The Early Spring - Chapter 32

Chapter 32 - Acting As If Nothing Happened

Shang Zhitao was good at processing her emotions, but the moment she got to work, worry set in. She got off the bus, glanced around, and didn't see Luan Nian—thank goodness. She broke into a run and bolted into the office building.

No one had taught her what she was supposed to do after having a one-night stand with her boss. She had secretly searched the internet the day before, and the web said: Just act like nothing happened, and neither of you will feel awkward.

Shang Zhitao felt anxious all the way until the afternoon. During the weekly departmental meeting, she heard Alex say to Lumi, "Later on, I'll be on a conference call with Luke to go over the Q4 budget. You and Flora will join."

"Can't we do it in person?" Lumi felt that Luan Nian was slightly easier to communicate with in person; during remote meetings, he always raised all sorts of tricky questions to keep you from zoning out.

"He's away on a business trip. Attending an advertising industry summit."

"Ah, alright then."

Shang Zhitao let out a long breath of relief, took Lumi's spreadsheet, and started typing out formulas to calculate the budget. Lumi sat next to her, watching her input Excel formulas without a single hesitation. She patted Shang Zhitao's shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up. "Taotao, you're the best."

"Huh?" Shang Zhitao was bewildered.

"I bet your Excel skills rank at least top five in the whole company. The top four are just those freaks in business analysis."

Shang Zhitao's cheeks flushed slightly.

She had really put in the effort. At the very beginning, she only knew how to use basic formulas, which barely got her through the work, but she felt it wasn't good enough. So she started learning systematically. Sun Yuanzhu had recommended books to her and sometimes even held late-night tutoring sessions for her and Sun Yu. Shang Zhitao had even started tinkering with data visualization.

"I just think being proficient improves efficiency."

"What you think is spot on."

Lumi sat beside her to help sort out the data. Actually, Shang Zhitao didn't need much hand-holding anymore; she had more or less run through all the basic tasks of the marketing department. She was grounded and thorough, keeping meticulous records of everything she had worked on so she knew it inside and out. Lumi felt completely at ease with her.

Neither of them had time to go out for lunch, but they finally managed to organize the data and send it to Alex just before the afternoon meeting.

During budget meetings, usually only the boss and the project leads needed to communicate, while everyone else just sat in as observers. Shang Zhitao heard Luan Nian say, "Sorry, my previous schedule just wrapped up. I'm late."

"No worries at all, we just finished organizing things on our end, too. Is it hot in Hong Kong?" Alex asked Luan Nian.

"Not bad. A bit warmer than Beijing. Who are the observers in attendance today?" Luan Nian asked.

The Planning Department and Marketing Department each introduced their respective observers, and the meeting officially began.

Shang Zhitao opened her laptop to take meeting minutes. Everyone present had more seniority than she did, and while such a task didn't strictly need to be assigned to her, she always volunteered. Besides, taking minutes was actually a great way to learn, especially when attending meetings hosted by Luan Nian. He had a razor-sharp mind, concise language, and every single point he made went straight to the heart of the issue without any fluff. Shang Zhitao was learning in secret.

Sometimes she wondered, how wonderful would it be if she could turn into someone like Luke?

Today's budget discussion meeting was a bit intense. Right from the very first project, Luan Nian started grilling them on the ROI projections. The first project was the Sales Department's industry exchange seminar, held across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Chongqing, and Xiamen, inviting first-party clients from various industries for seminars. The goal was client relationship maintenance, with a total budget of 17 million.

"Do we have a draft list of invited clients?" Luan Nian asked.

Apollo from the Sales Department replied, "Yes, I'll send it over now." The invited clients were all top-tier names in the industry.

After a few seconds of silence, Luan Nian stated, "There's a flaw in the project objectives. If it's just for client relationship maintenance, taking them out for drinks and dinner would suffice. Fifty thousand for these clients would be more than enough, and we could do an even better job. Why are we spending 17 million to achieve something that a 50-thousand budget could accomplish?"

Everyone in the meeting room looked at each other. The industry exchange salon was an annual mandatory project for Lemei to build industry influence, and no one expected Luan Nian to open fire on this project first.

"So what does Luke suggest we adjust?"

"My suggestion is: if you can't figure out the purpose, scrap it."

Selkie from the Finance Department shrugged at them. She had already warned them before the meeting, knowing firsthand how strict Luan Nian was during risk control reviews. Yet none of the bigwigs in the room had believed her, thinking that someone so young promoted to a high position wouldn't have that kind of ruthlessness. They had truly underestimated this young man; although his age was lower than theirs, his thunderous methods were not to be taken lightly.

"Would this work instead?" Alex tried to smooth things over. "When we go back, Apollo can lead the team to re-evaluate and communicate this project. Client relationship maintenance is only a tiny part of it—building industry influence is still necessary."

"If the goal is to build industry influence, then I need to see what reports might be published and what conclusions will be drawn. Which experts can we invite, and how many potential clients will it bring in? In our last meeting, we discussed the company's business transformation; we can also take on short, frequent projects for mid-sized clients, and incorporate this segment of clients into the invite list as well." Luan Nian laid out his demands directly. "Figure these things out first, and only then consider whether to proceed. Next project."

Shang Zhitao noticed that Apollo, the head of the Sales Department, looked unhappy. She couldn't help wondering how they would react if Luan Nian were standing face-to-face with them in a setting like this. From the bottom of her heart, she agreed with the questions Luan Nian had raised. Having worked in marketing for a few months, she was gradually developing a feel for budgets—those were hard-earned cash being paid out, so shouldn't every penny spent make some noise?

"Shall we discuss the next budget item then?" Alex asked.

"Sure." Shang Zhitao heard the sound of Luan Nian taking a drink—a distinct gulp—which reminded her of his bobbing Adam's apple during their kiss. Did Luan Nian ever randomly think about what happened that day, just like she did?

This meeting was too thrilling. Lumi kicked Shang Zhitao under the table and then sent her a message: Scrapped, all of them hahaha. Not a single penny spent from now on.

I'm about to die of fright.

The air pressure in the meeting room was suffocatingly low, and nobody looked happy except for Lumi, who was typing out strings of "hahaha." Lumi didn't care; it wasn't her money being spent, and cutting it wouldn't save her any money either. She just found it deeply satisfying. In her old alley-beijing slang: These old fogies needed a good cleaning out anyway. Lumi had often fumed with anger at these top bosses over money matters—they spent lavishly, threw up roadblocks during internal audits, acted all buddy-buddy to your face, and talked trash behind your back. With Luan Nian stepping in like this, everyone would have to rein it in a bit.

Luan Nian wasn't stupid; he knew he would take a lot of flak for running today's meeting this way. But he didn't care. Even so, he sent a message to Alex: "Your department might have a really tough time working overtime to rein in the budget, but you need to understand that in this matter, I'm helping you."

"I know, thanks." Alex wasn't an idiot either; with Luan Nian pulling this move, his own job would become a lot easier.

"The Marketing Department is the company's god of wealth. Only by keeping a tight grip on your budgets will you avoid leaving yourselves vulnerable. This year's headquarters internal audit is even stricter. If they actually audit thoroughly, how many people in this room would pass? The light ones get a reprimand, the heavy ones get fired, and the worst-case scenario could mean getting sent away to prison."

"I've heard about that too. Thanks, Luke, for playing the bad guy here." Alex understood Luan Nian's good intentions now. He probably realized that although he headed the marketing department, he couldn't do a thing about those stubborn old guards. So when Luan Nian jumped out today to overhaul the budget, it wasn't a show of force—it was simply taking a definitive stance.

Lumi sent another message to Shang Zhitao: Luke is so damn sexy. Every time he gets this sharp, I just want to rip off his clothes and see what makes him different from other men.

Don't bother stripping him, I've already seen—he is different, Shang Zhitao thought to herself. Not that she had seen many men, of course; her only shallow experience was with Xin Zhaozhou.

Kitty said this morning that our internal chat groups are being monitored, Shang Zhitao replied to Lumi, feeling a bit worried that they might get caught gossiping about Luan Nian like this.

Lumi laughed out loud: Relax, nobody's monitoring our chat logs. Other people say things way wilder than this.

Oh, I see.

This meeting was agonizingly long. Luan Nian kept firing questions, leaving everyone scrambling to keep up. Shang Zhitao suddenly felt that what she had experienced over the past few months couldn't even be called a real workplace—today was the real deal. It was tit-for-tat, yet everyone carefully reined themselves in, seemingly in agreement while undercurrents surged violently. Just as they finally dragged themselves to the end of the meeting, Luan Nian suddenly asked, "Who took the meeting minutes?"

Alex glanced at Shang Zhitao. "Flora took them."

"Send them to all meeting participants and CC me once the meeting ends. I have a dinner banquet to attend later, so let's call it a day. Good job, everyone." Luan Nian hung up the call.

Shang Zhitao closed her laptop and walked out of the meeting room. She noticed her phone pop up with a notification. Opening it, she saw it was from Luan Nian: Confirm the secondary reporting milestones with them, and include them in the meeting minutes.

Understood.

No further words.

Luan Nian's all-business attitude made Shang Zhitao let out a sigh of relief. Would things stop being awkward from now on? A thought suddenly popped into her head: could acting as if nothing happened make you look poised? Probably so. Look at Luke, acting as if nothing had ever happened. His method of handling this situation was so seasoned; it was clear he was playing at a very high level.

She scurried off to confirm the next reporting schedule with the various bosses. Clearly, none of them were in a good mood, and they brushed Shang Zhitao off: "I need to have an in-depth discussion with my team. This isn't a minor tweak—it's practically resubmitting a project proposal. Let me discuss it first." They deliberately avoided giving a specific date for when it would be done.

Shang Zhitao felt a bit awkward. Sitting at her desk, she struggled over how to phrase her update, feeling like this task was a hot potato she couldn't drop. About half an hour later, Luan Nian had already finished his first glass of wine at the dinner banquet, and having received no meeting minutes from Shang Zhitao, he asked her: "Why haven't you sent them yet?"

"The bosses haven't finalized the next reporting date yet," Shang Zhitao said as tactfully as possible.

Luan Nian figured out what was going on: Shang Zhitao was being pushed around by them. Where had her courage gone—the courage she had when she faithfully recorded his interview advising her to resign? Luan Nian frowned, then typed in the senior management group chat: "I've thought about it. Despite the major changes, the budget must be finalized this week. Please have your secretaries schedule a meeting for Wednesday afternoon. Any team without a new proposal by then will be considered to have forfeited their budget." He continued, "Alex, have the colleague from your department who took the minutes send out the current contents so I can take another look."

"Got it." Alex replied quickly, then told Shang Zhitao, "Just send it out like that."

Shang Zhitao nodded and sent out the meeting minutes. Raising her head, she saw Lumi signaling her with a glance. The two of them looked toward the hallway and saw an exceptionally gorgeous woman walking alongside Tracy, heading straight into Tracy's office.

"Who's that?" Shang Zhitao asked Lumi using mouth movements.

Lumi pulled out her phone and messaged her: Didn't you recognize her? Luke's ex-girlfriend, the one from that email.

She's even prettier than in the photos, Shang Zhitao replied.

I heard her family background is amazing, too.

Oh.