Xuan-yi stirs as the first rays of light stream through a chink in the blind. She groans as she turns to lie on her side. Her hand fumbles for something on top of the bedside drawer.

7:45am Did you sleep well last night? Love, Jun.

Her phone tells her that it is already nine o' clock. She flops back down to bed, turning to look at the empty space beside her. She cannot help but feel a little anxious.

Why haven't you come to see me, Jun-hui?

She buries her head into her pillow to muffle a loud groan.

Time to get up, Xuan-yi, or you'll be late.

"Xuan-yi, the director wants to see you. He's in a meeting right now but he'll be out in five or so."

Mi-yu, Jun-hui's secretary, taps her manicured fingers on Xuan-yi's desk before leaning in.

"Why do you think he wants to see you, Xuan-yi?" she asks, chewing on her gum thoughtfully.

What a nosy woman.

"I don't know," Xuan-yi responds flatly. She stands up and straightens her pencil dress. "His office, right?"

Xuan-yi prefers to keep her colleagues as colleagues. She finds it is better that way and it makes things a lot less complicated. To survive in a place such as that of an office space, you've got to hide your strengths well and your weaknesses even better. It thus goes without saying that the less people know about you, the better your chances at survival are.

Being friendly, being considerate or anything similar will not get you very far. In some point in your life, you will have to take advantage of the naïve and you will have to withhold information, for example, opportunities for promotion from your colleagues. You will perform all sorts of sins in the name of ambition.

And you will have to do it while smiling.

When you work a nine-to-five office job, you will have to deal with all sorts of people. In Xuan-yi's six months at Wen Group, she is fully convinced that she has, in fact, dealt with all sorts of people.

There's the older female employee who will try to rope you into Friday-drinks-with-the-work-girls-because-I-don't-want-to-go-home-to-my-husband, the creep from IT who keeps asking if you want-to-grab-a-coffee-together-some-time, the young and hot-blooded I'm-studying-and-working-at-the-same-time intern who keeps showing you photos from his Europe vacation even though you have expressed your clear disinterest and the I'm-a-vegan-and-go-on-yoga-retreats girl who keeps asking for your Wechat ID so she can send you vegan recipes.

Then there's Chairman Wen's youngest son, Wen Jun-hui, senior marketing director and unofficially the hottest-male-employee-of-the-entire-floor. Enigmatic and undeniably attractive, Jun-hui had always been a playboy so it came as a surprise to everyone that Shanghai's Casanova was getting married. 

I wonder what the director's wife looks like.

Have you seen her? I hear she's a real beauty.

I don't think so. Haven't you heard? Rumour has it Director Jun-hui has a woman on the outside.

So...she's ugly then.

Sooner or later, they'd be interrupted by their team leader with something along the lines of instead-of-worrying-about-the-director's-wife-how-about-we-worry-about-the-sales-pitch-happening-this-Thursday? They'd bow, embarrassed at being caught in the middle of their office gossip, before escaping to their desks.

It was a quiet wedding, hurriedly done and surrounded by family and close friends. Although she received an invitation, Xuan-yi did not attend the wedding. How could she? It wouldn't make any sense.

Xuan-yi and Jun-hui were in love. She was the one who was supposed to be getting married, not Cheng Xiao-xiao. Cheng Xiao-xiao was the home-wrecker, not her.

No, not me. Jun-hui belongs to me. He loves me!

It had all started when Xuan-yi was a new employee at Wen Group. She was allocated a relatively unimportant job at the Human Resources department. Things like delivering early morning iced Americanos, shredding paper and note-keeping at staff meetings. She did them every day for six months and although they were mundane tasks, they paid her well.

She was content.

However, there was one problem. Her manager at the time was a ert. He was a senior employee, morbidly obese and married. He would make lewd comments about her clothes and touch her inappropriately, particularly when she was alone in his office.

You're at least a C-cup, aren't you, Miss Xuan-yi?

I'd love to those .

It disgusted and repulsed her. It was blatant ual harrassment. Of course it was, but she endured them all. What good would reporting it to senior management be? It would be the same as reporting it to the perpetrator himself. Besides, she could lose her job and for Xuan-yi, that was infinitely worse. It was better to avoid conflict.

Unfortunately, you can run but you can never hide.

It was a Thursday evening and all the staff had gone home. Or at least, that's what Xuan-yi had thought. She had been clearing up in the meeting room when she felt a large pair of hands firmly grip her waist from behind.

You're still here, Miss