Jiang Xiaoyi found several noble etiquette tutors in a row for Ye Zhen, and each one entered full of confidence, only to leave dejected and ashamed…
Watching Ye Zhen rack up ten consecutive wins, Jiang Xiaoyi gave up.
After all, given Ye Zhen’s talent for showing off and inviting a beating, perhaps he genuinely no longer needed any tutoring in noble etiquette.
“We’ll drop the etiquette lessons, but you still need to keep drilling your EMBA practice questions every day, and we’re adding one cooking class per week!”
“Haven’t you heard that a gentleman stays far from the kitchen! You’re asking someone who has fully proven his noble status to go learn to cook? Do you think that’s appropriate? This is persecution and abuse of a quality man!”
Ye Zhen nearly voiced his protest immediately, but Jiang Xiaoyi ruthlessly suppressed him: “My mom is coming back to inspect your progress. As long as you still want to stay here, if you’re going to put on this act, you have to commit to the whole thing and cooperate.”
Ye Zhen glared resentfully at the cat curled up in Jiang Xiaoyi’s arms and snorted coldly, but ultimately settled down.
Also settling down were several of the executives. The old foxes, along with their attitudes toward Jiang Xiaoyi, had noticeably improved—no one dared call her “Little Jiang” anymore. Though deep down they still weren’t convinced, at least on the surface, they’d force a smile and address her as Director Jiang.
“Give them a stick and then a jujube. You just cleaned house on them, so for the sake of winning them over and for the sake of face on all sides, you need to give them an appropriate way to step down.”
Whenever it came to handling Ruiyi’s executives, Ye Zhen instantly took on the tone of someone with experience: “So arrange a dinner tonight, invite them all out to eat—the dinner table is the best place for relationships to deepen.”
Jiang Xiaoyi nodded repeatedly: “Okay, okay, I’ll call them right away and invite them—that would show more sincerity, I’ll go right now…”
But before she could finish, Ye Zhen cut her off with a frown: “No, you can’t call them personally—that would cheapen you. I’ll make the call.”
“And you need to find a proper pretext. Doesn’t Ruiyi have a cultural and creative company it incubated that’s just kicked off its IPO process? Use that—say the dinner is to celebrate the good progress on that project.”
Jiang Xiaoyi was a bit puzzled: “Isn’t the point to repair our relationship and get on good terms with them? Why all these tactics? Isn’t this a bit insincere?”
Ye Zhen looked at her as though she were an impossible student: “Yes, I’m telling you to give them a way to step down, but giving them a way down isn’t the same as showing weakness. You need to pay attention to the method—you’re not requesting them to come, you’re notifying them. And don’t let them think you’re inviting them to dinner to apologize for the earlier reshuffling either—find a proper pretext instead. A boss must never apologize or show weakness! Also, when we’re at dinner, don’t you dare lose your nerve! Or all this effort will be wasted!”
Jiang Xiaoyi listened to Ye Zhen give her a stern briefing for a while longer, dutifully noting down several key points, before finally getting busy with other matters.
Ye Zhen turned out to be quite efficient, quickly notifying all the executives before long.
The dinner was set for that very evening. He’d found a restaurant with excellent ambience and dishes. By the time Jiang Xiaoyi arrived with him and sat down, she discovered Ye Zhen had already arranged the menu in perfect detail—she didn’t need to worry about anything, Ye Zhen had already taken care of it all.
She’d originally thought Ye Zhen was completely helpless at practical matters, but it turned out he’d genuinely taken to being an assistant—he actually seemed rather competent at it?
But some people really couldn’t take a compliment. Jiang Xiaoyi just cast him an admiring, appreciative glance, and Ye Zhen tilted his chin up and snorted: “This is the gap between us. I’m not just better than you at being the boss—I’m better than you at being an assistant too.”
“…” She really didn’t want to compliment him anymore.
Probably because he was deeply versed in the art of business hospitality from childhood exposure, when it came to hosting and menu selection, Ye Zhen was practically professional-level—it seemed almost baked into his bones. Something Jiang Xiaoyi might have needed to mull over for a long time, he handled with effortless ease—
“Director Miao can’t eat seafood, so his individual seafood congee has been swapped for fish congee; Director Li has asthma and can’t handle spicy food, so all his dishes have been made without spice; Director Zhang…”
Listening to Ye Zhen rattle it all off like an expert, Jiang Xiaoyi was amazed too: “When did you memorize all this? You’re really going all out to be a good assistant!”
Ye Zhen glared at Jiang Xiaoyi: “I didn’t memorize it to be a good assistant—I already knew all this before.”
Was Ye Zhen’s memory really this astonishing? He could go compete on a memory championship show!
She couldn’t resist testing Ye Zhen’s memory further, and immediately asked: “Then do you know what foods I avoid?”
Ye Zhen glanced at her with a look of disdain: “How would I know your dietary restrictions?”
“But you remember Director Miao’s, Director Li’s, and Director Zhang’s…”
“They used to be executives, are you? Executives are my senior hired hands—for me to manage the thousands of ordinary hired hands like you underneath them, of course I can spend a little time remembering these kinds of details, so they feel personally cared for by the boss—suppressing them with one hand while touching them with small favors, so they become even more devoted to working for me. You used to be just an ordinary hired hand, a lowly assistant—why would I bother remembering your dietary restrictions? Do you think I have such a great memory? Or that I’m that idle?”
“…” What a workplace manipulation master.
Jiang Xiaoyi thoroughly gave up on complimenting Ye Zhen and decided to focus on the dinner ahead.
After the last reshuffling, the executives all arrived on time this round.
Since the pretext was celebrating the success of a project previously incubated by the company, aside from Ruiyi’s several executives, Ye Zhen had also arranged for the entire Project Incubation Department to attend.
Eunuch Li had no idea he was just there as padding for numbers—he probably assumed that since he was now able to dine with the boss and executives, his ascent to greater things was just around the corner. So he sat there beaming with delight, taking on the important duty of livening the atmosphere, hunting for conversation topics, and playing the flatterer at the table, which took quite a bit of pressure off Jiang Xiaoyi.
As the courses came and went, cups clinking, the atmosphere gradually grew harmonious.
As the boss, of course no one dared urge Jiang Xiaoyi to drink, but several of the executives clearly enjoyed their liquor, and after a few rounds, they were visibly getting tipsy and starting to talk nonsense.
Especially once dessert arrived, Director Miao couldn’t help letting out a lewd chuckle: “Ooh, Black Forest cake.”
He glanced at Wang Yani beside him, who was currently eating a slice of Black Forest cake, and said with a boozy air: “Little Wang, do you like Black Forest cake?”
Wang Yani looked a bit puzzled, but nodded while continuing to eat: “Yeah, I really like Black Forest.”
A leopard never changes its spots—it seemed even a shift in time and space couldn’t change Director Miao’s fundamental nature. Birds of a feather flock together—Director Miao had once been close friends with that foul-mouthed Director Lin, so what kind of clean-mouthed person could he himself really be?
Even now, in a world where women’s status had risen, the crude filth inside Director Miao clearly hadn’t been purged. He’d probably been holding it in, restrained because of his status as a man, but now that he’d had a few drinks, it looked like he was ready to vent it all out.
Sure enough, after hearing Wang Yani’s response, Director Miao’s face took on a suggestive expression: “Little Wang, do you know something? Actually, every man has his own ‘black forest’ too—you know where, no need for me to say it. Plenty of women really do love what we men keep hidden in our black forest, haha haha haha haha…”
Director Miao let out his hearty laugh, not seeming to register at all how sleazy and inappropriate his crude joke was. Emboldened by drink, he was clearly planning to go all out and say whatever he pleased. He immediately grabbed Wang Yani’s hand: “Come on, Little Wang, let’s have a drink—to the Black Forest!”
Jiang Xiaoyi was practically speechless—she never expected that even across time and space, workplace sexual harassment was still unavoidable.
Wang Yani was both furious and embarrassed at that moment, but given that Director Miao’s position at Ruiyi was far above hers, all she could do was flush red with humiliation and swallow it.
She’d always been a cheerful girl—Jiang Xiaoyi had never seen her cry over anything. Yet now, the crushing humiliation brought tears welling up in Wang Yani’s eyes.
She was like a plane crash survivor stranded alone on an isolated island, with no one to turn to for help—the executives present were all busy egging on Director Miao’s “little joke” with laughter, and Eunuch Li acted as if he hadn’t heard anything at all.
Ye Zhen, however, frowned, his face showing obvious disgust. He set down his spoon as if disgusted enough to lose his appetite even for the Black Forest cake. He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi, seeming as though he wanted to speak up and stop this, but Jiang Xiaoyi felt this wouldn’t do.
She stood up before Ye Zhen could: “Director Miao, what you just said is truly eye-opening for me! To think men have their own black forest too! I’ve really learned something today!”
Director Miao had always had a habit of a filthy mouth. This little outburst was partly just his nature showing through for the thrill of it, and partly a probe—testing Jiang Xiaoyi’s boundaries right in front of her. He’d assumed Jiang Xiaoyi would either turn a blind eye or stay silent and let it pass, but instead, she’d actually spoken up! And seemed to be egging him on further, no less!
The recent reshuffling had indeed caught Director Miao off guard, but even while watching from the sidelines, deep down he still looked down on Jiang Xiaoyi. Now, wasn’t her reaction obvious pandering and flattery?
With this thought, he immediately shot a glance at the other executives, the contempt in his eyes nearly overflowing.
But before he could bask in his self-satisfaction any longer, he heard Jiang Xiaoyi continue—
“But I’ve heard that men’s body hair, just like the hair on their heads, turns from black to white with age. Director Miao, look, your hair has already gone gray—by that logic, your black forest is surely gone!”
“And what’s worse, hair loss—no one can outrun the speed of going bald. Look at how sparse your hair is, barely anything left. By that same logic, you’ve probably lost your white forest too—so it should be…completely empty! No forest at all, just barren wasteland! How tragic, how tragic!”
“…”
Jiang Xiaoyi took a bold sip of red wine, glanced twice at Director Miao’s thinning hair, and patted his shoulder with a mock-heartfelt expression: “Director Miao, you must have worn yourself out worrying over Ruiyi, which is why your hair’s… barely got anything left.”
Amid everyone’s stunned, ghost-seeing expressions, Jiang Xiaoyi didn’t seem to mind at all. She looked at Ye Zhen: “Conveniently, my assistant Little Ye is right here too—well, why put off till another day what can be done today? Director Miao, since you’ve been working yourself to the bone for the company, if the forest really is all gone, we might as well count it as a workplace injury—I’ll give you two days of paid leave. Come, Little Ye, why don’t you take Director Miao to the restroom to check and verify—is it a white forest, a black forest, or no forest at all, hahahahahahahahahaha.”
Jiang Xiaoyi’s laughter rang out through the whole private room, while the other executives’ faces all froze. Director Miao, the target of the teasing, went red in the face, holding back seething humiliation. He wanted to lash out, but since Jiang Xiaoyi was the boss, he could only swallow it in resentful silence. The atmosphere grew awkward for a moment, and several other male executives with gray or thinning hair grew visibly uncomfortable and fidgety.
Just as Ye Zhen, dragged unwittingly into this, was about to open his mouth with a rather unpleasant expression, Jiang Xiaoyi beat him to it again with a smile: “Oh come on, why isn’t anyone laughing? I’m just joking, hahahahaha, doesn’t this vividly convey how much I care about everyone? I really hope none of you go bald or lose your hair! I hope everyone doesn’t feel too much work pressure! You need to balance work and life well. Come on, come on, don’t just sit there stunned—let’s all eat some Black Forest cake together, and wish everyone eats what they lack, forever black forest, hahahahahahaha!”
“Come! Let’s raise a toast! To the black forest!”
…
The dinner ended in a strange atmosphere. After Jiang Xiaoyi’s speech, Director Miao’s drunkenness seemed to have completely worn off—not only did he not make any more risky remarks, his whole face looked rather unwell. Jiang Xiaoyi noticed him secretly checking the top of his head several times in the reflection of the glass door, clearly quite anxious about his hair.
He’d come to the dinner in high spirits, but on his way out, his silhouette looked rather forlorn.
Once everyone had dispersed, Ye Zhen watched Director Miao’s retreating back, glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi, and said with an expression of disdain: “You people all have such poor character. He told a dirty joke, and you told one right back—that’s really low-level.”
“I just felt that merely stopping trashy workplace sexual harassment wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the anger in my heart—what’s wrong with that? A lot of things are like how a murderer only truly regrets it the moment his own life is being taken as he’s executed—unless someone has genuinely felt it themselves, they won’t truly repent and reflect. Rather than just weakly telling him to stop, I’d rather fight evil with evil—be the light that comes from the dark side!”
Ye Zhen had better not have said anything—the moment he opened his mouth, all of Jiang Xiaoyi’s new and old grievances came rushing up at once.
“And what are you doing playing the fair, detached bystander here? Back then, you sent me to accompany Director Miao to a client meeting, knowing full well that client, Director Lin, had a filthy mouth, and yet you still let me go through that? What, just because you didn’t see it yourself, that means you bear no responsibility at all?”
Although some time had passed since that incident, whenever it came up, the humiliation and resentment in Jiang Xiaoyi’s heart hadn’t faded at all: “Back then I wasn’t Director Jiang, I was just a powerless working person, only able to watch Director Miao’s face for cues, sent by you to go serve tea and pour water for people, and had to listen to the client’s dirty jokes too. Wasn’t it you who, catering to his tastes, assigned me to entertain that disgusting Director Lin?”
Jiang Xiaoyi originally thought this confrontation would make Ye Zhen show shame, but instead, not only did he not, as she recounted that experience, Ye Zhen’s expression grew increasingly grave and unpleasant.
“Why didn’t you tell me when this happened at the time?”
“What, are you pretending you knew nothing about it now, playing innocent?” Jiang Xiaoyi was practically laughing out of anger. “From the moment you decided not to attend yourself and had me run around waiting on Director Miao to help with hospitality, weren’t you the one who sold me out? Even if that client hadn’t told dirty jokes, with my direct superior absent and my rank lower than Director Miao’s, wasn’t it obvious I’d have no choice but to follow Director Miao’s arrangements? Besides the dirty jokes, I also breathed in plenty of secondhand smoke.”
This time Ye Zhen’s tone was very serious: “I didn’t know that client Director Lin was that kind of person.”
“He’s a major client! You even know the dietary restrictions of several executives—how could you not know about him?!”
But instead, once Jiang Xiaoyi said this, Ye Zhen’s tone turned dismissive: “What kind of major client is he?”
“Yes, he’s one of our important distributors for cultural and creative derivative merchandise, but a distributor like that is highly replaceable. We’ve partnered with him for years simply because we’d already settled on a standard contract template with him—legal doesn’t need to spend effort hashing out contract terms the way it would with a new partner, and Director Miao’s side doesn’t need to put in extra effort developing a new client either. Everyone’s equally lazy, and out of sheer inertia, the partnership just continued.”
“But that doesn’t mean we necessarily have to keep working with him. Distributors get reshuffled over the years too—several new distributors with good channels have emerged recently. I arranged for you to go with Director Miao to that reception partly to have you assess whether this old client, Director Lin, was still worth continuing to work with, because when the same partner has worked together for too long, the two sides’ contacts get too familiar, which can easily lead to shady dealings.”
Ye Zhen glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi: “So you should have reported back to me in detail as soon as you got back. I would have replaced Director Lin. Not reporting it was your own dereliction of duty, so you enduring it doesn’t represent you sacrificing for work, it only represents that you…”
Probably because Jiang Xiaoyi’s glare was too sharp, Ye Zhen paused, seeming to sense the moment and hold back, swallowing the word “stupid” that had been on the tip of his tongue. But the disdain and pity in his eyes as he looked at her had already said it all…
“As for you saying I sent you to serve Director Miao—that’s simply laughable. Who told you to go serve him? You’re my assistant. When I don’t attend and you go in my place, you’re representing me—you should have taken the head seat, and Director Miao should have deferred to you, not the other way around.”
“The position of an assistant matters, and so does the authority that comes with it. Just as secretaries differ—an executive secretary and a board secretary aren’t at all the same level of position. A board secretary is considered part of the executive tier at a company. You may not count as an executive, but you were representing me. I asked you to go assess a client, and yet you ended up serving Director Miao and that client instead!”
Ye Zhen grew more and more agitated as he spoke: “I didn’t even know you’d done this before! Are you trying to infuriate me to death?!”
…
So Ye Zhen hadn’t actually intended, back then, to sacrifice Jiang Xiaoyi in exchange for a long-term continued partnership with Director Lin? Had Jiang Xiaoyi misunderstood him? But whose fault was it that Ye Zhen was so stingy with his words that he never made anything clear!
And regardless of the misunderstanding, Jiang Xiaoyi truly couldn’t figure out how things had turned out this way—it should have been her shining as the light from the dark side, teaching Ye Zhen a lesson, and instead she was the one getting lectured by him—
“Next time, don’t fight bad behavior with more bad behavior! Otherwise how are you any different from Director Miao? Some ‘light from the dark side’! What, next time he blows smoke in your face, are you going to go learn to smoke too, just to blow secondhand smoke back at him to get even?”
“No! I’ll find a bunch of old chain-smokers to go smoke in Director Miao’s office every single day!”
Thinking of secondhand smoke, Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly felt her throat and lungs starting to protest: “Even though it’s long been established that smoking indoors is banned, and our whole Ruiyi building is supposed to be smoke-free, what good does it do? The only ones the ban actually restricts are the junior staff—when it comes to mid-to-senior management wanting to smoke, don’t they still do it anyway? The ‘No Smoking’ signs posted in the meeting rooms, they just ignore them completely.”
Ye Zhen frowned as if about to speak, but Jiang Xiaoyi didn’t give him the chance: “Don’t interrupt me yet, let me finish.”
“I know what you want to say—you want to ask why nobody communicates and stops it. But when mid-to-senior management smokes, who among the junior staff below would dare stop them? The workplace isn’t a fair ecosystem to begin with—who’s bold enough to go tell their boss, hey, stop smoking because I don’t like secondhand smoke? Everyone’s just a hardworking employee, working nine-to-five just to make ends meet for their family. Most people don’t have the financial means to just either ‘take it or leave it.’ Ye Zhen, this isn’t a fairy tale world—not everyone has the kind of family background you do to afford having backbone.”
Jiang Xiaoyi practically used up all her energy getting through this speech. Although she was now Director Jiang and no longer needed to put up with this kind of treatment, her shared past experience made it impossible for her to turn a blind eye to the secondhand smoke happening right under her nose now, because there were still countless junior employees like her past self, forced to endure secondhand smoke just to earn a living—and she had no way to personally show up at every single instance of secondhand smoke and order those executives to stop.
“Even if we reiterate the smoking ban again and again, provide a reporting hotline, and link it to fines, there’s still no way anyone would actually dare report a superior over something like this…”
The Ruiyi building’s windows and doors were sealed shut with a fresh-air ventilation system—there wasn’t even the option of opening a window for air. Once someone in mid-to-senior management smoked, the open office area outside their office was bound to suffer for it.
Ever since becoming Director Jiang, it wasn’t as though Jiang Xiaoyi hadn’t thought about improving the secondhand smoke problem, but no matter how she thought it through, she couldn’t come up with a solution that would address the root cause.
Faced with her worry, Ye Zhen looked entirely unconcerned: “Do you have money?”
“Huh?”
“Give me some money.”
This man was truly baffling—here she was discussing the workplace secondhand smoke problem, and it was obvious he hadn’t been listening seriously at all, and now he was actually asking her for money!
But since Ye Zhen had actually asked for money, he must genuinely be short on cash.
Jiang Xiaoyi took out her wallet while asking Ye Zhen, somewhat displeased: “What do you need money for? What are you going to buy? Will two hundred be enough?”
But despite her kind and thoughtful gesture, Ye Zhen didn’t appreciate it at all—he nearly rolled his eyes: “Not that kind of money—I mean a budget. Give me some budget approval.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Handle the secondhand smoke problem.”
Jiang Xiaoyi was a bit surprised: “What are you planning to do about it?”
Ye Zhen didn’t answer further, just smiled: “You’ll find out in a few days.”
…
The budget Ye Zhen requested wasn’t large, so Jiang Xiaoyi ultimately agreed. But soon, various cooperation agreements, client meetings, and trivial matters at Ruiyi completely made her forget about this, until a few days later, when Jiang Xiaoyi needed Director Miao to sign a contract, and she went with Ye Zhen up to Director Miao’s floor, she caught a whiff of smoke.
It looked like Ye Zhen’s anti-smoking campaign had failed too—secondhand smoke really couldn’t be banned after all.
Jiang Xiaoyi frowned, just about to step in herself to stop Director Miao, when, right as she reached the door of his office, a sharp alarm suddenly went off.
Director Miao’s door was open at that moment, a cigarette pinched between the fingers of his right hand, and sure enough, he too was startled by the blaring alarm. But before he could even react, water suddenly began spraying wildly from above his head…
“Damn it! What is this! Someone get over here and turn this alarm off! My documents are all getting soaked!”
Director Miao completely abandoned his cigarette, cursing as he stubbed it out, then began scrambling to rescue the documents on his desk. Unfortunately, the sprinkler system’s water output and efficiency were both fast—he managed to save his documents, but his already-thinning hair got thoroughly drenched and plastered to his head under the water pouring down from above, his tailored suit soaked and wrinkled too, both pathetic and mortifying.
Jiang Xiaoyi nearly burst out laughing.
She glanced at Ye Zhen beside her: “Was this you?”
Ye Zhen shrugged with an air of having quietly accomplished something great without seeking credit: “Mm-hm, quite easy to solve. Reporting it does no good, so I just directly upgraded the smoke detectors and linked them to the connected sprinkler system. Do that a couple more times, and as long as they don’t want to get soaked, the smoking mid-to-senior managers will learn their lesson. Also, once a smoke alarm is triggered, no reporting from anyone is needed—disciplinary action can be taken directly, sparing a lot of junior staff a lot of headaches.”
Although Ye Zhen had initially completely failed to understand junior staff’s suffering from secondhand smoke, she hadn’t expected he’d actually come up with this kind of solution—not too foolish after all.
But just as Jiang Xiaoyi’s words of praise were about to come out, the man launched into a strange, alarming statement instead. His gaze shifted away from Director Miao, who was scrambling around the office in a panic, and turned to Jiang Xiaoyi—
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“?”
Ye Zhen pressed his lips together: “When you look at me like that, it scares me a little.”
Just as Jiang Xiaoyi was about to ask what he meant, she heard the man continue shamelessly: “I’m afraid you’re about to praise me with overly exaggerated language.”
“…” You’re overthinking this.
Ye Zhen cleared his throat and said with great composure: “Actually, no need to praise me—I’m just an ordinary yet great anti-smoking ambassador.”
“…”