When Luo Qi ordered the dishes, she did not order a soup yet. She raised her head and asked Jiang Shenghe, “Chief Jiang, would you like another soup?”
Jiang Shenghe said, “Just order it.”
Luo Qi ordered a few dishes according to his taste.
Jiang Shenghe talked about Shu Rui, “When you go to Ruipu, you need to find a way to deal with him. He has deep thoughts.”
“I will learn more about him before I go there.” In fact, what Luo Qi thought was that no matter how deep Shu Rui’s thoughts were, they couldn’t get deeper than the boss’.
Now, she was basically sure that the boss took her to Ruipu today just to let her meet Shu Rui in advance. She didn’t say any words of thanks—she would just reward him with her performance in the future.
He defended everyone in the president’s office, would never withhold advice to better their work, and would give priority to them if there were promotion opportunities. Just because he took her to Ruipu today, she didn’t delude herself that she was special to him.
She went to pay the bill. She paid directly with her mobile phone without using the card Jiang Shenghe gave her and said to the waiter, “Please issue a receipt.”
Jiang Shenghe asked, “Don’t you have the card with you?”
She did. It was in her bag.
But it was impossible for him to look at her bag anyway, so Luo Qi simply said, “My wallet is in the office; I forgot to bring it.”
It was a small amount: only 199 yuan.
Back in the office, Luo Qi put this receipt in her wallet. She had no intention of getting reimbursement for this. She couldn’t afford to treat Jiang Shenghe to an expensive meal. She could only treat him to an ordinary work meal, to thank him for taking care of her, his generosity at work over the past year, and his unfailing tolerance over everything else.
… …
On September 20th, Luo Yu started planning to celebrate her cousin’s birthday on the 22nd. The plan was to celebrate her birthday at home, and Heartless would still accompany them on video call to eat together.
She had been practicing hard on baking cream cakes recently. She failed last year, and she was determined to create a two-layer cake this year.
While she was thinking about the recipe, her cell phone rang. It was her boss calling.
After the phone call, she had lost all her enthusiasm. Her boss informed her that she needs to attend a meeting at the headquarters tomorrow morning, and that she won’t be back until the 24th—exactly on time for her to miss her cousin’s birthday.
She was being sent to the headquarters to report on their work, so she couldn’t possibly ask for leave.
Luo Yu prepared to go home after work with a depressed look on her usually vibrant face.
Just as she locked the office door, a taunt came from behind.
“Even if you’re not happy during work hours, you should at least be happy after work, right?”
Luo Yu scolded He Xu eighty times in her heart, then slowly turned around and with a smile on her face, “Mr. He. Hello.”
Her feet have become smaller in recent months, forced to wear the small shoes he gives her every day1. He won’t let her just smoothly go about her work day, finding trouble with her 18 times a day. One time, there was one wrong punctuation mark in her report—yes, he even called her to make her redo it!
He Xu lowered his gaze and looked at her, “Do you think I look good?”
“… I’ve already apologized to you.”
“I do not accept.”
He Xu has never been fooled before; she was the first one with the balls to do it.
She refused to walk on the carefully paved road and instead ran right into his line of fire.
Luo Yu kicked the ball back to him. “Then what do you think I should do?”
“The girlfriend you were going to introduce to me is gone, what do you think you should do?”
So petty.
Luo Yu was rebellious and thought, Just wait until I can deal with you.
He Xu’s uncle was the richest man in Suzhou City. His father’s net worth was only slightly less than that of his uncle. Objectively, he was a very good-looking guy, so it’s natural for him to have extremely high standards in women and was most repulsed by unwanted attention.
Luo Yu raised herself on tip toes and directly put her arms around his neck, “Then I will be your girlfriend.”
She waited for him to push her away.
He Xu’s breath caught on his throat. The audacity— Fine. He went with her outrageous behavior.
He didn’t push her away, instead he put his hands around her waist, and slowly lowered his head, pretending to kiss her.
Luo Yu: “…”
Fuck me!
Luo Yu was really afraid that he would bite her like a mad dog. She was thoroughly defeated! She hurriedly shoved him away and ran off.
He Xu slammed hard against the door panel, his lower back colliding directly with the door handle.
He was stunned for a few seconds, rubbing his bruised waist with his hand. He was really going to break her! Let’s see if he spares her after this!
… … translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
After entering the elevator, Luo Yu let out a sigh of relief.
The project still had more than a year to run before it finished, and she could foresee that in the future, she would have no good life or easy excuses.
[Sister, I’m being called to make a report back at our headquarters. I can’t celebrate your birthday with you. I’ll call to celebrate with you later that night.]
This year’s birthday cake was still ruined.
Luo Qi: [It’s okay, it’s just a minor birthday2.]
The last thing Luo Qi was looking forward to now was her birthday. After her birthday, she would be another year older. Some memories of the past could not be blocked no matter what, and some birthday blessings were forever stuck in the past—including bouquets of roses that always had one more rose than the year before.
After ten years, the number of roses increased from eighteen to twenty-eight.
But it was also on the day she turned twenty-eight that her happiness came to an abrupt end.
Pei Shixiao completely destroyed her youthful memories—even those that had nothing to do with him.
… …
This year’s birthday happened to fall on Saturday, so she has the day off.
On Sunday night, she received a message from her dad: [Happy birthday, baby girl. Remember to eat a bowl of noodles tomorrow.]
Luo Qi didn’t know how much grayer her dad’s hair had become in the past year. His company’s situation has not improved much. He was still traveling all over, talking to potential customers in various places.
[Thank you, Dad, and take care of yourself.]
At eleven o’clock, the boss sent a message to the work group informing them of an overseas video conference.
Jiang Shenghe: [Everyone is to participate.]
As long as they worked overtime at night, their overtime pay was doubled.
It wasn’t a wonder that Xiao Jiang and the others all liked to work overtime at night. They had always been night owls anyway and wouldn’t even go to bed before two o’clock on weekend nights.
The meeting lasted until 11:50 pm.
When it was over, Xiao Jiang messaged the work group: [Sister Luo’s birthday is ten minutes away. I will wait a little longer and send a birthday blessing to Sister Luo before going to bed.]
All employees of Yuanwei receive ‘cake cards’ prepared by the company every birthday. Luo Qi had gone to a meeting in the morning, and Xiao Jiang helped to collect her ‘cake card’3 for her.
In addition to Xiao Jiang knowing that tomorrow was Luo Qi’s birthday, other people in the President’s office also knew about it.
Luo Qi was embarrassed to delay their rest: [Thank you, I appreciate it. No need to wait, you guys can rest now.]
Xiao Jiang: [I won’t go to work tomorrow anyway, so I won’t miss the few minutes of bed time.]
Only Jiang Shenghe remained silent in the group. He was on the phone with Qin Moling.
Seventh Year of My Secret Love for You translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
If you’re enjoying my translations, do consider buying me ko-fi. Thanks for your support! ❤️
A list of all advance chapters is HERE.
Chapter 35.3 — Birthday Confession
Chapter 35.4 — Birthday Confession
Chapter 36.1 — Getting A Marriage Certificate
Chapter 36.2 — Getting A Marriage Certificate
Chapter 36.3 — Getting A Marriage Certificate
Chapter 36.4 — Getting A Marriage Certificate
- ‘forced to wear small shoes’ is an idiom that refers to all those petty, hidden injustices that someone does to you.
↩︎ - Traditionally, it’s the birthdays that mark a full decade that’s celebrated in a grand manner. ↩︎
- These are prepaid cards that can be given as benefit by the company for the employee to buy a birthday cake—or presumably anything else they wish with the money ↩︎
WHITE MOONLIGHT TRANSLATIONS 
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