“Fire Li You’ai!”

Once they were back at the villa, all the emotion Ye Zhen had bottled up over the course of the day finally burst out: “I can’t stand him for one more minute!”

Ye Zhen took a sip of water, but his mood still refused to settle. He stared at Jiang Xiaoyi with something almost like resentment in his eyes: “In the end, the reason he keeps targeting me is because of you—because you used me as a shield, and he’s completely convinced I stole someone’s fiancé and shattered his nephew’s dream of marrying into a wealthy family.”

“How is that my problem? Ye Zhen, wasn’t it you who taught me that people should look inward for the source of their problems? He’s targeted you time and again—you should reflect and correct yourself! And besides, what you’re doing right now is going over the chain of command! Don’t think that just because you have more chances to interact with me than Li You’ai does, you can lose yourself and try to talk me into retaliating against him! You are not President Ye anymore! You are Tom, understand?”

The angrier Ye Zhen became, the more relaxed and pleased Jiang Xiaoyi, curled up on the sofa, felt.

Being the boss over your own former boss—what a damn wonderful feeling.

She glanced at Ye Zhen, her mood couldn’t have been more satisfying: “Tom, ah, whether or not a person is happy really comes down to having the right mindset. Accept your current life circumstances, and every problem resolves itself. People need to go with the flow, be zen about it, accept your imperfect self, embrace your broken life, understand?”

Jiang Xiaoyi took an easy sip of her cola: “And frankly speaking, Li You’ai isn’t targeting you specifically—he’s like that with everyone. In our Eunuch Li’s eyes, ‘everyone present is trash.'”

Jiang Xiaoyi’s nonchalant manner did indeed infuriate Ye Zhen further—this man’s voice even rose: “Not targeting me specifically? Even though I didn’t have a good impression of Li You’ai before either—I thought he was a typical toady, fawning on his superiors and bullying his subordinates—I never expected that his subordinates actually liked him quite a lot. The moment I was parachuted in, I went through his past year-end evaluations, and for several years running, everyone in your entire Project Incubation Department gave him remarkably consistent full marks. So I assume you all must get along with him very well privately. I may not like the man, but clearly his management and people skills are decent.”

“Since you’re all in such unanimous agreement, it shows that even if he can be a bit harsh in the occasional small matter, overall, in terms of individual ability and interpersonal skills, he’s an excellent superior—that’s why you’d all give him full marks so consistently.”

“Across the whole of Ruiyi, he’s the only one with evaluation feedback like this! That proves he’s a rather outstanding mid-level manager!” Ye Zhen looked at Jiang Xiaoyi resentfully. “So this person who gets along so well with all of you, suddenly turning on me like this—isn’t that thanks to you? Shouldn’t you be responsible?”

If Ye Zhen hadn’t said anything, it would have been fine, but hearing this, Jiang Xiaoyi could barely hold back her laughter. She set down her cola, deciding it was time to knock some sense into Ye Zhen: “Ye Zhen, you really are naive. I’m in a good mood today, so I won’t charge you for this—let me give you a proper lesson on workplace ecosystems.”

“But before the lesson, let me ask you a question first. Under Ruiyi’s personnel policies, suppose a mid-to-senior manager gets rated at the bottom by department staff year after year—would you fire him?”

Though Jiang Xiaoyi’s question seemed to come out of nowhere, Ye Zhen thought about it and still answered: “Of course not.”

He pursed his lips: “There’s a natural conflict between subordinates and superiors, especially with superiors who hold themselves to high standards—they naturally raise the bar for their subordinate teams too. Working under a driven superior means far more work than working under a lax one. Your boss demands 100 points of performance from you and has you working overtime every day—do you think an employee would be happy about that?”

“Employees only want to slack off, and after being pushed hard, of course they’ll resent their superior. So employee evaluation feedback can only ever be a reference point—a mid-to-senior manager, even if given poor marks by a lot of subordinates, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s incompetent. In fact, quite the opposite—he might be exactly the type of management style that suits me, and I certainly wouldn’t fire someone over something so trivial.”

Jiang Xiaoyi rolled her eyes: “Doesn’t that settle it, then?”

Ye Zhen frowned: “Settle what?”

Jiang Xiaoyi pursed her lips: “As superior and subordinate, by your own logic, you and Li You’ai naturally have a built-in conflict, so there’s no way I’d take your one-sided account and fire him over it—especially considering his department’s performance is quite good.”

“I’m not the type of person to slack off! Fine, I’ve fallen so far as to work for you in this damned place—I’ll accept that. When he assigns me work in a reasonable way, I’ll do it. But is that reasonable work assignment?! That man has a character problem! He’s petty and difficult on purpose, a small man drunk on a little power!” Ye Zhen was furious. “Even though his status and position haven’t changed, in this world, his personality might have gotten twisted too—he might not be the same him he was before!”

“No, he’s still completely, entirely the same him.” Jiang Xiaoyi shrugged, indifferent. “Do you know why our department used to give him full marks in evaluations before?”

“It’s precisely because of bosses like you, who only look at performance results, so the so-called ‘democratic’ evaluation is just a formality gone through for show. Combined with a boss like you who completely refuses to listen to the voices of frontline employees, we knew that no matter how badly we scored him, Li You’ai would never actually be fired.”

“There are no secrets inside a company. Even though the evaluations are anonymous, our department only has so few people—if Li You’ai really wanted to investigate, he could always figure out who gave him poor marks. And then what would he do? Obviously, find whoever gave him bad scores and retaliate.”

Ye Zhen curled his lip: “Even if giving him bad scores brought you no benefit, you could have abstained. What benefit did giving him full marks against your conscience bring you? Don’t try to spin this.”

“Giving him full marks did benefit us.” Jiang Xiaoyi smiled. “Sure, we could give him bad scores, but the company still wouldn’t fire Li You’ai. But if we all gave him full marks, wouldn’t a completely out-of-touch boss like you think, ‘Wow, Li You’ai really does seem great’? If it weren’t for the fact that you transmigrated in, wouldn’t he have been promoted immediately? Once he got promoted, wouldn’t we be rid of him?”

“So if a manager gets unanimously perfect scores from his subordinates, it’s very possibly not because his reputation is genuinely that good, but because his subordinates can’t stand him and have no way to get rid of him, so all they can do is give him top marks year after year, hoping to get him promoted and shipped off somewhere else, so he’ll stop tormenting people here.”

Ye Zhen had clearly never considered such convoluted reasoning, and for a moment he was stunned.

“Young man, more time spent working is good for your intellectual development.” Jiang Xiaoyi looked at him with pity, patting his shoulder with heartfelt sincerity. “So there’s simply no way Li You’ai will be fired. You’d better just endure it.”

“The old Li You’ai treated me exactly like this. Now that he’s doing the same to you, you can’t handle it? Aren’t you a man? Shouldn’t a man be tougher than that? Or did coming to this world make you really want to find a woman to lean on?”

Hearing Jiang Xiaoyi say this, Ye Zhen did indeed grit his teeth: “A man can’t live off a woman like some kind of parasite—that would make him worthless. I can handle it!”

This tragically heroic display of resolve had Jiang Xiaoyi clapping her hands, unable to hold back: “Tom, yes! That’s the spirit! A man should act like a man! A man should never say he can’t do it! So now, go work out.”

Ye Zhen clearly hadn’t caught up yet, and frowned slightly: “What?”

“Working out.” Jiang Xiaoyi blinked, pointing at the wall clock. “It’s time.”

Ye Zhen found this simply baffling: “You want me to go work out right now?”

“Of course! Didn’t Li You’ai just treat you to Japanese food? It’s been an hour since you ate and drank your fill—time to work out!”

Jiang Xiaoyi struck while the iron was hot: “Don’t you remember? This was your own rule back when you were President Ye—that people should hold themselves to high standards, that you had to work out after work in your free time, and control your diet even more strictly the rest of the time, otherwise you wouldn’t be fit to be your own assistant.”

“I thought it over afterward, and you know, you had a really good point. Even though President Ye has now become Tom, I was so moved by this spirit of holding yourself to high standards that I’ve decided to provide you with the venue and the supervision, saving you the annual cost of a gym membership, so you can continue your great fitness endeavor!”

Jiang Xiaoyi went on, giving Ye Zhen a meaningful glance: “Besides, working people especially need to work out properly—otherwise how will you have the strong physique to keep pulling overtime? After all, the body is the capital of a working person! Off you go! Make sure you work out for a full hour!”

…

Ye Zhen genuinely cared about maintaining his physique—back in his old life, working out and controlling his diet had already become natural habits, requiring no supervision at all, simply a way of life. Working out had been an almost daily way for Ye Zhen to refresh himself; he enjoyed and savored the feeling of it.

But now…

But now, Ye Zhen stood gasping for breath on the treadmill, feeling as though every single minute was torture.

For the first time, he realized that working out wasn’t always an enjoyable thing—

Tormented all day by Li You’ai, he was already exhausted. All he wanted now was to lie in bed and shut himself off from the world; he had no desire to move at all.

He used to think being a boss required strategic thinking and thus was exhausting, while being a low-level worker didn’t require thinking about the company’s overall direction, just following orders handed down from above one step at a time. But now that he had actually become one, he realized it was far more exhausting than he had ever imagined.

A low-level worker truly didn’t need to worry about the company’s development direction, because they didn’t have the time to worry about it—the tasks assigned by superiors each day were already more than enough. Aside from tormenting him personally, Li You’ai was also erratic to a fantastical degree, coming up with one idea after another—one moment he wanted an analysis chart of project incubation success rates, the next he wanted an ROI performance table.

Back when Ye Zhen was a boss himself, he had asked subordinate departments for reports like these plenty of times—yet things that only took him ten-odd minutes to review, once he actually had to produce them himself, he realized even mechanical, repetitive data entry took an enormous amount of effort.

If it wasn’t running errands, it was staring at a screen making spreadsheets—by the end of the day, Ye Zhen felt like his eyes were going blind.

Li You’ai’s “Japanese food” had been far too skimpy to begin with—there hadn’t been many pieces of sushi—and now, forced to exercise on top of it, after an hour of sweating it out, Ye Zhen could no longer tell whether it was making the spreadsheets all day that had left his vision blurry, or hunger.

Jiang Xiaoyi hadn’t actually forced him to work out the full hour under these circumstances—yet her behavior was worse than outright coercion.

This damned woman had installed a camera in the gym, complete with a speaker, and lay on the sofa watching Ye Zhen’s workout live stream while enthusiastically shouting into the mic—

“Ye Zhen, if you’re really too tired, don’t push yourself. We’re in a new era now—men are allowed to say they can’t do it!”

“Oh my, why has your running speed slowed down so noticeably? Are you losing stamina?”

“That’s some heavy breathing—don’t you work out every single day? Are you lying about that?”

…

This noisy woman chattered on for a good while before she finally got to the point—

“Ye Zhen, I, Lady Jiang Xiaoyi, don’t hold grudges against those beneath me. What you did before was out of ignorance, no real fault of yours—I’m sure by now you’ve come to appreciate just how hard it is to be a working person. If you’re willing to properly apologize to me, I’ll let this go, I won’t torment you anymore. After work, you can go straight home and lie down as much as you like.”

Apologize to her? Not in this life!

Wasn’t Jiang Xiaoyi just riding high on stealing his life and starting her big comeback?

Ye Zhen absolutely refused to bow his head to this kind of petty tyranny!

He gritted his teeth and kept running, craning his neck to hold the line of his own dignity: “I wasn’t wrong!”

Ye Zhen panted, but his tone remained hard: “Isn’t this just you trying to prove that after I’ve fallen to the status of a working man, I’ll also degrade myself and lower my standards like you did? I won’t let you get what you want. I’ll show you what a truly strong person looks like.”

A truly strong person, no matter their status, whether in hardship or in comfort, would never simply drift with the tide! It was just working out! Ye Zhen felt he could push through! He absolutely could not let Jiang Xiaoyi have the satisfaction of watching him make a fool of himself!

Even though his stomach growled rebelliously after his workout, Ye Zhen still resolutely ate a bowl of healthy salad.

This had been a habit he’d originally cultivated. But whereas a salad that seemed entirely healthy and green used to taste fine, now, eating it felt like chewing on grass—not only did it fail to fill him up, the more he ate, the hungrier he got.

There was instant noodles in the kitchen; he could have secretly eaten some without Jiang Xiaoyi ever finding out, but Ye Zhen’s fierce sense of pride wouldn’t allow him to lower himself in such a way.

Was instant noodles even food fit for people? That kind of high-calorie fried food, just like fast-food burgers, was something only the poor ate in the West—could an elite man like himself, with healthy principles and a passion for fitness, possibly eat something like that? That would be a betrayal of over twenty years of his own upbringing!

But the healthy salad was already finished, and hunger left Ye Zhen with no other choice but to drink water.

Wouldn’t drinking his fill of water make the hunger go away?

Drinking plenty of water was good for the body! Very healthy! Very much in line with his own life philosophy!

And so, Ye Zhen drank a great deal of water, and that very night, through his own effort, drank himself straight into the hospital.

**

“Doctor, what’s wrong with him? It’s probably kidney weakness, right? He said his stomach hurt and he felt dizzy and uncomfortable—I heard him running back and forth to the bathroom several times from upstairs. A man going to the bathroom that often, that’s got to be a kidney problem, right? He suddenly fainted—it’s not uremia, is it?”

“It’s not uremia. Don’t worry, it’s not serious, and no medication is needed.”

…

Ye Zhen, still dizzy and nauseous, lay on the hospital bed and heard Jiang Xiaoyi not far away, going on at length about kidney weakness—

“So it’s simply kidney weakness, then? Is there some kind of health supplement for that? Something like Huiren Kidney Treasure, or some kind of male tonic pill? He’s not even thirty—how could he end up like this!”

This woman’s thought process really did jump around a lot—before the doctor could even respond, she’d already moved on to her next question: “Also, right, Doctor, if he’s suffering from kidney weakness, and he collapsed at home by himself after work, does that count as a work injury? The company doesn’t need to pay compensation, right?”

“You could put it this way, Doctor—working out is part of his job, and I’m his boss, and I had him work out tonight, and then this happened to him. Am I responsible for that? Probably not, right? He’s probably just too weak, right? I don’t even know why he’s so weak at such a young age—he ran for one hour and nearly died. After this, there’s no way I’m letting him work out anymore!”

“……”

Ye Zhen still felt unwell, but Jiang Xiaoyi really did have this ability to make him “spring up from his deathbed in a fit of indignation.” Ye Zhen struggled to sit up and, in a state of bodily ruin but unbroken will, argued back: “I’m—not—weak…”

“You’re awake, good, good, you’re awake. You’re not weak, you’re not weak.”

Hearing Ye Zhen’s voice, Jiang Xiaoyi immediately turned around, but even as her mouth affirmed that Ye Zhen wasn’t weak, the sympathy on her face was one step away from materializing into a caption reading “poor thing, so young and already suffering from kidney weakness”…

Fortunately, the doctor cleared his throat and cleared Ye Zhen’s name: “He’s suffering from water intoxication.”

“Water intoxication?! There’s poison in the water?”

“No, that’s not it. Simply put, it means the amount of water entering the body is far greater than the amount being expelled, which causes plasma osmotic pressure to drop and circulating blood volume to increase. Clinically, it’s also called dilutional hyponatremia.” The doctor smiled, then looked somewhat puzzled. “But this condition is rarely seen clinically, especially in a young man whose other health indicators are all completely normal… because normal people wouldn’t drink that much water. Patient, why did you drink so much water in the middle of the night?”

“……” Ye Zhen craned his neck, looking away, trying his best to stay composed. “I just suddenly felt thirsty.”

“But normal thirst wouldn’t make someone drink that much water, would it? Doesn’t it feel uncomfortably full?” the doctor muttered. “The last case of water intoxication we admitted was a homeless man—he had nothing to eat, and out of hunger drank water until it made him sick. You’re a young man who looks fairly well off—why would you drink that much water for no reason? Were you drinking continuously, feeling especially thirsty the whole time?”

There was no way Ye Zhen would admit he had also gotten poisoned from drinking water out of hunger. Under Jiang Xiaoyi’s puzzled gaze, he maintained his composure from before with all his might: “I just kept feeling thirsty even after drinking, and probably drank too much. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Your water intoxication symptoms are very mild—you just need to wait for normal urination to recover, no need to worry, young man. Your kidneys are perfectly healthy, definitely no problem there.”

Having received the doctor’s confirmation, Ye Zhen finally felt he’d scored a point back. He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi and snorted coldly: “Did you hear that? My kidneys are perfectly fine! I—”

But before he could finish speaking, he heard the doctor continue: “That said, young man, I’d recommend you go get a full checkup in neurosurgery. The hypothalamus is responsible for regulating thirst, hunger, and sleep—your persistent, extreme thirst might indicate an issue in that region.”

“……”

Wonderful, truly wonderful. His kidney issue was cleared up, only for his brain to become the new suspect.