In the past, whenever Ye Zhen worked out, he’d wake up the next morning feeling refreshed and energized. But apparently this world was cursed, because this time, when he got up, his whole body felt nothing but resistance. Thanks to his years of habitual working out, his muscles weren’t sore, but every cell in his body seemed to be screaming refusal—working out after a day at the office was practically a disguised form of overtime, leaving him exhausted in body and spirit.
The only silver lining was that the damned water intoxication had, at least, resolved itself.
To comply with the clock-in system Li You’ai had set, Ye Zhen arrived at the office early, and now sat listlessly at his desk yawning.
“Tom!”
Before Ye Zhen could even shake off his drowsiness, Li You’ai raised his voice and started assigning him tasks—
“Go reserve a conference room!”
“Prepare the name placards! Notify all the executives who need to attend! Prepare the meeting materials, and serve tea and pour water! Get moving!”
“Boss Jiang wants to hold a full mid-to-senior-management meeting—she’s asked our department to handle the preparations!”
“Serving tea and pouring water too?” Ye Zhen glanced at the female intern seated beside him. “Can’t that be handed to her? Isn’t that always the new hire’s job…”
Before Ye Zhen could finish, Li You’ai cut him off with a sarcastic tone: “What nonsense are you talking? The new hire is a woman—of course a man handles serving tea and pouring water! Unless we’re recruiting a male new hire next time, it’s naturally always going to be you doing it.”
With that, Li You’ai glanced at the female intern with something bordering on lingering fear, as if looking at a treasure: “This female intern—I had to fight another department for her. If I hadn’t managed to snag her, I would’ve been stuck with some money-losing male intern instead. Train him for a while, and next thing you know he’d be telling you he’s getting married and quitting to become a full-time husband.”
“Our Project Incubation Department is all about pushing forward on performance—how are we supposed to manage that with hardly any female employees? Since ancient times, men have never been able to balance career and family. For the sake of the company, I sacrificed my own personal happiness. A weak man like me, through my own hard work, finally managed to become the little section head of this department, and now every single day feels like walking on thin ice—and isn’t that all because of young men like you who are lazy and love comfort? It’s precisely because of people like you that society’s opinion of us men has fallen so low!”
Li You’ai went off on this tangent, rambling on and on for a while, before finally slipping downstairs to get a facial.
It wasn’t that Ye Zhen had no way to deal with Li You’ai—he simply couldn’t be bothered. Someone at Li You’ai’s level wasn’t worth his interest at all—fighting with someone this low-level would only lower his own standing.
And besides, deep down, Ye Zhen still clung to the belief that he would return to his original world. He was firmly convinced that in this current environment, he only needed to lie low for a brief period of time, so there was no need to draw unnecessary attention to himself.
In everything, more caution was needed. Better safe than sorry.
So Ye Zhen didn’t stoop to Li You’ai’s level. He thought to himself about how he’d properly deal with him once he got back, and, suppressing his emotions, got the conference room ready.
Ye Zhen understood the division of responsibilities among Ruiyi’s upper management thoroughly, and he also knew that even among executives of the same rank, there were subtle differences in the scope of their authority—a difference that was also reflected in the order of the name placards. If an executive with greater authority within the same rank was placed after one with lesser authority, it would be a serious offense—after all, some petty-minded executives would absolutely make a fuss over it.
But traps that ordinary low-level employees easily fell into when arranging name placards simply didn’t exist for Ye Zhen—he arranged them at lightning speed without even needing to think it through.
The rest of it—checking and preparing the conference room equipment, the meeting materials, the tea and water—was just physical labor. Though he looked down on it, having now resolved to lie low and avoid a direct confrontation with Li You’ai, Ye Zhen completed it all quickly.
The remaining task of notifying the executives to attend was, of course, no trouble for him either—after sending out the email notification, Ye Zhen also texted every executive individually with the meeting time. For anyone who hadn’t clearly confirmed, he specially called them, and for anyone who answered, he recorded the phone call.
By the time Jiang Xiaoyi stood at the head of the table, looking at a row of uniformly empty executive seats, her expression, sure enough, wasn’t good.
This outcome came as no surprise—in this world, too, Jiang Xiaoyi had only recently been parachuted into Ruiyi, and this was her first time chairing a senior management meeting. She was so young and had no management experience—how could that pack of old foxes at Ruiyi possibly show her much deference or obedience?
History has a way of repeating itself in eerily similar ways—Ye Zhen knew almost exactly what Jiang Xiaoyi was about to go through in this meeting.
Though it did feel a bit slow taking over Jiang Xiaoyi’s old duties—after all, Ye Zhen was still reluctant deep down, and this felt like using a cleaver to kill a chicken—if he actually put his mind to it, there was no way Ye Zhen would lose to Jiang Xiaoyi.
He looked at the printed email notifications, text message evidence, and recorded audio materials laid out beside him, preparing to watch with detached interest as Jiang Xiaoyi got a merciless dressing-down from Ruiyi’s pack of old foxes—these executives would surely claim they never received the notice, but Ye Zhen had already kept the evidence, so if Jiang Xiaoyi tried to make him take the fall, that simply wasn’t going to happen.
Except, the anticipated scenario—Jiang Xiaoyi flying into a rage the way he himself once had—never happened.
She kept a straight face, but didn’t lose her temper. Instead, she personally began calling the absent executives one by one, right there in the conference room—
“Uncle Zhang, yes, it’s Jiang Xiaoyi. I used to hear my mother talk about you often. This is my first time coming to Ruiyi for a meeting, and I wanted to see everyone. Mm, okay, I’ll wait for you.”
“Director Miao, it’s Jiang Xiaoyi. I heard you took leave because you weren’t feeling well? But there’s a major personnel change on today’s agenda—how about this, please come to the meeting first, and afterward I’ll give you two days off. Today’s meeting won’t take too long either.”
…
Watching Jiang Xiaoyi personally call each executive one by one, so humbly, Ye Zhen simply didn’t want to watch.
Because it was too embarrassing to bear.
Being courteous and well-mannered with this pack of old foxes was, quite simply, useless.
Yet Jiang Xiaoyi clearly didn’t see it that way. With a warm and gentle manner, she personally notified every single executive again, without feeling the slightest bit of shame over it.
A newly parachuted-in top executive, waiting in the conference room for her own executives for a full half hour—only then did that pack of absent old foxes come sauntering in, one by one.
“So sorry, Boss Jiang, I didn’t receive the notification.”
“Neither did I.”
“Little Jiang, your assistant really is something—how could he fail to notify everyone properly?”
This was exactly what Ye Zhen had been waiting for.
Ye Zhen was no soft persimmon to be squeezed by just anyone. He immediately, coldly, handed Jiang Xiaoyi the full set of materials he’d already prepared: “I have proof of every notification—here are the emails I sent, the texts, and the recordings of the phone calls, this—”
Unfortunately, before Ye Zhen could finish, Jiang Xiaoyi, without so much as glancing at the materials in his hand, cut him off directly, her tone dripping with exaggerated disappointment: “Ye Zhen, if your work isn’t up to standard, you should apologize immediately, not make excuses and even cook up a whole pile of flimsy fake evidence!”
She smiled and looked at the executives: “How could our Director Zhang, Director Miao, and Director Li possibly lie? If they’d actually received the notification, how could they possibly not come to the meeting? Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
“Exactly.”
…
Ye Zhen had made every preparation, yet never expected the outcome would be this—being condemned no matter how justified he was.
That damned Jiang Xiaoyi, in order to maintain peaceful relations with the executives, had actually thrown him under the bus!
Sure enough, Jiang Xiaoyi, keeping a cold expression, disregarded Ye Zhen’s evidence entirely and gave him a formal disciplinary write-up.
Having finished the reprimand, this woman’s tone shifted, and she turned to the executives with a smile again: “The main reason I called everyone together today is that I’d like to make some adjustments for the company’s future.”
This was, indeed, Jiang Xiaoyi’s genuine intention.
Having been Boss Jiang for a while now and gradually grown familiar with her surroundings, she’d been wanting to make bold changes for some time.
Since fate had granted her this reversal of fortune, she shouldn’t just focus on enjoying it—she should do something with it.
With a foundation as good as Ruiyi’s, if it weren’t for the fact that several managers weren’t well matched to their positions, plus long-standing cliques of insiders banding together against outsiders, along with overly complicated procedural processes, and some departments serving no real purpose, the company could have long since turned a profit.
Jiang Xiaoyi felt that, having come up from the grassroots herself, she had a more intimate understanding of the company’s chronic ailments. She promptly announced: “Director Zhang will continue managing the cultural and entertainment industry planning sector he knows best; Director Miao will focus on tracking industry trends and conducting regular analysis of market movements; Director Li, who is well acquainted with the business community, will lead corporate research and project coordination going forward…”
She wasn’t going to reshuffle executives like a game of house the way Ye Zhen had. Jiang Xiaoyi understood each executive’s strengths and had decided to maximize each of them to their fullest—those skilled at something would be put where that skill would shine.
This personnel reshuffle of hers did leave the executives present somewhat surprised, but soon, satisfied smiles appeared on their faces—each of them had gotten the position they wanted.
Just like that.
Jiang Xiaoyi believed that as long as she remained sincere enough—even while young, as long as she stayed humble, eager to learn, and courteous, willing to properly learn from these executives, without overstepping her bounds or reaching too far—she would surely win their understanding, and ultimately make Ruiyi better and better.
The meeting ended with everyone present in an atmosphere of harmony—everyone, that is, except for Ye Zhen, whose face had turned dark.
The executives left in high spirits, and the meeting room was left with only Jiang Xiaoyi, who had stayed behind, and Ye Zhen, who had been assigned the post-meeting cleanup.
With no one else around, this man finally confronted Jiang Xiaoyi—
“You did that out of personal spite.” Ye Zhen waved the printed materials in his hand. “I did my job properly. I notified every single one of them, and kept the proof for every one too.”
Jiang Xiaoyi, quite pleased with how the meeting had gone, hummed a tune and shrugged: “So what? Wasn’t that exactly what you did to me before? Back then, you didn’t even ask whether I’d notified them or not, you just flatly declared I’d failed in my duties, didn’t you?”
“You genuinely had failed in your duties, because you never anticipated a situation like this could happen. You sent the email, sure, but that’s just your word against theirs—did you print out the email page the way I did? Did you record the phone call notifications? Did you bring a recorded version with you? You had nothing.”
“Being an assistant is inherently a job that heavily tests coordination and communication skills, as well as emotional intelligence. As an assistant, you shouldn’t think your job is done just because you finished the task—you need a sense of self-protection, and you also need to consider things from your boss’s position. You should have anticipated the subtle, sensitive dynamics between executives, and prepared contingency plans.”
“If you’d pulled out evidence back then and taken the initiative to expose the executive lying, I would have had your back and punished them severely.”
Ye Zhen looked at Jiang Xiaoyi coldly: “You had none of that, so when I punished you back then, I wasn’t wrong.”
Every time Jiang Xiaoyi thought back on that incident, all she felt was resentment and grievance—she had never once considered it from Ye Zhen’s point of view.
Now, with him bringing it up so unexpectedly, she found herself stunned.
Back then, she’d been too caught up in her own hurt feelings to reflect on whether she herself might have been at fault. Now, with Ye Zhen raising it this way, Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly realized—back then, she really could have done better.
Though Ye Zhen’s attitude was poor and his temper even worse, what he was saying did hold a grain of truth.
But Ye Zhen’s next words quickly dispelled any urge Jiang Xiaoyi had to reflect further—
“You just don’t dare offend that pack of old foxes, so you threw me under the bus instead.” Ye Zhen’s tone carried no intention of communicating at all, hard and laced with mockery. “You’re too soft. Being soft means you have no way to manage a company. Do you think throwing me under the bus will make them grateful to you? That’s a pipe dream. You’re too lenient with every single one of these executives, but they won’t be lenient with you in return—just wait until they start giving you attitude.”
Ye Zhen spoke with utter certainty, and by this point, gave a cold laugh: “Giving Ruiyi to you is simply a nightmare. You have no ability whatsoever.”
Jiang Xiaoyi wasn’t opposed to conversing as equals, yet there was something about the way Ye Zhen carried himself, so high and mighty, that always made her uncomfortable.
“It was my mistake not to keep proper evidence back then. You told me I should have thought from the boss’s perspective, and I admit, I didn’t do that. But Ye Zhen, did you ever try putting yourself in my shoes? You grew up with no worries, in a good family—you’re not afraid of losing this job. But I am. So you could afford, just now, to not fear offending the executives and to proactively distance yourself from blame by producing evidence.”
“But I can’t. Even if I’d had evidence back then, before you’d actually looked into and paid attention to the matter, there’s no way I could have taken the initiative to stir up trouble and offend the executives to clear my own name. I didn’t grow up in the environment you did, and I don’t have the confidence to dare offend people.”
“And besides, did you even ask me back then? You didn’t—you went straight to blaming me for not handling it properly. At that point, how was I supposed to respond? Even if I’d had evidence, wouldn’t I have had no choice but to endure it silently and take the blame? Because I have no background, no one backing me up, I’m just an ordinary working person trying to get by. Without being able to read your attitude clearly, I wouldn’t risk offending others. But if you’d taken a firmer stance back then, shown that you supported me, I would have been willing to take that risk.”
“And besides, for you back then, the actual truth of the matter didn’t matter to you at all—you didn’t care whether you’d wronged me or not. All you cared about was the outcome—whether it was making an example of me to scare the others, or standing up for me and reprimanding the executives, all that mattered to you was achieving that intimidating effect on them in the end.”
“You never cared about me at all. You never considered what difficulty I was in, squeezed like a sandwich filling between you and the executives—you simply took it for granted that if I didn’t proactively expose the executive’s lie myself, that was my own fault.”
Jiang Xiaoyi straightened her spine, steadied her emotions, and mustered the courage to glare right back at Ye Zhen: “So there’s no need to make yourself out to be so wronged. All I’m doing now is exactly what you did back then—I need to show the executives a conciliatory attitude, extend an olive branch, and turn a blind eye here and there, so I used you as the fall guy. Because compared to the executives, you matter less.”
Stand up straight, Jiang Xiaoyi! Let Ye Zhen taste the bitter and sweet of workplace life for himself—she was the one who was Ye Zhen’s boss now, no backing down!
“You treated me as a tool to achieve your ends back then, and now that you’re on the receiving end, you suddenly have complaints? Back then you had no way to consider the position of a low-level worker like me—now I’m giving you the chance to experience firsthand what I felt back then.”
“Tom, please recognize reality! In this world, there is only Boss Jiang! What I decide to do is not for you to comment on!”
Jiang Xiaoyi found herself getting more and more into the role of Boss Jiang as she spoke, declaring passionately: “You only know cold repression toward your subordinates—you’re a tyrant. I won’t be like you. I’ll use gentle methods, relying on personal charisma to unite the people beneath me!”
Ye Zhen apparently hadn’t expected Jiang Xiaoyi to actually talk back at him, and an expression close to speechless eye-rolling immediately appeared on his face: “Are you kidding me? Winning people over through love?”
Jiang Xiaoyi nodded confidently: “And unlike you, who never bothers with proper research before recklessly issuing transfer orders, causing everyone to be unable to manage the fields they’re actually good at, I’ll let them each fulfill their own roles, and drive the company to even greater glory!”
“You think that transfer order of mine was reckless?” Ye Zhen looked as though he might laugh from sheer anger, exerting tremendous willpower to keep his expression composed. “Fine. Just don’t come crying to me later.”
Where did this man get his confidence?
Simply baffling.
Jiang Xiaoyi would show him—even without resorting to dictatorial methods, she too could manage a company well, and she certainly wouldn’t pull as many idiotic moves as Ye Zhen had.
“There’s no way I’ll come crying to you. If anything, I’m worried you might run into some trouble and come running to report over my head again, expecting me to solve it for you.”
Jiang Xiaoyi shot Ye Zhen a disdainful glance: “This world is cruel to men, but don’t expect me to treat you like some delicate flower to be pitied just because you’re a man.”
“……”