He Sold My Designs to the Chairman, So I Married the Chairman novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: A Fair Offer

Zhiyuan came to the studio at four in the afternoon with flowers and Director Meng.

Yichen heard the heels on the stairwell of the old Yangpu printing shop and knew the pair before the door opened.

Zhou Qingyao, at the cutting table with pins in her mouth, took them out one by one and laid them down.

"If that's who I think it is," she said, "I'm going to need the big scissors."

"Put them down," Yichen said. "I want to hear it."

Zhiyuan stood in the doorway holding white roses against his camel coat, and looked around the two rooms where they had lived for five years.

The bolts of cloth, the dress forms, the kettle on the radiator.

"Yichen," he said, with a lovely sad smile. "You look tired."

"I'm fine."

"Director Meng has something to say to you. I've been fighting for this since last night."

Meng stepped past him with her jade bracelet clicking on the table edge.

She did not sit, and she did not look at the pins.

"Mr. Lan," she said. "Qiao Group would like to avoid a public dispute that helps nobody."

"I agree."

"We're prepared to offer you a contract with Meridian as a senior designer, behind the scenes. Three million yuan a year. Your name stays off the collection, because the Golden Needle cannot be reopened."

Zhou made a noise through her nose.

"You'd draw," Meng went on. "Zhiyuan would present. It's what the two of you were doing anyway."

Zhiyuan nodded, hopeful.

Yichen looked at the roses.

"Let me make sure I have this," he said. "You want to hire me to be a ghost, in the same building where I just sat in the fourth row, for less than the prize is worth."

"For more than you earn now," said Meng.

"You wouldn't know what I earn now."

"I know this shop's rent is overdue."

"It's thirty-one days overdue," Zhou put in. "He pays on the first. We were short last month because someone stole his collection."

Zhiyuan laid the roses on the table.

"Babe, I'm trying to help."

"You photographed my sketchbook while I slept."

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