What’s with the Liaozhai Act?1
Such a half-assed attempt at playing the cat.
Fearing she had missed something, Lin Sifei searched carefully again, dragging out one more sheet from behind a flowerpot. That should be everything now.
She scrambled into the elevator with the papers in her mouth, then jumped up to slap the lower button meant for people with disabilities.
The elevator ascended slowly, and Lin Sifei stomped her paws in agitation.
The moment the elevator doors opened, she ran to Zhao Min’s secretarial desk, spat the items onto the floor, and started meowing insistently.
Zhao Min was on the phone. Seeing the cat, she raised a hand. “President Luo’s cat is here, so I’ll hang up now. Have a safe trip.”
She bent down, pulled out a tissue, and pinched the items the cat had brought. “A USB drive? Where did you get this? This is stuff people need for work.”
She sighed helplessly. This little thing was always causing her trouble. She reached for the papers, but her eyes fell on them and she froze. W-wasn’t this this project’s proposal?
“Oh no, President Luo and the others have already left.” She shot up from her seat, ready to give chase.
Lin Sifei hugged her leg, then leaped onto the desk and patted the printer. Hello, make a new copy! That one has my drool on it, and holes from my teeth.
“Oh, right, right, copy it quickly.” Seeing the bite marks, Zhao Min hurried into the copy room and ran off three copies.
Lin Sifei jumped onto her shoulder and patted her head reassuringly. “Meow!” What’s the rush? They just left. Driving over now won’t affect anything.
Zhao Min took a deep breath, her soul soothed by the soft paw pads. She carried the cat into the elevator while calling Assistant Lin.
“Hello, Assistant Lin, the proposal the team sent over is incomplete. Have them check it immediately. I’m on my way with the missing pages, tell them to be ready.”
Assistant Lin was first shocked, then bewildered. “How do you know it’s incomplete? Do you know what’s missing?”
“I’ll explain the details when I get back. President Luo’s cat just brought over the missing part, along with a USB drive.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Assistant Lin turned his head and relayed the situation to Luo Ke. Luo Ke frowned and nodded at him. “Contact the team members right away. The USB drive is probably their presentation PPT.”
Assistant Lin quickly contacted them, and one question confirmed it. He was so angry he gave them a dressing-down. “Secretary Zhao will bring it over in a bit. Get the document with the missing pages open and wait.”
After the scolding, his tone softened. “Don’t worry too much. Your top priority is still to win this contract. Pull yourselves together, don’t let a small hiccup affect your performance…”
He went on and on, like a head teacher sending off students to their college entrance exams.
Luo Ke crossed her arms and gazed out the window. Xiao Xiao found it? Has she been eating and sleeping poorly lately because she was worried about the partnership?
At this thought, the corners of her lips curled up slightly, and she swallowed twice. It had been too long, too long since anyone had cared about her. Although her grandmother and uncle cared, she had always reported the good and not the bad, so everyone thought she was incredibly capable.
She thought back to last night, to Xiao Xiao tossing and turning beside her pillow, and she wanted to smile again. Glancing at Assistant Lin’s ghost-white face, she cleared her throat and raised a fist to cover her mouth.
Assistant Lin turned back and sent a message to the terrified team members.
【President Luo looks very happy. It probably isn’t a big deal.】
Happy??? Now it was the team’s turn to be completely bewildered.
Regardless, the contract still had to be negotiated. The group got out of the car, where people from Bai’erluo were already waiting to welcome them.
Luo Ke went forward to shake their hands, and they walked in together.
The man in the suit had the deputy team lead stay outside to wait for Zhao Min.
“Miss Luo, shall we get started then?”
The team members’ hair instantly stood on end. How could they start now? The materials hadn’t arrived yet, especially the crucial USB drive.
Luo Ke sat down and extended a hand toward Assistant Lin behind her. Assistant Lin smiled and handed a gift to each of the Bai’erluo representatives.
“Miss Luo, what is the meaning of this?”
“Don’t worry, I have no ulterior motive. It’s just that you’ve all come from afar and may not be very familiar with our country’s culture. Inside the boxes are gifts I’ve carefully prepared. I hope we can first take a moment to get to know each other, exchange some thoughts, and then proceed with the presentation. Perhaps the results will be a little better that way.”
The Bai’erluo representatives looked at each other, then reached out and opened the boxes. Everyone received something different; some got Luban locks2, some sandalwood fans3, and others got opera masks4…
Using the items in their hands as a starting point, Luo Ke spoke about the different customs, cultures, and philosophical concepts accumulated over the long river of history from various parts of the country.
“Quite interesting. Completely different from ours,” one of the Bai’erluo people said with a smiling nod.
Luo Ke raised an eyebrow. “This is the greatest difficulty in our collaboration, but also its greatest potential for success. The waves stirred by a cultural collision can push us to the very top, or they can sink us.”
“Looked at this way, the risk of collaborating with your company is too great.”
“Risk and reward are two sides of the same coin. Besides, isn’t our job to tip the scales of success in our favor?”
…
The deputy team lead waited at the door, pacing anxiously and glancing back at the situation in the villa’s living room from time to time. President Luo has to hold out. Otherwise, we’re really finished.
He had been standing at the door so long he was about to turn into a wife-gazing stone5 when a small red car finally appeared in his line of sight. Zhao Min ran toward him, holding a folder and carrying the cat.
The deputy team lead joyfully rushed toward her, snatched the folder from her hand, and spun around to run back inside.
“Hey, wait for me!” Zhao Min nearly twisted her ankle in her high heels.
The deputy team lead charged straight to the team leader and shoved the folder into his hands.
They were all seated at the table, surrounded by the Bai’erluo representatives. He could only carefully hide the folder underneath and add the new pages.
Yan Yafei eagerly helped him flip through the folder. The team leader’s hand paused. He glanced up at her and said in a low voice, “You can step aside for now.”
Yan Yafei’s hand froze. “Th-then, I’ll handle the distribution and the slideshow later.”
“He’ll do it,” the team leader said, patting the deputy’s arm.
Yan Yafei bit her lower lip, wanting to argue, but a colleague next to her tugged at her sleeve. “Hurry up, don’t let them see.”
Yan Yafei turned to leave, her high heels making a loud click.
Luo Ke’s eyes swept over coolly, her peripheral vision landing on Zhao Min standing not far away, and on the cat perched atop Zhao Min’s head.
A slight smile touched her lips. “It seems my employees are getting a bit impatient. In that case, please take a look at the proposal our company has prepared.”
The suit-wearing team leader walked to the front and began the presentation as planned.
Zhao Min let out a sigh of relief. The deputy team lead leaned in and whispered, “Good thing you made it in time. I really don’t know what we would have done otherwise.”
“You should thank her,” Zhao Min said. “It’s all thanks to her that the missing items were found.”
As Lin Sifei listened to the praise, she kept her eyes fixed on Luo Ke. She had seen Luo Ke smile just now. It was beautiful. It made her whole trip worthwhile. Totally worth it.
Zhao Min, however, found it a bit strange. “President Luo never smiles, but she actually smiled today. Could it be she’s finally decided to conquer our partners with her looks?”
Lin Sifei shot her a look and slapped her on the chin.
Narrow-minded and shallow! Luo Ke may be beautiful, but her abilities are even stronger. And she’s such a proud person, she would never use her looks to win someone over.
The presentation ended, and Luo Ke successfully secured the partnership. Walking out of the villa, she held out her arms to Zhao Min, who tactfully handed Lin Sifei over.
The moment she was in Luo Ke’s arms, Lin Sifei happily nuzzled against her and meowed.
“You’ve rendered a great service this time,” Luo Ke said, scratching her chin before bending down to get into the car.
In contrast to her cheerful mood, the atmosphere in the team members’ car was much heavier. The proposal had been perfectly fine, but because of this incident, they probably couldn’t even dream of a bonus. They just hoped there wouldn’t be a punishment.
The car was dead silent. Finally, a colleague couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I must have said a thousand times before we left to check everything. To still lose something like this, I’m speechless.”
Yan Yafei pouted, her hands clutching her skirt tightly. “I didn’t want it to happen, either. It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
“Right, we know you didn’t do it on purpose. Stop looking so pitiful, as if we’re bullying you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“We’re all thousand-year-old foxes here, so what’s with the Liaozhai act?6” the colleague snorted, giving her a sidelong glance.
“You! You’re slandering me!” Yan Yafei bit her lip, her face pale, looking utterly wronged and pitiful.
Unfortunately for her, the mistake this time was simply too elementary, and its impact was terrible.
The man in the suit raised a hand. “Alright, that’s enough from everyone. We won the contract, so we should all be a little happier.”
The deputy team lead also rolled his eyes. “I might not even have a bonus. What’s there to be happy about?”
“Alright, stop it!” the team leader snapped. “The final decision will be up to President Luo.”
Silence fell over the car once again.
Back at the company, Lin Sifei sat expectantly on the desk, waiting for Luo Ke to fire the female lead.
Luo Ke looked into her big eyes, stroked her head, and bent down to take some snacks out of a drawer. “I’ll make an exception today. You’re allowed to have a snack.”
Lin Sifei stared blankly at the snacks, then looked at Luo Ke, then back at the snacks, then back at her. She swatted the snacks away with one paw. “Meow!”
Luo Ke frowned. “You don’t like this snack? Then what do you want to eat? Or do you want something else?”
Lin Sifei stood up angrily and paced back and forth on the desk. How am I supposed to, like a pure and unpretentious cat, indicate to Luo Ke that she needs to fire the female lead? The female lead made such a low-level mistake, aren’t you going to fire her?
She circled twice and stopped, then suddenly dove into the handbag Luo Ke had placed nearby. After rummaging for a while, she pulled out her wallet and then bit down on a cash bill.
Money, money! The bonus!
However, Luo Ke completely missed the point. “You want money to buy something?”
Lin Sifei deflated, lying down on the desk without moving.
Luo Ke rested her chin on her hand, tapping her fingers on the desktop as she tried to figure out what on earth her cat wanted.
“President Luo, do we still need to hold a celebration party for this contract?”
Luo Ke nodded. “Yes. They’ve worked hard for a long time.”
Lin Sifei looked up at her, and when she realized Luo Ke was truly done talking, she was a bit dumbfounded. Not only was she stunned, but Zhao Min also stood frozen in place.
“Is there anything else?”
Zhao Min bit her lip. “Um… does Yan Yafei not need to be dealt with?”
“Do you have a suggestion?” Luo Ke asked casually, her head lowered as she played with the cat.
“I feel that the impact of Yan Yafei’s actions this time was very negative. Moreover, this isn’t the first time she’s made this type of mistake. She should be fired as an example to others.” After speaking, Zhao Min subconsciously pressed her lips together.
Luo Ke glanced at her. “You really have it in for Yan Yafei, don’t you.”
Zhao Min’s back straightened even more, terrified that Luo Ke’s next words would be to fire her.
“Since you feel so strongly, then fire her. Supervising those below you is part of your job, after all. I trust you have sufficient reason to make this decision.”
Zhao Min nodded slightly and went downstairs to handle it with the HR department.
Lin Sifei clapped her paws happily. Excellent! We’ve finally sent away the female lead, that weapon of mass destruction.
Seeing her smiling expression, Luo Ke rubbed her head. “You’re a hero, too.”
Lin Sifei turned her head away with a huff, ignoring her. So dense. Not even as sharp as Zhao Min.
Luo Ke was inexplicably met with disdain and could only smile helplessly. Suddenly, she frowned. Zhao Min had said earlier that Xiao Xiao was the one who found the items.
She stood up, tore open several packets of snacks for Lin Sifei, and stroked her head. “I have to go out for a bit. You stay here.”
Lin Sifei tilted her head in confusion, but she was quickly lost in the pile of snacks.
Luo Ke went straight to the security room.
When she entered, two security guards were leaning back in their chairs, telling dirty jokes. The one facing the door saw Luo Ke and quickly nudged the other. The other guard turned, shot to his feet, and straightened his cap. “President Luo!”
Luo Ke glanced at them. “I’m here to look at the surveillance footage. You two can go patrol outside.”
“Do you need us to help you find something?”
“No need. It involves company matters. I’ll be taking a segment of the footage with me.”
At that, the guards knew not to ask any more questions. They nudged each other and went out together, even helping Luo Ke close the door behind them.
Luo Ke bent down and pulled up the daytime surveillance footage, starting from when she arrived at the company and locking onto Xiao Xiao’s figure. She soon saw Xiao Xiao run into the team’s office on the monitor, rummage around, and then carry away the USB drive. After that, Yan Yafei appeared in the frame.
Seeing the process of how the files were lost, Luo Ke’s expression turned cold. This was no simple case of forgetting.
Watching Xiao Xiao gather the materials all on her own, a warmth spread through Luo Ke’s heart. What a silly cat. It’s so obvious she completely forgot about the existence of surveillance cameras. If someone else had seen this, she really would have been captured for dissection.
She sighed helplessly, copied that segment of the footage, and deleted the rest.
“She doesn’t even know how to be a little more careful.”
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