Lin Yusen carried my backpack while I swung his hand as we walked toward the parking lot.
“Don’t you have to entertain them tonight? It might be awkward if I suddenly show up… I’ll just rest at the hotel, don’t worry about me.”
“Forget about them. I’ll show you around Chengdu.”
Huh?
Though my purpose was to travel, I didn’t want to interfere with business matters. I couldn’t help but guess, “Has everything been resolved already?”
“Not yet.”
Then how could he just ignore it? He must be joking.
But then Lin Yusen took out his phone and made a call, “Manager Qi, I’m sorry, but I have something tonight, so I won’t be able to join you for dinner… My girlfriend came to Chengdu to play, I need to accompany her or she’ll be angry… We can discuss any matters when we’re back at work. It’s not good to bother you too much during the May Day holiday…”
I stood beside him, watching dumbfounded as he casually said a few words before hanging up and continuing toward the parking lot. I hurriedly caught up and grabbed him.
“Hey, you don’t need to accompany me! Settling the production line is important, you can’t leave the new factory empty after the inspection… No, aren’t you being too irresponsible!”
Lin Yusen laughed heartily, lowered his head, and cupped my face for a kiss, “How can you be so cute?”
“Mmph… your hands are in the way.” My squeezed face made my words unintelligible.
“We figured out the situation yesterday,” Lin Yusen released his hands and explained, “Sister Chen helped contact two former colleagues. I drank with Manager Qi while Xiao Xie went to probe for information on the other end. We already know which company is trying to interfere. So we can let Manager Qi stew for a bit.”
I didn’t understand: “Stew?”
“Yes, let him stew. Meanwhile, we’ll have someone hint to that company that there are some problems with the equipment that their technology can’t solve. This isn’t exactly a lie. Of course, we can’t give them the information directly – they need to learn about it ‘accidentally.’ Manager Qi will come looking for us afterward.”
Oh…
“Alright then.” I started walking again, “Quick, take me to eat, I’m starving.”
At the airport’s private parking lot, Lin Yusen took out his car keys and opened the car.
I glanced at it, “Is this a company car arranged in Chengdu? No driver?” When company executives travel for business negotiations, certain standards should be maintained.
“No,” Lin Yusen answered, “I canceled the business car as soon as I got your message. I just rented this one myself – it’ll be more convenient to have a car these few days.”
That made sense.
I turned to get in the car but was pulled back by Lin Yusen. He looked at me with burning eyes: “Aren’t you going to ask what it’s convenient for?”
What else could it be convenient for?
“Of course, it’s convenient for sightseeing everywhere.”
“Wrong.” Lin Yusen shook his head with an expression that suggested I was beyond teaching, then leaned in to peck my lips, happily telling me the correct answer, “It’s convenient for being irresponsible.”
Me: “…”
Someone was satisfied with just one kiss before going to play Driver. I didn’t say anything until the car had left the parking lot and gotten onto the airport expressway, where there was visibly nowhere to stop. Only then did I casually call out: “Lin Yusen.”
“Hmm?” He kept his eyes on the road, concentrating on driving.
“Your moment of irresponsibility was a bit short.”
…Miscalculation.
How was I supposed to know the drive from Shuangliu Airport to the restaurant would be so short too?
So at the next parking lot, it took us nearly ten minutes after parking before we got out of the car…
In the future, I must check the terrain before speaking!
Our first meal in Chengdu was naturally hot pot. Lin Yusen said he had already done his research while waiting for me at the airport, guaranteeing that every meal in the coming days would be top-tier local food that only natives would know about.
“Can you handle spicy food?”
On the way to the hot pot restaurant, two Jiangnan people inevitably discussed the spice question.
“Of course.”
“I’m good at it too!” I immediately showed off, “Actually, I couldn’t eat spicy food before, but when I went to study in Nanjing, there were lots of spicy dishes there. The sour fish soup outside the school was terribly spicy but incredibly delicious, so I was forced to learn to eat spicy food.”
“I never had to train myself, but these past couple of days have been fine. I occasionally go to Sichuan restaurants too. Your Senior Brother Fang is completely hopeless at this though.”
“He’s that bad? Then next time let’s treat him to Sichuan food!”
During the short walk from the parking lot to the hot pot restaurant, we jointly looked down on Senior Brother Fang who was far away, proudly boasting about our spice tolerance. But when we got to the restaurant where the air was thick with spicy fragrance and ordered a medium-spicy soup base, we each needed three bottles of mineral water after just the first bite.
One bottle for rinsing, two for drinking, with more on standby if needed.
“Maybe we should have ordered mild spicy or split pot?” I looked around and discussed quietly with Lin Yusen.
“I heard if you ask for a split pot, the server will announce it loudly to everyone. Why don’t you try asking next time? They might be more considerate about saving face for a girl.”
…But what if they still announce it to the whole restaurant? Don’t I need a face too?
Mr. Lin’s character is declining day by day!
I looked around, “Maybe you should try to hide your rinsing movements a bit? It’s quite unseemly for a man of your stature to eat spicy food like this.”
Lin Yusen wasn’t bothered at all: “A true man knows when to be humble.”
“How did you manage eating these past few days? You couldn’t have been rinsing food in front of the locals, right?”
“Looking back now, Manager Qi must have been accommodating me,” Lin Yusen sighed, “There’s this place with really good food, I’ll take you there later. It doesn’t even have a name, just some tables and bamboo chairs set up by the road. It’s quite interesting.”
Business dinners were like that? This Manager Qi seemed quite down-to-earth.
Speaking Manager Qi reminded me of the production line, which then reminded me of the auxiliary materials contract.
Oh right, how could I have forgotten about this!
I quickly put down my chopsticks and excitedly said: “Lin Yusen, I forgot to tell you, I think I accomplished something big!”
I rapidly explained everything, and as expected, received Lin Yusen’s surprise and praise.
“You did beautifully, far exceeding my expectations.”
I looked very pleased with myself.
“What made you think to do this?” Lin Yusen asked.
“First, I realized something – the Sheng family wronged me, so they should be the ones giving me an explanation. I shouldn’t have to prove my innocence to them, so I needed to be a bit more aggressive.” I picked up my chopsticks again and very seriously blanched a spoonful of beef.
Lin Yusen corrected me: “The burden of proof lies with the accuser – that’s called being righteous, not aggressive.”
“You’re right.” I readily accepted his point – indeed, there was no need to make myself sound so domineering, “Then it was because I lost so much this time!”
“Since I’d already taken such a big loss, I had to find a way to make up for it somewhere else. Don’t they say crisis equals opportunity? So I tried hard to think where the opportunity might be, to recover at least some losses. Since it involved Uncle Sheng, it was easy to think of that contract. You talked about focusing on the main contradiction, and I felt this was the main contradiction.”
Lin Yusen smiled: “That’s not quite what I meant back then.”
“It’s close enough, I’m naturally gifted at drawing parallels.” I said proudly, “Anyway, on my way there, I wasn’t sad at all. It felt like I was going to fight a battle, and I was even a bit excited.”
Lin Yusen looked at me intently: “It seems our Xiguang is capable of great things.”
“Really?” I was eager to hear more.
“Of course. Being able to set aside emotional interference, turn crisis into opportunity, and transform disadvantage into advantage requires excellent adaptability and robust psychological qualities.”
Lin Yusen is so much better at praising than my dad!
He has a theory behind it, unlike my dad who ultimately just wants to praise himself.
Although I knew Lin Yusen’s words were quite exaggerated, I was still delighted and attentively gave him an extremely spicy piece of tofu skin, “Oh no, no, it’s all thanks to CEO Lin’s guidance.”
Meat becomes less spicy after a quick rinse, but tofu skin that’s absorbed all the soup remains incredibly spicy.
Lin Yusen looked at the tofu skin and thoughtfully picked up some vegetables for me, “Don’t just eat meat, have some vegetables too.”
I looked at the vegetables covered in chili…
CEO Lin also had excellent skills in adapting situations to trick people.
We were probably what they call “bad at it but love it” – somehow we managed to finish everything despite the spiciness. When paying the bill, the young waiter glanced at our mineral water used for rinsing and curiously asked: “Where are you from? Can’t even handle this level of spice.”
“Shanghai,” I said immediately.
“Jiangsu,” Lin Yusen said almost simultaneously.
???
Did this count as successful or failed framing?
“Ah, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region,” the waiter caught us all in one net, even dragging in innocent little Zhejiang, “I could tell. Next time don’t order medium spicy, just get mild spicy.”
We left the restaurant in shame, but immediately forgot the lesson and went to eat spicy grilled rabbit (with mineral water). By the time we got in the car to return to the hotel, I could feel my lips swelling from the spiciness.
The car stopped in the hotel parking lot, and I belatedly thought of a key question – tonight… um, I should get another room, right? After all, we’d only been together for a few months…
But would Lin Yusen think that was too distant?
While I was quietly agonizing over this, as soon as we entered the hotel lobby, we ran into his colleague Xiao Xie who had come to Chengdu with him.
Xiao Xie seemed to be returning from a late-night snack too, smelling of spicy hot pot and humming happily, until the moment he saw us.
His song cut off abruptly as he looked back and forth between Lin Yusen and me in shock, which quickly turned to the awkwardness of discovering his superior’s private life.
I felt a bit embarrassed too… running to find your boyfriend while he’s on a business trip seemed quite clingy. Only Lin Yusen remained completely at ease, “Xiao Xie, perfect timing, I was looking for you.”
“Huh?” Xiao Xie stood dumbfounded.
“You have a twin room, right? I’ll sleep in your room tonight.”
“Oh, yeah, sure sure. I’ll go tidy up right away.”
Xiao Xie ran off immediately.
Lin Yusen turned to look at me, “You can sleep in my room tonight.”
I smiled with pressed lips, “Okay, do you need to go tidy up first?”