Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Shanghai.
There were countless transparent raindrops linking the sky and the earth. On the street, colorful umbrellas started to appear like mushrooms and wound along the street.
Jiangnan’s plum rain season had arrived, and the sun had not appeared for a very long time. The continuous rainy days made the air extremely humid. For an open-door business, such weather was obviously unwelcome.
However, the one who was troubled was the boss. To the ordinary worker, sales did not mean as much. Whether they sold more or sold less, the money they received was all around the same. When there were fewer customers, they were quite relaxed, and they could take the opportunity to be lazy.
There were many people that liked it when it rained, like the group of people that owned cars. Rain meant they had a free car wash.
In the rain, a limousine quietly stopped by the roadside.
The driver that also acted as the bodyguard came down from the cab, opened the umbrella, respectfully opened the back door, and held the umbrella out for the person in the car. The driver paid no regard to the rain falling down his back.
A leather shoe stepped into the shallow puddle by the curb. After that, another leather shoe followed.
Li Yuanfei got out of the car and buttoned the button in front of his suit. He raised his eyes to look at his surroundings.
It was a very normal street in Shanghai, located in the transitional zone between the commercial center and the residential area. There were some fashionable brand stores nearby. The brands were not top-notch, but they had good reputations.
In front of him was a pet shop. It was a direct store under his Stars pet chain supermarket. Its exquisite decorations did not lose much compared to other boutiques nearby. Its brand new signs were washed bright by the rainwater.
White-collared ladies and teenage girls passed by with umbrellas. They cast burning gazes when they saw the luxurious car and Li Yuanfei, who was in high spirits.
“Boss, do you need me to follow you in?” The driver that doubled as the bodyguard carried the umbrella, sending him to the covered doorway.
“There’s no need.” Li Yuanfei valued his words like gold.
The automatic doors separated to the left and right, and he walked into the shop.
The driver quietly returned to the side of the luxury car, waiting quietly for him to come back.
Compared to the cold wind and rain outside, the warmth and humidity inside were just right, causing people to feel like a huge burden was lifted off of them.
There was a mat to rub their feet on at the door and the floor was clean, but it also showed that customers were scarce because of the continuous rain. When he walked into the shop, he left a string of shallow footprints. No shop assistant came to wipe them off immediately, but perhaps that was a little too extravagant.
The layout of the shop was concise, but not simple. It was mainly pure white in color. It tried to cater to the cold and mild Japanese style favored by metropolitan, fashionable women. The first half was the pet supply area, the second half was the pet sale area, and there was even a playground for the children beside the door.
The cashier raised his head to look at him but did not recognize him. He welcomed him, as was the official procedure, before he continued to chat in the QQ group of chain stores on the computer. After all, the distance between the lowest level workers and him was quite far.
At that moment, there were only two or three customers sitting on the sofas and resting. Rather than actually shopping for pet supplies, they were instead just avoiding the rain.
Li Yuanfei took a quick glance at the products on the shelves. There was nothing to criticize. Whatever was necessary was there, and he walked towards the most central part of the pets section. Even though the pet products took most of the space, the position of the pets themselves was even more important.
The display cabinets in the pet area displayed cats, dogs, and other pets in different categories. The prices were arranged in descending order. The most beautiful and valuable pets were placed in the front so that customers could see them first.
Li Yuanfei took a quick look and saw an employee sitting cross-legged. He was concentrated on using his phone, so Li Yuanfei coughed lightly and used his finger joint to knock on the class of the display case of the English Shorthair. He asked, “May I ask what kind of cat this is?”
Of course, he knew what kind of cat it was. At that moment, he suddenly wanted to have a random inspection on how the chain store was run and the attitude in which they treated their customers. Before that, no one was warned.
The employee took a look, then quickly lowered his head again to stare at his phone. He spat out, “English Shorthair.”
Li Yuanfei frowned in a way that was not easy to see and asked again, “What is special about this cat? Can you introduce it to me?”
The employee’s face flashed with obvious irritation, as if he was reluctant to be disturbed. Li Yuanfei guessed that he was probably playing a game on his mobile phone.
He walked over lazily, staring at the English Shorthair. He casually answered, “Using simple terms, the most unique part of the English Shorthair is how ‘circular’ it is: its eyes are circular; its face is circular; its claws are circular; the tip of its tail is circular; its torso is circular. Its personality is warm and obedient, and it is suitable to be kept by an ordinary family.”
Li Yuanfei was shocked and happy. He did not think that the employee, who looked particularly lazy, could somehow summarize the English Shorthair’s specialties so well. He had used the simplest and easiest words to introduce it to the customer.
“Brother, you are very professional. Do you learn details about pets on a regular basis?” he questioned tentatively. He had already made a decision in his mind. If the employee gave a positive answer, he would greet the manager of the store and promote him to assistant manager. After all, the low-level employees who liked to learn were too rare to be buried.
“So-so.” The shop employee scratched his head. It could have been that he saw that Li Yuanfei was dressed very well and he did not want him to look down on him. He answered truthfully, “That’s what’s written in the book.”
“Oh? You saw it in a book? What book?” Li Yuanfei asked, interested. “Is it a pet magazine or a book you bought in the bookshop concerning pets?”
The store employee shook his head. “It was written in an online novel.”
His response was not what Li Yuanfei had anticipated. He was shocked momentarily. “…An online novel introduced the unique points of the English Shorthair?”
“You don’t believe it? I was just reading it just now… Here, it’s this paragraph.” The store employee took his phone out from his pocket and flipped to the chapter he was referring to, letting Li Yuanfei see the words on the screen.
Li Yuanfei was intrigued and grabbed the phone to take a look.
The phone screen was full of words, and it seemed to really be an online novel. One of the paragraphs introduced the special features of the English Shorthair. It was exactly the same thing that the store employee had just said.
So that was how it was…
Li Yuanfei was a bit disappointed. After all, compared with professional reference books, online fiction had a lower level. He hardly ever read online fiction. The impression of online fiction was that it was all about killing in a different world or fighting in a city and getting girls. On the private bookshelf of his office were all the biographies of famous businessmen and historical celebrities in the country and abroad.
He had already gotten rid of the idea of promoting the employee to the assistant manager, but as an employee of a pet shop, reading an online story about pets was more meaningful than reading pornographic books, right?
Then, another thought flashed through his mind: It was impossible to expect unambitious, lower level employees to learn and improve on their own initiative, but could he improve the quality of grassroots employees by means of teaching in a way they enjoyed?
Such as… Li Yuanfei took a look at that employee again. No matter where the employee’s knowledge came from, it indeed would be able to increase the experience of a customer’s shopping experience.
“How is that online novel written? Is it meaningful?” he asked, pretending to be very interested.
He simply looked through several pages and found that no matter what the story was, at least the pet knowledge mentioned in the novel was basically correct, which was already very rare for an online novel.
“Haha, I find that it is quite meaningful. I recommend that you read it!” The employee was obviously a fan of online fiction. He was suddenly spirited. He gushed and said, “I am also an old bookworm. This is the first time I have seen online fiction describing real pets! At first, the website recommended it to me and I refused, but recently there’s been a book shortage. Now that I’m working in a pet shop, I thought it would be okay to see how the author fabricated the story. After I looked, however, it seemed that it was not like that, so I continued to read it. The only thing is that the author is relatively short and powerless…”
Li Yuanfei smiled as he listened. He thought, You are holding an employee pass for a pet shop and you are recommending online novels to customers. Is that suitable?
But he was already disappointed, and right now, he did not have much hope that the level of the employee was very high. He followed the flow and asked, “Is it? It sounds quite good. I also quite like pets… What is the content of this book? Can you explain it to me?”
“No problem!” The employee said. “In short, it’s in a place called Binhai City. A man nicknamed ‘Huo’ downloaded a mobile game to capture elfins by chance, and then caught elfins everywhere. It just happened that he was running a pet shop…”
“What did you say? Repeat it again!” The employee was suddenly seized by the collar by Li Yuanfei. He was totally confused. What kind of stimulation did the elegant man in front of him have that caused his face to turn so vicious in the twinkling of an eye? He hoped that he was not an intermittent manic patient that had escaped from a psychiatric hospital.
“Who are you? Let me go!” He was reluctant to admit his weakness and wanted to remove Li Yuanfei’s hand from his shirt collar.
“What is happening? Why did you start a fight with the customer?” Right at that moment, the store manager of the shop walked out. At first, he had only seen the back of Li Yuanfei and had thought that he was just an ordinary employee. When he walked in front of them and saw Li Yuanfei’s face, he was instantly so shocked that his face became the color of mud.
“Boss… Boss Li, why are you here today?” The store manager turned around and pushed the employee to the side, exasperated at his failure to do good. “Boy, open your dog eyes wide and look clearly! Who is this? This is the big boss of our company!”
The employee shrank his neck in fear, but still whispered in disobedience, “So what if he’s the boss? He was the first to make a move…”
“You still dare to speak?” The store manager was so angry he wanted to vomit blood.
“It was really like that! He took my phone and hasn’t returned it to me!” The employee put his neck on the line. In his heart he thought that he would just resign and return to his hometown, but he needed his phone back at least. It was the new Apple phone that he had bought with months worth of savings.
The store manager pointed at the doorway and was just about to tell the employee he was fired when his hand was pressed down by Li Yuanfei.
Li Yuanfei took a deep breath, straightened his clothes, then shook his head lightly. He walked over to return the phone to the employee and apologized. “I’m sorry, it was me who lost my composure just now. Let me apologize to you. I’m willing to pay you for your losses.”
