Time slowly ticked away. The long wait was a test of their patience.

  Li Zimeng and Luo Qi had gone out of the room to contact Xiao Luo, while Zhang Dashan stayed back to hold the fort. He appeared to be calm and collected at his seat. But as he looked into the faces of Su Li, Shen Qingyan, Cai Renhe, and Chai Zhiying, he was starting to feel sick, and his back was almost drenched in sweat.

  “Uhm, it seems like it’s already 3:40 pm.”

  Zhang Dashan looked at the time with an awkward smile on his face. He waved his hand to signal the staff to pour tea for Su Li and the other guests. He did his best to maintain his calm. “Please, let’s drink our tea. This tea is of very good quality. It is healthy and can help you slim down, and it might even kill some time as well,” he said, waffling away, “Right CEO Shen, what kind of tea do you like? Personally, I feel that this West Lake Longjing is pretty good. It has a long-lasting fragrance that’s as sweet as the orchid. It’s refreshing, leaves a good taste in your mouth, and makes you want more.”

  Shen Qingyan responded to him with a cold smile. They were already forty minutes behind schedule. She did not have to wait this long when she went overseas to meet their President, making her extremely angry.

  Chai Zhiying wasn’t so kind and did not hold back. “I’ll sit here and see how long you can keep this up!” she said.

  Cai Renhe responded with a stern and gloomy looking face. “CEO Zhang, our time is precious, as you know. You’ve wasted so much of it, and you have to give us a reasonable explanation.”

  Explanation?

  What explanation do you want me to give? How can you blame me for this?

  Zhang Dashan thought quietly to himself and cursed Xiao Luo. He had told Xiao Luo that the meeting was 3 pm, but it was now already 3:40 pm, and he was nowhere in sight. He was clearly messing around. The people sitting here were not ordinary people but famous figures in Xiahai. No matter how thick his skin was, he could not continue to hold them off much longer by himself.

  He forced himself to remain calm and said, “Hmm, an explanation…… Yes, I think there could be one possible reason why. Our boss could have arrived before 3 pm. But on his way here, he encountered a group of robbers trying to rob a bank. He couldn’t just stand aside and not do anything about it, so that is why he’s delayed.”

  When he said that, Su Li and the rest stared at him as if they were looking at an alien.

  Cai Renhe laughed mockingly, and he was not pleased. “I’ve listened to all sorts of excuses for being late, but this one takes the cake. Do you take all of us here for fools?” he said.

  Shen Qingyan couldn’t take anymore. She stood up after slamming her hands on the table and stared at Zhang furiously. “Zhang Dashan, what the hell are you up to? You better believe that I might just tear your Luo Workshop down right now!” she screamed.

  What the hell, why is she so hot-tempered?

  Zhang Dashan was visibly shocked. Shen Qingyan’s temper had shaken him.

  Chai Zhiying bolted straight up and said, “You, with the surname of Zhang, I’ll give you five more minutes. If the boss of Luo Workshop doesn’t show up by then, you can forget about working together with us!” she said.

  Zhang Dashan lifted his hands, trying to calm everyone down. “Calm down, calm down, look at Goddess Su. She hasn’t said a single thing since she entered. This is self-restraint, this is charisma,” he said.

  \r \r \r

  Right at that moment, Su Li stood up, and with a cold looking expression and said, “Let’s go!”

  After saying that, she turned around and headed toward the exit of the meeting room.

  What? Did he get an egg thrown on his face that quickly?

  Zhang Dashan was humiliated, and he did not know what to say to make her stay.

  He was as nervous as an ant on a hot pot. Suddenly, the door of the meeting room opened. Li Zimeng, looking sharp in her formal suit, walked in and said, “CEO Xiao is here!”

  CEO Xiao?

  Who was CEO Xiao? The boss of Luo Workshop?

  Su Li and the others were shocked.

  In the next second, a man who was in a somewhat casual suit walked in. He had sharp facial features as if his face had been sculpted, with hair that was dark and glossy, knife-shaped eyebrows, and a pair of piercing eyes.

  “I’m sorry, something happened on my way here. Sorry to have kept all of you waiting,” the man said.

  While explaining why he was late, the man walked confidently into the meeting room towards the main seat at the end of the conference table, then turned around to face everyone. His entire body was radiating an air of superiority. Every single action he took made him look charismatic.

  Xiao Luo?

  Su Li, Shen Qingyan, and Chai Zhiying were stunned into silence. They stared at him with eyes wide open.

  Why was Xiao Luo here? And why was he taking the seat at the head of the table?

  A whole bunch of questions ran through their minds. It was as if time had stopped at that moment. Everything around them became inconsequential, and their eyes were all focused on this familiar, yet unfamiliar man.

  “Cousin, you’re finally here. Any later and I would have killed myself,” a voice cut across the silent room.

  Zhang Dashan, who was collapsing, hurriedly made the introduction. “Goddess Su, CEO Shen, CEO Cai–this is the boss of Luo Workshop. His surname is Xiao, and his given name is just Luo.”

  What?

  As soon as he said that, it was as if a bomb just exploded in Su Li and everyone else’s heads.

  “What? H-he…… Xiao Luo is the boss of Luo Workshop? This…… this can’t be!”

  Chai Zhiying mumbled incoherently as her legs went weak, and she sat right back in her seat from the shock. Thankfully, the chair was just under her. Otherwise, she would have been sprawled on the floor by now and making a fool of herself.

  Su Li froze as if she turned into a piece of wood. She stared into Xiao Luo’s eyes with shock. Her eyelids were quivering, and her brain seemed to have gone blank.

  “Xiao Luo, you…… You’re the boss of Luo Workshop?”

  Shen Qingyan asked in disbelief. She had been speculating who the boss of Luo Workshop could be, at least a dozen times, but it never occurred to her that it would turn out to be Xiao Luo. It didn’t make sense. Xiao Luo had once worked at her Huayao Group, and there was no reason for the boss of Luo Workshop to lower his pride to work at her company.

  Xiao Luo nodded his head and replied, “Yes!”

  It was now time for him to lay the cards on the table, and there was no need for him to try to cover it up any longer. Besides, Luo Workshop was in an excellent position to negotiate with them now.

  When she heard Xiao Luo’s reply, Shen Qingyan’s eyes lost their sparkle, and she dropped back in her seat like a lifeless robot.

  Compared to the rest, Cai Renhe was a lot calmer, although he couldn’t contain his annoyance. “As you’re the boss of Luo Workshop, then you owe us a proper explanation. Why did you make us wait here for more than forty-minutes?” he asked.

  “I’ve already said, something happened on my way here,” Xiao Luo replied.

  “What could’ve happened that it would delay you by a good forty-minutes?”

  Cai Renhe retorted, clearly dissatisfied with the explanation. “Don’t tell me it was due to a traffic jam, for Xiahai’s traffic isn’t that bad that a jam can last as long as forty minutes,” he sneered.

  Xiao Luo shook his head and smiled. “It wasn’t because of a traffic jam. On my way here, I met a group of robbers who were trying to rob a bank,” he explained.

  Robbers trying to rob a bank?

  What the–did they have to be this in sync?

  Did he even have to use the lame excuse that I offered earlier to bamboozle these three bosses? What in the world was this?

  It was the first time that Zhang Dashan had ever felt like he was about to go crazy. This brother of his was too much. He had the gall to use such a lame excuse and to think that he even said it with such a serious-looking face.

  Su Li, Shen Qingyan, Cai Renhe, and everyone else was so shocked that their jaws dropped, leaving their mouths wide-open. They could not believe that Xiao Luo would use the same excuse that Zhang Dashan had given earlier.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Was he looking down on them, or was he trying to humiliate them?

  Cai Renhe laughed mockingly and said, “CEO Xiao, did you really think we’d believe that?”

  “You might not believe it, but everything I just said is the truth,” Xiao Luo replied.

  Zhang Dashan could not put up with this any longer and whispered into Xiao Luo’s ears with a concerned expression. “Cousin, I made this up earlier on and said that you encountered a group of robbers who were trying to rob a bank. I can’t believe you’re using the same excuse too. I’m sure they think that we’re taking them fools and are messing around with them.”