The System Keeps Making Me Do Indecent Missions [BL, R18]

Chapter 127: Chapter 127: A Calculated Approach

Lucien smiled lightly, his eyes slightly lowered to feign the modesty of a youngest sibling who had just been praised by an older brother: "Yes, they are all simple tasks, Ethan. I have gotten used to the work, so I am a bit faster than before."

"Good, good." Ethan’s smile stiffened for a second. It was only a second, but it was enough for Lucien to notice. Ethan withdrew his hand from Lucien’s shoulder and shoved it into his pocket. He then cast a quick glance at the computer monitor, where a completely blank Illustrator file was still open: "By the way, what are you doing? Do you need me to assign you more work?"

"I am taking the opportunity to review some basic design operations. I am afraid I might forget them if I do not practice for a long time."

Right at that moment, Sarah looked up from the adjacent desk and blurted out a compliment, "Lucien is working incredibly hard today. I saw that he did not stop working at all. He has not rested for a single minute since this morning. Ethan is so lucky to have such a great subordinate."

"Yes, truly lucky." Ethan replied. His voice remained friendly, but his eyes were completely devoid of any smile. Ethan turned to Lucien and gave a slight nod: "Well, you should rest now, you have worked hard today. I will assign more tasks to you tomorrow."

"Yes, thank you."

Ethan turned and walked away, his straight back gradually disappearing behind the door of the design department. Lucien watched Ethan leave, the smile on his lips remaining perfectly intact, but inwardly he was sneering so hard that it almost showed on his face.

[Hey, he is keeping his guard up against you.] 000 fluttered its wings, its voice filled with excitement as if it had just watched an excellent play: [He probably did not expect you to finish everything so quickly. His original plan must have been to overload you so you could not finish, then check on you at the end of the day and find an excuse to scold you in front of everyone. Who would have thought you would finish it all? Now he has to come up with another method.]

"Yeah. But I am all done, so now he has to think of another way."

[It seems this guy is not easy to play with. If he is already wary of you, he will definitely pull more tricks, just you wait and see.]

"I know." Lucien stretched his body, his joints popping and cracking, before reaching out to turn off the computer and standing up: "But the more tricks he pulls, the more excuses I have to counterattack. Just let him make the first move. Once I strike back, I will not give him any chance to get back up."

He slung his bag over his shoulder and stepped out of the design room. The clock on the wall struck five in the afternoon. The seventh-floor corridor was gradually emptying out by this time, as most people had already finished their shifts. The warm yellow light from the ceiling cast down onto the polished tiled floor, reflecting Lucien’s shadow as he strode toward the elevator.

Passing by the CEO’s office, he subconsciously cast a glance inside. The frosted glass door was left slightly ajar. It was not tightly closed as usual. And from within, a deep sigh echoed out. It was heavy and exhausted, as if the person making the sound had just unloaded an invisible burden after a long, grueling day.

[Hey, it seems he hasn’t left yet.] 000 whispered.

Lucien stood completely still. He did not intentionally mean to eavesdrop, but his feet simply refused to budge. One second passed, then two seconds, and then the door was suddenly pulled wide open.

Damian Thorne stepped out.

Damian was taller than Lucien had imagined. The dark blue suit tightly hugged his sturdy physique, his black hair was still neatly slicked back, but his tie had been loosened just a fraction. His deep and piercingly cold eyes swept across the corridor before coming to a halt on Lucien, who was standing frozen less than three meters away.

"Who are you?"

Lucien blinked, immediately restoring the outward appearance of an obedient intern. He bowed his head slightly, his voice polite but entirely unwavering: "I am Lucien Sinclair, an intern in the design department. I just finished my shift and am heading down to the lobby."

Damian did not reply right away, he looked at Lucien for a moment, then nodded.

"Right."

Then he strode toward the elevator, brushing past Lucien like a gust of frigid wind. The elevator doors opened, Damian stepped inside, and the metal panels slid shut without a single sound.

The hallway plunged back into absolute silence.

[Just a single ’right’?] 000 pouted, its chubby little body wiggling in the air: [I thought there would at least be some sort of romantic exchange. How boring.]

"Read less of those stupid romance novels." Lucien muttered as he pressed the button to call for another elevator, his eyes still fixed on the closed doors where Damian had just vanished. In his mind, the image of Damian’s eyes from a moment ago remained perfectly intact.

They were cold, but beneath that layer of ice lay something else. An exhaustion. An unnamed solitude that perhaps Damian himself did not even realize, or simply did not want to acknowledge.

"000." he called out softly as the doors of the second elevator slid open.

[Hmm?]

"I have just figured out a way to approach him."

The following morning, Lucien arrived at the company extremely early. He swiped his card at the magnetic gate, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The corridor was still deserted, with only the low hum of the air conditioning running overhead. He pushed open the door to the design department, and exactly as he had predicted, no one else had arrived yet besides him.

Sitting at his desk and booting up his computer, Lucien took the opportunity to open a few personal sketch files to draw and keep his hands occupied. After all, having spent the entire previous day doing trivial tasks, he hadn’t managed to draw a single decent curve. His fingers glided across the digital drawing tablet, and stroke by stroke, a sketch gradually appeared on the monitor. It was a poster layout for a new campaign. No one had assigned him this task, but he did it anyway. As he drew, he continuously thought about what 000 had said the day before.

[I told you already, if you want to get close to Damian Thorne, you need a valid reason. A mere intern cannot just casually waltz up to the twelfth floor and knock on the CEO’s door.]

"I know." Lucien replied, his hands never stopping their movements: "But I do not need to go up to the twelfth floor. Yesterday you mentioned that on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, he comes down to the seventh floor for meetings. Today is Tuesday."

[Well, yes, he comes down, but he goes straight into the conference room. Once the meeting is over, he leaves immediately without lingering. What are you planning to do? Block his path?]

"No." Lucien paused his stylus and stared at his draft: "I will make him notice me first. To do that, I need one thing."

[What thing?]

"A design."

000 fell silent for a moment, as if analyzing his words. Then it spoke up, [You mean... you intend to create a design that will catch his eye?]

"Yes. But I will not go and show it off myself. I will let it appear at the right time and in the right place, making him wonder who created it."

[That sounds quite risky. But alright, let us see what you can pull off.]

Lucien did not say anything else. He resumed his drawing, but inside his mind, a much clearer plan had already begun to take shape.

Gradually, his colleagues began to arrive. Greetings, the clinking of cups, and the sound of chairs dragging across the floor echoed sporadically throughout the room. Lucien glanced at the clock. There were ten minutes left before the official working hours started. He stood up, grabbed his mug, and headed to the pantry to brew some coffee.

Inside the pantry, two colleagues were standing and chatting. One was named Chris, who specialized in typography, and the other was Linda, who was in charge of printing. Both had worked in the design department for several years and were considered core employees. Lucien walked in, intending to offer a polite, social greeting.

"Good morning, it is quite chilly today, isn’t it?" He said in a soft voice, before reaching for the jar of ground coffee on the shelf.

Chris turned to look at Lucien, his face devoid of much expression. Chris merely grunted an agreement and then turned away, resuming his conversation with Linda as if Lucien did not even exist.

"By the way, regarding that Sunrise Coffee project, have you sent the sample prints yet?" Chris asked Linda.

"I sent them already, just waiting for approval. Though I heard there is going to be a personnel performance review next week, I wonder if there will be any shake-ups," Linda replied, without bothering to spare even a single glance at Lucien.

The two of them continued talking, completely ignoring his presence. Lucien stood there, his hand still holding the coffee jar, yet feeling as though he were an invisible ghost. He did not show any signs of annoyance, he simply finished making his coffee in silence and stepped back outside.

Returning to his seat, 000 was already perched on top of his computer monitor.

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