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

Chapter 139: Chapter 139: Borrowed Credit

On Friday morning, Lucien arrived at the company with an incredibly relaxed state of mind. He had completed the fashion concept the night before, following three days of nearly continuous, relentless work. The design file was carefully saved on his computer, accompanied by a backup on the cloud and a copy sent to his personal email; this was something 000 had reminded him to do after analyzing the state of this world.

He had just set his bag down on his desk and had not even had the chance to turn on his computer when Ethan appeared. The man was wearing a dark blue shirt and holding a cup of coffee in his hand, his lips still bearing that familiar friendly smile that Lucien could accurately redraw every single line of.

"Lucien, how far along are you on the fashion concept?" Ethan asked, his voice as gentle as if he were simply inquiring about the weather: "Today is the deadline, you know. Will you be able to finish it on time?"

Lucien looked up and offered a faint smile: "Yes, I just finished it last night. Let me open the file for you to see."

He booted up his computer and opened the concept file. The earthy brown, burnt orange, and moss green color blocks materialized on the monitor, accompanied by clothing sketches that were neatly and impeccably arranged. The overall composition was perfectly harmonious, the core idea was remarkably clear, and every minute detail had been meticulously cared for.

Ethan looked at the screen, a sharp, cold glint flashing through his eyes before vanishing incredibly quickly. He nodded approvingly, his expression filled with apparent admiration: "Good, very good. Send the file to me; I will review it and then submit it to Director Howard. You have worked far too hard; let me handle the approval process for you."

Lucien remained silent for a single second. He knew perfectly well what the phrase ’let me handle the approval process’ truly meant. But he was already fully prepared for this exact scenario.

"Yes, I will send it right away."

He attached the file to an email, sent it to Ethan, and then sat back down in his chair, continuing with his daily tasks as if absolutely nothing had happened.

[Did you really just send it straight to Ethan like that?] 000 suddenly materialized beside him. Recently, the amount of time it spent disappearing had been a bit high, but Lucien did not really care all that much. After all, compared to the previous world, this time around, it had genuinely accompanied him a great deal.

However, at this moment, the chubby water droplet could not help but be thoroughly perplexed: [I think you know perfectly well what he is going to do with your work, right? So why on earth did you still hand it over to him? Damian already explicitly told you to send it directly to him, did he not?]

"I know." Lucien replied softly, his eyes still glued to the glowing monitor: "But I want to see exactly how far he is willing to go. Furthermore, if I send it straight to Damian right now, Ethan will have the perfect excuse to claim that I overstepped my boundaries and showed disrespect to my superiors. But if I send it to him first, and then he pulls some kind of trick, that is when I will finally have a legitimate, justified reason to report the matter to the higher-ups."

[You really are the type of person who loves playing cat-and-mouse games.]

"No. I simply enjoy giving people the opportunity to expose their true colors on their own."

The morning passed by in complete tranquility. Ethan sat at his own desk, occasionally glancing over in Lucien’s direction, but said nothing further. At around ten o’clock, Howard Quan stepped out of his office, clapping his hands to call everyone to gather around.

"Everyone gather in meeting room number one; I have an important announcement regarding the Autumn-Winter fashion project."

Lucien stood up and followed the rest of the staff into the meeting room. He chose a spot in a secluded corner, a place where he could observe the entire room without drawing anyone’s attention. Ethan stood at the front, near Howard, holding a thick stack of documents in his hand, which was the printed version of the concept file Lucien had sent that very morning.

Howard placed the stack of documents down on the table, his face brimming with utter satisfaction. He pointed a finger at the design drafts, his voice booming across the entire room: "I just received the concept for the Autumn-Winter fashion project from Ethan. And I must say, I am incredibly impressed. The color palette, the composition, the core idea—absolutely everything is at a remarkably high level. This is exactly the kind of work our design department needs."

The entire room erupted into a thunderous round of applause. Several colleagues turned to look at Ethan with gazes filled with sheer admiration. Chris nodded in approval, while Linda whispered something to the person beside her, likely words of high praise.

Ethan stood there, a radiant, beaming smile playing on his lips. He bowed his head slightly, his voice dripping with false modesty: "Thank you, Howard. I merely did my absolute best. Furthermore, this was also achieved with the support of everyone else in the department."

The moment he finished saying those words, he cast a rapid glance in Lucien’s direction. It was a remarkably fast glance, but it was more than enough for Lucien to clearly see the challenging, provocative look within those eyes. It was exactly as if the man were saying: "There, do you see now? No matter how talented you are, all of your hard work will ultimately become mine."

Lucien merely offered a faint, detached smile, saying nothing. He looked down at the stack of documents on the table and immediately noticed that a few details had been altered. Ethan had slightly adjusted the color palette; instead of the original earthy browns and burnt oranges, the man had changed them to brick red and metallic gold tones. It looked more eye-catching, but it entirely lost the delicate subtlety and emotion that Lucien had so painstakingly worked to construct. It was a hasty, careless alteration, done solely to assert ownership.

The meeting concluded, and everyone left the room one by one. Ethan walked past Lucien, patting him lightly on the shoulder, his voice remarkably friendly: "Thank you for your assistance. Keep up the good work next time, and who knows, maybe you will get to co-author with me."

Having said that, the man smiled and walked away, leaving Lucien standing entirely alone in the empty meeting room.

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