Being alone with Yibo in the office made Zhan a little nervous. Yes, he was very happy to have Yibo all to himself. But now he couldn't concentrate on his work at all. Especially because Yibo kept walking up and down in front of Zhan's desk and refused to do so in any of the other rooms.

After another round that Yibo had made in front of his desk, Zhan closed his laptop and said: "Okay, tell me what I have to do to get you to stop pacing up and down here."

"Nothing. Don't let me bother you." Wang Yibo replied, then paused and looked at Zhan, frowning. "Mhhh..." Yibo went straight to the desk, leaned on it with both hands and asked, "Could you maybe take the afternoon off?"

"Huh? What for?" Zhan asked, confused. Then he looked up and his gaze caught Yibo's eyes. Zhan's heart began to race violently and he felt his cheeks begin to redden once again. But he didn't try to hide it. Because he knew it wouldn't make any sense anyway.

"I have an appointment this afternoon."

"So what? What's that got to do with me?"

For the first time, Yibo looked nervous when he replied to Zhan: "We're filming a commercial by the sea this afternoon. I have to go there and I thought you might like to be there as my fan."

"Mhhh." Zhan said, pretending to think about it. But inside he was cheering and screaming like those girls at the concert. Wang Yibo, his idol, wants Zhan to accompany him to the shooting of a commercial? Did he really have to think about it? What other answer besides YES, DAMN IT, could there be? Playfully calm, Zhan finally said, "Well, I guess I can take the afternoon off."

"Okay good. I'll let Agent Nax know then."

"Yeah..." Zhan thought about Yibo's words and then looked intensely into his eyes. Now his heart wasn't beating so wildly out of love and excitement, but out of anger, which Zhan could only partly explain at first. He cleared his throat and asked: "So you just want me to come with you because of your job as my bodyguard? So that I'm not alone in the afternoon?"

"I..." Yibo suddenly looked nervous and searching for words.

"What? I thought you wanted to take me with you because I'm your fan and maybe you care about me as your fan. But I was probably wrong. The only reason you want me to come with you is because you don't trust me to go an afternoon without your protection. Don't you?" Zhan corrected himself in his mind. He wasn't angry. He was disappointed!

"Zhan, it's my job to protect you." Yibo replied, visibly nervous.

"You know what? No, I'm not going with you. I'm going to stay here in my office and carry on working! Think about it for yourself. If you're there to work as an idol, then you can't guard me anyway. Besides, I don't think that woman would do anything this afternoon or until Saturday night. If she's up to anything, it'll be at the party on Saturday night. So you don't have to protect me!"

Zhan could see that Yibo was really struggling for words now. And Zhan saw his suspicion confirmed that Yibo didn't really know what to say when he finally replied: "You... I... damn it! You're coming with me, whether you like it or not! It's my mission to make sure that not a hair on your head is harmed and I take my mission very seriously!"

Laughing bitterly, Zhan replied: "Your mission? Yibo, your mission is to take advantage of your stupid fan that this woman has randomly chosen as her new plaything to get to her and infiltrate her and find evidence of her misdeeds so you can finally arrest her. And hey, maybe it'll work out on Saturday night and she'll transfer her interest from me to you. Then my duty as a good citizen will be complete and you won't need me anymore. Then all you have to do is charm this woman and do whatever it takes to gain her full trust and hold out until you find proof of her crimes."

Zhan was proud of his calm summary and of the fact that Yibo looked at him in complete bewilderment. Still, with every second that Yibo simply stared at him, an uneasiness spread through Zhan that he couldn't really put into words. And to Zhan's astonishment, he would have expected a different reaction, Yibo straightened up and left not only Zhan's office, but even the business premises.

Now it was Zhan who looked stunned out of his office window as Wang Yibo walked to a car, got in and drove away. "What the hell is this now?" Zhan asked himself and had the feeling that a guilty conscience was beginning to spread through him. But he swallowed the feeling and decided not to think about it any further. He still had work to do. And that was more important than the mission. Because even after the mission, Zhan would still have this work and would have to make a living from it. So he couldn't afford to be careless.

Although Zhan tried very hard to concentrate fully on his work, his thoughts kept wandering to the questions of why Wang Yibo left without a word and whether he would come back? Zhan had only told the truth and what was wrong with that? It was true that they only saw Zhan as a man they could exploit to get a little closer to their goal!

Time passed. First minute by minute, then hour by hour, Yibo did not return and Zhan worked. He even gave up his lunch break today. He simply ate an apple and a banana and then threw himself back into work. At some point, he even managed to silence his thoughts and concentrate fully on what he was doing. And he even enjoyed his work.

Shortly before 6 PM, Zhan switched off his laptop and graphics tablet. He stretched and felt a painful pull in his back. He gently massaged the area on his back with one hand and did a few stretching exercises. After a few minutes, his back, which had been aching from hours of bending, felt better and he prepared to leave the office.

Zhan grabbed his work bag and jacket and switched off the lights all over the office. When he reached his car, he looked around to all sides. Although it was only 6 PM, this street was deserted. But this was not a new sight for Zhan. Because it was like this every evening when he left his office. As there were no other businesses on this street apart from the hairdresser, only a few people had reason to walk or drive through it.

He got into his car, started the engine and remembered that he still had to go to the supermarket to do the shopping. And because he already knew that he wouldn't feel like cooking dinner later when he got home, he decided to get fried noodles with chicken, egg and vegetables from the Vietnamese restaurant near his apartment after shopping at the supermarket.

When he got home, Zhan didn't bother unpacking his big shopping bag and putting everything away, but instead pounced greedily on his dinner. He had bought two portions because he was so hungry that his stomach was already hurting. However, he only managed one and a half portions. He put the rest in the fridge with his shopping.

After he had put his shopping away, he went to take a shower and put on his pyjamas. He wasn't planning to go anywhere anyway. And since he was kind of cold tonight, he decided to wear long pyjamas. A present from his mother and with a picture of Spongebob Squarepants on the top.

When Zhan was finally lying on his sofa, curled up in a cozy blanket and watching some game show on TV, Zhan began to think about why Yibo had just left, why he hadn't come back and how the filming for the commercial had gone. Although Zhan was now very frustrated9+

about not having been there, he insisted that he had been right!

In the end, Zhan realized that he was simply disappointed in Yibo. For a brief moment, he had hoped that Yibo would see him not just as a useful fan that Yibo and his colleagues could exploit for their own purposes, but as someone Yibo might actually be interested in. But Yibo had nipped this hope in the bud when he made it clear to Zhan almost in the same breath that Yibo was only interested in his mission.

Zhan, still bitterly disappointed, had finally decided never to forget why Wang Yibo had come into his life and that the idol saw him as nothing more than someone useful for a successful mission. A useful piece on a chessboard that they could use to take the queen out of the game. And Zhan was only too aware that they could always take his piece off the chessboard and replace it with another, better piece. Perhaps, secretly and because of his disappointment, Zhan even hoped that they would find someone better than him. And with these thoughts, he finally fell asleep.

In the early morning, shortly after 5 a.m., Zhan woke up with a headache. His nose was blocked and his chest hurt. "Oh damn! Now I'm going to be sick too." He grumbled in a hoarse voice and straightened up. He was now even feeling colder than last night and his cheeks felt somehow hot.

Still a little sleepy, Zhan went into his bathroom, took a clinical thermometer out of the medicine cabinet and put it in his mouth while he looked at his glassy, tired eyes in the mirror. The thermometer beeped after half a minute and showed a temperature of 37.8 °C. Zhan wanted to curse again. But he didn't because it would have been too much effort.

He swallowed a 600 mg dose of ibuprofen for the pain and fever, washed up, brushed his teeth and got dressed. Even though he would have liked to lie down and rest again, he couldn't. He had to go to work and work. Because apart from him, there was no other graphic designer there who could have taken over his work. Which reminded him that he needed to find a part-time graphic designer. He had been planning this for weeks, but had always put it off. And right now it would have been good if he had already taken care of it. Because then he could have worked for Zhan today.

After getting dressed, Zhan made his exhausting way to the kitchen and made himself some chamomile tea and drank it. He also nibbled on some of the ginger cookies his mother had given him on his last visit. His mother always made these ginger cookies herself. They didn't taste very good, but they gave Zhan the feeling that they were helping him when he was ill.

By the time Zhan finally made his way to work, he had drunk three cups of chamomile tea and eaten almost all the ginger cookies. The ibuprofen was also having an effect. The headache was gone and his temperature had dropped to 37.4°C. On the way to work, Zhan bought some cold balm from the pharmacy, a nasal spray, vitamin tablets, plasters for fever, throat drops with sage and honey and a cough suppressant.

When he arrived at his office, he took the cough suppressant, put the cold balm on his chest, sucked a throat drop and stuck the anti-fever plaster on his forehead. As he was alone in the office, he didn't wear the face mask he would have had to wear if Sia had been there. She would have forced him to wear the mask as he knew it.

Zhan was just about to get to work when the doorbell rang. To his surprise, Yibo came in and apologized to Zhan for simply leaving yesterday. And he even had a present for Zhan as a small apology. And something that really surprised Zhan!