The Early Spring - Chapter 21

Chapter 21 - A Flutter of Desire or a Mortal Heart

"Payable by the second." Luan Nian gave her the address and hung up the phone.

Shang Zhitao brushed her teeth and washed her face in a rush, threw on a large T-shirt, and headed out the door. The address Luan Nian sent was a cafe that was quite crowded; by the time she arrived, he was already there. He sat in a corner where a single glance allowed him to take in the entire room.

Luan Nian glanced at the unpolished Shang Zhitao, guessing that this was probably as good as she would ever get in this lifetime—bare-faced and utterly unremarkable no matter where she went.

"Sit here." Luan Nian motioned to the seat beside him. Shang Zhitao sat down and saw Luan Nian push a plate of chocolate waffles toward her. "Didn't eat breakfast?"

"No."

"Eat, then work."

He was a bit too amiable today; Shang Zhitao even wondered if he had been possessed by something strange. Shang Zhitao was genuinely hungry, but after eating only a few bites, she set her fork down.

"On a diet?" Luan Nian spoke up abruptly.

"No... when I'm hungry, eating too many sweets makes me nauseous..." Shang Zhitao felt a little embarrassed. She wasn't a picky eater, but she did have this one minor quirk: she couldn't handle that much sugar on an empty stomach.

"Still hungry?"

"Not anymore."

"Then get to work." Luan Nian pulled a USB flash drive from his computer and handed it to her. "Copy the Q4 project inventory folder to your computer."

"Okay."

Shang Zhitao copied it swiftly and waited for Luan Nian's instructions.

"Do the data organization. Compare Q3 to do a client acquisition contrast, month-over-month contract amount comparisons, and service item screenings. Pivot the data results and write a conclusion. Did I make myself clear?"

"Crystal clear." Shang Zhitao quickly got to work. Luan Nian watched her for five minutes and noted one of her redeeming qualities: she was skilled with office software. All her data formulas were handwritten, showing a very solid foundation. Watching her work, her lips were pressed tightly together, her mind entirely focused on the computer screen as everything outside ceased to exist for her.

Luan Nian lowered his head and went back to his own work.

Shang Zhitao finished organizing the basic data and then proceeded to sort through the figures for each individual sales representative. Lingmei’s sales department could truly be called an army of kings; their sales performance was among the best in the industry. Even so, putting all these sales figures together revealed various issues—such as the contract signing cycles, contract amounts, and different contract service contents agreed upon by clients. Shang Zhitao didn't understand it and frowned as she pondered for a long time.

"What's wrong?" Seeing her stop typing for a while, Luan Nian asked.

"I don't quite understand. This contract clearly started its initial reporting back in May, but it wasn't signed until July 1st. And this one, too. Every salesperson has this kind of situation."

"Can't figure it out?" Luan Nian asked.

"Can't figure it out."

"Look at it in combination with the KPIs," Luan Nian reminded her before going back to his computer.

Luan Nian was always like this. He would never directly give Shang Zhitao the answer; instead, he made her think for herself. Shang Zhitao opened the KPI spreadsheet and studied it earnestly for a long time. She felt like she finally understood a little bit. She softly asked Luan Nian, "I see that their Q2 targets were all exceeded just a bit, so are these clients being held over for Q3?"

The corners of Luan Nian’s mouth twitched. "Not entirely stupid yet." Seeing Shang Zhitao let out an "oh," he asked her, "If it were you, how would you solve this problem?"

"I don't know."

"What is your brain for? Think."

"Oh."

Shang Zhitao thought hard and earnestly again. She had never done sales management, but she had been handling marketing budget management for the past two months. When a project's budget went over, the excess would be left to be spent the next month or the next quarter—these were unwritten rules. And under Lingmei's sales incentives, achieving one hundred percent of the target earned you the full bonus.

She thought for a long time before tentatively asking Luan Nian, "Raise the targets a bit?"

Hearing this, Luan Nian chuckled. "Raise the targets directly? Do you believe they'd all quit together tomorrow?"

"Huh?"

"Huh what?" Luan Nian closed his laptop and took the spreadsheet Shang Zhitao had made, reviewing it carefully. There were no data errors, and the analytical logic was clear. "This part of the work can be signed off and delivered."

"Got it," Shang Zhitao acknowledged, but she remained seated without moving.

"Not leaving?"

"The question from just now didn't have an answer yet."

"We'll deduct it from your overtime pay as tuition."

"That wouldn't be very good, would it?" Hearing that her overtime pay was going to be docked, Shang Zhitao hurriedly tried to bargain. "How about you teach me when you're free on a workday? It's not that urgent."

Bowing to the five pecks of rice with absolute daylight integrity.

The resilience of survival.

The phrase suddenly popped into Luan Nian's mind. Shang Zhitao possessed a very tangible, grounded resilience when it came to surviving. Having accidentally been dealt a good hand, she walked on thin ice for fear of losing this round, working hard to find a balancing act within it all.

"Sales tiered rewards shouldn't rely solely on a single target completion metric; instead, their performance can be tiered across brackets. High performers might get more, while those who lag behind face a disguised pay cut. Through this method, the company can identify, incentivize, and weed out talent. That's one of the answers," Luan Nian said. "If you're interested, go ask your Tracy. I spoke with her on the phone yesterday afternoon."

"Oh wow, is that so? That's brilliant." Having learned something new, Shang Zhitao felt immensely happy. She offered a compliment, only to feel that Luan Nian’s tone was off. "What do you mean by my Tracy... Why is Tracy mine...?"

Luan Nian refused to discuss it further. He glanced at the time—it was already five in the afternoon—and asked Shang Zhitao, "Are you still hungry?"

"Hungry," she answered honestly.

"Let's go grab a bite to eat."

Grab a bite to eat? Is Luan Nian treating? Am I about to get a meal paid for by the boss? Because I'm working weekend overtime? Or because I'm excessively cute? No wait, how could I dare let my boss pay? Do I not want my job anymore?

Shang Zhitao's mind raced with thoughts. Considering the remainder of her monthly budget, she finally couldn't help asking, "Are we going Dutch?"

Luan Nian paused while packing his computer into his bag, raised his head, and gave Shang Zhitao a faint look. "You go Dutch with your boss?"

"Well, otherwise..."

"You're treating."

Dropping those words, Luan Nian walked outside with a serious expression that made it clear he was entirely sincere. Shang Zhitao trailed behind him, thinking, I refuse to sacrifice my wallet just to put up a front. Old Shang always said that in interpersonal relationships, unite when compatible, part when not. Even if you're my boss, you can't butcher me like a fattened calf.

The two set off, and Shang Zhitao watched as Luan Nian drove toward a place she wasn't familiar with. To be precise, apart from the areas around her company and her home, she wasn't familiar with Beijing at all.

"Any dietary restrictions?" Seeing that Shang Zhitao wasn't speaking, Luan Nian figured this silly girl was genuinely frightened. When would she ever learn to hide her thoughts and emotions instead of wearing every bit of her trepidation and defiance right on her face?

"No."

"Then we're going to eat fish."

"Huh?"

Luan Nian said nothing more, wholly focused on driving up the mountain. He had a fish restaurant he frequented up here, where fresh rainbow trout were scooped from the water and stewed in an iron pot until the flavors were deeply absorbed.

The mountain road was dark with virtually no streetlights. Luan Nian drove slowly before gently pulling the car over to the roadside. Seeing Shang Zhitao’s eyes widen, he asked her softly and gloomily, "Afraid I'm going to murder you and dump the body?"

...

Shang Zhitao froze. Thinking of Luan Nian’s usual cold and aloof demeanor, he really did fit the profile of a serial killer who murdered and dumped bodies. Putting on a brave front, she said, "I told my roommate before I left that I was coming to work overtime with my boss. I gave her your contact info, too."

"Really!" Shang Zhitao added, pulling out her phone to show Luan Nian. She wasn't lying; she really had texted Luan Nian's phone number to someone.

For a young woman venturing out alone in the world, the most basic sense of self-protection was the foundation of survival. Shang Zhitao wasn't nearly as foolish as she looked.

"Then you've escaped calamity today." Luan Nian raised an eyebrow and stopped scaring her.

"So should we continue on our way?"

"Wait a minute." Luan Nian’s eyes felt uncomfortable; he retrieved eye drops from the dashboard, applied them, and then closed his eyes to rest for a moment.

"Are your eyes uncomfortable?"

"Dry eye syndrome."

"Oh..." Shang Zhitao had always thought Luan Nian was invincible, but even someone like him had ordinary troubles, like dry eyes.

"My dad has dry eye syndrome, too."

"And then?"

"And then he stopped looking at computers and changed his job."

"So what kind of job do you think I should change to?"

...

Luan Nian truly was not an easy person to converse with. In Da Zhai's words: some people just had foul mouths. Luan Nian rested for a few minutes and resumed driving. By the time they reached the top of the mountain, it was already dark, and the fish restaurant had lit its festive red lanterns, looking lively and bustling.

The owner recognized Luan Nian and hurried over from afar. "Ah, President Luan is here?"

"Here for some fish," Luan Nian told the owner. "The usual?"

"You got it." The owner then smiled at Shang Zhitao. "Hello there."

"Hello, boss."

Shang Zhitao felt a bit awkward; the way the owner looked at Luan Nian suggested he thought she was someone special to him. Once the owner walked away, Shang Zhitao asked with some hesitation, "Should we explain things to the boss?"

"Explain what?"

"Explain that I'm not your girlfriend..."

"You look like my girlfriend?" Luan Nian was amused to the point of laughter by Shang Zhitao. What kind of sordid romance plots were packed into her brain? Having a meal together made them a couple? Was she overestimating herself, or did she lack understanding of him?

"I don't look like one?" Shang Zhitao refused to accept that.

"Do you?"

...

What kind of person was this!

There was a long corridor behind the fish restaurant. While waiting for the fish, the two of them went to sit in the corridor, taking opposite sides.

Shang Zhitao received a message from Sun Yu: "Why aren't you back yet?"

"Going to grab a bite to eat and then head back."

"He's not giving you a hard time, is he?"

"No."

"That's good then."

Shang Zhitao put away her phone, turned her face to look at Luan Nian, and recalled the strange sensation on her fingertips from last night. A faint blush crept across her cheeks. She couldn't tell whether the impulse stirring inside her was a flutter of physical desire or a mortal heart falling in love. Regardless of what kind of heart it was, Luan Nian's handsome appearance right beside her left her feeling just a little bit flustered.