Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Nine: The Person In Control III

That had actually been Xiao Yu’s first time directly meeting face-to-face with Nan Wei inside the company. Because he hadn’t wanted to reveal Nan Wei’s special circ.u.mstances, they’d previously only chatted on QQ. This “special circ.u.mstance” wasn’t meant for the other interns, but rather for the interns’ manager and the interns’ final evaluation committee.

Chatting online did have its benefits. Xiao Yu had become accustomed to communicating online after spending eight months as a hamster. Especially with Nan Wei, Xiao Yu much preferred communicating with the online jewelry shop owner rather than the youngest son of the high-profile Nan Family who had quietly joined them.

The reason Xiao Yu no longer meticulously avoided Nan Wei was quite simple: he’d already discovered through his own channels that the full-time conversion decisions had already been made for the interns.

For the three-month interns.h.i.+ps, the human resources department had already selected which interns would convert to full-time before even the first month was up.

Reality was harsh, but such occurrences happened all too often in this line of work. Some people had unbelievably amazing resumes but turned out to only know theory. When those people actually needed to come up with the designs, they revealed shortcomings that were omitted in their resumes. Some of these shortcomings could be slowly fixed on the job while working, while others were fatal defects. As one of the top two corporations in the industry, YL certainly didn’t need to serve as a training camp for new hires with such issues.

It was quite natural that Nan Wei would be selected for full-time conversion. Actually, the Human Resources department had specially come to report to Xiao Yu that there was an outstanding intern. They had wanted to know if Xiao Yu had any intentions of directly bringing Nan Wei onto his team. Xiao Yu had been exceedingly proud to reveal that Nan Wei’s impressive skills were well within expectations because Nan Wei was his own premier disciple.

Xiao Yu’s expression had been so smug that Yan Jin couldn’t hold in his laughter.

In summary, once Xiao Yu had confirmed that Nan Wei had successfully distinguished himself from the other interns, Xiao Yu no longer had so many misgivings. Soon, YL’s Human Resources department would start working on the next steps for the interns. Those that had already proven themselves would be extended full-time conversion offers. Those that required further consideration would be given more time. For the remaining interns, the company had no objections if they wanted to terminate their interns.h.i.+p early.

……

As he returned to their office humming a little tune, Xiao Yu saw Yan Jin smiling wickedly at some doc.u.ment.

In spite of his ever-serious expression in public, Yan Jin actually smiled quite a bit when only Xiao Yu was around. Others privately said that Chairman Yan had an ice-cold personality or that his face was paralyzed, but Xiao Yu was more inclined to believe that Yan Jin simply wasn’t willing to spend energy on people he didn’t like or weren’t worth the effort.

“What is making you so happy?” Xiao Yu was quite curious.

To avoid any chance of “playtime” at the office, Xiao Yu very rarely talked to Yan Jin during working hours. This was more of an isolated case when he himself was in high spirits and saw Yan Jin was as well, so he unconsciously began talking to him.

“Nothing in particular.” Yan Jin placed the doc.u.ment into a drawer, but it was obvious that his heart still hid sinister intentions.

“So mysterious.” Xiao Yu’s curiosity was further piqued. “You can’t tell even me about it?”

“You’ll find out when the time comes.”

“Hmph, don’t tell me then. See if I care.”

With that, Xiao Yu walked away huffily.

“Hey!”

Yan Jin reached out a hand to get him to stay but to no avail. He unhappily sat back down.

Yan Jin silently watched Xiao Yu for a while as Xiao Yu turned on his computer as usual and began typing away at his keyboard. Only then he did reopen the drawer he’d just closed.

Resting inside were the intern reports from the human resources department.

If that were all it was, of course he would show it to Xiao Yu. But, Nan Wei’s a.s.sessment was extremely favorable; if Xiao Yu saw it, he’d become insufferably smug again.

Along with this report was another doc.u.ment that recorded all of Nan Wei’s hards.h.i.+ps as an intern and the more interesting “events” in other departments.

He definitely couldn’t let Xiao Yu see this. Yan Jin wasn’t so much afraid of revealing his own knowledge of the matter, but rather that he didn’t want Xiao Yu to feel bad about the hards.h.i.+ps his “premier disciple” had suffered through.

Indeed, Yan Jin had already known about Nan Wei’s difficulties from his first day, but he had only observed. He had never stepped in.

There were two reasons for that. First, he wholeheartedly believed in Nan Wei’s ability to survive under pressure. Throughout Nan Wei’s entire life, he’d been surrounded by geniuses. Nan Wei had long since become accustomed to being the odd one out. The other reason was that Yan Jin wanted to use the downstream b.u.t.terfly effects of Nan Wei to clean out existing problematic employees.

Before Xiao Yu’s grand arrival, Yan Jin had already done one of these employee cleanings. Although it was primarily so that Xiao Yu would have an easier time, but it had also allowed him to reconsolidate power to better control the company direction.

Having Chu Ge’s rare help in a.s.serting stockholder control before the end of the last year was only the first step. In the end, YL was a corporation that his father had handed to him. Seizing power without alerting his family required quite a bit of effort from Yan Jin.

Originally, Yan Jin hadn’t needed to do something so troublesome. There were innumerable ways to contest the Yan Family’s domestic power. Starting with YL was the most difficult path.

It was troublesome, but fortunately it did have its benefits.

Yan Jin glanced at Xiao Yu again. After seeing Xiao Yu’s foolishly happy expression, Yan Jin was perfectly content to return to his own doc.u.ments.

Back to the matter at hand. There were inevitably some people with disingenuous intentions in the other departments. After the first ma.s.s retrenchment in the design department, these people had finally begun to reveal their previously hidden intentions. Coincidentally, Nan Wei’s arrival had allowed Yan Jin’s spies to catch the people who had previously escaped detection.

An employee’s resume and his entrance exam results were attached at the end of the report. It declared that once this danger was addressed, the days of Yan Jin needing to watch his own every step were over.

“Wicked” really was quite a fitting term to describe Yan Jin’s smile when Xiao Yu had walked in.

……

This was already the third intern who had intensely expressed their anger that they weren’t being converted to full-time.

Qin Xi rubbed her temples to alleviate her mounting headache. She made a small motion and the two security guards immediately made their way over.

“Throw him out,” Qin Xi ordered.

The noisy abuse that the intern was hurling at her really made it impossible for her to continue. She glanced at the list of names and walked out of the office with the security guards and the intern. Under the uniform gazes of all the interns, she calmly announced, “I’ll say this directly. All of you are being terminated. The full three months of compensation and the proof of interns.h.i.+p will be provided, but if any of you insist on pestering me, the proof of interns.h.i.+p will not be provided.”

The two security guards exchanged worried glances.

They hadn’t expected Qin Xi to come out and say it so bluntly like that. They weren’t sure if they could handle the onrush of around ten interns with just the two of them.

Fortunately, the other interns had been scared into shock by Qin Xi. Other than looking at each other with dismay, they had no other reaction.

“Huh? What about the full-time conversion contract from yesterday? I’ve even already signed it.”

One person finally broke the silence, but it really was quite a disharmonious sound.

Everyone turned at once to see the big oaf Zhou Mang scratching the back of his head blankly.

“Idiot.”

Nan Wei’s barb was clearly directed at Zhou Mang, but his gaze swept over the others as well, expressing that this was directed at them too.

Many of the interns awkwardly avoided his gaze.

But, Nan Wei had no intention of letting them off this easily. “Idiot” was followed by—

“You signed the contract together with me.”

“Right, then…” Zhou Mang seemed to have just realized what was going on and retreated two steps. “Oh dear! My apologies to everyone here. Let’s pretend that I didn’t say anything.”

Your mother**! How can we pretend you didn’t say anything?!

They cried tears of envy in their hearts.

Who said that Nan Wei and Zhou Mang would be the only ones to be let go? How did everything turn out the exact opposite?

Qin Xi impatiently adjusted her gla.s.ses and said, “Right, only Nan Wei and Zhou Mang will be staying. Designer Zhang will explain the reasons why we chose them after he’s out of his meeting. I’ll just directly say why the rest of you are being let go: the human resources representative that explained the interns.h.i.+p process accidentally reversed the percentage for full-time conversion and being let go. I’ve already said everything that needs to be said. Please don’t ask any questions.”

Everyone who wanted to question the decision choked on their words.

This isn’t the standard procedure. Isn’t it normal to end with “are there any questions?”

None of them knew how to deal with the ice-cold beauty Qin Xi. Her expression prevented any argument. Some people felt terrified as her chilly gaze swept across the room.

There was no other option. Although they felt resentful, they could only grind their teeth and wait for Designer Zhang, who was the interns’ manager.

The clatter of Qin Xi’s high heels gradually faded away, leaving only the interns’ obvious confusion and anger.

“Zhou Mang, you’re so lucky,” said someone sourly.

“I’ve had good luck since I was little,” Zhou Mang unexpectedly replied.

On the other hand, no one talked to Nan Wei. But, there were more than a few that remembered Xiao Yu talking to him a few days ago.

Was it related to this?

……

On the way back, Qin Xi ran into Zhang Yuji. [TLN: This is NOT the same Zhang as the intern manager Zhang. Same p.r.o.nunciation, different character. ]

“Oh, if it isn’t Manager Qin, beautiful as ever.,” Zhang Yuji greeted peculiarly.

“What a coincidence…” Qin Xi replied.

“Haha, don’t get too happy with yourself so soon. If Chairman Yan finds out what you’ve done, your managerial position might not be so secure. Maybe if you ask me nicely, I might be in a good enough mood—”

“—At least you’ve saved me the effort of finding you.” Qin Xi wasn’t even listening to her. Without a care for Zhang Yuji, Qin Xi retrieved a doc.u.ment from her folder and pa.s.sed it over. “Go to the Finance department to collect two and a half months of salary and a one hundred thousand RMB severance package. You no longer need to report in tomorrow.”