Chapter 39: Chapter 39: The Arrogant Assistant
The moment Xiang Ling spoke, everyone else fell silent.
"What are we going to do? I feel like we have no future!"
"Yeah, we’re all supervisors, but the supervisors for other brands make way more than us. It’s like we’re the unloved stepchildren!"
"A useless soldier is just one person, but a useless general ruins the whole army. Whether we do well or not depends on our leader, right?"
Han Ya laughed. "What about our leader? If being handsome could feed you, he could definitely keep us full!"
Xiang Ling lowered her voice. "You want the new leader to ’keep you full’?"
Han Ya scoffed. "I’m not that easy to satisfy."
Ji Kun said shamelessly, "How about you consider me?"
"Not a chance!"
"Why?" Ji Kun exclaimed dramatically.
"Because you’re ugly!"
"My defenses are shattered! I’m going to go cry for a bit!"
"What’s there to cry about? I’m not done yet. You’re not just ugly, you’re also useless!"
They were used to messing around like this, and their jokes knew no bounds.
Zhu Jing was relatively more composed and couldn’t be bothered with their nonsense. She coolly took the approval form to get it countersigned by the relevant departments.
A short while later, she returned with a dark expression.
Han Ya asked, "What’s wrong?"
"Our boss gave us such a great plan, and all the other departments signed off on it, but when it got to the President’s assistant, she wouldn’t approve it!"
"Damn it, she’s always on a power trip. The President asked her to act as a gatekeeper, and now she thinks she *is* the President."
"It’s just because she’s a little pretty and knows how to keep President Li happy. Otherwise, who the hell does she think she is!"
Zhu Jing said in a low voice, "She also said she’s going to call and chew out our boss. She said he’s evading responsibility, just spouting nonsense ideas because he doesn’t want to face the penalty. She also asked if he even uses his brain when he signs things, saying his signing authority isn’t meant to be used recklessly."
Xiang Ling sighed. "She’s used to being arrogant, and the President protects her. Forget our boss, even President Shan doesn’t dare to provoke her."
Zhu Jing said worriedly, "If I’d known, I wouldn’t have told the boss. We should’ve just taken the pay cut. Now our boss is going to get chewed out right after he just started."
Yang Hui had already arrived at the restaurant. As the host, he naturally had to be there early.
A few minutes later, Zhang Chun arrived. He was still wearing an earpiece when he came in, talking about work. It looked like he was in a meeting.
’Brother Chun came all this way to back me up, even leaving a meeting to do it.’ He was a little touched.
Given Zhang Chun’s rank, any meeting he attended was bound to be important.
He poured Zhang Chun a glass of water. Because he was still discussing work, Zhang Chun gestured for Yang Hui to wait a moment, indicating he’d be finished soon.
When Wang Qing arrived, Zhang Chun was still on his call. He just nodded at him.
When he learned that Zhang Chun had ducked out of a meeting to join Yang Hui’s lunch, he couldn’t help but glance at Yang Hui a few times. ’Could this guy be some hidden big shot, to make Zhang Chun go to such lengths?’
When Yang Hui poured him some water, he quickly stood up and received the glass with both hands.
He had unconsciously started treating Yang Hui as his equal.
Just then, Zhang Chun finished his meeting and walked over. "Sorry about that. I was just in a group meeting. The chairman was assigning tasks."
Wang Qing was taking a sip of water and immediately choked.
COUGH... COUGH...
"Sorry, it went down the wrong pipe!"
’A storm was raging in his heart. He left a meeting run by the chairman just to come and back up Yang Hui?’
That was the chairman of Xinyue Group, a man in charge of a trillion-dollar commercial empire! He was nothing like a local department store owner such as himself.
Although he was also a chairman, he was a nobody in front of Zhang Chun.
Yang Hui was used to Zhang Chun looking out for him, but he never expected it to be this outrageous. It was as if he was more important to Zhang Chun than his own chairman.
He invited Zhang Chun to take the seat of honor, but Zhang Chun waved his hand. "You’re the host today. You take the main seat."
In the end, he couldn’t win against Zhang Chun. A 24-year-old kid like him, eating with the regional director of Xinyue Group and the chairman of Yida Department Store, sitting at the head of the table... he felt like he was sitting on pins and needles.
He had just sat down when his phone rang.
He glanced at it, saw it was an unknown number, and hung up.
He told the waiter to start bringing the food. Since it was the middle of a workday, the three of them wouldn’t be drinking.
Just as he was about to offer a few pleasantries, his phone rang again.
Zhang Chun thought he wasn’t answering out of politeness, since he and Wang Qing were there.
"A Hui, go ahead and take your call."
Yang Hui picked it up and saw it was the same unknown number from before.
He pressed the answer button, about to ask who was calling.
The person on the other end was already firing off like a machine gun. "Xiaoyang, you actually hung up on me?
Get over to my office right now. You have ten minutes!"
’Is this person crazy?’
Yang Hui had to hold the phone slightly away from his ear; the voice on the other end was deafening.
"Who is this?"
The caller finally realized Yang Hui didn’t know who she was and said irritably, "I’m President Li’s assistant, Cai Miao!"
’President Li’s assistant? An assistant, acting so high and mighty. Back at Ruijing Commerce, President Zhao’s assistant was always so respectful to me.’
’Is this how Li Yang trains his subordinates? Letting an assistant be so disrespectful to a department manager?’
"I’m out on business right now. We can talk this afternoon."
With that, he hung up the phone.
Zhang Chun couldn’t hear what the other person said, but from Yang Hui’s attitude and tone, it was clearly unpleasant.
He’d said they could talk in the afternoon, so it was probably someone from the company.
He asked with concern, "Someone from Futong Commerce?"
Yang Hui grunted in affirmation.
Wang Qing was still wondering how Yang Hui was connected to Futong Commerce when he heard Zhang Chun say, "If you ask me, we should have President Tian call Li Yang. What’s the point of being an operations manager at some crummy company like that? Even the general manager position would be beneath you!"
Yang Hui shot an embarrassed glance at Wang Qing. ’Bro, you can’t hype me up *that* much. I’m blushing here!’
’Beneath me to be a general manager? Is Li Yang supposed to just gift me the whole company?’
Only then did Wang Qing realize that Yang Hui had gone to Futong Commerce. Yang Hui then explained that he was now in charge of the "Airex" brand.
"President Zhang is right. With your abilities, being a brand operations manager over there is a real waste of your talent. You should at least be a general manager. Or, how about I have a word with Li Yang?"
Li Yang’s partnership with Wang Qing was also significant, involving around eighty stores. It wasn’t much smaller than his business with Xinyue Square, it was just that the performance of individual stores wasn’t as high.
You could say that Li Yang built his business on the backs of Xinyue Square and Yida Department Store. In recent years, Yida Department Store had been declining, while Xinyue Square had been growing.
President Tian and Wang Qing were the two people in Qingjiang that Li Yang could least afford to offend. They were his most important clients—the ones paying the bills, the ones he absolutely could not afford to offend.
Wang Qing said this to echo Zhang Chun, and the effect was obvious. He immediately earned Zhang Chun’s goodwill.
This regional director of Xinyue Square, this business tycoon, acted like a doting parent protecting their calf whenever Yang Hui was involved, completely throwing reason out the window.
"My two big brothers, I appreciate the kind thought, but right now I just need to learn the ropes one step at a time."
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