CH 16

Shen Fan arrived in T City, invited the general manager and two deputy directors of the branch to the office early in the morning and gave them a lecture. It was Tang Yi’s turn before noon.

Tang Yi was having a meeting with the second department. Beside him sat Lin Rui, dressed very formally, while a group of people in charge were trembling below.

Lin Rui was sitting in the position below Tang Yi, dressed in a fine suit, very energetic, a little beautiful man. It was a pity that he was so much worse than Tang Yi in terms of momentum.

Tang Yi had already asked Xiao Yang to send the list to the personnel department in the morning, without deliberately hiding it. The entire marketing department went silent in just five minutes, and even when they went to the toilet, they had to sneak past the wall.

The team leaders who had previously defected to Lin Rui to advocate a change of personnel in the second department were now so scared that they sat far away at the other end of the conference table, desperate to bury their entire bodies under it.

When Shen Fan pushed the door open without greeting, he saw Tang Yi sitting expressionlessly at the top of the table, asking in an incomparably flat voice, “What are your reasons for applying for the transfer of Yan Ke?”

Shen Fan gestured for everyone to continue and pulled a chair for himself to sit in the corner.

When Lin Rui turned around and saw Shen Fan, his eyes lit up. He was a little bit more confident, raised his head and said in a relaxed tone, “Manager Tang, Team Leader Yan’s lack of cooperation was discovered when I conducted an opinion survey in the second department. Team Leader Yan’s individual ability is outstanding, and this is obvious to everyone. But this project is all about teamwork, and we focus more on the overall cooperation of everyone. Now that everyone has applied for his transfer, firstly it will be for the sake of the unity of the second department, and secondly it’ll serve to sharpen his character.”

Yan Ke was Tang Yi’s proud general, and Tang Yi liked him both in terms of his personality and business ability. Yan Ke was working on a big project for a high-end shopping mall in T City. When the project was first pushed on them, many people didn’t want to take it on, but now that they saw that the deal was about to be made, some of them were tempted to have crooked thoughts.

Someone in the second department courteously gave Lin Rui an idea to cut off Tang Yi’s right-hand man and grab the project for himself by the way. Lin Rui had nothing to fear, so he took it in stride.

He came here because of Shen Fan’s arrangement. To put it bluntly, to beat the dog one must first look at its owner. Today Shen Fan arrived at the meeting and Lin Rui didn’t believe that Tang Yi would not give face to the boss.

Xiao Yang looked a little worried, glancing at Shen Fan and finding that the latter was just sitting there watching the excitement like an old deity, very calm.

It was Tang Yi who let out a careless “oh”. “But I’ve heard that Deputy Manager Lin’s reputation isn’t very good either, so why don’t we transfer them together?” He seemed to have forgotten about Shen Fan’s existence, his fingers lightly tapping on the conference table as he smiled, “Team Leader Yan at least has a track record here, while Deputy Manager Lin doesn’t even have any visible ability. Why don’t we start with logistics to see it slowly? It’ll just as well sharpen Deputy Manager Lin’s character.”

The meeting room was silent. The omens were not good before this meeting, and no one dared to speak up as long as Tang Yi didn’t name them. Now that Lin Rui stood up, turning his head in anger and asking hatefully, “What do you mean?!” there was no one to speak up for him.

The personnel department was very efficient. In a short while they sent over the dismissal files and the documents that needed to be signed, and also sent someone to follow through the severance procedures.

Shen Fan saw that things were almost over, but he didn’t want Tang Yi to really drive Lin Rui to the logistics department in a fit of anger, so he could only stand up with a smile and say, “Manager Tang, come to my office for a while after the meeting.”

Shen Fan temporarily occupied the office of the general manager of the branch, and when Tang Yi pushed the door in energetically, Shen Fan was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with his hands behind his back.

He was slightly taller than Tang Yi, and when viewed from behind, the two were even very similar in stature. Tang Yi was in a daze for a moment, feeling that there was something familiar about this sight, but he couldn’t find a clue, so he could only cough lightly and say, “Director Shen.”

Shen Fan turned around and smiled, his attitude extraordinarily easy-going.

Not to mention that Shen Fan had previously sent a message saying that he was Gu Yanting’s friend, even if there was no such relationship, there was no need for Tang Yi to worry about anything because of Shen Fan’s presence at today’s meeting. The marketing department was different from other departments. The whole company depended on the talking skills of the marketing department. If the marketing department did well, the whole company would have meat to eat. If not, it was a matter of starving. In private companies in particular, good salespeople were often treated like ancestors by the management.

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Although Tang Yi was not a great talent, he was a man who could find a job anywhere without worrying about food and drink. Now ER was rumoured to be transforming. Never mind whether the transformation was needed, before, or if it happened, it was unlikely that the company didn’t want Tang Yi anymore. Anyway, Tang Yi would most probably find himself a good next home before that happened.

Realising this, Shen Fan also refrained from his arrogant attitude in front of Tang Yi at the meeting and casually poured him a cup of coffee now.

“Lin Rui is the son of President Wang of Hexing Entertainment. Our company is talking about a little cooperation with Hexing, so…” Shen Fan smiled and put the coffee on the high table, “Manager Tang will have to take care of Xiao Lin more. “

Tang Yi already had a standard smile on his face as he walked over to Shen Fan and nodded slightly, “Naturally, I’ll listen to Director Shen.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be so polite either, that’s not why I called you here.” Shen Fan raised his eyes and looked at Tang Yi for a moment, suddenly asking with some hesitation, “I heard that Manager Tang is an orphan?”

There was a family member column on ER’s entry form, and when Tang Yi joined, he filled in “none” in a cursive. He was slightly taken aback, not sure why Shen Fan was suddenly asking this, “Yes.”

“Oh.” Shen Fan stopped talking.

This office was south-facing. T City was surrounded by the sea on two sides, and looking out from the floor-to-ceiling window of the general manager’s office, one could just see a small pier not far away. Tang Yi went there to buy seafood, and as soon as his gaze drifted a little, he saw bright dots in the distance, the ones working in the sea.

Those who went out to sea usually returned every other day at noon, and from eleven o’clock onwards, the pier would be crowded until two or three in the afternoon. You could buy the freshest seafood at the pier, and the fish, prawns, crabs and shellfish were all live and inexpensive. At this time of the year, the crabs were the fattest.

Tang Yi’s thoughts drifted for a moment, but when he thought of Gu Yanting’s love of crabs, his eyes became cold and he looked away.

Shen Fan looked at him with a smile, and then glanced at the pier in the distance. Suddenly, he remembered something and tapped his head, “To say the least, you’re still my junior schoolmate.”

It was no secret that both of them were graduates of the provincial university. Tang Yi saw that Shen Fan had intentionally lowered his posture, and also agreed with a smile, “Well, if you put it like this, I’ll have to call Director Shen ‘Senior’.”

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“Then you can call me ‘Senior’.” Shen Fan looked at him, “I know Yanting quite well, he was on the basketball team when he was at the provincial university, and he was quite good!”

Gu Yanting was not a man who loved to hide secrets. In the past three years, Tang Yi had even learned the hobbies of his ex-boyfriends and the colours of the underpants of some of his roommates. The only thing Gu Yanting hadn’t done was to mention Shen Fan as his senior. Although the last time at Lin Rui’s welcome-back party they had a one-sided meeting, then… Fat Sod and the others addressed him as “Sister-in-law”.

Tang Yi’s eyebrows twitched; he smiled and didn’t say anything.

Shen Fan continued to look outside indifferently, “Yanting loves to eat crabs. After they won the match with Haida, I invited them to dinner and didn’t this kid eat me poor?”

Tang Yi was really not expecting this, and looked over in surprise, “Oh?”

“He ate eight of them by himself, and once you did the maths the hairy crab alone was five hundred yuan. I almost had to pawn myself that day.”

Shen Fan smiled and shook his head. Seeing Tang Yi’s expression soften, he paused for a moment and said, “But, Tang Yi, you’d better break up with him.”

If there was anything that surprised Tang Yi the most this year, then, apart from Zhou Hao’s sudden confession, it was Shen Fan’s nonsensical remark.

Tang Yi blinked, and it took a long time before he faintly understood what Shen Fan meant.

The two of them stood side by side in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, the sun casting shadows on both of their faces through the blinds. Tang Yi’s line of sight was almost level with Shen Fan’s, and he was silent for a while before he asked in disbelief: “What did you say?” Things were so shocking that he didn’t even bother to add the title of Director Shen or Senior.

Shen Fan looked at him seriously and said slowly, “You and Gu Yanting, don’t be together anymore.”

Tang Yi: “……”

Shen Fan himself asked to switch from Director Shen to Senior, obviously trying to bring the two closer. But at this moment, as a Senior, he really wasn’t qualified for this serious interference in someone’s private life.

As a boss, it was almost the same. If he said that the company didn’t accept homosexuality, then Tang Yi could understand even if he didn’t agree.

Tang Yi didn’t avert his eyes, looking at Shen Fan thoughtfully. Shen Fan also looked back at him silently, and a little emotion similar to anticipation slowly sparked in his eyes.

It was as if he was waiting for Tang Yi to understand something. And as Tang Yi gazed at him for longer, some certainty seemed to grow in him.

Tang Yi was silent for a long time, the expression on his face changing several times before he asked deliberately, “Director Shen, you called me… Do you have something to say?”

Shen Fan nodded and looked over with a face full of excitement.

“I see…” Tang Yi wrinkled his eyebrows and his gaze suddenly changed when he looked at Shen Fan, “But… I can’t agree to your proposal.”