Chapter 8

translated by astrid83

CW: mention of the dubcon up till the first ……

On National Day, Cheng Yanqing had to accept two pieces of grievous news.

——At the company gathering, he drank till he blacked out.

The second grievous news was even more scary.

He had slept with Manager Li, and even done it twice.

The memories of how they got into the same bed was not there, but the feeling was still there.

When he woke up, it was with a splitting headache, and a sore waist and back.

Both of his legs were weak and boneless, like a balloon that was poked deflated.

That round at night could be called a rash act during drunkenness.

But when morning came, although Cheng Yanqing was half asleep and half awake, he was definitely conscious.

Manager Lee laid on his shoulder, huskily coaxing him, saying he still wanted more. This was a far cry 1 from the calm, skillful and experienced man he usually saw.

Cheng Yanqing felt loose-limbed and was in a daze. He did not feel uncomfortable, yielding after a show of resistance. But once his consciousness returned, all of the awkward and embarrassing memories came flooding back into his head, attacking him until he was utterly defeated, and he wished he could bury himself into the earth headfirst.

Taking advantage of the interval where Manager Li went to shower, he made a hasty escape.

……

For the entire holiday 2 , Cheng Yanqing muddled through it.

For the first two days, he had a constant fever, and when he finally felt a bit better, he switched on his phone. On it, there were several messages sent by Manager Li.

——Why did you suddenly go back?

——Does it still hurt?

There was still one more message, sent after an afternoon.

——Chengcheng, the behind has to be cleaned, if not you will get a fever.

The behind?

Cheng Yanqing was dumbfounded for a moment, then his face instantly turned red, as if a current ran through his whole body, and almost threw his phone out.

Just one second before, he was still trying to figure out how to pretend that the rash act during drunkenness never happened and go to work while acting nonchalantly. Manager Li’s frank message seemed to tell him candidly 3 that everything that happened yesterday night was impossible to erase.

Cheng Yanqing buried his face into his hands.

Actually, Manager Li’s full name was Li Chen.

How did it become like this……

Although he would usually call him Manager Li, Manager Li…… But his heart had always treated him as a close friend. He never thought that they would accidentally develop a sexual relationship.

……

Nearing the end of the year, the Finance Department sunk into busyness. Accountants were still not hired, hence the General Manager spent more than three thousand dollars to hire an account-keeping agency to cope.

Although he was the one who spent the money, he did not have any trust for them, often asking outrageous questions. The accountant in charge of the handover was tormented heavily, their attitude becoming impatient, dragging Cheng Yanqing along into the suffering as well.

Apart from the daily hectic of work, Cheng Yanqing had been avoiding Manager Li.

Counting the number of days, it had been more than a month already.

Luckily, Manager Li was unable to divide himself up. 4

The Sales Department had a mess waiting for him to deal with.

——The huge order that Huang Ning had did not make payment even a long time after receiving the goods. By right, he should have first signed a contract before providing the pharmaceutical reagents. However, to improve his performance, Huang Ning had secretly imitated the General Manager’s signature and sent the goods immediately after finding a sale. Who knew that once the goods had been sent out, there was no more news from the other party.

Huang Ning, who had made a solemn vow, then panicked.

A subsequent call to check revealed that unexpectedly, that customer company had shut down a week ago due to poor liquidity issues.

He had muddled his way through the workplace for many years and did not learn any skills, becoming a smarmy old man who looked for fast returns. He talked out of turn, loved bragging, and wanted to get stellar results, yet was too lazy to investigate his customers beforehand. However, these personality traits required closer interaction with him to be discovered; the General Manager loved to listen to good things, and Huang Ning’s bragging was right up his alley.

Manager Lee had long expected this backfire, but he just did not expect the damage to be this great.

The company was founded by the old Chairman Cai with much hard work and effort.

For the entire journey, it had little to do with the General Manager himself.

——Since young, he had been well-fed and clothed, and his brain was not naturally business-inclined. He was always misguided by a few employees who loved to flatter him; after taking over the company, he would fish for three days and sun-dry the nets for the next two 5 .

After Wu Lin had left, the company’s business turnover fell instead of rose. Instead of reflecting on himself, the General Manager developed a biased anger towards Manager Li, thinking that it was the Sales Manager’s failure to perform. Hence, his attitude naturally became favourable towards Huang Ning, granting him special permission to sign contracts and work together with customers without Manager Li’s consent.

Thus, this was tantamount to immediately making Manager Li a figurehead.

During the meeting, the General Manager still wanted to condemn him for his poor supervision.

Manager Li leaned back in his work chair, his posture indifferent, and said nonchalantly, “General Manager Cai, whatever Huang Ning wants to do, let him do it, there is no need for me to intervene. That was what you said.”

The General Manager was stunned, then started to backtrack.

Saying that although he did not want him to be in charge, it was common sense for him to verify for any important matters, right? How come he did not understand this after being in the business for so many years? 6

“I understand, but if the General Manager who is in charge of making major decisions doesn’t understand it, what’s the use?”

The ink-dark irises of Manager Li’s eyes flashed a rare trace of mockery, then he scoffed.

His gaze was contemptuous with a touch of arrogance.

The General Manager froze slightly, and then immediately became furious.

After leaving the meeting room, he was still scolding and cursing, saying that Manager Li doesn’t know to respect his superiors and was deliberately insulting his boss.

Manager Li was at least considered a senior level member of the company.

Some of the staff were used to sizing up the situation and had been secretly observing him all this while.

With this time’s open standoff, they began to stir, planning which side they would take.

During this period, Manager Li was considered implicitly isolated.

Cheng Yanqing saw all of this and felt uncomfortable in his heart.

These hypocritical colleagues surrounding him, who placed their own interests first, suffocated him.

Maybe that was just how it was when one entered society.

But to accept it, it would be a gradual and slow process, and there’s no way to get used to it, at least not yet.

Cheng Yanqing felt sympathy for Manager Li.

During that entire afternoon, he had turned back to peek several times in a row.

Do consider giving me a kofi!

Footnotes

original: as if it were two different people note that China’s national day holiday spans over a week 赤裸裸 — lit. naked or undisguised aka he had too many things to settle a proverb, meaning doing things in fits and starts or not persevering in something. Here it just means he does it half heartedly I guess. note that the author did not use quotations here but it was written as if it was the direct speech of the GM (so it was using the pronoun “you” instead of “him”)