“He used such underhanded means to deliberately set me up, and he still has the nerve to tell me to reflect on myself!”
Ye Zhen returned home without even the mood to work out: “I never expected Ruiyi to have this kind of middle manager! And across the whole company, there isn’t even a single disciplinary measure targeting this kind of behavior!”
He flipped furiously through the company employee handbook: “Call our advisory lawyer over—we need to reform the employee handbook. This kind of behavior should be classified as a major violation, and if discovered, the company should have the right to terminate the employment contract. Li You’ai, a bad apple like that, shouldn’t be kept on—you need to find a way to get him fired.”
Compared to Ye Zhen’s furious outburst, Jiang Xiaoyi was far more composed: “Li You’ai had a point in what he said—you should reflect on yourself, Ye Zhen. Back when I reported to you that Li You’ai had stolen my project like this, weren’t you the one lecturing me the same way?”
“Life is full of every kind of difficult character you’ll encounter—you need to learn to adapt yourself to them, especially when that difficult character is your superior. I didn’t understand it back then, but now I do—you really do need to reconsider your own perspective. Think about it: why didn’t Li You’ai steal Wang Yani’s project, but stole yours instead? Isn’t there something wrong on your end too?”
“……” Ye Zhen was stumped, stunned for a moment before saying, disbelieving, “I said something like that before?”
Truly, the powerful forget easily.
Jiang Xiaoyi gave a light, indifferent smile: “You see, until the knife cuts your own flesh, everyone can dish out platitudes easily enough. Li You’ai’s an old employee too—regardless of everything else, he’s already completed all his KPI targets for the year. What reason do I have to fire him? I’m just a boss—I only care about the results. I don’t care how he achieves them. He stole your case—that’s on your own ability. Besides, I’m quite busy too—where would I find the time to reform the employee handbook and the whole system just for you? The company doesn’t revolve around you alone. You’re an employee—you need to adjust your mindset. Either endure it or leave. You’re the one who has to adapt to the environment.”
“……” Ye Zhen never expected that one day he’d be silenced with his own words, thrown right back at him by Jiang Xiaoyi.
Jiang Xiaoyi had worked under Li You’ai for several years—how could she not know his ways? She hadn’t meant to torment Ye Zhen with this for fun, but now that she saw he’d truly experienced it firsthand, she felt it was time to ease off—Li You’ai really did need to be reined in. But before she could even get around to comforting Ye Zhen with a promise to deal with him, Ye Zhen suddenly spoke first—
“You’re right. I’ll reflect on myself. I accept losing this project—but there won’t be a next time.”
Having truly tasted his own medicine, Ye Zhen finally understood the grievance and resentment Jiang Xiaoyi must have felt back when her projects kept getting stolen from her.
“I understand your feelings now, but I still want you to know—even an ordinary working person has ways to fight back.”
Ye Zhen calmed himself, regaining his composure, and smiled at Jiang Xiaoyi: “I won’t take back what I said before—having your project stolen without any recourse does call for self-reflection. But I apologize for not offering you any solutions or help back then. To make up for it, I’ll teach you how to fight back in this kind of situation.”
Ye Zhen glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi as he said this: “Without needing to rely on you or anyone else.” —?
Not even relying on his own massive advantage—how on earth was he going to fight back?
Just wait to get crushed by Eunuch Li!
**
Putting up a brave front like this wasn’t sustainable—Jiang Xiaoyi was certain she’d already made this point clear to Ye Zhen, explicitly and implicitly, and had even promised to back him up on the matter of the stolen project. Yet Ye Zhen, apparently too proud to lose face, seemed determined to grit his teeth and suffer through it alone. He never once sought Jiang Xiaoyi’s help, quietly returning to work in the project incubation department by himself, even attending Li You’ai’s insufferable KPI-completion celebration.
Had Ye Zhen actually learned the ultimate virtue of a working professional—patience?
Impossible.
Given Ye Zhen’s vindictive nature, surely he was just brewing some big move—like stuffing Li You’ai into a sack and beating him up?
Jiang Xiaoyi watched carefully for several days, only to find Ye Zhen truly taking no action whatsoever, staying quiet and well-behaved. His tolerance had genuinely improved quite a bit—especially notable when, a few days later, banners went up on the traffic barriers outside Ruiyi’s building, and Ye Zhen still didn’t lose his temper.
Walking out of Ruiyi’s building now, Jiang Xiaoyi could see at a glance the enormous, eye-catching white text on the red banner—
“Recently, Ruiyi employee Ye So-and-so got caught up in an unlicensed facial mask multi-level marketing scheme, nearly suffering severe consequences! Fortune doesn’t fall from the sky—happiness comes from hard work! Men, be strong—getting cheated in love is fine, but getting cheated of money is not!”
……
Concise and hard-hitting.
With crowds constantly passing by Ruiyi’s entrance, this looked absolutely terrible. Several executives took turns pressuring Jiang Xiaoyi to have the banner taken down.
“Boss Jiang, this is really unsightly!”
“When we recruit at Ruiyi, the minimum requirement is always a degree from a top university—how did an employee who’d fall for a multi-level marketing scheme like this slip through? This ‘Ye So-and-so’—we absolutely need to investigate thoroughly! It’s dragging down our average employee caliber at Ruiyi, and this banner’s already trending—it’s all negative publicity for us, the internet’s full of mockery!”
Jiang Xiaoyi certainly knew it looked bad too, but the problem was—
“Director Miao, Director Li, this banner was put up by the neighborhood committee staff. They said they’re currently cracking down on pyramid schemes and counterfeit goods, and to expand the publicity impact, whenever they find a case like this, they make a banner as a warning……I’ve already talked to them, and they said now that they’ve finally caught a good example, the banner has to stay up for a full month before they’ll take it down……”
Director Miao looked thoroughly troubled: “If this keeps up, it’s really going to hurt our image. Not to mention several of Ruiyi’s major clients are coming in for meetings soon and are bound to see it—our building’s right on the main road, so who knows how many people passing by will see it too.”
Director Li’s expression also soured: “Look, it says ‘Ye So-and-so’ here—I’ve had HR check, and among our male employees surnamed Ye, there are only about a dozen total. Go through them one by one—surely we can figure out which idiot did this?”
“A man getting cheated in love, getting cheated of his body—that’s all fine, no big deal—love and bodies aren’t worth much anyway. But getting cheated of money—now that’s a real problem, how’s a man supposed to live!”
At this point, Director Li glanced toward Ye Zhen standing beside Jiang Xiaoyi: “Isn’t our chief assistant Xiao Ye surnamed Ye too? Though as our head assistant, you’re obviously way too sharp to fall for something like this—ruling you out, who could it be? Why don’t we hand this investigation over to you……”
Jiang Xiaoyi very much wanted to say, Director Li, little do you know—the culprit is standing right in front of you, the very man you’ve just ruled out……
Jiang Xiaoyi’s habit of feeling secondhand embarrassment for others was practically kicking in, but Ye Zhen remained remarkably composed and unbothered.
The man merely nodded, his bearing dignified and righteous: “Understood, I will definitely investigate thoroughly and find out which disgrace among us Yes did this, tarnishing the company’s reputation.”
Not knowing the truth of the matter, Director Li and Director Miao proceeded to lambaste this “Ye So-and-so” the whole way, Ye Zhen’s face growing darker and darker, yet somehow he held it in, even managing to gnash his teeth along and curse the culprit right along with them, playing the part of a righteous man to the hilt.
Truly worthy of being Ye Zhen—what acting skill! What endurance! No wonder he could achieve great things!
Jiang Xiaoyi decided she’d been overthinking it—Ye Zhen must have simply been beaten down by life into learning this precious virtue of patience.
After that, sure enough, peace reigned between Ye Zhen and Li You’ai. Jiang Xiaoyi, on the other hand, grew busy again with the frequent meetings needed to coordinate the cooperation with Jiang Lin, and for a while she stopped keeping tabs on whatever undercurrents were stirring between Ye Zhen and Li You’ai—until, half a month later, Ye Zhen, wearing a proud, triumphant expression, slapped his KPI performance report down on Jiang Xiaoyi’s desk.
“Done.” The man wore a faint smile of one hiding deep accomplishment behind a modest demeanor, working hard to keep his tone plain and natural. “Oh, within just half a month, not only did I complete the department’s required KPI, I exceeded the target by double, and incidentally surpassed Li You’ai in the process.” —???
This guy had just had a major project stolen from him by Li You’ai—how had he managed, in such a short time, to not only complete his KPI but also overtake Li You’ai?
Jiang Xiaoyi, who hadn’t thought much of it at first, was thoroughly stunned upon hearing this. She immediately picked up Ye Zhen’s KPI performance sheet to look it over, and by the time she finished reading, she was even more shocked: “You poached Li You’ai’s project right back?!”
Ye Zhen sipped his tea, looking quite composed: “If he’s allowed to steal from me, why can’t I steal from him?”
Since Li You’ai had chosen the law of the jungle himself, projects were naturally fair game for mutual poaching. But what surprised Jiang Xiaoyi wasn’t the act of poaching a project itself, but which project Ye Zhen had taken—it was Rapter, a comic studio currently red-hot in popularity.
This studio actually had deep ties to Jiang Xiaoyi’s own history—back when it was still a small-scale operation, it was Jiang Xiaoyi herself who had discovered it, and she’d worked diligently to line up various resources for them as they grew. Just as it started to look like it could become one of her own successful accomplishments, she’d suffered a major blow—the studio had been snatched away wholesale by Li You’ai, the fruits of her labor simply stolen out from under her.
Jiang Xiaoyi looked carefully over Ye Zhen’s KPI performance sheet and learned that the Rapter studio, thanks to its rapid growth, had since established a spinoff company developing its own comic IP merchandise, a company of considerable scale—and yet Ye Zhen had somehow managed to wrestle it away from Li You’ai’s grip?
Recalling this history now, Jiang Xiaoyi still felt a flash of irritation: “The person in charge of this project is quite the opportunist—back then, I was the one who helped them when they had nothing, but the moment their wings grew a little strong, they followed Li You’ai off without a second thought. Everyone knew he was notoriously calculating, only caring about interests. I was just a junior staff member in the project incubation department back then—though I did everything I could to secure investment funding for them, the perks and terms I could offer certainly couldn’t compare to what a mid-level manager like Li You’ai had the authority to give. Li You’ai just offered a bit more, and Rapter’s manager dropped me and ran off with him.”
Learning this backstory, Ye Zhen looked somewhat surprised too: “This project was originally something you discovered?”
“Li You’ai’s methods are indeed underhanded and unscrupulous, but sometimes people like that aren’t impossible to guard against.” The man smiled. “And even after a project’s been stolen by someone like Li You’ai, there’s actually a way to steal it right back from him.”
Jiang Xiaoyi frowned, looking at Ye Zhen with suspicion: “As far as I know, Li You’ai has already offered Rapter’s manager generous enough contract terms and benefits to secure their loyalty, and your authority within the project incubation department isn’t that great either—how did you manage to poach their spinoff project away? What better terms did you offer him? Or……”
Jiang Xiaoyi seemed to have thought of something, her eyes widening as she looked at Ye Zhen: “You didn’t use some other illegal method, did you? Like a honey trap, selling your soul, or bribery and kickbacks?”
“……” Ye Zhen looked like he wanted to hit someone, but his good upbringing held him back. “Can you think of something a bit more wholesome?”
“Then how did you do it?”
Ye Zhen smiled. “Want to know?”
“Yes!”
He glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi and extended his hand.
“?”
“Two thousand yuan.”
“Private tutoring session.” Ye Zhen pressed his lips together. “That’s a separate charge. Not included within the scope of my assistant duties. Only two thousand for you—that’s a fair price.”
“……”
Ye Zhen cleared his throat: “Lately, to poach the project, I’ve had to treat clients to several meals to maintain connections—I’ve practically had to borrow from online lenders.” Reaching this point in the story, he grew a bit indignant again. “The company’s performance bonus system really needs reform. It only pays out once a year—how are young people supposed to work with any freedom? A business dinner can’t even be reimbursed, and before you get the performance bonus, you’re already running a deficit—who’s got any motivation to work under those conditions? What idiot came up with this system?”
Jiang Xiaoyi looked at Ye Zhen calmly for a moment, then said evenly: “Ye Zhen, that system was one you put in place after you rose to power.”
Ye Zhen looked utterly skeptical: “I made a system like that? I don’t believe it.”
“Because you’d never worked at the grassroots level for even a single day, you figured this system would prevent employees from padding their expenses under the guise of reimbursement, so you required a unified year-end settlement—only once a project had been successfully signed and incubated could the business dinners related to that project be reimbursed……”
Jiang Xiaoyi looked at Ye Zhen with a completely flat expression: “And if the project ultimately failed to be signed and incubated, then all transportation and dining expenses related to that project wouldn’t be reimbursed at all—you’d have to eat the cost yourself. You had the audacity to claim at the time that the point of this system was to make everyone more frugal and cautious, only spending company budget on projects they were confident about.”
Ye Zhen stared at Jiang Xiaoyi, seeming to want to deny it.
Jiang Xiaoyi spoke first, cutting him off: “I definitely haven’t misremembered, because I was a victim of this rotten system of yours myself—I had to front a large amount of dining and transportation expenses myself, and before I could even successfully bring in the project and get reimbursed, I ended up muddling my way into this world.”
“No normal person wants to spend their own money and take on risk to pitch a project. After you put this hellish system in place, who would still have any enthusiasm? If the project doesn’t pan out, all that money you sank into it is your own.”
Ye Zhen remained defiant: “However much it was, I’ll pay you back.” He rubbed his forehead. “But once I’ve paid, don’t bring up old grudges again—this whole thing, call it a moment of poor judgment on my part, a wise man’s occasional slip. Let’s not mention it again after this.”
“The total comes to four thousand one hundred sixty cents.”
Jiang Xiaoyi enunciated each word clearly: “I can give you the two thousand for the private tutoring fee, but factoring in what I fronted back then, in the end you’d actually owe me two thousand one hundred sixty cents.”
“……” Ye Zhen paused, then said, somewhat awkwardly, “We’re not even in the same world anymore now—let bygones be bygones. Just give me the two thousand you owe me in this current world, and we’ll forget about the four thousand from that other world.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jiang Xiaoyi was practically speechless. “Then I’ll just bring up old grudges and curse you out every single day!”
“Curse away if you want to.” Ye Zhen said calmly. “I’ve weathered storms now, and I understand the deeper meaning of life better—being cursed at is no big deal, it doesn’t cost me a pound of flesh. But money is real. If you’re willing to pay, I honestly wouldn’t mind you cursing me out every day from now on.”
He pressed his lips together: “Doesn’t the banner say it? A man getting cheated in love or cheated of his body is fine, but getting cheated of money is truly not. Money really does matter. It’s the very foundation of a man’s place in this world. I understand that now.”
“……” Ye Zhen, you’ve truly fallen!
Ye Zhen glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi, and, remarkably composed, added on: “In the future, whenever you need to blow off steam, don’t bother patronizing some anger-release club—you can patronize me instead. I’ll even give you a discount, reluctantly, cheaper than that. And since we live together, you can curse me out whenever you want—cost-effective, and it saves you the hassle of commuting.”
“……”