Looking at how the boss was ready to give the challenge a try, Yan Shuyu felt very desperate – what could she do? She had already resisted the temptation of money and turned him down completely. It was almost like she was handed the CEO Boss & His Little Delicate Wife script. The more she snubbed him, the more he thought that she was genuine and pure and the more he wanted to court her.

And she must resist him all the way. If she accepted his courting, the cannon fodder stepmother arc would kick in in 20 years. If she was to accept the boss and become Mrs. Zhou, she would still be sent to jail by the male lead in 20 years’ time.

All in all, Yan Shuyu felt that she was dead meat one way or another. Well, maybe struggling a little would allow her a more merciful death.

Yan Shuyu quietly lit a candle for herself.

She wasn’t sure whether it was because she had remained silent for too long or that the desperate look on her was too authentic, Zhou Qinhe asked again, “What are you thinking?”

Yan Shuyu looked over at him a couple times and started pushing her luck madly. “I am thinking how many times I will need to turn you down before you will give up.”

Zhou Qinhe raised his brows a little. Not seeming displeased at all, he said with a very positive demeanor, “I don’t know either. You want to give it a try?”

“Mental resilience”, also known as mental tenacity, is a psychological term. It refers to the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. And that was the state that Yan Shuyu was currently in. Even though they might spend a long time from this point forward between the boss courting her madly and her turning him down madly, but looking on the bright side, the boss was not that aggressive after all. As long as she still retained the right of refusal, then she could just keep on refusing him. So what if it’s long and drawn out? She may not necessarily be the one who’d lose at the end.

She thought to herself, well, the boss said it himself, that she could give it a try to find out where his bottom line was. Yan Shuyu stopped in her steps and said in a clear and direct way, “I am turning you down right now. No need to walk me any more. I can go upstairs by myself.”

Zhou Qinhe gave her a couple looks, possibly also surprised by her sudden new-found courage. But all he did was chuckle. “You sure about that?”

Had he not been smiling, Yan Shuyu would have folded in a second or less. But if the boss was smiling, that meant he wasn’t really upset at her. Encouraged, Yan Shuyu kept her neck stiff and said without hesitation, “Absolutely, most certainly so.”

“Oh, alright then.” He gave her a few more looks and finally gave in with a look of resignation. “I had planned on going upstairs to say hi to Yuanbao, but since you are so adamant about it, I suppose not.”

The more regretful Zhou Qinhe looked, the more excited Yan Shuyu felt.

Yes, excitement was what she was feeling right now. She was about to break out singing “How The Table Has Turned”.

Oh boy, that was a long journey to get here. She had been avoiding the boss like a rat to a cat for months. Finally, she was able to put the boss in his place. Yan Shuyu couldn’t be prouder of herself. She even felt that being courted by the boss might not be that terrible of a thing after all.

Yan Shuyu who was so smug right now that she was no longer very respectful of the boss. She waved at him casually and said, “Then I am going upstairs now. Byee~”

She turned around and was about to walk away right after she had said that. She had never been so confident and at ease in front of the boss.

That, however, did not last for over 3 seconds. Yan Shuyu had barely taken 2 steps before her wrist was grabbed by the boss. He chuckled and asked, “Is that it?”

“Well, what else?” Yan Shuyu freed her hand easily from him but still took a step back nervously. She was just about to look up at the boss when a large shadow fell upon her. All of a sudden, she was pressed against a warm and broad chest.

The boss would just go rogue whenever they did not reach an agreement. Yan Shuyu’s body froze. Before she could look away from him, a kiss was planted in between her brows. It felt as light as feathers but also burned into her heart. Along with it, there was the smell of fresh snow and a melodious “Goodnight” resounded in her ear.

It was just a simple kiss, but she felt like she had had a 5-course delicacy meal, complete with color, smell, and taste. Yan Shuyu felt dizzy and all she could think about in her head was the scene of her being kissed by the boss. “Good… goodnight.”

It wasn’t that she was too weak, but that Zhou Qinhe had the status of someone up on the clouds in Yan Shuyu’s mind. As much as she rationally knew that she had bedded the boss and bedded him thoroughly, she has yet to put herself next to the boss. When she had bedded the boss, she was only half conscious and half asleep. It didn’t count. The boss was still the boss that for her was overreaching.

With that label that she had placed on him, the fact that he was courting her did not seem real to her at all. Whether it was him professing his love for her in person, or the interactions between them recently. None of them were as shocking as a light kiss when she was fully conscious.

The kiss from the boss made Yan Shuyu feel like a rocket launcher. She felt weightless and her mind was all jumbled up. The final image in her head was the deeply emotional look given to her by the boss inside the lobby downstairs. She could see clearly her own face in his eyes and then there were stars around her. It was so pretty that she was very engrossed in it all…

When Yan Shuyu finally recollected herself, she was already sitting on her bed with little kiddo Zhang Yuanbao waving next to her trying to get her attention. “Mom? Mooom?”

“Yes, Yuanbao?” Yan Shuyu finally responded to him and pushed the little kiddo in his thin pajama underneath the blanket. “It’s getting cold. You don’t want to catch a cold.”

The little kiddo blinked his big, round eyes and said, “Mom, have you forgotten? We have a heater at home.”

Yan Shuyu: “……”

She had, indeed, forgotten about it. She lived in the south in her previous life; there was no such thing as a heater in the winter time. One just relied on their body alone.

She felt a little embarrassed having that pointed out to her by the little kiddo but Yan Shuyu struggled to maintain her authority as a parent. “That still doesn’t mean you can just climb out of the blanket willy nilly. You need to get into the habit of staying warm at all times and give winter it’s well-earned respect.”

Zhang Yuanjia: Meow meow meow?

As young as he was, he still knew his mother was just making stuff up right now. He couldn't help but reach out his little hand and touch her on her forehead. “Is mommy sick today?”

Being called out by her son once again made her tired. She tried hard to maintain her tender smile and said, “No, Mommy is just kidding with you.”

The little kiddo nodded as though he actually understood her. “Is Mommy very happy today?”

Yan Shuyu: “……”

Oh, never mind, she couldn’t go on with this conversation. She cleaned her face, stood up, and said, “I am going to wash up. You lay down. Mommy will tell you a story when I come back.”

With the interruption from the little kiddo, Yan Shuyu forgot about the boss temporarily but that sudden kiss from him was still burned into her heart.

As much as Yan Shuyu liked to say that she was “experienced”, she only had one boyfriend in her previous life. She wasn’t here when Zhang Yuanbao’s real father was around; that had nothing to do with her. Zhou Qinhe was the second man that she was involved with since her puppy love. And, with such an amazing beau, as much as she said she’d turn him down, her body was being very honest … her head was getting bigger.

After she had put her son to sleep and turned the lights off, Yan Shuyu couldn't help but think about the goodnight kiss from the boss again. She thought about it so much that she had insomnia. She was the type to normally fall asleep within a second. She tossed and turned for a long time before she finally dozed off. Even so, her sleep quality wasn’t very good.

Perhaps because it was the last thing on her mind before she dozed off, Yan Shuyu, for once, dreamed about the boss. The dream could be divided into two parts. The first part was a “good dream” of sorts. She dreamed about the night when she first transmigrated over and celebrated love with the boss. There were some additions of her “favorite” scenes. They were inside the hotel room of Dorsett, then all of a sudden, they continued on in the boss’s car. All in all, it was very X-rated.

The fireworks and lightning lasted half of the night and that bit was finally over. Then, she and the boss got married and she became the Mrs. Zhou that everybody was envious of. The plotline accelerated madly. Her little boy who was just whining while holding onto her leg suddenly grew up and looked exactly like the picture of his father on the marriage certificate. Her instant son with her dead husband’s face got inside a car, and she panicked all of a sudden. Before she was able to say anything, she saw the car explode like fireworks in front of her.

The very next second, the little male lead appeared. Her son had grown up like he had taken hormone pills, but Zhou Yi was still his current age. The little kiddo hugged her leg and smiled at her complacently. “Now I have Mom all to myself.”

Yan Shuyu cried out from fear. “No, I don’t want you as my instant son.”

That was when she woke up. Her eyes wide-opened, and it was already daylight outside. Sunlight came through the crack between the curtains. Next to her pillow, the little kiddo was sleeping peacefully. A rumbling noise coming from this throat, he was sound asleep.

Naturally, Yan Shuyu felt much better seeing that her instant son was safely sleeping next to her. But she was still frightened. She felt that the dream was a warning to herself. If she failed to hold her ground, she would be faced with what she had seen in her dream. She’d be singing “Orange is the New Black” while attending her own son’s funeral. Everything would be boiled down to one word – tragic.

After this nightmare, she was no longer as optimistic about being courted by the boss.

Yan Shuyu thought to herself, even if the boss was a patient man and could accept being turned down by her over and over again, she, on the other hand, might not have the persistency to turn him down repeatedly. Just that one kiss almost made her feel like she was walking on clouds. She needed to address the boss’s charm and end this quickly – as long as the boss didn’t have any sudden seducing moves, her determinations could still be quite strong.

But how could she make the boss quickly give up on her? This was arguably as difficult as her holding her course the whole way.