Chapter 15
1451 Words
Shen Yan: "I didn’t realize, didn’t expect it."
Feng Shanshan’s eyes lit up: "Wait, you said you run into Yu Xinnian every day when you buy breakfast?"
Shen Yan nodded: "Yes."
Feng Shanshan: "Could it be... that he lives around here too?"
Shen Yan thought Feng Shanshan’s analysis made sense: "What’s that saying again? The closer you live, the later you come."
Feng Shanshan lowered her voice: "Let’s see later how Yu Xinnian arrives."
Shen Yan: "Okay."
They sat in the private room for a while, and before Feng Shanshan had even started singing, people began to arrive one after another.
The first to come in were two girls from A University’s Department of Finance and Management, Xing Ning and Qian Xiafeng. They joined Lushi Group’s finance department during last year’s autumn recruitment.
They had been interning for over six months now.
Shen Yan, seeing that Feng Shanshan had already started chatting with them, gathered the courage to ask a question she had been meaning to ask but was too shy to ask her office colleagues.
Coincidentally, these two girls were also getting internship wages and worked in the finance department, so their work was quite relevant.
Xing Ning told her: "The internship wage is 150 per day, with separate allowances for housing and meals."
Shen Yan thought about the money loaded into her meal card every month and asked: "Is the meal allowance 600 per month, loaded onto the meal card?"
Xing Ning waved her hand: "No, it’s separate, about 50 a day. The housing allowance is 3000 per month, so last month I got 7000 in total."
Qian Xiafeng added: "If the team gives out bonuses, it depends on your superior. If your superior is soft-hearted, they’ll divide the bonus equally among everyone."
Shen Yan: "What does 'normal person' mean?"
Qian Xiafeng: "For example, in your project, the bonus for this month is 50,000. If your team has five people, and if your boss is nice, they’ll give you 10,000, the same as everyone else. But if your boss doesn’t consider you a full member, they might only give you 60-70% of the bonus."
Shen Yan understood, but she still had a question: "But I’m in the President's office. Will there be project bonuses for me?"
Qian Xiafeng educated her: "Actually, you’re the same as us, in an administrative line. Almost every project has bonuses."
Shen Yan’s eyes lit up: "That’s great?"
Qian Xiafeng quickly dashed her hopes: "But it’s small."
Shen Yan: ...
Qian Xiafeng: "We’re lucky to even get a sip of soup from the profit-making projects."
Xing Ning added: "But sometimes, if you drink enough soup, you can fill up."
Shen Yan understood.
She thought back to when Zhou Xing had introduced Fan Mingxu to her, saying he was in charge of human resources and finance: "Hey, doesn’t Fan always manage you guys too?"
Xing Ning and Qian Xiafeng exchanged a knowing glance and smiled.
"Spend more time with him, then you’ll understand," Xing Ning said, grabbing Shen Yan’s hand and patting the back of her hand.
Shen Yan wanted to say that she probably already understood, having had a taste of it last Friday.
Feng Shanshan was curious: "Is he that extreme?"
"Not bad for a Chinese Literature major! You got to the point about Fan’s problem immediately," Qian Xiafeng thought Feng Shanshan’s description was spot on. "Exactly, he’s extreme, he’s a lunatic!"
Xing Ning suddenly got excited: "The craziest thing he did was when our manager was going to distribute bonuses. He didn’t agree."
Shen Yan:?
Feng Shanshan:?
Shen Yan: "So you didn’t get your bonus?"
Qian Xiafeng: "Our manager argued with him and managed to get us our bonuses."
Xing Ning: "Do you know what the key point was?"
Shen Yan and Feng Shanshan both shook their heads.
Xing Ning: "The craziest thing was, he told our manager, ‘Look, I left the chance to be the good guy to you. If it weren’t for me causing a disruption, how would these interns know that bonuses might not be given to them?’"
Shen Yan, hearing this, thought it sounded familiar: "Didn’t he say, ‘This is the art of management’?"
Xing Ning and Qian Xiafeng’s eyes widened: "Yes, yes!"
Shen Yan shared the overtime incident from last Friday with Xing Ning and Qian Xiafeng, including how Fan Mingxu pulled Zhou Xing aside for a private conversation, which Shen Yan overheard because it was too loud.
Feng Shanshan, who had heard this twice already, quickly responded: "Is your financial manager also a young person brought in by Mr. Lu from Shenyu Technology?"
Xing Ning thought for a moment: "That’s true."
Qian Xiafeng’s brain clicked into place: "Is this the old guard suppressing the new blood?"
Shen Yan: "He keeps talking about the art of management, but all of his tricks are so obvious that even we interns can see through them. He’s not that capable."
"Who’s not capable?"
A voice suddenly came from the door, startling Shen Yan and the others. They looked towards the entrance and saw Yu Xinnian and Li Hefeng.
They all knew each other from the School of Economics and Management.
Yu Xinnian saw Feng Shanshan and greeted her: "Last time you said you got into a state-owned enterprise, I thought we’d never meet again."
Feng Shanshan: "I didn’t want to meet either. No one wants to keep interviewing."
Yu Xinnian: "That’s true, congratulations to us both for finding jobs."
Feng Shanshan smiled: "Lao Shen wanted to come but was too scared, so I thought, I might as well come with her, help her gather courage."
"Lao Shen?" Yu Xinnian’s confusion was resolved when he saw Shen Yan beside her. "I’ve been running into ‘Lao Shen’ every day these past few days."
Shen Yan, suddenly being called by name, didn’t know how to respond, so she just said, "Hmm."
Yu Xinnian seemed to suddenly remember something: "I see you have lunch with Assistant Zhou every day around noon?"
Shen Yan, though not sure why he brought it up, answered: "Yes, there are only four of us in our office. Sister Jin and Sister Meng don’t eat lunch, so I eat with Assistant Zhou."
Feng Shanshan seemed to smell some gossip: "Assistant Zhou?"
Xing Ning explained: "Assistant Zhou is probably the head of the President’s office. He and Mr. Lu are classmates."
Feng Shanshan: "If Mr. Lu is young, Assistant Zhou should be young too, right?"
Xing Ning thought for a moment: "Maybe 27 or 28...? I don’t know, just guessing."
Feng Shanshan thought about it: "He seems a bit old, but not too bad."
Yu Xinnian, standing nearby, said ambiguously: "For men, after 25, it’s all downhill."
Li Hefeng, hearing this, shot back: "Are you saying men don’t live past 25?"
Yu Xinnian laughed: "You haven’t even reached 25 yet, why are you in such a hurry?"
Li Hefeng: ...
Feng Shanshan: ...
Shen Yan wanted to rebut Yu Xinnian, saying Zhou Xing was a good person, but facing so many strangers, she couldn’t find the courage to speak.
Just then, the door to the private room opened again.
This time, Shen Yan recognized the person coming in. She tugged at Feng Shanshan’s arm: "She didn’t join Lushi Group, did she?"
Feng Shanshan shook her head: "I haven’t heard of it. Why don’t you check her in the contact list tomorrow?"
Before Shen Yan could look her up, Yu Xinnian introduced: "Yang Ming, our school beauty. I’m sure everyone knows her?"
Yang Ming shot him a glare: "Can you talk properly?"
Yu Xinnian grinned: "Alright, alright, although she’s not from Lushi Group, she’s from Huaxin next door."
Next door?
Shen Yan had been working for a week and hadn’t heard of any Huaxin office next door.
Xing Ning asked her question out loud.
Yang Ming explained: "The building next to yours has always been ours, just that it wasn’t in use before."
Xing Ning: "So you’ve moved in?"
Yang Ming nodded: "Yes, I moved in this week."
Shen Yan’s heart skipped a beat. She really wanted to ask if Zhong Cheng had joined Huaxin, hoping he hadn’t. It would be so awkward if she ran into him downstairs someday.
Yu Xinnian: "Speaking of which, there aren’t many people from our school who joined Huaxin, right?"
Shen Yan’s ears immediately perked up.
Yang Ming: "There aren’t many from our college, but there are quite a few from the Computer Science department."
Feng Shanshan continued with a pointed question: "Is it just you from your college?"
Yang Ming seemed to notice Shen Yan and Feng Shanshan for the first time. She carefully sized Shen Yan up: "Are you... Zhong Cheng’s girlfriend?"
- Writer
