Chapter 11

translated by astrid83

Because I want to chase him ah.

If you like him, you can also compete with me fair and square.

These two sentences lingered beside his ears without fading for a long time.

——Then does Manager Li like Tang Mo?

Even though Tang Mo had not been at the company for long, Manager Li seemed to already be very familiar with him.

Chen Yanqing recalled that evening once more, when Manager Li had asked him if he had checked the meaning behind gifting a Zippo. However, he had been in shock, his brain full of images of himself on the night before National Day, biting the pillows while weeping and whimpering on the bed, and the look of himself tossing and turning, all flashing past. With these images flooding in, he felt embarrassed and also desperately wanted to escape, causing him to be not at all concerned about the other small details.

He had said that he did not wish to develop this fast.

Before he could express himself clearer, Manager Li already ignored him……

The feeling of dejectedness was like a storm far out at sea, beating down on him bit by bit, almost drowning him.

All of a sudden, Chen Yanqing lost the mood to deal with the statements.

Taking out his phone, he secretly looked up the Zippo that he had forgotten all this while. Most brands would buy advertisement spots on the first page of the search engine, hence very quickly, he could find the advertising slogan. The slogan was used in the marketing last Valentines Day, with several news articles being dated February 14 of last year. On them, it was clearly written——If you love him, then gift him a Zippo.

Chen Yanqing was stunned.

His fair cheeks flushed slightly, like a ripe honey peach.

He sat at his work desk in a daze, alone, for a while.

A shadow then loomed over him, and Chen Yanqing suddenly realised that someone with a tall stature was standing behind him: “Manager Li……”

Manager Li’s eyes were very pretty, brilliant yet deep, whenever he looked at someone, they would feel as if they were under intense scrutiny. He was holding onto a stack of materials, he said: “Little Mo just signed a contract, when you have time in the afternoon, prepare the invoice to pass to him.”

Little Mo……

What an intimate name.

Chen Yanqing took the materials from him, his fingers crumpling the papers. He mustered his courage: “M-Manager Li……”

“ En ?” Manager Li paused in his steps and raised his eyebrows slightly.

The small, handsome face in front of him would always be able to cause ripples in his heart. Other than the flustered look that would appear whenever they were face to face, he would always be blushing for no apparent reason. At first, he thought that it was caused by the kid’s extremely shy nature, but thinking back now, his skin was naturally rosy, just that it showed colour easily.

“Did you bring lunch today?”

Chen Yanqing then realised that his question was a bit strange——Manager Li had never brought lunch before. In a panic, he sought a remedy to the situation: “I meant, let’s have lunch together……”

"

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“ En , alright.”

Surprisingly, Manager Li, who had been unwilling to pay attention to him for the past week, very naturally agreed: “What do you want to eat?”

“A new noodle house opened downstairs.”

Chen Yanqing’s eyes lit up, his mood instantly lifting: “Let’s go try it then.”

……

However, his good mood did not last for long.

Very soon, his mood fell into the depths of a valley again.

——Tang Mo had tagged along.

Tang Mo was adept at socialising, as he walked side by side with Manager Li, they kept a pleasant conversation going; Chen Yanqing was quiet, in addition to being from a different department from them and thus only had a vague knowledge about sales. Naturally, he could not join into their conversation. Like this, he looked more like an outsider.

The lunch that he had looked forward to was tasteless and bland. 1

Chen Yanqing had clearly ordered his favourite bullfrog noodles 2 .

Unfortunately, he could not even force down a bite of it.

To his side, Tang Mo acted as if he did not detect Chen Yanqing’s unhappiness, continuing to talk eloquently: “Chen- ge , a few hospitals that were interested in working with us have all withdrawn prematurely. Only a small number of private clinics were willing to use our pharmaceuticals, but the demand is not much. All of them are orders for a few hundred or thousand.”

His voice was a clear and bright youthful tone, which made it easy for others to have a favourable impression of him.

“ En .” Manager Li pondered: “The company’s products are approved, just that due to the slow contract approval rate and late deliveries, the clients have been displeased. Public hospitals have connections with other hospitals, once the reputation becomes poor, the losses in the future will just become greater and greater.”

“But then, you still dragged it out for a year.”

After drinking up the soup, Tang Mo yawned wearily: “It would all be good if the acquisition happened earlier.”

“I met with some unexpected circumstances.”

Manager Li glanced towards Chen Yanqing who had widened his eyes and a confused look on his face.

When their eyes met, Chen Yanqing hurriedly shifted his envious eyes 3 away, and thus did not see the crinkling of the other man’s eyes.

Immediately after, Manager Li said: “Little Mo, I still have some recently put together assessment materials on a few clients. Come over after work to get them bah .”

“Sure.”

Chen Yanqing placed his chopsticks down, anxiously saying: “I’m coming over too——”

not going to be able to finish this novel this month I guess TT

also not me just realising new things about TM when translating this even though I’ve read this a few times ><

if you would like to support me and my translations, do consider giving me a kofi!!

Footnotes

嚼蜡 — lit. chewing on wax, aka tasteless, insipid I haven’t eaten this before, but apparently frog tastes like chicken. So yeah nothing exotic here 兔子眼— lit. rabbit eyes, usually referring to red eyes (either conjunctivitis or red from envy/anger)