I Asked You to Be a Tool-Man Supporting Male Lead, Not a Heartthrob Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Fu Yue’s Face Flushed Once More

Fu Yue was so nervous his ears were ringing.

He saw Ji Hanmo’s gaze slowly move down, landing on the carpet by his feet.

“Kneel here.” Ji Hanmo’s voice was flat and calm.

Fu Yue’s heart felt as if it had been squeezed, and an inexplicable sense of humiliation surged up instantly.

However, just as his expression stiffened and he prepared to voice his protest and turn to leave, he heard Ji Hanmo let out a light chuckle.

“Hmph. Did you think I would make such a boring demand?”

“Come over here.” He beckoned to Fu Yue.

Fu Yue had been played by him but didn’t dare get angry. He could only suppress his resentment and move over to stand beside Ji Hanmo.

Just as he thought the man was going to use some other trick to play with him, a thick document was handed to him.

“Read through this document and give me an evaluation report.”

Fu Yue was stunned, blankly taking the document.

Ji Hanmo gestured for him to pull over the guest chair and sit beside him to read.

Thus, a highly discordant scene appeared in the top-floor office of the Ji Group late at night.

Fu Yue—the famously unreliable young master of Haicheng—was wearing a loose cotton bathrobe, revealing his collarbones and a small patch of his chest, sitting out of place in the Ji Group Chairman’s office, flipping through a proposal with a look of deep suffering.

He felt like he had fallen into an incredibly absurd dream.

The paper of the document felt high-quality.

Fu Yue flipped through a few pages, his eyes filled with terms like “Distributed Transactions,” “Service Mesh,” and “Top-level Design,” accompanied by dense architectural and component diagrams.

One could call it a heavenly script, but to a soul from the information explosion era like him, it was as familiar as it could be.

Fu Yue read with focus.

Watching the hidden crown of Fu Yue’s head, Ji Hanmo picked up the coffee on the desk and took a slow sip.

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“How is it?”

After a while, that pressure-filled voice rang out again.

Fu Yue’s heart thudded.

He didn’t know what this unfathomable man was testing.

So, he decided to play dumb.

“Chairman Ji, this looks very impressive. The diagrams are beautifully drawn; I feel like this system will be very secure.”

Fu Yue intentionally picked some layman terms to describe it, attempting to bluff his way through.

Ji Hanmo’s gaze turned cold.

He put down his coffee cup.

“Fu Yue,” Ji Hanmo spoke slowly, his voice carrying a warning, “I didn’t ask you here to waste time.”

After saying this, he tapped the desk with his knuckles—not too hard, not too light. His gaze swept over the skin under Fu Yue’s loose bathrobe before returning to the desk.

His tone became meaningful: “Do you want to read and speak properly now? Or would you like to change your posture and let me ‘teach’ you how to speak on this desk?”

Ji Hanmo said that last “teach” very softly and slowly.

The words brushed past like a feather, but they made Fu Yue’s face go pale instantly.

Countless “colored scraps” flashed through his mind.

The man’s hint was too obvious.

Fu Yue had no doubt that if he continued with his nonsense, Ji Hanmo really would pin him to the desk and use another way to make him “speak.”

Fear overrode his sense of luck.

Fu Yue turned his gaze back to the document. He pulled a pencil from the pen holder on the desk.

This time, he threw himself into reading with calm focus.

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Only the sound of flipping paper and the shua-shua of the pencil drawing on paper remained in the office.

Ji Hanmo’s deep gaze, however, never left the side of Fu Yue’s face.

About an hour later, Fu Yue looked up again.

This was a proposal for the update and iteration of a top-level system. It was very ambitious, wanting to integrate all business lines under the Ji Group to create a technical service empire.

However, the approach was a bit off.

One could tell the novel’s author didn’t understand modern technology.

“Finished?” Ji Hanmo arched an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Fu Yue composed himself, having a good idea of what to say and what not to say.

“In your proposal, all the business logic—such as the data models for e-commerce, entertainment, and real estate—are deeply coupled within the same massive service cluster. I’m afraid it’s not a very good plan.”

Ji Hanmo took out a fountain pen and drew a line on the paper before him, then asked: “In what way is it bad? Be specific.”

Fu Yue had already realized Ji Hanmo had pulled out a “problematic plan,” so he planned to pick a few key points to handle it.

“First, with this design, the cost of business iteration is very high. Any small change in one module could trigger regression testing for the entire system.”

“Second, the tech stack is locked in, making it hard to introduce more efficient technologies. Third, the fault tolerance is poor; a bug in a non-core business could eventually drag down the core system.”

After stating these three points, Fu Yue didn’t dare say more.

For the first time, a ripple appeared in Ji Hanmo’s bottomless eyes.

“Fu Yue, tell me your design suggestions.” Ji Hanmo leaned forward, moving a bit closer to him.

Seeing Fu Yue hesitate, his gaze darkened.

That single look made Fu Yue a bit nervous. Thus, he was forced to reveal more: “I suggest extracting some common capabilities that various business lines need to reuse from the specific business logic, and turning them into standardized, pluggable services.”

After saying this, Fu Yue leaned in and added two circles to an architectural diagram in Ji Hanmo’s hand, representing a “Technical Mid-platform” and a “Data Mid-platform.”

Afterward, he hesitated for a long while before circling several business applications and using arrows to connect them to the “Mid-platforms.”

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“Chairman Ji, this is the most I can think of.” Fu Yue looked up at him. “There really isn’t anything else.”

Having finished, his lips pressed together slightly as if waiting for judgment.

Fu Yue didn’t notice that because of his leaning posture, Ji Hanmo’s gaze had to land on the collar of his bathrobe, which hung down as he leaned forward.

There was a small patch of skin reddened from nerves, as well as a chest that was accidentally exposed.

It wasn’t until the crisp cedar scent from Ji Hanmo’s body wrapped around Fu Yue that he belatedly realized—

He was leaning too close.

Close enough to see a trace of murky, unreadable emotion in the other’s eyes.

Fu Yue backed away half a step without letting it show.

Ji Hanmo didn’t provoke him further, quietly looking at the sketch he had drawn.

The atmosphere in the office became somewhat subtle.

After a long while, Ji Hanmo finally spoke slowly, his tone carrying a note of questioning: “The ideal is very full, but this kind of architecture is equivalent to a refactor. The initial investment is massive, and the return cycle is long. How would you persuade the board of directors?”

Ji Hanmo’s words were very realistic, sounding like he was questioning Fu Yue’s naivety, carrying an authority’s knock against an “idealist.”

But this question stirred the stubbornness of the “blunt programmer” in Fu Yue’s bones.

“Persuade?” Fu Yue asked back. “President Ji, is the Ji Group planning to do business for only a few years before closing shop?”

In the real world, Fu Yue had seen too many examples of projects becoming unsalvageable due to short-sightedness.

Without waiting for Ji Hanmo to answer, he continued: “If not, then we shouldn’t be asking them to agree to a project that costs money. We should be telling them about a necessary strategy that will allow the company to go further.”

Fu Yue had become a bit too invested.

So, he forgot.

He forgot the person opposite him was the unfathomable Ji Hanmo.

In that moment, Fu Yue felt as if he had switched back to his former self—the one who argued for his views in the real world.

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After he finished speaking, the office fell into a dead silence.

The alarm went off in Fu Yue’s brain. He realized it belatedly.

What had he just said?

He actually dared to teach Ji Hanmo how to do things? He was doomed.

Cold sweat instantly broke out on his back.

Fu Yue felt he was dead; that pervert Ji Hanmo might even hang him up and beat him…

However, the expected difficulty didn’t come.

Ji Hanmo glanced at him and actually showed an approving look.

From those eyes, Fu Yue read something different.

It seemed that the topic of “how to persuade the board” just now wasn’t a real doubt, but a test.

Ji Hanmo seemed to be saying, “I see the distance; do you understand that there are difficulties and thorns on my path?”

Fu Yue’s guess was correct.

In fact, Ji Hanmo had already thought of this layer, and even thought deeper.

He held a high position; the people around him either lacked the ability or were tied to their own interests.

He was too lonely, so much so that it was hard to hear a pure voice that didn’t carry interest considerations.

Today, he had originally intended not to see Fu Yue.

Yet he couldn’t resist allowing him to come up.

Since he was here, he wanted to test his depth, but he hadn’t expected to hear a voice that perfectly aligned with his deepest thoughts.

Blunt and straightforward.

Ji Hanmo’s usually serious face actually showed an extremely faint smile.

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“Fu Yue, your thoughts are fine. But…”

Fu Yue was a bit nervous; he was afraid he would say, “Your thoughts are fine, but I’m still going to beat you.”

Fu Yue swallowed and waited quietly for what came next.

“Fu Yue.”

“Yes.”

“If you want to persuade the board, using that set of words won’t work. Think again about what to say.”

Ji Hanmo asked calmly, without exploding.

Fu Yue relaxed.

But this question truly stumped him.

He was good at writing code and didn’t fear arguing with product managers.

But in the past, the highest level he had reported to was only a project Vice President. Fu Yue had truly never seen a board of directors. He opened his mouth and struggled for a long time before squeezing out: “Just… reason with them? Present the facts?”

Ji Hanmo’s face sank instantly. “Come here.”

Hearing those two words, Fu Yue felt nervous, and the pencil in his hand slipped to the floor.

He wanted to pick it up but forgot he was wearing a bathrobe.

As he bent down, the fabric on his shoulder slid open halfway.

He reached out to cover the fabric, but then he couldn’t reach the pencil on the floor.

Fu Yue just wanted to curse himself.

Because his face had turned red again.

“What are you afraid of?” Ji Hanmo’s voice came from above him. The faint scent on him was very clingy, and sweat broke out on Fu Yue’s forehead.

Fu Yue simply gave up on picking up the pen and stood up, moving back an inch.

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the expression on his face was clear—he was afraid of that word Ji Hanmo had used before.

Just the words “come here” had made his hands shake with fear that “lie down” would follow.