Chapter 159：The Family Business (1)

Yi Nian pushed the door open to his boss' office. He found his boss looking intently at something on his computer. Lin Kang appeared to be too focused on his work to realize his appearance so Yi Nian stood at the door and cough to get the man's attention.

That did more than he expected. Lin Kang jumped on his seat and the mouse he was holding slipped from his palm and clattered noisily to the ground.

Yi Nian had not seen his boss react like this ever. It was probably due to the thing Lin Kang was watching on his computer. He did not anticipate people would suddenly walk in on him.

As a fellow man, Yi Nian had a fairly good guess what that content was. It had been almost four months since he started working for Lin Kang and he had always had the impression that his boss was a robot.

This was because Lin Kang was quick and efficient at work, he had no reservations and could make million-dollar decision in matters of minute without hesitation like his brain was nothing but a computer. On top of that, Yi Nian had not once heard his boss complain about being tired despite the long working hours. Yi Nian had reason to believe his boss do nothing else but work.

The only windows of humanity Yi Nian noticed was when his boss' wife came to work. His boss would suddenly humanize in her presence. When Yi Nian saw Lin Kang smile when Xiu Ling arrived at the company for the first time, he thought he was hallucinating. It was as if Xiu Ling could trigger a switch inside his boss which would turn him from an unfeeling robot into a full-blooded human being.

This was the reason why Yi Nian was so surprised when he walked in to see his boss act all flustered. He was under the assumption that his boss would only have human emotions when the boss' wife was around. Then again, ultimately his boss was a male homo sapiens and that came with necessary bodily needs. Yi Nian could understand that.

As he rushed forward to help Lin Kang pick the mouse up, he could not help himself from trying to catch a glimpse at his boss' computer screen. He knew he shouldn't poke into other people's privacy, especially his boss' but there was a voyeuristic allure to the whole thing that Yi Nian found himself hard to resist. It was not unlike a scientist's drive to explore and make new scientific discoveries. Yi Nian wanted to know what kind of substance or quirk oiled the motor of a man that was as unique as his boss.

As inappropriate as his action was, it was a purely scientific exercise. Sometimes, certain things just caught your interest as unreasonable as they could be.

Therefore, it was why he was so surprised when he realized his boss was not watching some 18+ content as he thought but a woman's catalogue from an upscale mall.

'Is the company going into branching into other business?' thought Yi Nian. 'But then, why should boss be afraid of letting other people find out he was checking out these things? It seems innocent enough. The only reason I can think of is it's related to boss' wife. Boss can be quite flighty when it comes to his wife but what is the connection?'

Yi Nian did not have much time to think because Lin Kang grabbed hold of the mouse and quickly closed the window.

Yi Nian placed the document he was holding on Lin Kang's table and he said, "Boss, these are some of the papers that need your signature."

"Okay." Lin Kang grabbed the one from the top and started to read.

Yi Nian stood where he was as he waited for Lin Kang to finish. He stood there for five minutes and he realized something was off. Normally, his boss wouldn't take more than that to finish approving the document.

Yi Nian sneaked a look at Lin Kang and his throat almost jumped to his throat when he realized his boss was also looking at him.

He laughed awkwardly and asked, "Boss, how can I help you?"

Lin Kang leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as he studied Yi Nian. The young man sweated in his shoes. He assumed Lin Kang was gauging whether he should be fired or not. Perhaps Lin Kang noticed he was spying on him earlier and that was going to be grounds for him to get fired.

Understandably, that was not a common reason to get fired over but as we've established earlier, Lin Kang wasn't what you would call a conventional man.

In any case, Yi Nian continued to fidget, worrying about the loss of his livelihood.

The truth was much more innocent than Yi Nian assumed. Lin Kang had been studying the young man because he was considering whether it was a good idea to share his trouble with him.

Yi Nian had worked for him long enough for Lin Kang to be confident that he would not leak his secrets and most importantly, the young man was distant enough that Lin Kang would not feel too embarrassed sharing his problems with him, something that Lin Kang could not do with his immediate family members.

Even though he told Xiu Ling he would give her as much time as he needed, it did not mean that Lin Kang would not appreciate a sooner answer than later. He was thus wondering was there a way to speed that along, of course it would have to be a method that would not involve forcing Xiu Ling.

Lin Kang had been combing his mind for a solution but he came up empty. His brain was not attuned to dealing with issues of relationship. There was no one close enough in his life to share these troubles. All of Lin Kang's supposedly close friends were business partners.