Gold Heights Condominium.
Jin Liwei arrived home just in time for dinner. He knew that his baby girl didn't leave the house for the entire day. She must've been busy composing music again. He could hear Dom's loud whining in the kitchen, so he headed there.
As usual, Dom was trying to have an early taste of dinner but the cook wouldn't allow him.
"Oh! Hi, sir boss! Welcome back!" Dom greeted Jin Liwei when he saw him.
Jin Liwei nodded, looking around. "Where's Xiulan?"
"Boss is inside the computer room. She's with a guest. We were told not to bother them."
Jin Liwei frowned. Guest? Inside her sacred computer room? Even he wasn't allowed to enter it and now someone else was in there with her. "Who's with her? How long have they been in there?"
"It's Mr. Hou Liang. They've been in there since mid-afternoon."
"What?" Jin Liwei's expression turned black. There was a man with her and they had been inside the computer room for hours? He marched to the library office.
Standing in front of the password-locked door, he had the strongest urge to kick it down. He fished out his phone from his pocket and called his baby girl's phone.
"Baby, I'm home."
"Oh, hi. Welcome back."
"What are you doing? I want to see you."
"I'm a little busy at the moment. Can you wait a bit more? I'll be done soon. Okay?"
His hand tightened on his phone, but he forced his tone to be light. "Alright, baby. I'll wait for you. Don't take too long. It's almost dinner."
"Okay. I'll see you in a bit."
Before she hung up, he heard a male voice speaking in the background. Before he could ask who it was, the call already ended. He was tempted to call her again to ask who the other man was but stopped himself. He would just wait for them to come out and see for himself which bastard dared to be alone inside a room with his baby girl.
Jin Liwei paced back and forth in front of the door to the computer room while frequently glancing at his wristwatch. His expression turned uglier every minute that they didn't come out.
Dom arrived to call them for dinner but seeing his sir boss, he stopped in his tracks and stayed far away. The sir boss looked like a bloodthirsty lion prowling for a prey. He looked so scary!
###
After discussing Iris' business proposal, the two ended up playing around (a.k.a. hacking) together. It was nothing too major. She just wanted to gauge the extent of Hou Liang's skills. She already had an idea based on his barely-there online footprints, but she wanted to see for herself.
'Not bad,' she thought. 'Too hesitant and too cautious, but not bad.'
Before they knew it, hours had already passed. If Jin Liwei didn't call her, she wouldn't have noticed that it was already almost dinner time. About fifteen minutes after he called, she finally announced that they should call it a day.
Hou Liang helped her turn off everything in the room. When they were done, he looked around, trying to permanently stamp this wonderful place in his memory. He swore that one day, he would also have his own state of the art computer room like this. Reluctantly, he followed her out of the room.
As soon as he stepped out of the door, the front of his shirt was grabbed by a tall and furious-looking man and then slammed against the wall.
"Who the hell are you?!" Jin Liwei roared at Hou Liang's face.
Hou Liang groaned in pain. He looked up in anger at the bastard who suddenly attacked him, but seeing the murderous expression of the man, he cowered. "W-what…"
What the hell did he do? He didn't remember offending this man. He didn't even know him! Why was he being attacked?
Iris and Dom were so shocked at Jin Liwei's sudden aggression that they weren't able to react in time before Hou Liang was slammed against the wall. He started shouting at the poor guy's face. They were so shocked that they didn't even notice Jin Liwei's slip of the tongue, calling Iris his wife.
Then they saw that Jin Liwei was about to punch Hou Liang.
"Sir boss, no!!! You'll break him!!!"
Iris moved so fast that she looked like she flew the short distance between them. Her hands flicked on Jin Liwei's body and he dropped to his knees. Dom immediately pulled the badly frightened Hou Liang away.
Jin Liwei grunted. He suddenly lost feeling and control of his legs. D*mn his Fourth Brother for teaching this brutal move to his baby girl!
Then he felt angry all over again. Why did she stop him? Did she like that bastard so much that she couldn't bear to see him hurt? He was too consumed by jealous fury that his rationality was all gone. All that was left was the threatened feeling of his woman being stolen away from him.
"Liwei, calm down," Iris said, hugging him from behind. But more than that, she was preventing him from getting up to attack again. She looked at Dom and instructed, "Take Mr. Hou out and check if he's injured. If he is, treat him. Wait for us. We'll come join you for dinner in a bit."
"Yes, boss! Leave it to me!" Dom dragged Hou Liang out of the library office.
Once the two were alone, Iris could feel how tense Jin Liwei's body was. He was almost trembling, barely able to control himself. Their positions at the moment was that he was on his knees on the floor while she was hugging him from behind.
He turned around so that they were face to face. His expression still looked ferocious.
Then he pounced.