April 16th, Saturday.

Tang Yishu entered Tenda’s office area carrying several books, swiping her card to unlock the door.

Although most of her salary was transferred home to supplement family expenses, her financial situation was still much better than before.

Perhaps due to her living habits, Tang Yishu still didn’t use any makeup or skincare products, but her youth itself was her greatest asset. With improved nutrition, her entire being radiated a youthful glow.

Tang Yishu placed her books on her desk and began scooping litter and feeding the “encouragement officers.”

“‘Yintang,’ eat a little less. You and ‘Mianzai’ both need to lose weight.”

“Oh, ‘Yintang,’ give your sister ‘Feihuang’ some space. Go eat from your bowl!”

Tang Yishu helplessly grabbed the black cat by the scruff of its neck and lifted it, trying to direct its head toward another cat food bowl, but “Yintang” paid no attention, taking just two bites before squeezing next to the orange cat again.

Currently, the office area has three “encouragement officers.”

The entirely black cat with snow-white paws, “Yintang,” was the first to arrive, named with the meaning “black forehead.”

The other two were also stray cats adopted from the pet hospital—one white cat and one orange cat.

The white cat was round and chubby, very adorable, and many people thought it resembled a money cat.

So Pei Qian named it “Mianzai,” which on the surface had an auspicious meaning, but meant “losing money to avoid disaster,” hoping it would not bring wealth but rather lose it.

As for the orange cat, it was given the same name as Fei Huang Studio. On the surface, this expressed the hope that it would be light as a swallow and agile in movement, but it conveyed the meaning “quickly becoming yellow.”

The three cats quickly finished their canned food.

Tang Yishu threw away the trash, then carefully groomed the three cats and trimmed their nails. Finally, she petted them until they were all purring and rolling around in the sunshine. Today’s task was complete.

She went to her workstation, opened her textbooks, and began studying.

Although the school library and study rooms were also available for studying, they were somewhat noisy. She still preferred to study at the company on weekends.

It was empty, very quiet, and there were coffee and snacks available.

Suddenly, the company door was pushed open.

Tang Yishu was startled for a moment, instantly remembering her special task of recording everyone who came to work overtime and then reporting to Pei Qian!

However, recently, no one had been working overtime, so Tang Yishu had almost forgotten about it.

But now it seemed someone had come to work overtime again. Tang Yishu hurriedly turned her head to see who it was.

After working together for this period, she had recognized everyone on this floor and would no longer be in a situation where she couldn’t recall names.

However, when she turned around, she saw it was Pei Qian.

That was fine then.

Tang Yishu stood up: “Senior, why are you here?”

Pei Qian quickly scanned the entire office area, found that no one had come to secretly work overtime, and nodded with satisfaction.

“I was just passing by and thought I’d drop in,” Pei Qian said casually.

Pei Qian had deliberately come today for a surprise inspection.

It had been a long time since he had received an overtime list from Tang Yishu, and Pei Qian was curious: had everyone stopped working overtime, or had little Tang learned to lie?

Now it seemed that everyone had truly stopped working overtime.

Thinking about it, it made sense. First, the no-overtime competition, then the Cornerstone Award—Pei Qian had gone to great lengths to eliminate overtime work, so there should be some results, right?

Now, the empty office on the weekend was the best harvest of Pei Qian’s efforts.

It seemed that as long as there was effort, there would be rewards!

“Come with me to the reception room,” Pei Qian said to Tang Yishu.

…

Regarding the establishment of “Tenda Imperial Guards,” Pei Qian had been considering it for two days.

The main reason for this need was that Pei Qian found Tenda’s businesses had become too numerous for him to manage.

Most importantly, he wasn’t getting information quickly enough!

Many company founders were much busier than Pei Qian, but they appointed numerous executives to handle various matters. Executives would consult on important issues and handle minor problems themselves.

In this model, those vast business empires could still operate efficiently and in an orderly manner.

Currently, Pei Qian was also using this model, but the biggest problem was that Pei Qian’s goals were exactly opposite to those of other company bosses!

Other company bosses’ attitude was: Executives should develop their departments well, report major problems they couldn’t solve immediately, and receive recognition when the business develops well.

Mr. Pei’s requirements were: Executives must not let their departments develop; report immediately if there were signs of business developing well; and receive recognition when major problems occurred that couldn’t be solved.

These requirements were opposite to those of other company bosses.

Other company bosses needed to understand the current problems in the company and could request departments to report at any time.

While Pei Qian needed to understand the current profit possibilities of the company, which most department heads saw no need to report.

Especially since Pei Qian had long maintained an image of “not liking employees seeking credit,” this problem became even more serious.

Therefore, Pei Qian felt he must establish an information-gathering department to better control information from various departments and identify problems early.

Members of this department would be called Management Trainees.

The full title of Management Trainees should be Management Training Students, originally a special project in foreign companies with the main goal of “cultivating future leaders of the company,” which could be seen as a talent reserve plan for training middle and senior management personnel.

Management Trainees usually had to intern in different departments of the company, understand the entire company’s operational processes, and then be assigned work according to their expertise.

Generally speaking, foreign companies’ management trainees were rigorously screened, highly capable, and usually qualified to be department or branch company heads.

Of course, this practice had now become somewhat overused, with all sorts of mediocre companies recruiting a few management trainees who ended up becoming “firefighters” sent wherever needed, losing all dignity.

Setting that aside, the management trainee system was perfectly suited to Pei Qian’s current needs.

Through the management trainee program, he could naturally place these people in different departments of the company.

As long as he ensured control over the management trainees, wouldn’t Pei Qian know department situations once the management trainees knew?

Moreover, Pei Qian particularly liked the job title “management trainee.”

Management trainee, managing losses.

If recruiting these people could manage losses, that would be great!

However, it was somewhat difficult to determine exactly how to select these management trainees and who should be the department head, which gave Pei Qian quite a headache.

Assistant Xin was very capable, handled matters cleanly and efficiently, never asked too many questions, and seemed like a good candidate.

But the problem was that she was a bit too capable, and all departments were too familiar with her.

Pei Qian established this department merely to serve as his own eyes and ears. Having Assistant Xin in charge would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, especially since Pei Qian himself already had a lot of work for Assistant Xin to do.

Moreover, all department heads knew Assistant Xin and might subconsciously be on guard, making it not covert enough.

After much thought, Pei Qian still felt that little Tang was most suitable.

On one hand, she was superficially just a cat caretaker, appearing completely harmless. Her gentle and soft demeanor was a natural camouflage, and no one would be too guarded against her.

On the other hand, Tang’s brain structure was relatively simple, or rather single-minded—when she promised something to someone, she would try her best to fulfill it. She had been consistently reporting overtime lists to Pei Qian, completing the task very well.

The only problem might be this occasionally manifesting halo effect, which would cause many hidden bugs to surface, but everyone seemed to have gotten used to it.

Who would think that the girl who scooped cat litter every day was the commander of the Imperial Guards hidden in the shadows?

Hmm, the more he thought about it, the more suitable it seemed!

Of course, one little Tang alone wasn’t enough; there needed to be many management trainees.

In other companies, management trainees were typically recruited from outstanding fresh graduates from universities or selected and trained from within the company.

But Pei Qian’s management trainees definitely couldn’t be selected from within the company.

Who knew what kind of trouble these employees would cause when they moved around between various departments?

If they trained several employees who mastered the business of multiple departments, Mr. Pei would probably have several more knives in his back.

Therefore, after consideration, Pei Qian decided that these management trainees must not have any background working at Tenda. They would bypass Tenda’s biannual recruitment and be directly selected by little Tang.

The selected people would only obey Pei Qian’s commands, ensuring that Mr. Pei’s orders superseded all else.

…

In the reception room, Pei Qian sipped tea while simply explaining the part of his idea that could see the light of day.

“In short, go to the university and help me find some first-year and second-year students who have ample time and not many classes to come intern at the company. Arrange them in various departments.”

“You’ll be in charge of the management trainee project and report any progress to me immediately.”

“These management trainees must be strictly screened to ensure that each person is honest and reliable.”

“After being assigned to various departments, they can adjust their internship times according to their course schedules. They should primarily focus on their studies in daily life, basically not participating in departmental work, but they must grasp the detailed movements of each department.”

“Every so often, they should come to the company for a meeting to report directly to me what they’ve seen and heard during that period. I’ll also randomly check some information, and at that time, I don’t want anyone to be unable to answer.”

“Additionally, this project is temporarily confidential; don’t deliberately publicize it. However, it’s not top secret either.”

“Any problems?”

Tang Yishu looked somewhat bewildered and nervous, carefully pinching her fingers: “Senior, I, I’m afraid I can’t handle it. I’ve never even been a class monitor…”

Pei Qian smiled slightly: “It’s alright. This is a very simple job, and I believe with your patience and attentiveness, you can do it well.”

“Usually, you’ll still be feeding cats at the company, just coming over to host meetings when they occur. By the way, you need to keep track of each management trainee’s movements and report any issues to me immediately.”

“That’s all. Isn’t it simple?”

Tang Yishu pursed her lips: “Okay, Senior, I’ll, I’ll try.”