Chapter 19

Shen Siyan had never believed only one side of a story.

She had always felt that any one-sided account came wrapped in embellishment. Hear only one version, and you’d be left in the dark; hear both, and you’d understand.

Still, Wei Xiaolu’s retelling was vivid.

Though she couldn’t immediately decide whether those five roommates deserved the label of bad people, Shen Siyan could at least feel Wei Xiaolu’s hurt. That fragile sensitivity, with its effort to look strong, was exactly the sort of thing common to people her age.

“From now on, the people you meet will all be normal,” she comforted her.

“Definitely.” Wei Xiaolu nodded hard, her eyes brightening a little. “I just regret not getting out sooner. I wasted three whole years in there.”

“If you feel like it was wasted,” Shen Siyan said, “then think of it this way. At least now you know what kind of environment you should never go back to.”

Wei Xiaolu gave an emphatic mm-hm and smiled at her. “After seeing such a good roommate like you, I know what kind of people I should stick with in the future.”

Shen Siyan couldn’t help letting a smile spread across her face too.

Because of her parents’ status and position, she had grown up hearing words like that all the time. To be honest, they were like a song with a catchy rhythm and plenty of feeling at first; after hearing it a thousand times, even the lyrics blurred, and no matter how nice the melody sounded, it became nothing more than background noise, barely stirring the heart.

So when it came to this kind of polite flattery, she would listen, smile, toss back a couple of jokes, and let it pass.

No one meant it deeply anyway.

“Now I’m a little worried,” Shen Siyan said, pretending concern as she frowned.

Wei Xiaolu leaned forward in confusion, as if a question mark had grown out of her head. “Worried about what?”

“You’ve raised the bar so high all at once,” Shen Siyan teased. “I’m worried it’ll be hard for you to find roommates in the future.”

“Hard is hard,” Wei Xiaolu said, crossing her hands and lifting them in front of her chest in a wish-making pose. “If I can’t find another one like CEO Shen, I’d rather live alone.”

Shen Siyan laughed.

“Would living alone even work?” She paused. “Wouldn’t you have to wash your hair with cold water again?”

Wei Xiaolu suddenly sprang up from the bench, her upper body straight as a pine tree.

“CEO Shen!” she said indignantly, chin lifted high. “Don’t tease me. I’d definitely learn the things I can’t do.”

She didn’t deliberately mock her to her face, but inwardly she still couldn’t help finding the girl amusing.

Still, not knowing something was something you could learn, and if you didn’t know how, you could ask. That did fit the image she had of Wei Xiaolu: lively, optimistic, growing quickly, and a junior worth taking care of.

Caring about a junior’s life and giving them the right guidance and direction had always been part of what she demanded of herself at work.

Overall, when it came to Wei Xiaolu, she felt she had done that part quite well.

After their conversation that night, Wei Xiaolu suddenly seemed to get all her energy back. She got up, bounced around, looked left and right, and apparently only then realized that after moving into this house, she still hadn’t fulfilled her duty to clean. She went to drag out the mop, then set to work with a huffing burst of effort.

Shen Siyan told her the place wasn’t dirty and she didn’t need to do it, but Wei Xiaolu was still full of spirit, waving a hand. “I like this place so much now. I have to clean it until it feels even more prosperous.”

...Fine, then do it.

If she didn’t, that prosperity might just get bottled up inside her heart.

Seeing that Wei Xiaolu had already gotten past the knot in her mind, Shen Siyan let her be, left the living room, and went to blow-dry her hair in peace.

By now she had been working in the Product Interaction Department for more than a month, and she had fallen into the habit of doing a monthly review. In terms of hard results, everything had exceeded expectations; this month the department’s transaction completion volume was also far ahead of the others.

By contrast, on the softer side of things, Shen Siyan felt there was still plenty of room to improve.

The team’s cohesion wasn’t enough, the work atmosphere was stiff, and the department members each had their own thoughts. She still needed to keep building the Product Interaction Department’s unified front.

Over the next two days, she found time to plan the next step for motivating the regular employees. When she thought about the interns, she realized—

She had still been too lenient with young people.

Wei Xiaolu had taken three days off to handle school-opening matters, but the clues in the apartment—“air-conditioning set to low temperature,” “a tabletop with food stains,” “a sunken sofa,” and “snack bags folded like marching blankets in the trash can”—all showed that this little one had simply taken leave and spent it at home enjoying herself.

It just so happened that over those two days, Shen Siyan had brought the local specialties Wei Xiaolu had given her to the company and put them in the break room under Wei Xiaolu’s name for everyone to snack on. They were very popular and disappeared quickly. Since Wei Xiaolu wasn’t coming to the office these two days, she presumably didn’t know any of it.

This child had already been on vacation so long she didn’t know north from south.

She had originally wanted to give her a mild correction, but Wei Xiaolu had also kept bringing her T University beef noodles for three days straight, practically running errands for her. In that case, Shen Siyan really couldn’t bring herself to expose her.

Those three days off clearly let Wei Xiaolu recover completely. When she returned to her usual two-point commute routine, she even lacked that soul-leaving-the-body feeling she’d had on Monday morning before.

This time after coming back, Wei Xiaolu was full of energy. The work Shen Siyan assigned her, she carried out enthusiastically.

Although she sometimes seemed a little too obviously eager, that was normal for a newcomer. Besides, wanting to prove yourself at any age was not something worth mocking. Shen Siyan also made an effort to protect and guide that enthusiasm.

How similar that kind of enthusiasm was...

Shen Siyan flipped open the three work manuals she had used since taking the post.

Clear to-do lists, dense meeting outlines, and endless small records.

If she stepped outside her own perspective and looked at herself the way she looked at Wei Xiaolu, then she too was a newcomer in a leadership position. Right after taking office, she had hoped to make sweeping changes and lead her subordinates in remaking the intelligent finance and taxation project, to overhaul it in one clean stroke and root out the lingering traces left by the previous department head.

But the uncontrollable factors in the workplace were far too many.

Orders from above, resistance from below. Caught in the middle, she gradually realized that goals couldn’t be achieved all at once. If she wanted to lead a team well, she would inevitably have to go through infiltration, adjustment, accumulation, negotiation, and balance, until everything was internalized.

It still required slow settling.

But sometimes, slow was not something you got to choose. Near the end of work on Friday, headquarters suddenly sent an official notice requiring Shen Siyan to present, at the quarterly financial report meeting at the end of September, the handling plan and phased results for the last P0-level online incident, and to use that as an important standard for judging whether she was fit to hold the department head position.

The emergency mitigation plan from then could be used for the report without issue, but progress was now stuck on the outsourcing company’s side. The maintenance schedule was seventy days; by normal procedure, the phased result at the month-end meeting would be zero.

After thinking for a moment, Shen Siyan called Ai Jin over. “Push the intelligent finance and taxation project. Try to cut the schedule in half and deliver it within this month.”

“That’s going to be tough,” Ai Jin said, shaking her head. “I’ll go talk to them and push a few more times.”

After sending the order out, Shen Siyan still felt a faint unease. After a moment of thought, she called to Wei Xiaolu, who had just come back from the break room and was still biting a chocolate stick.

“Xiaolu,” Shen Siyan said, beckoning her over. “Go find Ai Jin and sync with her on the project progress.”

Wei Xiaolu pinched the chocolate stick between two fingers, let out a puffing sigh like she was smoking, tossed off a bright “Yes, CEO Shen,” and ran out lightly.

Ai Jin was straightforward by nature, but she was observant too; Wei Xiaolu could learn quite a bit from a colleague like that.

In fact, Shen Siyan also wanted to use Ai Jin to set a good example for Wei Xiaolu, so she would do more real work and spend less time currying favor with leadership.

Friday afternoons were always sluggish in the department.

Shen Siyan wasn’t affected by it. She quickly finished organizing the weekly report and prepared to leave on time.

But Ai Jin came over to tell her something: “Our intelligent finance and taxation project is scheduled pretty late on their side. They said there’s a high chance delivery will be delayed.”

Shen Siyan frowned slightly. “They never mentioned the schedule to me before.”

“That was my oversight; I forgot to ask them,” Ai Jin admitted. “I only found out when I asked today. Their company is working on several projects at once, and the deadlines for those projects all come before ours.”

“Did they offer a solution?” Shen Siyan asked.

“They said it can be expedited. They can get it done this month,” Ai Jin said. “But if we want it expedited, we’d need to pay a 30 percent rush fee first; the rest of the balance would still follow the original plan and be transferred at delivery.”

Thirty percent; nearly 200,000.

If there were truly a need to launch a new product quickly, Shen Siyan wouldn’t hesitate over that expense at all.

But for the intelligent finance and taxation product, the current operating version already covered all the basic functions. The new version merely expanded a number of business modules horizontally, so rather than spending that money on a superficial honor, Shen Siyan would rather save the 200,000 and use it to give the department’s staff some tangible protection.

“Forget it,” Shen Siyan said, exhaling. “Just keep pushing them. At least make sure they deliver on time.”

“I’ll ask again,” Ai Jin said, frowning. “But if it’s necessary, I still think we need to rush it. I just heard the user feedback side has a terrible atmosphere; everyone’s urging for the new version and a lot of them are going to the app store to leave bad ratings, so the product really doesn’t have much reputation right now.”

Shen Siyan’s fingers on the mouse wheel stopped moving.

User feedback?

She had just finished reading the optimization team’s weekly report, and there had been no mention of that.

“Who did you hear that from?” Shen Siyan looked up at Ai Jin.

“I can’t remember who exactly,” Ai Jin said, looking troubled, “but I just checked the store a moment ago, and the rating has already dropped to 1.3.” She sighed helplessly. “I’m the one responsible for this product; I really don’t want to see its reputation get this bad.”

“I understand.” Shen Siyan nodded.

A project’s implementation, in the final results presentation, only appears as the department’s performance under the department head’s leadership. But if you look at it from within the department members, and then further involve all the users, the relationships become subtle and complicated. Some people were counting on this project to preserve their reputation; others were waiting for some function to solve their tax problems... In short, it would no longer be something simple.

Ai Jin was still worrying about how urgent user demand was.

After listening to her complain, Shen Siyan stood up. “This product has been followed up entirely by you. I trust your judgment and the data you’ve seen.”

Ai Jin nodded. “Mm.”

“But now I have two questions.” Shen Siyan held up her right hand and extended two fingers.

“Go ahead.”

“First, go to the outsourcing company in person and confirm whether our project really is scheduled behind theirs, and also make sure exactly what the rush process is and what the money will be used for.”

“Second, investigate the historical ratings and see whether this 1.3 rating dropped suddenly or whether it was already there before the online incident; then summarize the root demand behind everyone’s bad ratings.”

Having said that, Shen Siyan withdrew her two fingers. “Only after you verify those two questions can we go forward with the rush work.”

“Okay, I understand. I’ll handle it this weekend.” Having clarified what needed to be done, Ai Jin wasted no time and turned to leave the department head’s office.

That left only Wei Xiaolu, who had just been hiding behind Ai Jin, facing Shen Siyan across the room.

Wei Xiaolu’s expression was like someone who had accidentally eaten a sour plum; Shen Siyan could almost taste the bitterness rising off her.

Shen Siyan smiled. “Are you going home this weekend?”

“Manager Ai is working overtime this weekend...” Wei Xiaolu’s voice gradually weakened, her mouth struggling to keep a smile in place.

“You can do whatever you want; whether you stay or not is up to you. If you should go home and rest on the weekend, then go home and rest,” Shen Siyan said. “But Ai Jin’s weekend overtime comes with a fixed overtime payment. If you stay to help her, there’s overtime pay for you too; I’ll issue it separately.”

Wei Xiaolu really did see money and instantly brightened.

“I’ll stay, CEO Shen,” Wei Xiaolu said, looking like something on her was bouncing up and down. “The company is my home, progress depends on everyone. Being able to learn on-site from Manager Ai is exactly what I’m hoping for!”

Shen Siyan couldn’t help laughing. “So motivated, little sister.”

“Mm-hm, mm-hm.” Wei Xiaolu nodded hard twice. “You’re my biggest motivation.”

Shen Siyan’s smile froze.

Wei Xiaolu stood in front of her, smiling up with such complete sincerity that Shen Siyan, who firmly believed everyone wore a mask in social situations, suddenly couldn’t quite tell, in that moment, what was a mask and what was the truth.