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Lan Xichen, Head of the Gusu Lan mafia clad in a white suit, meets Jiang Cheng for the first time when she strides determinedly into his office. Her long hair cascades down her back, a neat braid at each side and bangs framing her slender face as she grips onto a file.
She introduces herself as a teacher of a neighbourhood school - a free school, that provides education at little to no cost to underprivileged children and street kids - one of the scant amount of charity initiatives struggling to uplift the poor.
"Since Gusu Lan claims to help the community in the name of righteousness, I believe you will be interested in helping us. The government is cutting our funding, and we will be shutting down in a handful of months without money. I've calculated the costs needed for us to keep running," and hands him the file.
Xichen blinks, but he's intrigued. He opens the file to find out all the costs, properly mapped out and calculated, laid out in front of him. She can answer every question, and every conceivable thing a school will need for its running has been included-even adding items that would benefit the students, but were previously not included in the school's budget by the miserly, corrupt government. Clearly, this pretty teacher cares, and has the budgetary skills up her sleeves to keep the place up and running. Still, the budget is just a piece of paper.
He tells her that he'll get back to her regarding her requested funding, and keeps the budget. She frowns, but accepts it with a slight purse of her lips.
In glasses and a comfortable, approachable sweater, Xichen is unrecognisable as head of Gusu Lan. The knit garment conceals a gun underneath, and disguised personnel have been sent to surreptitiously cover a perimeter around the school. No one bats an eye at him, though, dressed as a child's guardian, not even Miss Jiang as she teaches the children, stern and firm yet loving, which is what truly matters.
She scolds them for asking for sweets, yet hands them candy anyway, pushing them to brush their teeth. She lulls the littlest ones to sleep during naptime for the younger students, patting the back of a child until they fall asleep. She pulls out stationery and notebooks for the children from her own bag, clearly purchased with her own money - and he's seen from the budget how little the teachers are actually paid.
The background check he runs on her reveals that she is from one of the richer provinces of the country, from comfortable upper-middle-class parents and upbringing, studying economics and accounting (which explains the budgeting skills), yet she has ended up teaching children in a dilapidated school where paint peels off the walls and paying out of pocket to feed some of the orphans.
He may be a mafia boss - but with a government as corrupt as the Wen administration, security without oppression will be seen as criminal, and he can see how much Miss Jiang Wanyin cares. The children finish their food - for the street kids, this is their only proper meal for the day, and a handful of lower-income parents have come to pick up their children while Miss Jiang wipes the mouth of another child before letting the little girl run off.
"Hello," Xichen says, moving closer to her and speaking up, "I'm here to pick up my son."
"I don't think we've met bef-" Jiang Cheng begins, head turning to face him, and once their eyes meet, her brows furrow and her gaze grows wary when she recognizes him. "Lan Xichen?" She asks quietly. "What are you doing here?"
He smiles - this one is easy and genuine, unlike the one he would have worn if it had all turned out to be a lie to take money from him. He would not forgive people who twisted innocent things for financial gain so easily.
"I'm here for a social visit." He says sunnily. "And of course, I brought gifts." He hands her a check for triple the amount she has requested. At her stunned, disbelieving look, his smile grows wider. "You are a very capable woman, Miss Jiang. I believe the school will be in good hands."
Jiang Cheng narrows her eyes at the bodyguards surrounding the luxury restaurant he has brought her to. "Is this really necessary."
"A brawl is not conducive to a date, Principal Jiang." He says cheerfully.
"A brawl won't happen if you don't instigate anything. Say, like, taking out people's eyes."
When a discrepancy in the school budget had been found, after even more money from Gusu Lan had been funneled into its upkeep, their investigations revealed corruption on the part of the previous principal, who had been siphoning funds into his own wallet. Upon discovery, Lan Xichen smiled, picked up the nearest pen and threw it at him, lodging it into the man's eye and gouging it out.
Jiang Cheng had yelled "this is a school!" to dissuade Xichen from violence, but the principal barely escaped with his life at the end of it all, and was never seen again, opening up the position to her.
"I think you'd do a much better job." Xichen had said, regarding the vacancy.
When Jiang Cheng graduated from university, she had never expected to become a teacher for a charity school dating a mafia boss, but it had happened nonetheless. Just like the stalker she had acquired - another hindrance that appeared once she thought she'd solved one, and her phone vibrated only for her to glare at the message, immediately knowing who it was who sent it from the number.
"Something happen?" Xichen asked, and she groaned, rolling her eyes, "nothing I can't handle. Just some annoying fucker."
"Should a school principal really be using such vulgar language?" Xichen half-teased.
"Shut up, you know I have more control than that."
The problem turned out to be both bigger and more inconsequential than she'd thought, as her stalker showed up after she had just finished dinner with Lan Xichen - a mafia boss. She almost pitied him. Then she pointed him out to her date.
"Is that so." Lan Xichen said, smile draining of all genuine cheer as he observed the skulking figure watching them.
As testament to his abilities, the First Jade of Lan had Jin Zixun's arms twisted behind him and the man spitting out both pleas for mercy and insults as Jiang Cheng stood there with her arms mercilessly folded.
Lan Xichen's cool brown eyes met hers. "Would you like me to teach him a lesson, Miss Jiang?"
She sneered at Jin Zixun's fearful expression. "Go ahead."
The loud crack was soon drowned out by his scream of pain, as blood flecked Xichen's light blue jacket in red from how deep the bone was broken. Xichen scoffed in disdain, taking off his jacket. "Now you've ruined my clothes." It would be a death wish for Jin Zixun to approach her again.
"Ice cream?" He then offered as they walked away.
"Didn't we have dessert in the restaurant?"
"So, no ice cream, then?" His expression resembled a kicked puppy's.
"Fine, you big baby." She teased, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. It was hard to believe the man was a mafia boss, like this - when he wasn't commanding illegal operations and causing grievous bodily harm.
"Rum and raisin?"
"Is that your favourite flavour?"
"No, it's yours."
Her eyebrow twitched. "And how do you know that?"
"You bought it for yourself when you got ice-cream for the children for the festival."
She snorted. "Observant." "I do my best."
Over time, she learns that he dresses in suits purely to fit the part of an intimidating mafia boss - Xichen is much more at home in comfortable, baggy clothes, making him look more like a puppy than anything else.
"Why don't you just dress like that, then?" She points out more in jest, one night at her apartment, when he whines about the stiff suits he has to wear. "It'll throw people off, make them underestimate you." She says lightly, but she should have known from his considering look that he would actually do it.
"It's for the kids," He cheerfully explains, but really, she knows he starts dressing in soft, comfy clothes and learning to cook just because he wants to- and because they both enjoy the contrast of a mafia boss disguised as a househusband.
After they get married, she's convinced that if he wasn't the head of Gusu Lan's criminal empire, that's who he would be.
"The boss will see you now." The pair of guards in matching black suits and face-obscuring shades say in a monotone, and the man swallows, putting on a brave front as he walks through the unlocked doors.
The office within is cream and brown, looking more like a palatial penthouse with the white sofa set, kitchen to the right and matte shapes of clouds in the wallpaper. Another pair of guards watch the new entrant from the other side of the door, and behind the polished mahogany desk in the centre of the office sits a woman in a plum velvet suit and navy blouse, her slender face framed attractively by her long bangs.
The man standing next to her in a fluffy blue apron over a sweater glimpses the doors opening, and sighs, pouting. "Do we really have to to this? We haven't even had dessert yet."
He sets a slice of strawberry shortcake on a porcelain plate before her, and she sends him a knowing look.
"Of course we do, A-Huan. You know this." Her tone is stern but fond. Steely blue eyes then turn to the intruder with a glare.
"Madam Lan." The man greets nervously. "It's an honour to meet you."
"But I personally baked this for you." Lan Huan continues to whine, "at least try it, first?"
The man watches her indulge her - maid? Boytoy? Picking up the silver fork and cutting a piece, although the slight incline of her head in a nod prompts him to keep talking, rattling of what he can safely say about the Wen government, what their spies have observed and the activity they have undertaken, as the Madam closes pink lips around the cake on her fork and slides the utensil out of her mouth, traces of buttercream lingering on her lips, before chewing thoughtfully.
"We need backup to infiltrate the next level of the government's defenses." The man prattles on, eager to fill the silence, "they've constructed another wall of cybersecurity around the national systems-"
"Which is scheduled to finish three months from now." Lan Huan offers conversationally, although the man falters at this when the other friendly male looks at him with a smile that does not reach his brown eyes. "Isn't that right? There had been a secret chain of encoded messages keeping this timeline confidential."
"T-That, u-uh, that's not exactly true-" how did they find out, why would the boss's toy know information like this, wasn't it unsafe?
Lan Huan tilts his head, and the unassuming look turns into a cruel smirk.
"Isn't it?" He asks again, calm and controlled and missing the coquetry he previously had toward his wife.
"Well...you ARE right about that, but you don't have the full picture-"
"I don't? Did you really think you were our only spy?" Sweat forms on the man's forehead as his words stick in his throat. "You've betrayed the clan, officer, after all we did to help you."
Lan Huan's voice is cold, gaze on the plainclothes policeman as contemptuous as his wife's. "Did you think you could slip back into the ranks of the police force? Hide behind the Wen government, after stabbing us in the back and think you wouldn't face punishment for your crimes?"
"You- You- the real crimes are committed by the mafia-"
"You dare?" Tone smooth, icy, devoid of outrage, just cool, cold anger, "if you are so eager to die, I will help you."
The First Jade of Lan unholsters his gun in a swift motion. Jiang Cheng closes her eyes instinctively, and a shot rings out through the room. A bullet shell drops to the marble floors with a tinkling sound as a corpse hits next.
Xichen breaths deeply, as if he has just run a marathon, and the scraping of utensils against porcelain sounds.
"The school is doing fine, A-Huan." Jiang Cheng says conversationally, offering her husband a bite of cake, and he accepts it after a pause.
"That's always lovely to hear." He hums, chewing. "Oh, this cake is pretty good, isn't it?"
"Don't flatter yourself too much."
The guards break vigil to drag away the fallen corpse. "That's what I have you to do, don't you, my heart?" Jiang Cheng snorts. "Alright, fine, the cake was delicious. Your skills really are improving." and Xichen lights up like a puppy, proverbial tail wagging as he slides the gun back into its holster.