America: I came here to study, not to show mercy.

Chapter 287 The Sound of Two Footsteps

In the empty office, two figures stood facing each other, silent, the silence eerily quiet.

Everyone says he's thick-skinned, but Li Xiaoen thinks the girl who said that is just as thick-skinned. He mutters to himself, then turns and walks out of the office.

"Let's go, it's getting late, let's go back and get some rest."

Just as he stepped outside, he heard the office lights being turned off behind him. Li Xiaoen smiled, but before he could turn around, a figure suddenly jumped up behind him, the sudden weight causing him to bend over.

“Hey, Catherine…”

Two arms wrapped around her neck from behind, and feeling the soft weight behind her, Li Xiaoen exclaimed in surprise, "Get down quickly..."

"Hey Sean, what are you saying..."

A hazy, amused murmur came from Catherine's ear, "I'm drunk, I can't hear you very well."

"Don't play dumb with me!"

Li Xiaoen took a deep breath, raised her hand to untangle the arm wrapped around her neck, and twisted her body to shake off the other person, "Hurry up and get off and go back."

"what--"

Just behind him, Catherine suddenly let out a long sigh. Immediately afterward, Sean Lee felt a slight tickling sensation on his ear. When he turned around, he saw her head resting on his arm. With their bodies close together, a delicate fragrance filled his nostrils.

Hearing Catherine's affected babbling again, Li Xiaoen slumped his shoulders and had no choice but to give up the idea of ​​tormenting her any further.

Catherine's sudden jump up was a bit awkward, so Li Xiaoen lowered his hands, scooped up her plump thighs wrapped in her pencil skirt, weighed them behind his back to adjust her position, then turned off the light and left.

It was already 11:30 p.m. When I stepped out of the building's corridor, the silvery moonlight cast a soft filter over everything. The entire building was deserted in the dead of Friday night. As I slowly walked down to the parking lot, I could clearly hear two people breathing, in addition to the sound of my footsteps.

“Hey, Catherine…”

Li Xiaoen said leisurely, "Do you usually go home around this time? It's so late, and there's no one around. Aren't you scared?"

"..."

I waited quietly, only hearing long, soothing breaths behind me.

"You don't need to pretend anymore, I'm carrying you down here now, aren't I?"

Li Xiaoen rolled his eyes and added, and as soon as he said that, two light laughs came from the side.

"Ha ha……"

Catherine smiled and loosened her arms from tightly wrapping around the young man's neck. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pulled her upper body away from his back. "Don't be afraid. I'm a materialistic atheist, and I always carry a gun with me."

As soon as she finished speaking, she suddenly realized that the young man beneath her had stopped, and she was taken aback.

"Sean..."

Catherine patted the young man's shoulder, and could still clearly feel the tension in his body, which made her heart leap into her throat.

"Don't be so childish, okay? Your method of scaring people is really low-level."

Seeing no reaction from the young man, Catherine couldn't help but push him with both hands again.

The next moment, Li Xiaoen's body suddenly trembled, and he quickly stopped and walked towards the front of the corridor.

"Hurry, hurry..."

Amidst the violent jolts, Catherine could only hear Sean Lee's simple yet chilling incessant mutterings.

Her eyes widened, and goosebumps rose all over her body. She gasped and gripped the young man's shoulders even tighter.

"Sean, stop playing around..."

Didn't you hear me?

Li Xiaoen, breathless, retorted, her voice carrying a tense, stern tone, "There are only the two of us in the corridor now, but just now I heard two people's footsteps..."

These words made Catherine shudder again. She instinctively shrank her neck, leaned back against her back, and hid her body behind her as much as possible.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Catherine shook her head again, both amused and exasperated. "If you're joking, that's enough for now. Let's stop here."

"I wish this were a joke."

Li Xiaoen took a deep breath and said quickly in a serious tone, "There's no one in front of us, so those extra footsteps must be coming from behind us. Whether it's someone hiding in the shadows following us, someone we don't know, or some kind of supernatural event..."

"Oh, yes."

Suddenly remembering something, Li Xiaoen's tone softened abruptly. Just as Catherine was widening her eyes in anticipation of his next words, he spoke again, "Anyway, those things are behind us. If they catch up, you'll be the first to suffer. You buy me some time, and I'll save my strength to run later, isn't that better..."

"what--"

Catherine suddenly screamed, wrapping her arms even tighter around Sean Lee's neck, "I'm telling you, if anything happens to me, you won't be able to escape!"

"Cough cough..."

Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, Li Xiaoen patted her to no avail, so he had to squeeze his hand under Catherine's arm to create a little space, and only then was he able to catch his breath. "Catherine, don't worry."

Li Xiaoen said reassuringly, his voice sincere, "I will avenge you."

As soon as he finished speaking, the little space he had managed to create with one hand was immediately compressed again, so he had to raise his other hand to pry it open with difficulty.

He then realized that Catherine's legs were tightly wrapped around his waist, and her whole body was tightly wrapped around his back.

It seems like things have gone too far...

Li Xiaoen hesitated for a moment, then felt Catherine's alluring, full softness pressed against him from behind. His expression turned strange as he patted her arm that was wrapped around his body.

"Let go, I was just joking."

With no effect from his words, Li Xiaoen had no choice but to turn around and look again at the long, narrow corridor he had walked down.

Looking at it this way, the scene is indeed somewhat eerie and terrifying.

"See? Now I'm facing the person behind me, so you can rest assured now."

Li Xiaoen patted the other person's arm repeatedly, said something calmly, and then fell silent.

After a while, the tickling sensation from Catherine's long blonde hair receded, and Sean Lee's neck finally got a chance to breathe.

The next moment, they suffered again.

"hey-hey……"

With Catherine gripping his neck and shaking him back and forth, Li Xiaoen quickly reached out and grabbed her hands. "It's just a joke, okay?"

"If someone hadn't claimed to be an atheist and materialist, I wouldn't have had the idea to test her, would I?"

Snapped.

Lee Shawn's shoulder was slapped again indignantly.

"Are you saying you're trying to scare me, or that it's my fault?"

As she questioned him, Catherine immediately recalled how the young man had intimidated her. Feeling humiliated, she clenched her fists in resentment and punched him repeatedly. "Hmm, after a long day, a massage is very comforting."

Li Xiaoen slowly turned around and leisurely walked back to the parking lot. The hammering on his shoulder immediately stopped, and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"What are you laughing at?"

What Li Xiaoen didn't see was Catherine looking down at him with a stern face.

"It's nothing, I was just thinking about some happy things."

After a moment of silence, Li Xiaoen was punched hard on the shoulder again, but he didn't seem to care.

“Catherine, think about it…”

Having reached the stairs, Li Xiaoen said leisurely as he walked down, "I came up to comfort you when you were working late at night and bought you a late-night snack. Now, in the middle of the night, I have to take you home..."

"Tell me, is there a better boss in the world than me?"

"Don't try to glorify yourself!"

Rolling her eyes, Catherine snapped, mimicking Sean Lee's voice, "Think about it, who am I working overtime for?"

"When you're starting a startup, from scratch, they help you organize the company structure, handle business, and even use their connections to get you publicity opportunities. They can also provide you with funding at any time. And now, for your company, they're still working overtime late at night without pay, more dedicated than you, the boss..."

"Tell me, is there any employee in this world better than me?"

"Yes, there is no better employee than you."

Sean Lee nodded repeatedly in agreement. "So, Catherine, you did a great job. Keep it up. I'm so proud of you."

Snapped.

……

"It's so late, why don't you stay at my place for the night?"

They drove in silence until midnight when they finally got Catherine back to her villa.

"No."

Leaning against the car, a slightly chilly evening breeze blew in her face. Li Xiaoen tilted her head back and took a deep breath. She turned to look at Catherine beside her, who was holding her bag in front of her. "Get some rest. You don't need to go to work so early tomorrow. We've already secured funding. There's no rush for business collaborations. We can deal with them next Monday."

Under the silvery moonlight, the young man's slender figure leaning against the car was outlined on the ground. His handsome profile, with its sharp features, was dazzling in the moonlight, and a sudden touch of melancholy made people's hearts skip a beat.

"Um……"

Realizing what was happening, Catherine nodded and gave a soft hum, her gaze, which had been fixed on the young man's profile, shifting aimlessly as she scanned her surroundings.

"Catherine?"

Seeing that the other party did not respond for a long time, Li Xiaoen called out again.

"Ah."

Catherine smiled and nodded. "Then... take care on your way back."

After saying that, she turned around gracefully and walked towards the house behind.

After entering the house and turning on the lights, Catherine put down her bag on the sofa and immediately went to the window, looking intently at the young man still leaning against the car in the open space in front of the house.

Unlike Catherine's feelings, Sean Lee was thinking about something else entirely.

Ah, in this kind of environment, if you know how to smoke, lighting one up and blowing smoke in the cool night breeze would be so cool, right?

Li Xiaoen chuckled to himself, then turned to look at Catherine's house. Seeing that she had already gone inside and turned on the lights, he got back into his car, started the engine, and drove towards his villa.

Unlike last semester, he has spent most of his time living here since starting his business in the second semester of his freshman year. With the amount of money he has handled during this period, he has become much more at ease with this million-dollar villa.

After parking the car in the garage and quickly washing up, Li Xiaoen took out a bottle of red wine from the storage cabinet, poured himself a glass, and leisurely savored it while looking out at the large expanse of grass and trees outside the French windows.

After finishing his drink, he went to bed and, perhaps because so much had happened that day, he quickly fell asleep.

It wasn't until 9:30 a.m. the next day that Li Xiaoen, unusually, broke his biological clock and slowly woke up from his bed.

Instead of immediately getting to work, he washed up as he went downstairs. He stood in front of the swimming pool in the backyard, staring blankly at the grass outside the fence for a while. After washing up, he jumped into the pool and swam back and forth a few times.

I leisurely made a simple breakfast, ate it, and by the time I drove to the company, it was already 11:30 in the morning.

On the first day of the weekend, many colleagues were already seated in their work areas. Compared to their seriousness on weekdays, they seemed more relaxed and at ease.

After greeting them, Li Xiaoen sat back in his office and began typing rapidly on the keyboard.

Now that the company has reached its current size, he no longer needs to do the daily coding work himself. Instead, he is now working on the overall research and development direction and the main framework of the code.

With the objective clear, the next step was to try to build the model framework. He had a lot of ideas in his mind and felt an urge to write them all down in a document.

After the document was written, the next step was to discuss the feasibility and specific measures with Evan and the two technical experts that Catherine had recruited from within the company. The next step was to distribute and implement the tasks.

Thanks to the "advanced learning domain halo," the company's R&D staff are performing even better than usual, which is one of the reasons why their company, with so few employees, is achieving such great results.

After immersing himself in the moment for a while, Li Xiaoen was brought back to his senses by two knocks on the office door.

"Please come in."

The door opened, and a shapely figure entered—Catherine, dressed in a typical Manhattan white-collar OL uniform pencil skirt.

"What's wrong, Catherine?"

Li Xiaoen raised an eyebrow with amusement. "This is the first time I've seen you knock on my office door."

Don't be ungrateful.

Catherine glanced sideways at the young man, then turned and walked to the coffee machine, starting to operate it.

She returned home safely last night, but when she went to sleep, she couldn't get Li Xiaoen's words in the hallway out of her mind. She didn't know when she fell asleep, and she didn't wake up until after 10 a.m. this morning. She also had dark circles under her eyes, which she had to cover up by applying a thick layer of concealer that she rarely uses.

This is the second time this has happened because of Li Xiaoen.

"Make me a cup too."

Then she heard Sean Lee's laughter again. Catherine took a deep breath and gripped the glass tighter.

Suddenly, there was another knock on the office door, and the two of them stared at each other in a daze.

Even on weekdays, there's usually no knocking on the office door at this time. Has something suddenly happened?

With this thought flashing through his mind, Li Xiaoen called out, and a young woman from the personnel department entered.

"Pioneer Group and BlackRock?"

Upon hearing the mention of the visitors, Sean Lee and Catherine exchanged surprised glances, both seeing the astonishment in each other's eyes.

These two groups are quite powerful.

(End of this chapter)