Chapter 10

translated by astrid83

One week before Lunar New Year 1 , Huang Ning resigned.

He was basically an armchair strategist 2 , in addition, his house was to be demolished and relocated 3 , thus he had no financial burden. If he couldn’t continue muddling his way through at this company, after taking a break, he could just take his time to find the next company.

Huang Ning did manage to avoid the problem by quitting, but the company got into deep trouble.

Other than gradually dulling business, that order of Huang Ning’s expended a huge cost. Without money rolling in, it became a bad debt. Their funds developed a cash flow problem, momentarily, even their wages were difficult to be paid out.

General Manager Cai was unable to recover after a singular setback.

Almost everyday, he would find reasons not to come to the company.

As if he was hiding in his turtle shell, anything that happened outside had nothing to do with him.

Without any other choice, Old Chairman Cai could only personally come out to clean up the mess.

——Rumours said that there was a large listed group that wanted to purchase the better part of their shares, and was also willing to invest a large sum of money, enough to bring the company, which was on the verge of collapsing, back to life.

The better part of their shares.

This meant that they would lose ownership of the company that he had operated through bitter hardships for more than twenty years.

From then onwards, he would be the same as all the other people in the big office, reduced to a mere labourer.

This huge drop in position made Old Chairman Cai’s scalp numb whenever he thought of it, so much that even though he was facing the predicament of being shut down, he remained hesitant, not daring to rashly agree.

……

With the slump in business, the Finance Department became increasingly idle.

Work that used to take a full day to complete, now took only one morning.

However, Cheng Yanqing could not bring himself to be happy.

The Sales Department hired a new Deputy Manager. A young man with outstanding looks, and so beautiful to the point of being enchanting.

His surname was Tang, named Tang Mo 4 .

He had a pair of long and narrow red phoenix eyes 5 , an easy-going 6 temperament, and well-articulate. He would often bring smiles to the older aunties in the office, and whenever he did so, he smiled along as well, but his smiles did not reach his eyes, causing him to seem indifferent.

Initially, Cheng Yanqing had thought nothing of it.

But after that day when Manager Li had stopped him under the company building to “pour out all of his inner feelings”, he then started ignoring him.

Other than the fixed formal greeting with “Morning” in the morning, no extra words were spoken. Instead, it was this newly-hired Deputy Manager of the Sales Department, Tang Mo, who had quickly warmed up to Manager Li.

During work, their 7 communications were sparse in the first place.

Tang Mo was a newcomer, thus requiring Manager Li’s guidance on all sorts of problems, which just happened to become the bridge of their communications.

The two of them were inseparable 8 , maybe because they were both handsome men, when they walked side by side, they were especially healing for the eyes.

In the beginning, Cheng Yanqing was still feeling relaxed.

For a long time previously, Manager Li’s actions always carried a feeling of ambiguity 9 , which pressured him especially. Now that there was no one bothering him, the emotional pressure he felt was thus not as great anymore.

But gradually, he started to feel that something was not right.

Seeing Manager Li and Tang Mo meeting clients together, eating lunch together, cheerfully talking and laughing, Cheng Yanqing felt sour and uncomfortable in his heart. He even compared himself to Tang Mo many times, realising that no matter if it was in terms of character, looks, or work capability, it seemed that he could not even compare to the other party.

As the cycle repeated itself without stopping, Cheng Yanqing was almost going to go insane from the self-torture.

……

Tang Mo was skilled in dealing with human relationships.

Additionally, with his exceptional appearance and higher emotional intelligence, it was as if he was born to work in sales.

If it was not for the surging sourness in Cheng Yanqing’s heart, he probably would have had a good impression of Tang Mo.

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Nevertheless, these emotions of his did not just stem from nowhere.

……

Two days ago, when getting off work, Chen Yanqing happened to bump into Tang Mo who was waiting for the elevator.

Tang Mo was always dressed in a suit during and after work. The suit was well-fitted, showing off his broad shoulders and slim waist to the fullest. Glinting from behind his textured hair, a ear stud worn on his right ear reflected the light into Cheng Yanqing’s line of sight.

He seemed to be decent, yet not all that decent at the same time.

Seeing Cheng Yanqing, Tang Mo raised an eyebrow, asking casually: “How many years have you been at the company?”

“Almost two years.”

“Oh……” Tang Mo nodded, then smiled: “Then that’s not a short while. I saw that you didn’t really talk to Wei- jie and Miao- jie usually, and even thought that you were a newcomer like me.”

There was a reason why Cheng Yanqing was in the finance-related industry.

He had an introverted personality, speaking less especially towards the people he had just met and was not familiar with. It was not that he was not willing to speak, just that he did not know what topic to chat about. In addition, this company had strong internal disputes, one could not tell if an unintentional sentence would be exaggerated and spread to General Manager Cai’s ears, causing unnecessary trouble. Hence, he seemed to be a man of few words 10 and particularly silent.

The two of them tried to make conversation and talked aimlessly, mostly, it was Tang Mo asking the questions and Chen Yanqing answering.

Once they reached the next crossroads, they would no longer be walking the same way. Tang Mo paused all of a sudden, his eyes unhurriedly sweeping around Chen Yanqing for a while, then said: “Did you know? I discovered a secret.”

This sort of gaze was a bit disrespectful.

If it were the usual Tang Mo, he definitely would not do any sort of action that would make people uncomfortable.

Chen Yanqing gave him a doubtful sideways glance.

“It is a secret about my leader.” Tang Mo smiled. As if he did not see Chen Yanqing’s confused expression, he continued on, mysterious and unpredictable: “My leader ah…… Whenever he is free during work, he would often stare at you and be lost in thought.”

“AH……?!”

Chen Yanqing was caught off guard.

After he recovered from the shock, he then realised that wasn’t Tang Mo’s leader Manager Li? Immediately he felt uneasy.

Tang Mo pursued with a closed eyed smile: “You guys are not a couple, right?”

Ever since graduation, Chen Yanqing had yet to meet someone at work who spoke this bluntly. The colleagues he used to bump into would all take an indirect approach 11 to worm facts out of him, whenever they wanted to know something. He was shocked by Tang Mo’s boldness, stuttering out a reply: “No…… W-we aren’t……”

“Oh……”

Tang Mo darted his eyes from side to side 12 , then craftily said: “That’s what I thought. If you guys were a couple, why wouldn’t you go home together after work, and why wouldn’t you eat together at work?…… Then that’s great.”

“What…… that’s great?”

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Chen Yanqing was somewhat bewildered.

He felt like he could not catch up with Tang Mo’s thought process.

“Because I want to chase him ah .”

Tang Mo stuffed both his hands into his pockets, his ear stud swinging and twinkling, almost blinding Chen Yanqing: “If you like him, you can also compete with me fair and square.”

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Footnotes

direct tl would be Spring Festival. In China, one would get 7-15 days of holiday, depending on where you work. It occurs on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which is why the dates keep varying on the English calendar. 纸上谈兵 — discussing military strategies on paper only these houses need to be demolished for the land to be redeveloped, the company/govt has to give suitable compensation to the households involved. In some cases, some households became overnight millionaires because of this. laughed when I saw his name bc 莫 can just mean “none” so I guess many of you would have heard of phoenix eyes, but apparently there are a few types of phoenix eyes. NOT that his eyes are red lmao. I’ll just drop the baidu link of this type of eye here: https://baike.baidu.com/item/丹凤眼/1690342 author used lazy here but it doesn’t really fit CYQ and LC lit. (walk) in and out together 暧昧— this term used here doesn’t have a direct tl, but it refers to the feeling of being more than friends but less than partners direct tl: cherish words like gold 旁敲侧击—lit. Knocking and hitting from the sides here it lit. means turned his eyeballs, which means that he thought of something