Jiang Xiaoyi felt it necessary to cut off Ye Zhen’s unnecessary train of thought about money, because if this went on, she worried he’d end up selling himself for cash next.

“Alright, alright, no need for the anger-release club. Now that I’m a boss myself, I’ve learned the beauty of it—all my anger just evaporates. You keep that anger-release club for yourself—only working stiffs, sandwiched from all sides, need somewhere to vent their pent-up fury.”

Jiang Xiaoyi got straight to the point: “Tell me how you poached Rapter’s spinoff second-phase project. You’re charging two thousand flat for this, so it better be worth the price!”

Seeing Jiang Xiaoyi’s clearly skeptical expression, Ye Zhen curled his lip disdainfully: “There’s no project in this world that I, Ye Zhen, can’t poach.”

“Rapter’s manager really is an opportunist—many companies are like that. Every decision they make is for maximizing corporate benefit; they don’t deal in sentiment. After all, they’re running a business, not a charity. Even if you discovered and nurtured their project back when they were nothing, so what? Your resources couldn’t keep up with their growth pace, so naturally they’d switch platforms and switch contacts.”

“It’s not just companies that work this way—isn’t it the same in many people’s marriages and relationships? When both parties are poor while dating, if one of them suddenly strikes it rich, they trade up and go find someone new in a new social circle.”

Reaching this point, Ye Zhen apparently couldn’t resist tacking on a bit of self-praise: “That’s why you women should always look for a partner who’s naturally wealthy from the start. Going for a poor guy hoping he’ll be good to you—that’s the most useless approach. After all, how do you know he isn’t only choosing you because being poor leaves him no other options? Once he gets rich and gains more choices, the first thing he’ll do is dump you.”

“So it’s better to go for wealthy men—precisely because they’re rich, they have every option available, and if they still choose you, that means it’s genuine affection……”

Just as he seemed about to keep going, Jiang Xiaoyi kindly cut him off: “Ye Zhen, do I need to remind you? Right now, you are exactly that poor guy you’re talking about.”

“……”

Ye Zhen froze for a moment, as if only just now realizing this, then awkwardly but with feigned dignity looked away, clearing his throat with an exaggerated air: “Fine, that has nothing to do with whether I’m poor or not. Let’s not stray off topic. Let’s get to the point.”

Though it was this very man who’d gone off on a tangent boasting about himself, he now seriously steered them back on track: “On the Rapter matter, Ruiyi has already offered the maximum possible incentives. Neither Li You’ai nor I could apply for any better terms, so it made sense to approach it from a different angle.”

“Actually, this kind of blatant opportunism in Rapter’s manager makes him quite easy to deal with. Someone this shrewd—Rapter’s founder only pays him four hundred thousand a year, which surely isn’t enough to satisfy his appetite. After all, no matter how well he performs at Rapter, he’s still working for someone else. I figured he wouldn’t be content to stop there, and sure enough, after doing some digging, I found out he’d just had a second child—turned out to be twins, so combined with his first child, that’s three sons total. His wife is a stay-at-home mother too. Four hundred thousand a year to support a household of that size—do you think that’s enough? Without some extra income on the side, could he really live comfortably?”

“So I dug further, and sure enough, this project manager had secretly set up his own small studio under a relative’s name, taking on some of Rapter’s subsidiary development projects—in other words, related-party transactions, using public position for private gain. On the surface he works for Rapter, but in reality he’s already been secretly using Rapter’s resources and platform to build his own team, waiting for the day his wings are strong enough to strike out on his own.”

“But his own small team clearly isn’t strong enough yet—forget about securing investment, he can’t even keep decent employees on staff.”

“So I……”

Ye Zhen smiled. “So I offered him a deal: move Rapter’s spinoff second-phase project from Li You’ai’s hands over to mine, and in exchange, I’d help the small workshop he secretly runs on the side apply for Ruiyi’s micro-project incubation funding support, with absolute confidentiality on my end.”

Ye Zhen shrugged. “He’s a smart man. He agreed immediately.”

Jiang Xiaoyi was familiar with Ruiyi’s micro-project incubation funding support program too—the threshold wasn’t high and applying wasn’t particularly difficult, but the paperwork was tedious, and the amount awarded was tiny, barely a drop in the bucket for any real project.

Because of this, most regular employees weren’t willing to spend that much effort applying for it, and even if a Ruiyi employee were willing to, the contact person at the small studio in question often wouldn’t bother filling out all those complicated forms either—after all, they were just employees at those small studios themselves; that support fund wasn’t given to them personally, and whether they got it or not, their own salary wouldn’t change. Quite the opposite—applying meant more paperwork and more workload, so why would they genuinely, actively pursue it?

Ye Zhen glanced at Jiang Xiaoyi: “This Rapter contact’s situation was different—it’s his own company, and every cent of expense comes straight out of his own pocket. Even a drop-in-the-bucket ten-some-thousand yuan in support funding mattered to him, was something he genuinely cared about. Of course he’d actively apply for it.”

Jiang Xiaoyi finally understood: “Ruiyi’s micro-project incubation funding support policy runs every year—as long as he’s willing to put in the effort, and with you helping him navigate the process, he can reliably secure that ten-some-thousand yuan every year. For a small company in its early startup phase, that’s real relief for pressing needs.”

Now Jiang Xiaoyi understood exactly why this notoriously opportunistic Rapter contact had abandoned Li You’ai and handed Rapter’s spinoff second-phase project over to Ye Zhen instead.

“Hit the snake at the seventh vertebra. Target the exact right point with the exact right remedy.” Ye Zhen smiled. “In business, someone this openly driven by self-interest is actually easy to work with—straightforward, no need for pretense.”

Ye Zhen went on, drawing his conclusion: “As long as you’re human, you have desires, and wherever there are desires, there are vulnerabilities. The workplace doesn’t run on sentiment, but it does run on human nature. To do business, you first need to understand your client, and then extend help exactly where they’re struggling—it looks like you’re doing them a favor, but at its core, it’s still about mutual interest.”

Ye Zhen calmly concluded: “Nothing binds a partnership more tightly than shared interest. By tying his little startup studio to me like this, I became a closer, more indispensable partner to him than Li You’ai ever was.”

Jiang Xiaoyi felt genuinely enlightened. Having been betrayed by the Rapter contact before, she’d only ever felt anger and resentment about it, never having thought this deeply—and she certainly never had Ye Zhen’s boldness to strike back and fight to reclaim the project.

Rapter was already a fairly mature project, and its spinoff second-phase project had considerable scale too, far surpassing that up-and-coming game company’s downstream subsidiary. Li You’ai had simply thrown away the watermelon to pick up the sesame seed.

Jiang Xiaoyi, looking at Ye Zhen’s KPI performance sheet, could already picture Li You’ai’s face turning liver-colored with rage once he saw it.

Truly quite satisfying!

This time Jiang Xiaoyi genuinely looked at Ye Zhen with newfound respect, not having expected that without relying on any special advantage, he could actually get the better of Eunuch Li: “Ye Zhen, you really were a boss for those few years—even working as an employee now, your form is better than everyone else’s! I should hire a few more people like you, ideally ones who used to be bosses and have now fallen on hard times, reduced to working for someone else……”

As she spoke, Jiang Xiaoyi pulled out her phone and immediately transferred money to Ye Zhen: “You really do have genuine skill—here’s your two thousand. I’m giving you a bit extra too, no need to pay it back, consider it a reward for you. I’ll be reforming that reimbursement policy soon too, so you’ll be able to get reimbursed sooner.”

To secure the Rapter contact, Ye Zhen had had to treat him to several meals and was now running low on funds. Hearing Jiang Xiaoyi mention reforming the reimbursement policy, and now receiving a payment notification, plus hearing that she’d given him a bit of extra “tip” on top of the two thousand, his expression brightened into something like a warm spring breeze.

Before he could even check exactly how much extra “tip” he’d received, his phone rang. Ye Zhen glanced down—it was the lead artist from another studio called Wangyue Comics.

Ye Zhen picked up, switching smoothly into his practiced professional smile: “Hello, Teacher Wang. You’d like to send me a signed copy of Wangyue’s new standalone comic volume? That’s wonderful, I’ll send you the address in just a moment……”

“You’re asking about the Xmoon matter from before? It’s nothing, really. I personally can’t stand plagiarism. In our line of work incubating cultural and entertainment content, protecting originality is our top priority. Xmoon’s work is suspected of plagiarizing yours, and even without a court ruling, we know it in our hearts. As long as I’m at Ruiyi, Xmoon will never get investment incubation from us—I’ve already directly rejected their cooperation application. Rest assured, you’re our most important partner, and we will absolutely stand on your side to protect your work……”

When things go well, spirits soar—Ye Zhen chatted a few more polite, smiling pleasantries with the other party before hanging up.

He seemed quite composed, but Jiang Xiaoyi stared at him with wide, astonished eyes—

“Teacher Wang from Wangyue Studio?”

Ye Zhen nodded. “What about it?”

“How did you end up on such good terms with him? He’s incredibly talented, but he’s notoriously cold toward people. I used to be his contact—but even in purely professional exchanges, he’d often ignore me and just disappear on me. I always considered myself polite in dealing with both sides fairly, doing everything I could to serve him well, but when it came to the year-end client evaluation, he gave me a bad review……”

Jiang Xiaoyi looked rather aggrieved: “Thinking back on it, it must have been because of the Xmoon matter. Teacher Wang contacted me hoping I’d reject Xmoon’s project, because Xmoon’s work was suspected of plagiarizing Wangyue Studio’s. I told him I couldn’t reject it based on personal feelings—everything had to go by Ruiyi’s official policies. After that, he started resenting me.”

Ye Zhen’s face took on a look of exasperation: “Why didn’t you just agree to what he wanted?”

“I understood Teacher Wang’s feelings personally, and I sympathized with him too, but I can’t let personal favoritism affect my work.” Jiang Xiaoyi looked a bit unhappy. “You rejecting Xmoon purely out of personal preference—that’s not following procedure.”

Ye Zhen rubbed his temple. “Jiang Xiaoyi, is this you sticking to principle, or are you just being obtuse?”

He pressed his lips together: “I never actually rejected Xmoon through official channels.”

“But didn’t you just say……”

Ye Zhen tapped the desk. “Xmoon was never qualified to receive Ruiyi’s investment to begin with—the entire project’s input-output ratio doesn’t meet our standards, and the lead artist’s style is erratic too, wildly inconsistent in quality. I asked colleagues in the content evaluation department beforehand, and they confirmed with certainty that even going through official channels, the project would get cut at the initial review stage precisely because of its unstable quality……”

Jiang Xiaoyi might be rigid, but she at least knew enough to recognize when she’d been given a “tip,” so seeing how much Ye Zhen appreciated her, he decided to enlighten her further: “Go ask a few more people in the review department, and you’ll see—this Xmoon project, even if you’d gone through the official process without any favoritism, would have been rejected for Ruiyi’s investment 100% of the time regardless. In that case, why not use it as an opportunity to do Wangyue a favor?”

Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly understood: “So you actually lied just now?”

Ye Zhen looked displeased: “How is that lying? That’s called the art of speech and emotional intelligence.”

“Xmoon was never going to pass anyway—you were never going to build any real achievement off Xmoon, so why not do Wangyue a favor with it instead? Teacher Wang is the type who’s talented and proud, but he values kindness and remembers favors. By making it look like you ‘played favorites’ to help him on this matter, he’ll definitely remember this goodwill.”

“Over time, not only will his impression of you improve, but your future project dealings with him will go much more smoothly and enthusiastically too. And Teacher Wang, unlike Rapter’s money-hungry contact, is a creator—idealistic, sentimental. This incident strengthens the emotional bond between you two, and after that, even if Li You’ai tries to poach him away, he won’t be able to.”

Ye Zhen spread his hands. “As for whether you actually rejected Xmoon for Wangyue’s sake, or because Xmoon simply wasn’t good enough on its own—does that even matter? What matters is the result—Xmoon didn’t pass, and you didn’t play favorites either, so there was no loss to Ruiyi, and no loss to yourself. As for how that result came about, the interpretation is entirely up to you.”

Truly worthy of someone who used to be a boss—so cunning and clever!

Lesson learned! Lesson learned!

Jiang Xiaoyi, who had originally felt a bit reluctant about the extra tip she’d given Ye Zhen beyond the two thousand, now no longer felt any reluctance at all. She patted Ye Zhen on the shoulder, saying earnestly: “You can accept that reward money with a clear conscience. Ye Zhen, you’re worth every penny.”

Watching Jiang Xiaoyi’s expression of having genuinely learned something, Ye Zhen finally felt a rush of satisfaction inside.

Though he’d ended up working here as an employee, his own excellence was clearly destined not to go unnoticed—even through sheer ability alone, he’d still managed to earn both a tutoring fee and a reward.

Ye Zhen suddenly felt a strong premonition of a triumphant comeback stirring within him once more, and, quite pleased with himself, he opened his phone banking app to check the incoming payment.

Two thousand yuan and fifty cents.

Ye Zhen stared in disbelief, scrolling back and forth through the transaction details several times. The money transferred from Jiang Xiaoyi—there was nothing else.

Just that one transfer.

So the “reward” she’d mentioned……was just these fifty cents?

He was only worth fifty cents?! And she wanted him to accept it with a clear conscience?! Fifty cents, and yet he was supposed to feel no reluctance about it—meanwhile, could Jiang Xiaoyi, who’d only given fifty cents, feel any better about herself?!

Ye Zhen was practically grinding his teeth: “Jiang! Xiao! Yi!”

Even a dog would be more generous than you!