The next morning, Chen An was lying in bed when he first checked his emails. After glancing through them, Chen An suddenly sat up.
Cheng Lele had actually replied to the company email.
“The company’s notice has been acknowledged.
Before this notice was issued, the company did not verify the situation with me. Given that the notice has been publicly released, I will also state my views here.
First, regarding the box office issue. The box office data the company compared is unfair. Before September, Xingchen was the only cinema in Taixi County. In October, Dahai Cinema entered the Taixi market to divide the pie with a superior location, more supporting commercial environment, and more advanced hardware facilities. Please refer to Taixi County’s sequential box office data for the past five years—excluding pandemic factors and natural growth, this year’s combined box office for both cinemas shows no significant increase compared to previous years’ data. It can be seen that Xingchen Cinema’s box office decline is mainly caused by diversion from competitors. This is an objective new situation that cannot be entirely attributed to me.
Second, since I joined Xingchen Cinema, the box office data has been steadily growing. Attached are weekly growth charts and a list of marketing activities. I have not ‘worked passively and slackly’ and have already achieved certain work results.
Third, regarding the company’s so-called ‘confronting leadership,’ please provide specific evidence. What I recall is only when handling customer complaints on-site, Supervisor Huang insisted that I immediately stop handling the situation and prioritize sending him a report. Considering that customers on-site were emotionally agitated, and that the report could be completed by other employees logging into the company system on my behalf, based on the principle of prioritizing urgent matters, I temporarily handled the customer complaint and sent the report data afterward. I believe that confronting leadership is a subjective assumption by relevant personnel and does not accord with the actual situation.
Finally, as I am not yet aware of any errors, I cannot ‘show no remorse.’ I hope the company and relevant personnel will provide an explanation. If there is indeed a misunderstanding, given that significant damage has already been done to my reputation, I request that the relevant responsible parties publicly apologize. I will still reserve the right to pursue accountability.”
Cheng Lele’s reply was sharply written, full of fighting spirit, with every line radiating the message “idiots, come at me.”
Chen An hadn’t expected Cheng Lele to act so quickly. He made a phone call to Tang Xin: “Tell the people at Tongda Group that we’ll go to the group headquarters next week for an inspection and meet with their senior management to discuss the situation face-to-face. Once the time is confirmed, let me know.”
Tang Xin asked, “How many days will we go for?”
“Tell them two days, but book same-day round-trip tickets.”
“Okay.”
Tongda Group attached great importance to this meeting. When Tang Xin’s call went through on Thursday, they immediately confirmed that a meeting could be arranged for Monday.
As soon as the weekend passed, Chen An and Tang Xin boarded a flight to Beijing. He didn’t bring anyone else from the company—traveling light.
Tongda Group, however, was as if facing a formidable enemy, standing in neat rows in formation, ready for battle. Chen An apologized to the left for the hasty nature of this meeting request, apologized to the right for leaving the previous proposal idle for too long, then entered the group headquarters in grand fashion surrounded by people on both sides—extremely humble yet extremely high-profile.
After the meeting began, Chen An changed his demeanor. The faint light from the projector shone on his glasses, covering half his face, making his expression seem somewhat stern. He didn’t speak much, only stared at the data on the projector, occasionally saying a few words, but every one hit the nail on the head, pointing directly at critical issues. The meeting grew increasingly tense, and several senior executives present in related fields began to sweat.
Finally making it to the end of the meeting, Tongda’s side wanted to ease the atmosphere and suggested going to a club to rest for a moment, but Chen An asked if he could tour the interior of the group’s office building to understand the employees’ working conditions.
The chairman thought this was a request for in-depth investigation. He verbally agreed while privately having a group of senior executives continue to accompany them. So Chen An, like an emperor on inspection tour, went to visit various subsidiary company floors in grand procession.
Floors 6-10 of the group headquarters housed the cinema chain company. Chen An went through the motions, touring floor by floor, finally arriving at the office floor where Cheng Lele used to work.
The file Tang Xin had given him earlier contained photos of Tong Zhe and Huang Tiangou. Tong Zhe, the kind of character prone to making mistakes, seemed to have been asked to leave in advance and wasn’t at his desk. Chen An swept his gaze across and saw Huang Tiangou with a work badge hanging around his neck, standing in a corner, bowing and scraping as he waited for his guidance and instruction.
Probably the chairman’s office had issued an urgent notice—all key positions had middle and senior management standing guard.
Chen An wore a smile as he walked toward him while removing his watch, loosening his tie, and unbuttoning his first collar button. When he was two or three meters away, he suddenly quickened his steps, raised one leg, and with a “smack” kicked Huang Tiangou in the lower abdomen.
Huang Tiangou was caught completely off guard by the kick and instantly fell to the ground. Chen An kept one leg pressed on his abdomen to prevent him from struggling or moving, his left hand clamped on his shoulder, his right hand with bulging veins raised high, rapidly falling on Huang Tiangou’s jaw, striking several times in succession. Huang Tiangou let out a muffled groan, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Everyone around was stunned for a moment. No one could have imagined that the refined and cultured investor would turn into a boxer in the blink of an eye, beating someone without any warning.
Tang Xin was also dumbstruck. She had known the boss for so many years and had never even seen him curse at anyone, let alone hit someone.
Wait, hitting people is one thing, but you could do it covertly—why use your own hands? With so many people watching and surveillance cameras overhead recording everything, without even being able to make up an excuse, how was she supposed to explain this to the public relations department?
After finishing the beating, Chen An patted Huang Tiangou’s face with a crisp sound, but his words were inexplicable: “I’ve taken photos of what you did. If you act recklessly again, next time you won’t get off so easily.”
Then he stood up, pulled a tissue from a nearby desk, wiped the blood from his hands, and while elegantly putting on his watch, said unhurriedly, “My apologies. I happened to run into a scoundrel and couldn’t hold back for a moment. If he wants to call the police, let him come at me. This is a private grudge and has nothing to do with Tongda Group, but since things have turned out this way, it’s not appropriate for me to stay any longer. Let’s leave it at this for today. We’ll apologize to Chairman Zheng another day.”
With that, he walked toward the exit. The other executives looked at each other, not daring to obstruct him, and voluntarily cleared a path for him.
In the taxi, Tang Xin was still in a daze.
When booking the plane tickets, she had already confirmed that the boss’s arrangement to meet with Tongda was inseparably connected to Manager Cheng. But she couldn’t figure out why the boss would go to such lengths to personally go there and deliver a beating. There were clearly many more effortless methods available.
After quite a while, she finally came to her senses.
The boss had her book same-day round-trip tickets in advance. This indicated that today’s performance wasn’t an impulsive act, but something that had been planned long ago.
No one up and down Tongda Group knew about the boss’s identity at Xingchen Cinema, so he had beaten Huang Tiangou in his capacity as an investor. Naturally, no one could associate the conflict between him and Huang Tiangou with anything else, and even Huang Tiangou himself probably couldn’t figure it out. The boss openly admitted it was a private grudge, but unfortunately for Huang Tiangou, his personal moral issues were indeed quite serious. Afterward, no one would suspect anything randomly, and certainly no one would pin this on Manager Cheng, who had a grudge against Huang Tiangou.
He also left Huang Tiangou with the phrase “taken photos” without saying what photos, deliberately leaving him enormous room for imagination. Huang Tiangou would be wary of Ping’an Xile’s power and afraid that his own problems couldn’t withstand investigation, so he wouldn’t dare casually report to the police or explain to the group. He could only grit his teeth and swallow his grievances. At the same time, as long as the boss refused or postponed cooperation with Tongda Group again, Huang Tiangou would become the biggest person responsible, and his position certainly couldn’t be kept. After today’s incident, his feat of single-handedly destroying the entire group’s future would spread infamously throughout the industry—this kind of charge was a hundred or thousand times more serious than those personal moral issues. Probably no company, large or small, would dare take in such a disaster.
The boss had killed three birds with one stone—ensuring Huang Tiangou could never rise again in the industry, removing Manager Cheng from the eye of the storm, and finally, the boss himself emerged unscathed without having to bear any responsibility.
In the car, Chen An reviewed some reports, then seemed to remember something and instructed Tang Xin: “Be selective about answering calls from Tongda Group—you don’t need to return every one. If they’re looking for me, say I’m in a bad mood and went on vacation.”
Tang Xin nodded like a pecking chicken: “I understand.”
“We won’t follow up on Tongda Group’s investment. Just leave them hanging.”
“I understand.”
Chen An gave her a cool glance: “I don’t think you understand. Tongda is suspected of data fabrication. Problems can be seen even in the PowerPoint, and afterward they were heavily guarding against us. I’m too lazy to investigate further.”
Tang Xin looked at her boss with a face full of admiration: “You actually paid attention during that meeting?”
Chen An said indifferently, “Since we came all this way.”
Tang Xin: …
As the car was about to enter the airport terminal, Chen An gave another instruction: “After we get back, help me schedule an appointment with the best psychologist in the provincial capital.”
Tang Xin looked at the boss she had just admired with great alarm: “Boss, are you okay?”
Chen An said, “I’m fine, just insomnia.”