou Yuwen heard Gu Yaoyao express these thoughts about him, he could not help but laugh. He told her that when no one else was around, he could just be her old classmate, and she could speak her mind without walking on eggshells.

"However, if there are other people present, I still expect you to treat me as your boss," he clarified.

"You have to understand, sometimes I maintain that distance for your own good."

Zhou Yuwen was absolutely right about this. If the rest of the company realized he was giving Gu Yaoyao special treatment, there would inevitably be people with ulterior motives looking to exploit that connection.

Gu Yaoyao was a smart girl. She seemingly grasped the profound meaning behind his words and nodded earnestly.

While working at Tesla, Gu Yaoyao rented a small apartment in a modest residential area in Shanghai. The building was quite old, so the surrounding amenities left much to be desired.

At two o'clock in the early morning, the quiet neighborhood was illuminated only by the dim, yellowish glow of the streetlights.

The sides of the road were tightly packed with parked cars that had failed to find proper parking spaces.

As a result, Zhou Yuwen could only park his car out on the main paved road.

The two of them had grabbed a late-night snack on the way, enjoying a very pleasant conversation. During the meal, Zhou Yuwen had imparted quite a bit of wisdom regarding the unspoken rules of office politics.

Hearing all this had left Gu Yaoyao feeling a lingering sense of defeat.

She lamented that she had worked so hard for two years to earn her degree as a postgraduate student, only to enter the real world and realize she was still as clueless as a fool.

Zhou Yuwen pointed out that it all depended on who she was comparing herself to.

"You have to realize, not just anyone gets the opportunity to sit here and talk with me like this."

While his words sounded a bit arrogant, they were nothing but the absolute truth.

Zhou Yuwen walked her the rest of the way to the entrance of her apartment building.

It was late at night, and the surroundings were completely still.

There was not another soul in sight.

"I will be taking off, then," Zhou Yuwen announced.

"Mhm." Watching him prepare to leave, Gu Yaoyao felt a sudden, unexpected pang of reluctance. After wrestling with her thoughts for a long moment, she finally could not help but speak up. "Um."

"Do you... want to come upstairs and have some water?"

"?" At two o'clock in the morning, the night breeze sweeping through Shanghai carried a distinct, chilly bite.

Hearing this unexpected invitation, Zhou Yuwen lifted his head and cast a long look at Gu Yaoyao.

Standing there downstairs, she was dressed in a chic, urban white-collar outfit. She wore a sleeveless, form-fitting T-shirt paired with a light, white sun-protective jacket, while a pair of black shorts perfectly accentuated her long, snow-white legs.

The two of them had been university classmates, but even throughout their college years, they had barely spoken more than a handful of words to each other.

Yet, after running into each other in Shanghai less than a month ago...

Gu Yaoyao had somehow mustered the courage to invite him upstairs to her room for a glass of water.

In that moment, her heart was brimming with intense expectation.

Truth be told, this was the sort of cliché plotline she had only ever seen in television dramas. She never imagined she would actually pull such a move herself one day.

But the man standing before her was Zhou Yuwen.

If she let this opportunity slip by, she knew she would regret it immensely.

"Are we just going up for a simple glass of water?" Zhou Yuwen asked lightly.

Despite her bubbling shyness, the question made her want to laugh. "What else would you possibly want to do?" she countered softly.

Zhou Yuwen stepped directly in front of her.

Closing the distance between them, step by step.

A surge of nervousness hit Gu Yaoyao, and she instinctively shrank back an inch.

But beneath the nerves, a wild sense of anticipation flared.

That feeling only intensified as she gazed up into Zhou Yuwen's deep, mesmerizing eyes.

Finally, mustering every ounce of her courage, Gu Yaoyao tilted her head up and closed her eyes.

Her face was tilted upward, as if silently waiting for something specific.

However, she stood there waiting for nearly ten seconds, and the moment she had been anticipating never arrived.

Confused, she opened her eyes and looked up.

Only to find Zhou Yuwen standing there, flashing her an amused smile.

"It is getting late. You should go up and get some rest. I have plenty of water in my car," he told her casually.

With a polite nod, he turned on his heel and walked away.

As she watched him leave without so much as a backward glance, an irrepressible wave of crushing disappointment washed over her. She just could not understand why.

Gu Yaoyao had always felt fairly confident in her looks. Back in their university days, she had even been voted the beauty of her college. While she might not have reached the legendary campus status of girls like Zheng Yanyan, she had never lacked a steady stream of suitors. Even during her time as a postgraduate student, she had been heavily pursued by plenty of high-quality men, including a fair share of rich second-generation heirs.

Despite all that, she had always pushed herself to become a better, more excellent version of herself. She had studied relentlessly, ultimately succeeding in landing a lucrative job at a major foreign enterprise.

A beautiful and highly capable girl like her easily belonged in the top twenty percent of women, without a shadow of a doubt.

So why was it that when she had practically thrown away her pride to actively invite Zhou Yuwen up to her room for some tea...

...he had flatly rejected her?

The truth was, she had never once extended an invitation like this to any other man in her life.

That night, after finally dragging herself upstairs, Gu Yaoyao tossed and turned in bed, entirely unable to sleep.

She just could not wrap her head around why he had turned her down.

The rejection left her with a bitter sense of defeat.

Clutching her phone, she stared at her chat interface with Zhou Yuwen. After agonizing over it for half the night, she typed out a single message: "Do you think I'm too casual of a girl?"

Yet, no matter how hard she tried to force herself, she just could not hit the send button.

She ended up falling into a deep slumber at some unknown hour, still clutching her phone tightly to her chest.

When eight o'clock rolled around the next morning, it was business as usual.

She scanned a bike from the Shared Bicycle Project, rode it to the nearest station, and proceeded to take the subway straight to the company.

Another busy, bustling day had begun.

Later that day, her department held another comprehensive meeting regarding the presentation she had prepared the night before.

Zhou Yuwen made a sudden, unexpected appearance at the meeting, throwing the department leaders into a flurry of nervous tension.

The moment Gu Yaoyao spotted him, a distinct, bright spark lit up in her eyes. She instinctively wanted to walk over and greet him.

However, Zhou Yuwen simply shot her a distant, impersonal look.

A wave of crushing defeat washed over her once again. Swallowing her pride, she greeted him in a reluctant murmur, "President Zhou."

"Mhm."

Zhou Yuwen offered a curt, professional nod before brushing past her without breaking his stride.

It was as if the man who had stayed up with her until two-thirty in the morning the night before had been someone else entirely.