Chapter 824: Chapter 824: Ye Fei Seems to Be Looking Down on Him
Sun Qihui glanced at Zhao Guqing, hinting for him to rein in Zhao Dingye a bit, tell him to stop talking so much.
Sun Qihui really couldn’t figure it out.
What was Zhao Dingye doing making things difficult for Ye Fei?
She knew Zhao Dingye had always wanted to fight for the position of Family Head. Of course, in fact she was the same as Zhao Dinglian and the others, she felt that Zhao Dingye was just looking for trouble when there was none.
Whether it was Zhao Dinghuan or Zhao Gushen, both had run Changping very well.
Even if they replaced them with Zhao Dingye, it wouldn’t necessarily be any better than what they’d done.
Being able to achieve the same results as them was already pretty good.
In the fight for the position of Family Head, even if he really did succeed and climbed up, if he couldn’t do better than Zhao Gushen and Zhao Dinghuan, then he couldn’t prove he was more suited to be Family Head.
On the contrary, it would give people something to gossip about.
In that case, even if he did the same as Zhao Gushen and Zhao Dinghuan, no one would admire him, no one would praise him.
For something so thankless, Zhao Dingye still insisted on doing it, not to mention he might not even succeed.
If this were an ordinary family, there might still be a chance to fight over it.
But in each of the Eight Great Families, the Family Head is decided based on ability.
This was a fixed rule and had never changed in hundreds of years.
Never mind that all the other families were like this; even if you just look at the Zhao Family’s tradition alone—why should it change when it came to Zhao Dingye?
Sun Qihui had never asked for Zhao Dingye to become Family Head; she really did envy Chi Jingsi.
Envying that Chi Jingsi had good fortune—but that was her personally envying Chi Jingsi as a person, it didn’t include the Family Head position.
Besides, if she really wanted to be a Family Head’s wife, she could just go marry a Family Head directly.
If she couldn’t marry one, that was her own lack of ability; she couldn’t blame Zhao Dingye.
It’s not as if there were so many Family Head positions just lying around waiting to give her a Family Head’s wife seat.
Zhao Dingye was only doing it for himself, and although Sun Qihui felt that Zhao Dingye was just making trouble out of nothing—
Since Zhao Dingye himself wanted to fight for the Family Head position, he wouldn’t listen to Sun Qihui’s opinion anyway.
So Sun Qihui simply didn’t express an opinion on this matter. She just felt that if Zhao Dingye wanted to fight for the Family Head position, then let him fight. Why bother making things difficult for Ye Fei here?
Fighting for the Family Head position had nothing to do with Ye Fei, and Ye Fei couldn’t affect much of anything.
Today was the first time she was meeting Ye Fei, and she didn’t know anything about her.
Sun Qihui had no intention of protecting Ye Fei, she just felt these were two unrelated matters.
Furthermore, if it really was like what Zhao Dingye said, that Ye Fei’s poor performance caused the Zhao Family to be implicated, wouldn’t that be exactly what Zhao Dingye wanted?
If Ye Fei didn’t do well, then that meant Zhao Gushen had poor judgment.
He’d married such a wife, and the two elders along with the Zhao Dinghuan couple were still shielding her, which meant they were disregarding the interests of the Zhao Family.
In that case, it would be dereliction of duty on Zhao Dinghuan’s part as Family Head.
For the sake of Ye Fei, he let the entire Zhao Family suffer loss.
By then, whether Zhao Dingye wanted to take the opportunity to build up his own prestige and seize power—
Or slowly let the Zhao Family members lose faith in Zhao Dinghuan, it would all be good for Zhao Dingye.
So what good did it do Zhao Dingye to be in such a hurry to pick a fight with Ye Fei now?
Zhao Guqing frowned slightly. He didn’t want to directly oppose Zhao Dingye in front of so many people at this time.
But if he didn’t speak plainly and only hinted, he was afraid Zhao Dingye would deliberately act like he didn’t get it.
Zhao Guqing’s face darkened; he was a bit stuck.
Right then, he heard Ye Fei speak up: "Second Uncle, you’re this afraid that the Zhao Family might be misunderstood by others."
"If I get some results in the cooking competition, you’re afraid people will misunderstand and think I relied on the Zhao Family to get them. If I don’t do well, you’re afraid of people laughing, afraid I’ll bring negative impact to everyone."
Zhao Dingye’s face was grim. Wasn’t that obvious?
What was the point of Ye Fei repeating it?
Then he saw Ye Fei smile. "I wonder where Second Uncle is working now? What position?"
Before Zhao Dingye could answer, Zhao Gushen had already cooperatively said, "He’s serving as president of a subsidiary under the Changping Group, mainly in charge of Changping Group’s mid-range chain restaurants."
Changping Group had far too many restaurant brands; after all, Changping Group occupied 57% of the market share in Hua Country’s restaurant industry.
With so many brands, they naturally split them among different subsidiaries, each responsible for different brands.
Restaurants like Qiwei and Tang Yan, those Michelin-starred ones, were under one company’s responsibility.
Fuel and Xianzai, those high-end restaurants, were under another subsidiary.
And restaurants like Xijing, the mid-range ones, were considered the lowest-tier under Changping Group, but had the widest chain distribution.
Those were assigned to Zhao Dingye.
Ye Fei smiled, nodding as if she suddenly understood.
And Zhao Dingye thought, what was Ye Fei acting all enlightened about?
Why did it feel like Ye Fei was looking down on him?
And he really didn’t guess wrong.
Ye Fei wasn’t sure if she was right, she’d never run a company, nor had she asked Zhao Gushen about Changping Group’s internal situation.
But she figured, if Zhao Dingye were really capable, would he have been assigned to a subordinate subsidiary?
He’d definitely be given an important position at the group headquarters.
He was, after all, an elder of the Zhao Family; would they shortchange him?
Moreover, even if they did assign him to a subsidiary, they still had to evaluate his abilities.
Was he suited for Michelin-starred restaurants like Qiwei and Tang Yan?
Or for high-end restaurants like Fuel and Xianzai?
Or the mid-range chain restaurants like Xijing?
Even as an outsider to corporate management, Ye Fei still knew that what Changping primarily flaunted were Michelin-starred restaurants like Qiwei and Tang Yan.
Because the brand name was loud, the quality was right there for all to see.
Those starred restaurants determined the positioning and style of the entire Changping Group.
So the subsidiary in charge of Tang Yan and Qiwei was above the subsidiary in charge of Xianzai and Fuel.
And the subsidiary in charge of Xianzai and Fuel was, in turn, above the one managing chain restaurants like Xijing.
And the fact that Zhao Dingye hadn’t been placed in either of the first two subsidiaries but only in the mid-range chain restaurant subsidiary spoke volumes about his abilities.
Don’t be fooled by how Zhao Gushen and the others didn’t like Zhao Dingye; they weren’t the type to hire based on favoritism.
If Zhao Dingye really had ability, Zhao Gushen wouldn’t suppress him just because he personally didn’t like him.
Clearly, it was that Zhao Dingye was of average ability, and on top of that, he wasn’t liked by Zhao Gushen and the others, so they exiled him to the subsidiary in charge of chain restaurants.
Of course, that wasn’t to say the chain restaurant subsidiary wasn’t important; after all, Zhao Dingye was still Zhao Gushen’s Second Uncle.
Sending him too far down the ladder wouldn’t look good either.
Most likely when Zhao Dinghuan was assigning Zhao Dingye’s position back then, he’d racked his brains over it.
Someone who wasn’t liked even by his own blood brother, whose ability wasn’t good, and who even harbored ill intent toward him.
If you wanted Ye Fei to think highly of such a person, that really was a bit difficult.
