Awkward Chapter 41

Ye Mu looked at the screen for a while, answered the call with an emotionless face, and said abruptly, “Sorry.”

On the other end of the line, Chen Mo paused for a moment before snorting coldly, “So you finally realized your mistake.”

Ye Mu continued indifferently, “The user you’re trying to reach is currently on another call. Please call back later.”

Chen Mo, fuming, cursed in a low voice, “D*mn f*ggot! Don’t give me this cr*p. Are you going to take the IPO project or not?”

Ye Mu, feeling bored, replied, “The user is busy and is being transferred to voicemail. Please leave a message after the beep.”

Chen Mo’s face was stern as he gritted his teeth, holding the phone on his balcony, and didn’t say anything for a long time.

Ye Mu, noticing the silence, said calmy, “I’m hanging up.”

On the other end, a man’s roar suddenly came, “You said leave a message after the beep, so beep already!”

Ye Mu smiled and was about to say something when the phone was snatched away by Ye Chun.

“Beep~” The child deliberately affected her voice.

Chen Mo didn’t realize it, and suppressing his anger, spoke calmly, “Ye Mu, the IPO project is very important to the company. I hope you won’t let personal grudges affect your judgment. The business personnel I sent out a few months ago all came back empty-handed…”

The deep, magnetic voice on the other end continued, but in reality, no one was listening.

“Ye Chun, be good and give the phone to Uncle.” Ye Mu leaned over, reaching for the phone, but the little one dodged him.

Ye Chun looked at him with a particularly sly smile, “Uncle, who’s calling you at this hour? Is it your…?”

She said, peeking at him with her shiny big eyes and extending her pinky finger.

Recently, the little girl had been watching more anime, and in Japan, a pinky finger often refers to a “paramour.”

Ye Mu cleared his throat, “No, don’t talk nonsense. It’s my boss calling, discussing business.”

Ye Chun tilted her head, “Really?”

Ye Mu responded calmly, “Really. Give the phone to Uncle.”

“Oh,” Ye Chun felt her excitement was in vain, and finding it uninteresting, she pouted and tossed the phone aside.

Ye Mu picked up the phone. By the time he answered, Chen Mo had already said quite a bit.

“So, do you think this plan is feasible?”

Ye Mu lowered his gaze, paused for a moment, and then said, “Repeat that. My niece was making a fuss just now.”

Chen Mo’s expression soured, his voice dropping significantly, “Aren’t you recording the call?”

Ye Mu couldn’t help but retort, “Are you childish or what?”

The other end of the line fell silent.

After a long pause, Chen Mo’s voice, filled with restrained patience, slowly came through, “Ye Mu, if possible, I really wish you were a bottle of mineral water right now.”

Ye Mu’s expression remained unchanged, “Why do you say that?”

Chen Mo gritted his teeth, “So I could twist your body into a pretzel and then knock your head off!”

Ye Mu responded with a neutral “Oh,” and, showing no emotion, hung up the phone.

Chen Mo was so furious he felt like his liver was hurting. After hanging up, he dialed again.

It connected quickly, but this time, it was a little girl who answered.

“Hello, President Chen? My uncle says you should tell me a story.”

Chen Mo frowned, “I don’t have any stories. Let me speak to him.”

Ye Chun huffed and puffed, proudly sticking out her little chest, “Uncle said if you don’t tell me a story, he won’t take your call.”

Chen Mo felt the veins on his forehead throbbing, but he closed his eyes in patience due to her young age.

After a long silence, he pinched his brow and, feeling a headache, said, “Once upon a time, there was a green bean.”

Ye Chun blinked with curiosity, “A green bean?”

Chen Mo took a few deep breaths, poured himself a glass of water, and tried to calm down. “Yes, one day it broke up with its girlfriend.”

Ye Chun nodded, her pink lips moving, “And then?”

Chen Mo looked down, pinched his brow again, and said monotonously, “It cried and cried… cried sadly…”

Ye Chun bit her finger, raising her eyebrows, “What happened next?”

Chen Mo, with no expression, set the water glass down, pursed his lips, and said coldly, “It sprouted.”

Ye Chun: “…”

What to say? This brother can’t tell stories better than her uncle. Bad review, humph!

Seeing that the child was silent, Chen Mo thought it was resolved and said indifferently, “Alright, let your uncle take the call.”

Ye Chun, nose in the air, said in her childish voice, “Boss, your story was not interesting at all. I want to hear two more.”

Chen Mo was taken aback and lost all patience, his face turning fierce, “Alright, stories. I’ll tell you two stories, but don’t pester me.”

Ye Chun wouldn’t give up, insistently whining, “I want to know what happens.”

Chen Mo clicked his tongue, half threatening, half intimidating, “Stop causing trouble, or I’ll let the Big Bad Wolf eat you.”

Ye Chun, being stubborn, puffed up her chest, “I’m not scared. Those are just things to scare little kids. Besides, I’m grown up now and not afraid of the so-called Big Bad Wolf.”

Chen Mo, with a stern expression, racked his brain to come up with something and said coldly, “There are no stories, but there’s a riddle. Do you want to guess?”

Ye Chun’s eyes brightened and she grinned, “Okay, I want to guess.”

Chen Mo poured himself another glass of water and took a few sips before saying, “Once there was a man named Bao Zheng, who had a daughter. Can you guess her name?”

Ye Chun frowned, “What’s her name???”

Chen Mo leaned against the door frame and enunciated, “Bao You.”

Ye Chun rolled her eyes, very dissatisfied, and huffed, “Not fun. I still want to hear a story.”

Chen Mo was distressed but held back his temper, slowly improvising a story, “Once upon a time, there was a rabbit.

Then another rabbit came.

It stood on the shoulder of the first rabbit, holding its ears.

Then another rabbit came.

…

It stood on the shoulder of the twenty-first rabbit.

And kissed a giraffe.”

The lengthy and boring story described how multiple rabbits stacked up one by one until they wobbled and kissed the giraffe. The little girl’s eyelids drooped, and she eventually fell asleep on one of the rabbit’s shoulders.

Before closing her eyes, her only thought was that this brother was really good at making things up. Even though she liked rabbits, was it really okay to stack so many? Wouldn’t they fall down? The giraffe was so tall, was it worth it just to kiss it? These rabbits must be crazy. It was hard to understand the adult world.

The other end of the line was silent for a long time, with only the sound of snoring remaining.

Ye Mu leaned over to cover Ye Chun with a blanket and slowly took the phone away from the little one’s ear, answering, “Hello?”

Chen Mo responded in a low voice, filled with a bone-deep coldness and dissatisfaction, “In the future, don’t bother me with such things about entertaining kids, or be careful I might fire you.”

Ye Mu smiled faintly and said coolly, “You seem quite good at it. I spent a long time trying to get this girl to sleep, and you managed to send her off with just one story.”

Chen Mo lifted his sharp chin and said, “Hmm, I solved a problem for you. Shouldn’t you reciprocate?”

Ye Mu smiled, not pushing too hard, and directly got to business, “There’s a board member involved in the IPO project named Song Tanfei. I spoke with him this afternoon, and he said we could take on the project, but there is one condition.”

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes and slightly parted his lips, “What is it?”

Ye Mu raised an eyebrow, “Do you know Song Jia?”

Chen Mo put the call on speaker, leaned back with his arms crossed, “The name sounds familiar, but I can’t recall who exactly.”

Ye Mu reminded him, “Song Jia, a classmate from your university, in the same department as you.”

Chen Mo frowned slightly, remembering a bit, “Wasn’t she the girl who often followed me secretly in the library back then? But what does this have to do with the IPO project?”

Ye Mu laid on the bed, his gaze indifferent, “It doesn’t really relate. It’s just that Mr. Song hopes I can help him by setting up a match for his daughter with you.”

Chen Mo’s fair and handsome face grew colder, “Did I hear that right? You want me to go on a blind date?”

It was absurd. Asking him to go on a blind date was almost like asking him to sell himself. To put it bluntly, the nature of this project had changed from a competitive bid based on company capability to a purely transactional exchange of interests.

Chen Mo’s face turned ashen, but Ye Mu continued undeterred, “I don’t see a problem. You’re single anyway. Give the girl a chance. After all, according to her father, she has had a crush on you for three years.”

Chen Mo had a dark expression, “You’re asking me to do something unethical. So, after meeting that girl, what? Am I supposed to forcefully get together with her for the IPO project?”

Ye Mu corrected him, “I’m not asking you to get together with her, just to meet and get acquainted. Her father said it’s just a simple blind date. If you find it doesn’t work out, just end it. The project will still be handed over to us.”

Chen Mo furrowed his brow tightly, “Are you sure?”

Ye Mu replied indifferently, “Yes, it’s just a blind date.”

Chen Mo glanced at the phone, pulling at his thin lips, and spoke slowly, “Alright, I’ll let you arrange this.”

Author’s Note: The stories about rabbits and green beans in this chapter are sourced from the internet. If there’s any infringement, they will be deleted.