Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In early April, Ning Weikai travelled to Taiwan.
During his past visits, he liked this place a lot. Warm, moist, prosperous, and chaotic. This confusion was on a spiritual level, hidden under the surface of arrogance and prosperity. In such a place, there were endless opportunities and possibilities; it was where a legend could be created.
However, this time, he wasn’t feeling as relaxed and certain as before.
New Bori had branch offices in Taiwan. The moment he stepped off the plane, he was greeted by the local officials. Three black Honda CRVs were running smoothly across the airport freeway at high-speed; low-key but eye-catching.
Assistant Yuan Jun reported to him, “The Sales Director Of South China has already tried to get in touch with Wang Taishi twice.”
“Is he still avoiding us?” Ning Weikai raised his eyebrows. The Wang Taishi they spoke of was the general manager of Mind Fabrics, the CEO of Mind, a strange old gentleman who used to be a university professor.
Yuan Jun’s face was a bit stiff. “The first time we were shunned; the second time our staff were scolded and kicked out, and this piece of news has spread everywhere.”
Ning Weikai’s brows squeezed slightly and he said motionlessly, “Well, he did a great job at letting the whole industry know that we want to stab Aida in the back, yet we failed.”
Yuan Jun was a bit embarrassed and he didn’t reply. At the same time, he felt pity for the director who had screwed it up.
The news also gave Ning Weikai a bit headache. In the past few years, with New Bori growing and expanding, he gradually realized that compared to the past, he actually had less and less knowledge of who were his truly reliable employees.
Most of the managers who followed him back in the days, who excelled at their jobs and created one miracle after another for New Bori, had moved up in the hierarchy, and stepped into senior leadership positions.
An employee’s attitude was determined by their job position. People in different positions would have different viewpoints and ways of thinking. For example, when he was a sales manager, he would have disregarded the obstacles and done the extreme, even neglecting his acknowledgement of shame and conscience, in order to secure the project for Ning Weikai. After transitioning into senior leadership, it became a different story. He cared more about what I want, which direction I should follow, and then asked his subordinates to do it. As to the hardships and difficulties involved during execution, it wasn’t something he needed to worry about as a senior leader.
The newly appointed group of managers and essential staff lacked the experience for the difficulties in the market, and they hadn’t experienced New Bori’s rapid growth in the previous years or the process of being on top of the industry neither. Therefore, their ability and experience were bound to be inferior to the older generation. It was decided by the larger scope and had nothing to do with their own qualifications. Use the Mingsheng Project from last year as an example, New Bori chose not to bid in order to maintain its own price balance among other state-owned enterprise projects. Although New Bori indeed could afford to lose the project like that thanks to its supreme financial status, it was still not a good thing that the managers could easily jump into the decision to give up such a project without trying.
Right now, seeing this team struggle with the getting in touch with Mind since the beginning, Ning Weikai was determined to review the company’s talent pool. This was the core force for New Bori’s continuing growth, and it was also the foundation he used to resist the Zhu Consortium.
Now that he had made the most important decision, the difficulties ahead were no longer a challenge for Ning Weikai. Having had a brief consideration, he issued an order, “Bring over two staff.” He specifically appointed two employees. Yuan Jun was slightly surprised, as these two used to be Ning Weikai’s subordinates when he first started working for New Bori, as a manager for the sales department. They use to be some of the best known people in the industry. They had now become the first in command for the company’s branches.
“President, the timeline is tight and both of them are now in charge of the branches with hundreds of people…”
This time, Ning Weikai didn’t act as affable and lighthearted as usual. Instead, he looked at him without much emotion and said, “Tell them that within 10 days, I need to see Wang Taishi.”
Soon it was May.
Coming to Shenzhen at that time was not a great choice. The huge city was hot and windless all day. Even without heavy exertion, immediately one would get sweaty, wet and sticky. Occasionally there were thunderstorms and heavy rain, which could be a bit frightening.
However, Lin Qian couldn’t avoid coming to Shenzhen. It was the last stop of the over two-month long national market inspection.
It was almost noon, and Lin Qian and some colleagues had just finished meeting with the employees from the Shenzhen branch. They quickly grabbed some food, then headed to some of Aida’s stores in the city.
The sun was burning, making her eyes hard to open. Due to the busy schedule, she appeared much skinnier. The dark circles under her eyes hadn’t faded for a long time, making her eyes look particularly large, like a slender abused panda.
The colleague joked that she was the Workaholic Xishi. Slowly the nickname spread, and almost all branches in the country had heard that there was a “Workaholic Xishi” from the company’s headquarters. Hard working, beautiful and friendly, she travelled from one branch to another in different cities to provide feedback, support and guidance.
Outside a busy store, a vice president of the Shenzhen branch were accompanying Lin Qian and her team, observing it from a dozen steps away. The vice president was pleased and proud to say, “This week, the Shenzhen branch will surely have the highest national sales volume. We are very confident.”
Lin Qian and others nodded with a smile. Lin Qian said, “Shenzhen’s business environment is very strong and advantageous. The employees of the Shenzhen branch are really the most inspirational I’ve seen.” Having said that, people nodded frequently, because indeed, even during the lowest of Aida Group, the Shenzhen branch still maintained a decent performance, showing the resilience of its team.
The two parties briefly discussed areas for improvement. Some of the managers from the headquarters pointed out a few minor issues with the internal operations and after-sales services of the Shenzhen branch. Lin Qian also stated that they could have more flexibility in market promotion activities. After a few additional conversations, both sides were happy, and it was a perfect ending for the headquarters’ market inspection. The vice president of the Shenzhen branch said, “We are really glad that headquarters can send someone over. To be honest, as the performance of the company in the past few years hasn’t been great, subsidiaries like ours felt like we’re abandoned. Now it’s changed, with such an excellent product from headquarters, we have completely turned around. In the past, we used to walk around the people of New Bori and SMQ, with our heads down. Now they are going to have to detour!”
Everyone laughed. The vice president looked to Lin Qian, smiling, “Manager Lin, maybe sometime you could also invite President Li to come and inspect?”
The reason he asked was that they all knew that Lin Qian used to be Li Zhicheng’s assistant, and now she had become the assistant manager of the subsidiaries, she could be considered as the right hand person of the big boss. Lin Qian heard Li Zhicheng was mentioned, her heartbeat slowed down. She smiled and responded, “I’ll absolutely bring your invitation to President Li.” she paused, “I think he’ll definitely like this place a lot.”
Lin Qian’s flight back to Lin City was at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, she would land by 4.
Because of their exhaustion, the colleagues in the team were all being quiet, or sleeping during the flight.
Yet Lin Qian couldn’t fall asleep. She was sitting by the window, looking at the golden beam from the clouds, thinking of Li Zhicheng.
At noon, why had she told people in the Shenzhen branch with such certainly that Li Zhicheng would like Shenzhen and like the Shenzhen branch? It wasn’t just a polite comment to make them happy. It was because she thought of him as a resilient and goal-driven person. This matched exactly with the business atmosphere in Shenzhen.
She seemed to inadvertently comment more on any topics relating to President Li Zhicheng.
Lin Qian’s eyes were slightly shut, leaning against the back of the seat. Her mind was like flying kites, passing through the clouds and drifting away to the place she had been missing so badly over the past two months or more.
The day since leaving Lin City, she had begun another state of life.
Busy, thoroughly busy, so busy that she was about to vomit, day and night.
The process was full of excitement. She was young and working in a key position. She had followed the top performers from various departments, travelling and researching in all the markets around the country. She felt like a sponge, desperately absorbing everything from the market to after-sales, from internal operations to overall management. It felt like being rebuilt for once. After a long period of hardships, she had been inadvertently reborn.
She also fully exposed her talent without holding anything back. She treated people with sincerity and tried her best to provide support to them, regardless of who they were, and which branch they worked in. Thanks to her great efforts, she had made a lot of friends. The friendships had already been established no matter whether they were with or without genuine intentions. At first, she didn’t what was her reason to all of sudden become a social butterfly with an advantage, since she wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about such things normally.
Later, she slowly learned that the hidden motives of her heart – she did it for the sake of Li Zhicheng.
He could only manage the overall situation while sitting at the tip of the pyramid. So she went down to the earth to explore for him and find out how his business was actually doing. And her building the professional and personal friendships, would be helpful for gaining in-depth understanding of the Adai Group all over the country, and would be beneficial for him to manage and lead the entire company going forward.
He who touches pitch shall be defiled. Gradually, without realizing, she had been planning so much and so far for him, but he still had no clue.
These past two months, more than 70 days, were also a torment for Lin Qian. Because she and Li Zhicheng hadn’t seen each other, not even once.
At first, she was hoping that she would occasionally have a weekend to fly back to Lin City to meet him. Or when he was free, he could come to visit her. Although it was somewhat out of place for a president to do, this was really what he would do. In the United States, he followed her without saying anything, and in Taiwan, he brought her to his side without hesitation. Therefore, Lin Qian believed that no matter where she went, they’d always see each other very soon.
However, if we had viewed Aida as a huge machine, operating at a high speed and plundering the market at the moment, then Li Zhicheng would be the heart of this machine. If Lin Qian was an important part of the machine, then Li Zhicheng would be controlling all the operations and livelihood of all components.
He was busier than her. All market information and incurable problems were sent to his ears. Then he would quickly make decisions with the managers at headquarters. The workload at this time was more complicated and in higher volume than prior to Aito’s listing. Like an elaborate chess board, he was the highest-standing chess player, and he had to be weighing the system, at any time and any place.
That was why he couldn’t leave. Lin Qian understood that during those days, he must be fully immersed in the chess game, because everyone was relying on him. He never mentioned coming to visit her. This truth was making Lin Qian feel uncontrollably down. But she also knew that he should have always been like this. That was the guy she fancied.
So she could only complain in her heart, Li Zhicheng, you just left your woman feeling lonely again.
But she was merely thinking about it, she wouldn’t even mention it to him.
Although they hadn’t met in person in the past two months, the exchanges between the two were very, very frequent. For example, emails, telephone calls, and conference calls…99.9 percent were due to work. But it was enough to make Lin Qian feel some consolation.
During the process, although she hadn’t see him at all, she was able to feel their hearts, with the passage of time, and the distance apart, were getting closer and closer. Because there were a lot of collaborations between them, just as a superior and a subordinate, or a commander and a pioneer. She keenly discovered the problems in marketing and management, and gave him instant feedback. And he would always sought out a clue from a confused or chaotic situation, and made a clear-cut decision after a brief contemplation. This way of collaboration made Lin Qian very comfortable during her work. Since Li Zhicheng was a person with great powers of observation, he would show her a clear direction, but not cause her to feel fully tied-up in any sense.
So often, just from listening to him on the phone, with his deep and warm voice, she would feel her admiration and longing for him had deepend.
Li Zhicheng was not totally unresponsive. For the first time, he said “I miss you” after she left Lin City for more than two weeks. She was in the Suzhou branch that day and the communication with the local staff did not go smoothly. Returning to the hotel at night, she felt full of grief. When she called him to report the day’s results in the evening, her emotions were inevitably a little down.
So Li Zhicheng asked, “What happened?”
Lin Qian didn’t want to mention it to him, nor could she mention it. These matters were very clear to her and she knew it was her own business to have conflicts with the company colleagues. Since her boyfriend was the president of the company, she couldn’t bring it up to him.
So she just softly answered, “Nothing, I’m just a little tired. It was a long day, but really … every day is a fruitful.” Every day … missing you.
And Li Zhicheng would respond in a mild way, “Well, that’s good.”
At the end, she said, “I still haven’t finished my work. I gotta go.”
She waited for his response, but he remained silent.
Lin Qian asked, “Hello? I gotta go.”
He said with a calm voice: “Lin Qian.”
“What’s up?”
“Miss you.”
It was just those two simple words, those bits and pieces of affection and yearning, and a tacit understanding during their work that made her slowly lose track of her days through her two months travelling. She was on the flight to return home, but when she thought about the love they shared the night before she left, it felt it had been as long as a century since her departure.
At four o’clock sharp, Lin Qian arrived at Lin City Airport.
The airport was always busy on Friday afternoons. Lin Qian collected the luggage and dismissed her colleagues, lying that she was about to be picked up by her friend and asked them to leave first. Since they didn’t have to go to the company today, they all headed straight home.
On the phone with Li Zhicheng the day before, she had told him about the flight. He went silent for a second, then whispered, “Ok, I’ll pick you up.” Having missed him for so long, she had talked like she was spoiled by him on the phone before. Now that they were finally about to reunite, Lin Qian somehow felt inexplicably reserved. Hearing that he was coming to pick her up, she only whispered, “Don’t bother if you can’t leave work. I’ll get a cab back to the company very soon.” He was just laughed in response.
As it turned out early this morning, her colleague who was in charge of booking the tickets had discovered that there were still seats available on an earlier flight. He then changed the flight for everyone. The whole team had been missing home badly. If they had taken the scheduled flight due to arrive at six o’clock in the evening, there would be way too much traffic on the road. The adjustment made perfect sense.
After Lin Qian had finished her work at noon, she sent Li Zhicheng a text message to tell him that the flight was changed and she had to arrive at the airport two hours earlier than expected. He was probably busy. After a while he responded with two words, “Copy that.”
Lin Qian was stepping toward the exit of the airport. It was crowded, and lots of people were holding signs. She subconsciously started looking for the familiar figure in the crowd.
To be honest, maybe because she had grown more mature during her market inspection before returning to him, at the moment she was feeling happy yet calm instead of being very emotional. She also felt she had became more mellow and could calmly face her relationship with him with more confidence and ease.
Only her heartbeat couldn’t be controlled by her head, exposing the truth, more and more clear, faster and faster.
Soon, she saw a familiar figure.
But instead of Li Zhicheng. It was Jiang Yuan, standing behind the crowd, he smiled and looked at her, “Manager Lin, you are finally back.”
Lin Qian smiled and walked over, eyes naturally sweeping beside him. It was really just him.
Feeling slightly down, but not revealing it on the surface, she let Jiang Yuan took her luggage from her, “Let’s get in the car first.”
The car was cruising on the airport freeway. Jiang Yuan sat in the passenger’s seat and smiled. The driver Xiaotang, not sure influenced by whom, seem to be in a good mood and had been playing some cheerful music that brightened up the passengers in the car.
Perhaps Li Zhicheng was unable to leave at the moment? Lin Qian thought to herself, that after all, her flight was adjusted, and his plans were always changing.
After a while, it felt like Jiang Yuan could perceive what she was thinking. He naturally started, “President Li has been very busy these past two days. He squeezed all the work of the next week into just these two days. There was an important meeting at 6 pm, arranged several days ago. Didn’t it hit your original flight time? He informed me last night that it was to be advanced to 3 pm, and the dozens of people invited had to quickly adjust their schedules. Then Manager Lin, you suddenly changed your flight today, and came back early. The meeting was happening at the same time…he’s in the middle of it right now. He’s so busy that he didn’t even have lunch.”
Having heard it, Lin Qian was silent for a moment, she slowly smiled. “Ahh, I see. It’s all good, thank you.”
After being away for so long, having seen the familiar Aida Industrial Park again, Lin Qian was somehow excited.
Many other feelings seemed to be slowly returning with her arrival. For example, when taking the elevator up to the top floor, her mind uncontrollably replayed his face and his motions. For instance, she was sent by Jiang Yuan into Li Zhicheng’s office to wait for the boss. She looked at the couch where they had shared a kiss, her heart was softened like being covered in a thin layer of silk. A lot of the thoughts that were buried deeply in her heart, that were suppressed due to the immense work pressure, were starting to come out again. It was a very pleasant, but also slowly torturous feeling. The sophisticated heart she thought she had, turned out to be slightly defeated.
After a while, Li Zhicheng was still in meeting. Lin Qian directly headed outside, to the big conference room where he was. Jiang Yuan, sitting at the cubicle outside, saw her walking towards the conference room, yet pretended to have seen nothing and kept minding his own work with his head down.
She gently pushed through the backdoor to the conference room.
The sunshine of the dusk was soft yellow, and the dim sun ray made the conference room seem warm and cosy. Next to the long, dark bronze conference table, a lot of people were having an intense and focused discussion. With so many people already in the conference, Lin Qian did not cause any attention when she quietly stepped in.
She got herself a chair near the wall, and quietly sat down. A few managers who had met her before, seeing she was back, looked a little surprised, but they nodded and smiled to her. She then looked up, through many dark-haired heads, she instantly located Li Zhicheng, sitting at the head of the table.
The weather had gotten warmer; he wasn’t in his suit, only in a simple shirt and tailored pants, with a dark tie. He looked the most low-key, yet most eye-catching among the crowd. Looking down, he was listening to the discussion of the staff while reading a file. His deep dark brows and eyes were quiet and focused, without noticing she had already come back to him.
