He Married Him for Love, Then His Assistant Became His Husband in Probation novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Tired of You
Shu Fan reads Su Yu's attendance record to the whole company, fires him and announces he will marry Shen Li; Su Yu signs the divorce papers without saying his name, and a new assistant is waiting at his parents' car.
Shu Fan fired his husband on the forty-first floor, in front of two hundred people, with the sheet cake still uncut on the table.
Su Yu was in the back row holding a paper plate.
The memo had said attendance was mandatory and the cake was free.
"Su Yu," Shu Fan said into the microphone, and smiled the way he did when he handed someone his coat. "Come up here. Bring your plate, I'll cut you the first piece after."
Su Yu kept the plate and walked to the front.
Two hundred heads turned to watch him do it.
Shu Fan held up a printed sheet. "This is Su Yu's attendance record for the year. Three hundred and eleven days in the building. Two hundred and ninety of them in the archive room."
Somebody near the cake laughed.
"He has filed one report in twelve months."
"It was on time," Su Yu said.
The laugh got bigger.
Shu Fan turned the page. "The night cleaner says he sleeps in the stairwell between the thirtieth and thirty-first floors. Under a blanket."
"It's a good blanket," Su Yu said.
Now the whole floor was laughing, and Shu Fan waited for it to finish.
"I have been married to this man for a year," he said, almost fondly. "I carried him because I liked him. I'm tired of carrying him."
The laughing stopped.
Shu Fan put his arm around the man standing beside him.
Shen Li was twenty-eight, slim, in a crisp white shirt.
He had been Shu Fan's assistant for six years and his boyfriend before Su Yu.
"Su Yu is dismissed, effective now," Shu Fan said. "And next month, Shen Li and I will be married."
Shen Li gave Su Yu a small, sorry smile.
Someone started to clap, and then the whole floor clapped, because it was the boss's engagement.
Su Yu clapped too.
It seemed rude not to.
The divorce papers were waiting in the glass meeting room, already signed on Shu Fan's side.
Shu Fan shut the door behind them and did not sit.
"Sign. You can take your things and the chair. I had them packed for you."
"I get the chair?"
"Of course you get the chair. It's the good one."
Su Yu looked at the pen.
A year ago he had walked into this building with a borrowed résumé and no last name.
He had wanted to be loved by someone who did not know what his name was worth.
Every big client Shu Fan had won since then had said yes after one phone call from the archive room.
Each call went to an uncle who owed Su Yu's mother a favor.
Shu Fan thought it was his charm.
Su Yu had let him think so, because it made him happy, and because it was easier than a conversation.
"I'm sorry it's like this," Shu Fan said. "But I want it on record that you never contributed anything."
Su Yu could have said his name.
It was one sentence, and the tower across the river wore it in forty-foot letters.
He said nothing, and signed.
"There," Shu Fan said, satisfied. "That wasn't hard."
"No," Su Yu said. "I've never done anything that was."
Shen Li rode down with him in the elevator, carrying the box of his things.
It held a mug, a blanket, a cushion and a plant that had survived a year without being watered.
"Leave me your client contacts before you go," Shen Li said gently. "I'll see that they're looked after. You won't need them again."
"They aren't written down," Su Yu said. "They only pick up for me."
Shen Li's smile did not move.
"Of course," he said. "Keep your phone on."
At the curb a black car was waiting with its engine running, and Su Yu stopped.
He had texted his mother from the meeting room.
Divorced. Fired. The cake looked good.
The back door flew open and Mrs. Su got out already crying.
Chairman Su came around the car behind her with his jaw set hard.
"A year," the Chairman said. "That man took a year of my son, and you wrote me about cake."
"I didn't get any," Su Yu said.
Mrs. Su hugged him so hard the plant fell out of the box.
"You're coming home," she said. "And on Monday you're sitting in the vice president's chair."
"Dad, I'd have to be awake for that."
"Today," the Chairman said. "You'll be awake by lunch. I've already given you an assistant."
A young man in a grey suit stood a few steps behind the car, holding a black notebook against his chest.
He was slim, with thin black-framed glasses and sharp eyes.
He had clearly arrived at the exact minute he meant to.
"Vice President Su," he said. "I'm Lu Chen."
He looked at his watch and wrote the time in the notebook.
Then he wrote a single small number on a second line under it.
When Su Yu leaned to see, Lu Chen covered the page with his hand.
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