The Early Spring - Chapter 58

Chapter 58 - Joys That Others Cannot Give 

Before leaving work on Friday, Tracy arranged 1-on-1 meetings between Luan Nian and the employees of the Marketing Department.

Those outside had no idea what the people inside were discussing and spent a long time guessing. When it was Lumi's turn to go in, she patted Shang Zhitao on the shoulder. "Don't be scared, Big Sis will go pave the way for you. Whether it's a mountain of blades or a sea of fire, your mentor will take the first steps."

Shang Zhitao giggled at Lumi's antics, watched her walk in, and then looked back down at her flowchart. She was studying how to achieve a 25% efficiency boost! They had argued, they had made a fuss, but this matter of boosting efficiency by 25% was actually quite challenging, and Shang Zhitao felt a tiny urge to give it a try. Besides, this was the single core task on her plate right now.

Once inside, Lumi smiled at Luan Nian and Tracy, uncharacteristically sitting up straight across from them.

"Nothing special, just a casual chat, no need to be nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

Seeing that Tracy was about to launch into her HR script again, Luan Nian couldn't help but interrupt her. He had a pretty good read on Lumi; she didn't like beating around the bush. So he asked her straight out, "Are you satisfied with this year's salary adjustment?"

"A bit low. Hoping for more next year."

"Any plans to resign anytime soon?"

"Nope."

"We're done talking." Luan Nian spread his hands, ignoring the glare Tracy shot him.

"That's it?" Lumi had thought they were going to discuss some life-or-death matter, and had genuinely prepared herself like she was heading into battle before walking in. In the end, it was wrapped up in two sentences? Did that mean the people before her had just sat inside staring at the walls for half an hour?

"That's it. Anything you want to ask?" Tracy sighed and asked Lumi.

"Can I take a few days of paid leave?" Things had been way too busy lately, and Lumi wanted to go abroad for a trip.

"What for?" Luan Nian asked her.

"Going to London to buy a house."

...

Overseas real estate investment had just started gaining a small-scale following back then; those with money headed to Europe, while those without headed to Southeast Asia. Buying a property like that didn't hurt anyway. Lumi was just joking; she had no intention of buying overseas real estate—she simply wanted to go traveling.

"Can I?" she asked again.

"No." Luan Nian rejected her.

"Why?"

"Your department is about to see some staff resignations, and the workload won't be easy to share. We'll talk after new hires come onboard." Luan Nian deliberately used phrasing like "staff resignations" to observe Lumi's reaction.

"What difference does one person leaving make?" Lumi protested unhappily. "The work is all done by Shang Zhitao anyway."

"What if Shang Zhitao leaves too?" Tracy finally managed to chime in.

"Impossible. She's right in the middle of researching a 25% efficiency boost!"

Luan Nian lifted his eyes from his phone to glance at Lumi, then looked back down to reply to a message. Shang Zhitao had argued with him over the phone, declaring her firm intent to leave, yet turned right around and started researching a 25% efficiency boost. Nobody was more fickle than her.

Stepping out of Luan Nian's office, Lumi patted Shang Zhitao on the head. "You're up."

"Huh? Why were you in and out so fast?"

"How should I know?" Lumi looked equally baffled. Wasn't this borderline ridiculous? They dragged you inside, asked two sentences, and sent you packing like it was a game.

"Well, what did they say?"

"Asked if I was satisfied with my pay raise."

"And what did you say?"

"Of course I said I wasn't satisfied. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

Shang Zhitao thought about it and realized she had a point. If you said you were satisfied, the boss would assume you were happy with that pay raise margin and definitely wouldn't give you a bigger bump next year.

Shang Zhitao walked into Luan Nian's office and saw Luan Nian looking at his phone, while Tracy greeted her with a friendly smile.

She sat upright in her chair, maintaining her customary posture. Having worked there for over a year, her standing and sitting postures had never changed. Tracy waited for Luan Nian to speak since he had abruptly hijacked the conversation during Lumi's turn, but instead, Luan Nian put his phone down and asked Tracy, "Aren't you going to start?"

Looking slightly helpless, Tracy turned to Shang Zhitao. "Don't be nervous. There's really nothing serious to discuss; it's just that since Luke is going to personally oversee the Marketing Department for a little while, we're setting up these 1-on-1s to get acquainted with everyone."

"Oh, oh, got it," Shang Zhitao replied.

"Has work still been as grueling lately?" Tracy asked her.

"It's actually alright." Shang Zhitao meant it; the work intensity was much lower than before, and at least she could get home before 10:30 PM now.

"How often do you still work overtime on weekends?" Tracy asked, keeping a close eye on Shang Zhitao's workload intensity. According to the system's clock-in logs, Shang Zhitao's working hours ranked number one. Tracy had investigated whether it was due to low efficiency or simply an overwhelming volume of tasks, and after conducting assessments, she confirmed that the workload was genuinely massive. Aside from her core responsibilities, she also handled a mountain of messy, trivial tasks for the Marketing Department.

"Not much anymore. Sometimes I need to handle phone check-ins, but it doesn't ruin my weekends."

"So what do you usually do on weekends?"

It wasn't a particularly heavy question, yet Shang Zhitao felt her face grow a bit warm. What did she do on weekends? Luan Nian kept watching her without saying a word.

"My weekends are... actually pretty eventful..." Shang Zhitao thought carefully. Studying languages, acting as filler for Sun Yu's offline events, eating out with Sun Yuanxu and the others, going shopping with Yao Bei, sleeping with her boss, and recently preparing to study for a part-time graduate degree next year.

"For example?" Tracy asked out of genuine curiosity.

"For example, having meals with friends, going shopping, watching movies, and things like that..."

"Still not seeing anyone?"

"Soon, soon."

Shang Zhitao had no idea why Tracy was asking these things and could only reply with a vague soon, soon. In reality, it was just standard HR procedure. Asking if you were single, how long you'd been married, or if you had kids—it was all a routine to test your stability. A girl on the verge of dating wouldn't put her heart into switching jobs; a girl about to get married might want a new job, but changing jobs right after marriage was tough because kids would soon follow; and women who had just given birth had their minds entirely occupied by their babies, which impacted their work contribution. Tracy wasn't a bad person, but she needed to understand employee retention stability.

Hearing Shang Zhitao say "soon, soon," Tracy smiled and said, "I have a junior schoolmate who just returned from abroad. He's three years older than you, comes from a good family background, and looks quite nice. Want me to introduce you?"

...

Shang Zhitao froze, finally unable to hold back: "Why aren't you asking me if I'm satisfied with my pay raise?"

The moment those words left her mouth, she heard a very brief chuckle from Luan Nian. As he tilted his head slightly, she caught the tail end of a smile lingering at the corner of his lips. Luan Nian found this master-and-apprentice pair quite amusing; they both seemed like the type who couldn't hold too many complex thoughts in their heads, so you had to speak to them directly, otherwise they'd get dizzy running in circles.

Tracy laughed as well. She had always liked Shang Zhitao because Shang Zhitao had never let her down. Nodding, she asked, "Then are you satisfied with this year's pay raise?"

"If it could be just a little bit more, that'd be great." Shang Zhitao blurted out the prepared answer she had rehearsed earlier, and then heard Tracy burst out laughing.

She had no idea why they were laughing since she hadn't said anything funny, leaving her completely baffled. Luan Nian gave her a lingering, faint look before lowering his gaze again. Shang Zhitao was light-hearted and didn't hold grudges. At her core, she was just a simple, happy girl who didn't often bicker with people.

Luan Nian was well aware of all these virtues.

And because Shang Zhitao was so simple, all her thoughts were written right across her face—something Luan Nian could easily read.

"How's the research on the 25% efficiency boost coming along?" Luan Nian finally opened his mouth, directing the question at her.

"The project setup system can be optimized a bit further. If the review and sign-off processes go fully digital, it should be just about ready."

"When can you finish the modifications?"

"It'll take two to three months." There was no need to debate whether she wanted to take on the task; they jumped straight into discussing execution solutions.

"Go ahead and do it. By the way, ask your mentor if she can bring you along to help manage the budget. We're short-handed." Luan Nian tossed that question out again, fixing his piercing gaze on Shang Zhitao as he waited for her answer.

"Oh." Shang Zhitao uttered an oh. "Are we done talking?"

"Mph, we're done." Tracy nodded, though she thought to herself: Call this a performance review? This is just idle chatting. Zero challenge.

"Then can I go back to work?"

"Yeah. Thanks for your hard work."

Shang Zhitao stood up and headed for the door. Just as her hand touched the doorknob, she heard Luan Nian call out, "Flora."

"Hmm?" She turned her head back to look at him.

"If Alex ever talked to you about following him to another company, my personal hope is that you turn him down." Luan Nian glanced at Tracy. "Your career has just begun, and there are still plenty of paths worth exploring and loads of experience worth acquiring. At the same time, the company sees your hard work and growth, and we hope you'll stay and fight alongside us. Tracy once told me that your performance was recognized during the 360-degree reviews, and I personally agree with that outcome."

Shang Zhitao stood frozen in place.

This was the first time Luan Nian had ever officially praised her, and right in front of the Human Resource Director to boot. Was this just another management tactic from a boss? She couldn't read through it, but she was deeply moved all the same.

"Thank you," was all she managed to reply.

She didn't snap back to reality until she sat down at her workstation and Lumi called out, "Hey! What did you guys talk about?"

Shang Zhitao shook her head. "Nothing much at all."

After Shang Zhitao left, Luan Nian mocked Tracy. "Did you take some kind of training course recently? Is this what HR interview tactics look like now?"

"Isn't this quite nice?"

"Now I finally know why your department failed to monitor executive turnover ahead of time."

"Why's that?"

"You're all so idle you're setting employees up on blind dates—how could you possibly focus on work?" Luan Nian found it hilarious; it was his first time ever witnessing an HR Director matchmaking for an employee right in the middle of a formal evaluation interview.

"Just chatting for a couple of minutes along the way, don't be so stiff." Tracy urged him to relax. "Take it easy."

"I am taking it easy. I'm just afraid you guys are taking it too easy."

"Alright, alright. I'll submit myself to self-reflection once more." Tracy raised her hands in mock surrender. "I can't win an argument with you, I surrender, you win." And with her laptop in her arms, she walked out.

Luan Nian didn't actually care that much about winning or losing, but he felt he needed to say something to her. For instance, when he praised her just now, he meant it—it was objective, earnest, and straight from the heart. The reason he had previously told Shang Zhitao that Alex wanted to take her because she was cheap and obedient wasn't because he genuinely viewed Shang Zhitao that way in his own mind; rather, it was an honest dissection of a jumping executive's mindset. If an executive wanted to pull people along, they needed a mix of layers—they couldn't all be powerhouses. Sunny was a powerhouse, so the next tier down had to be execution muscle.

Back in his office handling work, he would occasionally stand up to gaze into the distance to relieve his dry eye syndrome, and each time he sat back down, he'd catch a glimpse of Shang Zhitao. She was frowning at her computer screen, presumably deep into researching the 25% efficiency boost. Luan Nian didn't know when Shang Zhitao had changed her mind, but since Wednesday night, he had understood one thing crystal clear: women were not to be trifled with. Arguing with a woman meant spending a thousand to kill an enemy while losing eight hundred of your own; you never came out ahead.

Shang Zhitao had the 25% efficiency goal spinning around in her head, and she was still furrowing her brow in deep thought while waiting for the bus, to the point that she didn't notice Luan Nian standing beside her for a long while. Luan Nian lingered there for a bit, and realizing she wasn't going to notice him on her own, finally took a step closer right into her field of view. Shang Zhitao instinctively took a step back, blinked, and recognized Luan Nian.

"What are you spacing out for?" Luan Nian stood with his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, his posture casual.

"I'm researching the efficiency boost." Shang Zhitao answered very earnestly. She had made the decision to stay during dinner with Sun Yu because she knew how to listen to advice. She remembered what she wanted most on her very first day coming to Beijing, and she also knew she wasn't strong enough yet to stand entirely on her own two feet. Even though they had fought to the point where staying felt like losing face, in Sun Yu's words: If you can still choose to stay after a fight like that, your mental fortitude is the real deal.

"Want to walk a bit?" Luan Nian asked her.

"But I haven't eaten yet."

"What do you want to eat?"

"I want grilled meat and soybean paste stew."

"Let's go."

The two of them walked side by side through the deep night, separated by the width of a person. After walking a few steps, Shang Zhitao remembered that Luan Nian hadn't driven today. Looking left and right, she asked, "Huh? Where's your car?"

"Drove it all day, didn't feel like driving." Luan Nian hadn't been sleeping well these past few days, and his dry eye symptoms had worsened, making it unsuitable for him to drive—nor did he want to burden Liu Wu with it. Liu Wu had family members who were sick, and Luan Nian possessed at least that modicum of basic compassion.

"Oh." Shang Zhitao quieted down. Remembering her own loss of composure from the other day, she suddenly felt a bit sheepish, letting out a small, awkward chuckle. "What I said on the phone that day was just angry talk. Please don't be mad."

Shang Zhitao was that kind of magnanimous person—brave enough to admit her mistakes without any coyness. She hadn't kept her cool that day, ending up just like Luan Nian, unable to speak properly when upset. Looking back, it felt pretty embarrassing. Luan Nian paused in his tracks, turned his head to glance at her—such an adorable girl, blessed with a pleasing face and a pair of smiling eyes—and couldn't resist reaching out to pinch her cheek before telling her, "Shang Zhitao, I know sometimes I don't sound very nice, but I want you to understand that most of the time, I don't mean any malice. If you feel like something I said made you uncomfortable, just tell me straight to my face. You don't need to resort to that kind of stunt."

"Fighting is so mentally exhausting."

If Tan Mian and the others had heard what Luan Nian just said, they undoubtedly would have declared, "Luan Nian has most likely been possessed by some bizarre alien creature!" When had they ever heard Luan Nian utter such soft words? Yet Luan Nian meant every word. He had never exhausted his mental energy over such things before; he was too lazy to date, too lazy to break up once dating, and too lazy to look back after breaking up, having never suffered any deep emotional trauma. In his mind, maintaining a casual physical relationship was vastly more complicated than dating.

That argument with Shang Zhitao had infuriated him to the point of a sleepless night and a gnawing stomach ache. When he saw the dark circles under her eyes in the meeting room the next morning, he had half a mind to throttle her.

"Then... can you occasionally compliment me? Like you did today?" Shang Zhitao tugged at the corner of his jacket. "I need your occasional praise so I know I'm not actually as terrible as you make me out to be. Luan Nian, I need your encouragement."

"Is my encouragement that important?"

"It's very important. Really."

Shang Zhitao wanted to say: A person like me spent twenty-two years contentedly sitting in the audience applauding others; my fighting spirit was only ignited after meeting you. When I feel like I'm failing battle after battle, I need your validation—it's the rations and ammo I need to head onto the battlefield, and it's a small joy that no one else can give me.

"So can you handle that 25% efficiency boost?" Luan Nian asked her.

"I can."

"Then you can eat a bit more meat in a minute."

"Okay. I can also have a little bit of alcohol." Shang Zhitao pinched her fingers together. "Just this tiny bit."

"No way." Luan Nian gave her a sideways glare. "You turn into a biter when you drink."

Stinting miser.