Overall, Ye Zhen felt his current life was fairly peaceful. Although he had to work out diligently every day, drill through all kinds of bizarre practice questions, “hand in homework” by making a dish, and endure the world’s Male Virtue indoctrination on top of it all, generally speaking it was still tolerable—especially after he’d cleverly and efficiently solved Ruiyi’s secondhand smoke problem, Jiang Xiaoyi finally seemed to see his worth, and her attitude toward him lately had improved quite a bit.
So Ye Zhen felt that, for now, the strategic partnership between him and Jiang Xiaoyi had reached a relatively balanced state—things were going smoothly.
But this relatively peaceful coexistence didn’t mean Ye Zhen had given up on going back to his original world. If anything, this state made Ye Zhen more restless inside—by staying on good terms with Jiang Xiaoyi, maybe she’d eventually cooperate, and he might still have a chance to go back.
Only, Ye Zhen never expected that his relationship with Jiang Xiaoyi would fall apart this quickly.
It all started on Saturday. Nowadays, whenever Ye Zhen had free time on weekends, he’d go to the library to check out a large stack of English-language research materials on quantum physics, cosmic origins, and the like. Humanity’s understanding of nature and the universe was far too limited—Ye Zhen felt he needed to fundamentally analyze the theoretical basis of parallel timelines, since that was his only hope of returning to his original world.
However, on his way back from the library, Ye Zhen was stopped by someone handing out flyers on the street. He instinctively responded with a cold face and refusal: “No thanks, excuse me.”
Just as Ye Zhen was about to walk on, he was pulled back by the other person: “Ye Zhen? It’s Ye Zhen, right! Oh my, it really is you!”
Ye Zhen was a bit confused, and while he was still trying to figure out who this person was, the other person didn’t seem to mind and quickly stuffed a flyer into his hand: “Our Fire-Extinguishing Club just expanded recently, and we’ve got a brand new Super Cosmic Blaze Room! Didn’t you sign up for an annual membership before? But you only came twice and never came back! Don’t forget the annual card has an expiration date too! Come check it out again when you get a chance!”
Fire-Extinguishing Club?
Wasn’t this Jiang Xiaoyi’s hobby? He never expected it had somehow become his own hobby here too?
Ye Zhen held the flyer, thinking that since he had nothing else to do anyway, he might as well go experience this Fire-Extinguishing Club. Although he couldn’t understand why Jiang Xiaoyi was so obsessed with this fire-drill business, he was a bit curious for the moment.
Sure enough, after he followed the address to the Fire-Extinguishing Club’s front desk, the receptionist immediately recognized him: “Oh, Ye Zhen, you’re here? The Super Cosmic Blaze Room is free today, want to go in?”
Ye Zhen, not wanting to let the other person notice anything off about him, only nodded vaguely. After waiting a moment, she handed him a key: “Alright, go on in.”
Fire extinguisher and protective gear? Nothing else at all?
Facing Ye Zhen’s confused expression, the front desk girl gave him a shy wink: “Everything’s already set up in the room exactly like before.”
No wonder Jiang Xiaoyi was so into this—the service here was quite thoughtful.
But it seemed like a simple indoor venue for a fire-extinguishing club—even if it had a full set of firefighting equipment prepared, how could it possibly have passed a fire safety inspection? By all rights, this kind of open-flame activity, even outdoors, wouldn’t typically be approved by the fire department, let alone in this kind of indoor environment.
So how had they managed to handle the safety hazards and still get fire inspection approval?
Ye Zhen’s thoughts inadvertently drifted toward the direction of his old boss instincts, going from curiosity about the fire-extinguishing experience to curiosity about the fire safety approval and the club’s registered business scope.
The Super Cosmic Blaze Room he’d booked was at the very back, and the further in Ye Zhen walked, the more he realized this Fire-Extinguishing Club really was doing brisk business—every room he passed along the way was fully booked.
This actually got Ye Zhen genuinely interested—the foot traffic and revenue here looked pretty good. Should he consider investing in a business like this once he got back? Was there room for this kind of enterprise to grow?
But Ye Zhen’s enthusiasm vanished the instant he opened the door—
There was no firefighting equipment at all in this room, and no fire either. The room was fairly large, like a compressed miniature amusement park—one section had a whack-a-mole setup, another had balloon shooting, and another looked like it was for boxing… and every single scene had one thing in common: Jiang Xiaoyi’s photo was everywhere.
The whack-a-mole targets were plastered with Jiang Xiaoyi’s photo, the boxing bag had Jiang Xiaoyi’s face on it, and even every balloon drifting by bore Jiang Xiaoyi’s infuriatingly smug smiling face…
Ye Zhen frowned, staring at those drifting “Jiang Xiaoyi” balloons as if he’d seen a ghost, wondering if his brain was malfunctioning.
Wasn’t this supposed to be fire-extinguishing drills?
He slammed the door shut and, pressing his lips together, walked back to the front desk: “Where’s the fire?”
The front desk girl was stunned for a second: “The fire is in your heart!”
Something wasn’t right here.
Ye Zhen felt like a piece of some puzzle in his mind was missing. With a dark expression, he went back into the Super Cosmic Blaze Room and pulled out a “Jiang Xiaoyi” balloon: “Then what’s the deal with this? Why is her face everywhere?”
The receptionist glanced at the balloon and seemed to suddenly understand: “Oh, you switched who you’re venting at? When you signed up for the annual membership before, you cried to me about being transferred to work as a temporary assistant for some really abusive woman, saying you’d been tormented terribly—this is your female boss’s photo! I thought she looked quite pretty, never expected she’d be this abusive!”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you’d switched who you’re venting at this time—so who do you want to vent at now? I’ll switch it out right away!”
So…
Ye Zhen’s face turned ashen: “This is what ‘Fire-Extinguishing Club’ means?”
“Yeah!”
Ye Zhen’s face nearly twisted with anger.
That damned Jiang Xiaoyi! No wonder she’d asked him for a photo back then!
To think she’d spent his, Ye Zhen’s, own money to book this kind of fire-extinguishing club just to beat up her own boss! And she’d claimed, over and over, that she’d joined a fire safety drill! This woman was full of lies!
**
Jiang Xiaoyi had no idea about the resentment brewing in Ye Zhen’s heart, because on this lovely weekend, she too was overwhelmed with her own troubles and had no leisure to worry about anyone else’s feelings.
After enjoying the initial glory of becoming Director Jiang for a while, Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly discovered she’d become a hostage to the identity of Director Jiang—she’d originally assumed being a boss meant total freedom, since she was now the one calling the shots, whatever she said would go. But the reality was, aside from a limited degree of freedom and authority, she found that even as a boss, she was still constrained by all kinds of rules and frameworks.
The first thing she lost was her freedom in the evenings and on weekends. She didn’t need to work overtime, true, but there were countless social obligations she needed to attend—tonight it was Director Chen from the procurement side, tomorrow night it was Vivian from a supplier, the day after that it was…
She no longer needed to make spreadsheets or crunch numbers like a regular employee, but she needed to maintain relationships, needed to meet people and keep in regular contact with them.
Besides, if some partner’s top executive came in person, out of courtesy, Ruiyi needed to send someone of equal standing to receive them—and naturally, that fell to Jiang Xiaoyi herself.
She felt like a mascot, dragged from one dinner engagement to the next.
A regular working employee, even after overtime, could still go home and be a couch potato once it was over. But as a boss, that was completely impossible! Because a boss never really clocks off! Once a boss, always a boss!
Even on weekends, there was no lying flat and relaxing, because there were plenty of internal reporting meetings that needed to happen, and when she wasn’t in meetings, she was forced to keep studying—the latest developments in the cultural and creative industry, the newest changes in the comics field… she had to have it all at her fingertips, because if she fell behind even once, she’d have no way to make wise judgments about Ruiyi’s future development and partnerships.
After becoming Director Jiang, her authority had grown, but along with it came a proportionally increased sense of responsibility and pressure—she now had to answer for the company, had to answer for every employee working at Ruiyi.
Although Jiang Xiaoyi was somewhat tired, she was still full of ambition and enthusiasm. Ye Zhen was indeed more capable than her when it came to managing executives, and understood the ins and outs of business operations far better than she did, but he had no real feelings for Ruiyi as a whole, and put no real emotional investment into incubating small comics and cultural creative companies.
He didn’t understand cultural and creative content at all, and had no interest in learning about or understanding it either. He was completely ignorant of and had zero respect for currently trending cultural elements, yet insisted on holding forth from on high, dictating strategy.
Jiang Xiaoyi had majored in illustration and comic design—she was the professional here! She had full confidence in the future of the nation’s cultural and creative industry, and was full of passion and ideals about the rise of Chinese domestic comics.
She believed that as long as she studied hard, she could definitely lead Ruiyi further than Ye Zhen could.
But before she’d even finished reading through her classic management textbook, Ye Zhen came storming up to her door, looking for a fight—
“This is fraud!” the man said through gritted teeth. “You need to give my money back to me.”
Ye Zhen clutched the Fire-Extinguishing Club flyer in his hand, his expression stormy.
So he’d found out.
But don’t panic.
Management rule number one—when a subordinate confronts you with a question, don’t answer, don’t confirm; instead, keep raising new questions. As long as there are enough questions, the other party is bound to forget their original purpose in coming to their superior and get thoroughly confused.
Jiang Xiaoyi went along smoothly: “When I originally signed up for the Fire-Extinguishing Club, it was for your own good too. If I didn’t vent out the fire in my heart, what if I ended up psychologically warped while working with you and impulsively murdered my boss as some kind of sacrifice?”
“You…”
Jiang Xiaoyi didn’t give Ye Zhen a chance to speak, jumping in first: “Besides, think about it from my shoes—in this timeline, with our positions swapped, wouldn’t you also have wanted to use the Fire-Extinguishing Club? So anyone in that kind of situation would inevitably want to go ‘extinguish some fire.’ I understand you, and I won’t ask you to pay me back for it either, right? See, you used my photo to vent, and even though I now know about it, I won’t retaliate against you for it—why? Because I’m magnanimous. Being a boss is like being the head wife of the household—you have to learn to turn a blind eye sometimes. The clearer the water, the fewer fish it holds; the more shameless a person, the more unstoppable they become… ugh, ugh, scratch that second part, but anyway, you get the general idea!”
“But…”
“Ye Zhen, in this society, being an assistant is genuinely hard—being a male assistant is even harder. You needed to vent, I understand that.”
Ye Zhen pressed his lips together tightly: “I don’t feel it’s hard.”
Jiang Xiaoyi smiled: “How long have you even been working? You’ve only just barely dipped a toe into assistant work. The Project Incubation Department has several projects going on right now—go handle one, settle down and really put in the work, produce some results, and then come back and we’ll discuss whether being an assistant is hard or not.”
Management rule number two—hand off a difficult subordinate to a capable middle manager and let that middle manager teach them how to behave.
Time to let Eunuch Li grind Ye Zhen down a bit through actual business work!
Ye Zhen, however, was clearly dismissive: “What’s hard about being an assistant? Only incompetent people would need to go to some Fire-Extinguishing Club. I, Ye Zhen, whether as a boss or as an assistant, will never once find myself needing to ‘vent fire’—I have no need for that kind of thing at all!”
Just you wait! Young man, you haven’t hit nearly enough walls or eaten nearly enough losses yet!