Water and Fire~Chapter 54.1: Project Completed

 

Chapter 54.1: Project Completed

Shortly after returning the keys, Qin Qianyu arrived at the due diligence office. Seeing Chu Qianmiao, he was initially pleased. "Hey, Qianmiao, it's been a few days since we last met. Seeing you suddenly makes me feel like I've missed you so much." Then, a touch of surprise appeared. "Hey, it's only been a few days, and you look thinner!" Afraid he might be mistaken, he turned to Ren Yan for confirmation. "Boss, do you think Qianmiao has lost weight?"

Chu Qianmiao could feel Ren Yan's gaze sizing her up, assessing whether she had truly lost weight.

She didn't meet his gaze, offering no confirmation.

She smiled and joked with Qin Qianyu as usual, "I bought a size too big, so it looks..."

Ren Yan averted his gaze and sat back at his desk, acting as if nothing had happened. Chu Qianmiao scooted over to Qin Qianyu and chatted with him, also acting nonchalant.

Chu Qianmiao thought, if both of them acted nonchalant, then it would truly be as if nothing had happened.

She and Qin Qianyu began chatting. Qin Qianyu told her that, as she had expected, Dong Lan did have a back-up plan regarding Ji Xia's 70 million yuan contract.

Qin Qianyu said to Chu Qianmiao, "During the few days you were away, a huge drama unfolded within Jialeyuan. It was quite spectacular."

He began to describe it vividly.

"After the external issues were resolved, Ji Xia went to Dong Lan and made a scene, demanding an explanation and shares. He threatened to leave if she didn't give him an explanation. He was so aggressive, Dong Lan told him to stop, saying they should just move on and be good friends. But Ji Xia refused. And guess what happened?"

Qin Qianyu was like a storyteller, begging for more and keeping the secret.

Chu Qianmiao appeased him, enthusiastically praising him. "Oh, I never could have guessed. What happened?"

She was as lively and clever as ever, not a bit lethargic. Ren Yan, who was writing documents nearby, paused his pen before continuing.

Qin Qianyu said, "Dong Lan snapped in anger. She slapped Ji Xia's face with an account."

The account was incredibly complex and ingenious. Ji Xia had used the company's account to purchase 10 million yuan worth of high-end materials. The company's accounts showed that this batch of materials would be used to renovate a mall under the Jingchang Department Store.

But Ji Xia didn't allow the 10 million yuan worth of high-end materials to be shipped to Jialeyuan. Instead, he privately sold them to other renovation companies for 8 million yuan. The other companies were delighted to save 2 million yuan by purchasing high-quality materials at a 20% discount on the market price. Ji Xia's personal account also happily added 8 million yuan.

He then used 3 million yuan from the 8 million yuan to privately purchase inferior materials, passing them off as high-quality for the mall renovation. He managed to replace the high-end materials with these inferior materials, and his receipt and delivery documents were flawless.

In this way, he had secretly amassed 5 million yuan.

He had done a very good job, leaving no flaws. A check of the company's accounts revealed only the purchase and use of high-quality materials. That's why he had the nerve to tell Dong Lan, "I'm really corrupt! Tell Jingchang Department Store and Shi Peng to sue me! Let them sue me! It would be amazing if they had evidence."

But then Dong Lan launched a thorough internal investigation, and Ji Xia began to feel guilty.

In fact, there was a slight flaw in the whole thing. The substandard materials had been sent to Warehouse 3, and the manager there was the only person who knew the quality of the materials.

Fearing that Dong Lan would find the manager and extract information from him, Ji Xia found a pretext to fire the warehouse manager at the start of the internal investigation.

Thinking everything was foolproof, he opened up and argued with Dong Lan. But he never expected Dong Lan to uncover everything.

"Do you really think you didn't leave any flaws? If you hadn't been so hasty in firing the warehouse staff, perhaps you wouldn't have. But you were unlucky. You wanted to erase your tracks and fire that administrator, but he turned out to be a troublemaker and went to HR to cause trouble." Qin Qianyu mimicked the tone of Dong Lan he'd heard from An Ruda, retelling the story to Chu Qianmiao, twisting it a bit but still retaining the original, fierce Dong Lan.

Chu Qianmiao then remembered that one day before a meeting, Dong Lan received a call from HR's Director Liu. They were discussing the matter of the fired warehouse administrator. She'd thought, what kind of a mess could this be? Even an ordinary warehouse employee had alerted Dong Lan.

So, he was the turning point in the whole thing.

She sighed. It seems one shouldn't be too guilty. If Ji Xia hadn't taken action against that administrator, Dong Lan might not have been able to question him, and perhaps Ji Xia's actions would have become completely secretive. But he felt guilty, and after firing him, he wasn't satisfied, which only escalated the situation and made things worse.

Qin Qianyu was still relaying this to Chu Qianmiao: "After the reveal, Dong Lan asked Ji Xia, 'Are you still going to make a fuss? If not, come, sit down, and listen to what I have to say. You made a 5 million yuan profit from my margin, and I won't let you give it back. I'll find a way to settle the account myself. You're a veteran, so I won't hold you accountable. But I can't keep you either."

Chu Qianmiao asked, "Did Ji Xia agree?"

Qin Qianyu said, "How could that be? He's bound to react."

Qin Qianyu told Chu Qianmiao that Ji Xia immediately became furious after Dong Lan announced her decision. He began to recount past experiences, complaining about the unfair treatment and grievances he'd suffered. "I've toiled tirelessly for you for so many years, building Jialeyuan. I'm a company veteran after all, and you couldn't even assign someone to the company? You just fired me, slapping me in the face! Dong Lan, you don't even consider me one of your own."

Dong Lan applauded him. "Well said. I'll be frank. Since you took over the Engineering Department, you've become increasingly arrogant and unruly. I've always tolerated you, remembering our friendship. But I'll tell you, ever since you pushed your relatives into the Legal Department and wanted to have the final say over contract approvals, I've had my eye on you, but I still tolerated it. I warned you, hoping you'd learn to restrain yourself, but you didn't understand my intentions at all. So, forget it. I've explained our friendship to you. You'll leave the company tomorrow. You still have some shares I allocated to you earlier. Just wait for the dividends after Jialeyuan goes public."

Qin Qianyu told Chu Qianmiao, "So, the head of the Engineering Division has changed."

Chu Qianmiao sighed deeply. The friendship they had built over so many years of working together was finally crumbling in the face of financial gain. She thought to herself that Dong Lan had feigned ignorance to maintain a balanced relationship with Ji Xia. She wondered if, at a certain level, one must learn to play dumb.

A short while later, everyone gathered and rushed to the conference room for the meeting.

The meeting was once again chaired by Ren Yan. His clarity and organization remained unwavering, arranging all matters meticulously. He worked with various parties to arrange the various aspects of the inspection and acceptance process, and then finalized the progress and timeline for the subsequent application materials.

Overall, the meeting went smoothly. With the engineering department's hidden dangers resolved, Jialeyuan's path to IPO finally seemed bright.

After the meeting, Dong Lan apologized as she passed by Chu Qianmiao.

This apology left Chu Qianmiao stunned.

Even after returning to the due diligence office, she still couldn't figure out why Dong Lan apologized.

She even wondered if it was because of her son, Shao Yuan.

A while ago, Dong Lan had treated Shao Yuan and Gu Miaoyu badly. She wondered if Dong Lan was apologizing to her for that, but that wasn't right. If it was because of that, Dong Lan should have apologized directly to Gu Miaoyu.

She shared her doubts, and Qin Qianyu, Sun Yi, and the others brainstormed for her to find out when Dong Lan had wronged her.

But none of them could quite come up with an answer.

Finally, Ren Yan, who had been sitting silently at his desk, couldn't help but speak up.

He called out to Chu Qianmiao.

"Lawyer Chu."

Chu Qianmiao was startled by the sound, turned to look at him, and replied gracefully, "Mr. Ren, go ahead."

Ren Yan was silent for two seconds before speaking again.

"Think back to what Dong Lan said to you in the meeting where the 70 million yuan contract was first brought up."

Chu Qianmiao thought for a moment. That incident happened just after the head of Jialeyuan's legal department changed, and there were some flaws in the coordination, resulting in the 70 million yuan contract not being included in her work papers during the meeting. Dong Lan criticized her for this, and her words weren't very pleasant.

Dong Lan said, "As lawyers, you're professionals. You should work harder, be more attentive, and be more thoughtful. We haven't thought about submitting the contract draft, so you should push for it." If neither side can think of something, wouldn't there be mistakes and omissions?

She thought that Dong Lan was using her words as a pretext to criticize her because she had directly challenged Sui Huan in the meeting, humiliating Jialeyuan's entire legal department and embarrassing Dong Lan.

"Before she mentioned the lawyers, she said something else," Ren Yan reminded Chu Qianmiao.

Chu Qianmiao thought carefully and remembered that sentence.

Before Dong Lan criticized her, she said, "Although the senior executives and responsible persons at our company aren't experts in IPO, after receiving coaching and training from Mr. Ren and his brokerage firm, you've gained some understanding of the listing requirements. So, we should all quickly comply with these requirements. If the contract needs to be sent to the lawyers through the Legal Department, make sure you copy it immediately. Don't slack off."

Chu Qianmiao suddenly understood.

She thought Dong Lan was using this as a pretext to attack her, but Dong Lan wasn't so petty. She had a deeper agenda. While she seemed to be criticizing the lawyers, her real target was Ji Xia. She already felt that Ji Xia was overconfident and underperforming, and she wanted to urge him to step back and hand over the necessary responsibilities. She feared Ji Xia would object by simply mentioning the Engineering Department, so she had to bring up the lawyers as a buffer.

So, Dong Lan was apologizing for using the lawyers as a buffer.

Understanding Dong Lan's apology, Chu Qianmiao sighed deeply.

She thought again. Although Dong Lan, as a mother, was incredibly unreasonable, forcibly breaking up Gu Miaoyu and Shao Yuan, she was still reasonable in the workplace. She was even willing to apologize for something that happened a long time ago. Chu Qianmiao suddenly thought that perhaps things would turn around for Xiao Daogu and Shao Yuan in the future.

Dong Lan wasn't as arbitrary and annoying as she'd imagined.

Thinking through the whole process, Chu Qianmiao sighed, "So this is what the workplace is like? It's so complicated."

The workplace twists and turns, and she felt she needed to navigate them thoroughly before she could understand its various intricacies.

She felt she was still a little immature. If she wanted to be able to lead projects independently, she had to work hard to forge her own strengths and discerning eyes.

Like Ren Yan, he could calmly control the overall situation and see through the true meaning behind Dong Lan's warnings.

This was a new lesson she had learned in the workplace. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

"Thinking about it, Dong Lan actually had good intentions towards Ji Xia. She even took his feelings into consideration when she warned him. But she probably didn't anticipate that Ji Xia's greed and arrogance had already made him insensitive. So, in the end, because of the 5 million yuan involved in that 70 million yuan contract, her long-standing friendship with Ji Xia finally came to a point of dissolution and falling out. Alas, money is really not a good thing." Chu Qianmiao lamented.

Qianmiao, after this incident, do you still believe in your theory of workplace human touch?"

Chu Qianmiao was stunned.

This was another person who had been poisoned by the projects and influenced by Ren Yan.

The more projects you work on, the less you trust human nature.

Ren Yan was there too. Chu Qianmiao told Qin Qianyu her answer, and also to Ren Yan.

"Yes, I do. I believe in personal relationships in the workplace. Even in the case of Dong Lan and Ji Xia. If Dong Lan truly had no regard for human feelings, she would have sent Ji Xia straight to jail. And Ji Xia must have known a lot about Jia Leyuan's underhanded tactics over the years. If he didn't have some human feelings, he would have definitely made it harder for Jia Leyuan to go public. Am I right, Brother Qin?"

Qin Qianyu nodded. She didn't glance at Ren Yan's expression.

It doesn't matter. He can stick to his workplace theories. She can stick to hers.

Human relationships do change, becoming indifferent and cold. But fortunately, they haven't become completely heartless.

So, we must believe that there is still friendship in the world, and everything is not as negative as we imagine.

The same goes for life. Don't let a single emotional ups and downs make you depressed. There are certainly more important things in life besides love. For example, career and future.