If there was anything the CEO might have been able to naturally accomplish on his own feat, without a need of the System's assistance: It was the ability to make someone feel uncomfortable and make them experience a certain degree of unease with his presence alone.

Perhaps it was his esteemed position, the accomplishment of being a CEO at his still young age—and a very successful one at that. Any other person would already begin to treat him differently by simply his personal achievements alone.

Or it was his naturally distinguished presence wrought from the Li family's careful and good breeding from the past generations. Blessed with a disarming smile that could make women reconsider their positions in life and perhaps something that made other men look at him with envy.

But in reality, it was none of that.

Some people were already assured of their positions in life, regardless of their standing and could not be affected by those things. Only the stone-faced expression of Li Yang, something that made him look like someone carved from a great block of ice made the other person fess up completely and reveal his cards.

".... Alright, it took me a while to get this and I haven't really shared this with anyone else, but Inventory." Han Jing reached out into thin air and pulled out a black pearl. "It's almost like a spatial ring or spatial chest, but less bulky. You can easily pretend that you pulled something out of your pocket and it's really useful if you know what to store beforehand."

Li Yang raised a brow. "This took you a while to get this feature?"

"Wait, don't tell me you didn't have to work to unlock Inventory—alright, the bias is clearly showing! What else did she give you?" the man rubbed his face, clearly becoming more at ease despite his inhibition earlier. "I had to deal with Soul Synchronization and all of that and it hurt like hell."

"She's not the one handling me."

"Right." Han Jing blinked. "Not a Player but with access to features similar to mine.. but you're not controlling any avatar in some other world too."historical

"No."

"Neat—it's kind of confusing living double lives." Han Jing weakly laughed. "You tend to forget to take care of the other one. I guess being new to this means you have more upgrades? Or whoever is in charge has their own way of doing things."

Their situation had differences then, vast enough differences to him.. but one of them was—

"Do you have required Missions?" he asked.

"Mine is an open world to some extent. I mean, I guess there's a huge quest to accomplish, but I'm not actively pursuing it."

And so that was what gave this other man a chance to live a normal life unlike him beset by missions and deadlines. Was it fitting because he worked in an office that had similar requirements and the other man frankly looked like someone who really did live with his parents?

Li Yang inwardly sighed, but nodded.

He half-wondered if using the Unofficial System Patch would allow him the same leisure to have no active missions, but he doubted it would be the case.

"Are you okay?" Han Jing asked.

"I'm fine. Thank you for the information." Would Li Yang risk it? The prospect of another world was rather too much, but then again, would it make sense for this being to interfere this much when she knew the consequences?

If this Peach wished for—

She once talked about universal domination.

This Peach enjoyed needling Bao, the Panda-like creature. Someone required to transmit the information and view to the Heavens.

She desired a vacation according to Han Jing.

And this Peach was keeping watch on him, someone she dubbed as a 'ticking time bomb' essentially, but still provided Charm Points and gifts.

The door swung open and Ying Yue He stepped in with a tray of refreshment and light snacks. "Please excuse me." She was quick to leave it and excused herself from the office in less than a minute rather than lingering.

Li Yang watched her leave, his brows furrowing—

"Weird. She wanted to get in so fast earlier."

"What was that?" Li Yang glanced at the man who mumbled something underneath his breath. He had caught what the man said, but couldn't exactly imagine what he meant.

"Oh, I just noticed that she and the tigress spirit from earlier were pretty much eager to open the door for me—and it's obviously not because I arrived or anything, they wanted to see you and were fighting over the door." Han Jing picked up a glass and took a sip. "Kind of silly now that I think of it, but then she zoomed out fast. Couldn't even thank her."

"I see."

"Yeah.."

A silence would ensue, until the CEO decided to speak up.

Li Yang assumed Ying Yue He was just distraught after what happened the other night, and was dealing with it on her own. Or even regretful she had gotten involved in danger. "If she had anything she wished to tell me or otherwise, she could just approach me instead of simply avoiding me. It's a bit confusing now that you mentioned that incident earlier."

"Some girls are like that. They'll tell you that they're fine, but you can tell they're clearly upset even when they insist otherwise."

"It doesn't make any sense." Li Yang sighed internally. He had assumed that Bo Lifen was the difficult one to interact with, but in a twist of fate, somehow his interaction with his secretary was the one that became more estranged.

Han Jing shrugged. "Not a lot of things do?"

"They really don't."

—-—-

Author's Note: I'm not sure how harem stories deal with the MC talking to other dudes. I've only seen MC dealing with Young Masters, lackeys and their plucky (fat) best friend or cousin and mentors. But beyond that, with both of these dudes just being protagonists in their own book—at heart, both still have trouble with dealing with women. Some women at least xD What do you do when someone is clearly avoiding you? Will you just let it be or confront them? Does it even matter in the long-run?