Chapter 1

Suzhou enters midsummer after the plum rain season in July. Controlled by the subtropical high pressure, the temperature is the highest. It is one of the hottest months of the year, with the average maximum temperature reaching 32 degrees Celsius.

Near lunchtime, a slim, innocent-looking girl, sweating profusely, entered the Beijing Smart Internet Suzhou Branch on the 23rd floor of Zhonghai Fortune Center Plaza in the CBD area of ​​Suzhou Industrial Park.

The girl was about 1.65 meters tall and had a high ponytail.

The girl was wearing a white shirt with a chrysanthemum embroidered pattern on the collar, a beige pleated skirt, and a pair of milky white sandals.

Because the weather was too hot, the sunscreen the girl applied on her face when she went out in the morning had been completely soaked with sweat. On the way back, she wiped it off with a tissue.

Without the concealment of sunscreen, the girl's face was now white and rosy. There was not a single blemish on her face, except for the beads of sweat that continued to seep out of her forehead.

The overall impression the girl gives to outsiders is that she is very literary and elegant.

The girl's name is Xia Zhongqin, and she is a project manager in the delivery department of Beijing Smart Internet Suzhou Branch.

She had just returned to the company from the client site of the Centennial Project she was responsible for.

When she passed by the company's front desk, Sun Yaya, the company's administrative manager and receptionist, called her.

"Hello Zhong Qin, it's been a while since I've seen you back at the company. I'm taking some time today to sort out your expense invoices (transportation and communication expenses) for the past few months."

Sun Yaya kindly reminded, "There's no way to reimburse expenses for more than six months. I'll mail all the company's reimbursement invoices for the last six months to headquarters tomorrow morning."

Sun Yaya is 26 years old this year, one year older than Xia Zhongqin. She has a hot body, a queen-like appearance, and big wavy hair. She is also very enthusiastic and is quite popular in Sucheng District.

Probably because she dressed too maturely, Sun Yaya looked much older than her actual age.

Since taking on the role of Centennial Project Manager last June, Xia Zhongqin has been extremely busy.

Especially in the past few months when the project was approaching acceptance, she had not been reimbursed for transportation and communication expenses for three months.

In addition to the reason of being too busy on the project, there is also the issue of the invoice heading for communication expenses.

Xia Zhongqin's cell phone card was originally purchased by her adoptive mother Wang Haiyun using Wang Haiyun's ID card when she was in her first year of high school.

Xia Zhongqin hasn't changed her phone card for many years, so there's no way to have her name on the invoice.

Before, Xia Zhongqin used fixed-rate invoices for communication expenses, but later he heard from his colleagues in the delivery department that the headquarters no longer allowed the use of fixed-rate invoices.

In order to confirm it finally, Xia Zhongqin asked Sun Yaya in person.

"Can the fixed-rate invoice still be used now, Yaya?"

"Communication expenses are fine, but transportation expenses are not." Sun Yaya replied truthfully.

"Okay, I'll give you the reimbursement invoice before I get off work today, Yaya. Thank you."

When Xia Zhongqin walked to the door of the delivery department, as usual, she habitually looked inside.

In the office area with about twelve people, there was only one person sitting at the delivery director's workstation, and no one was seen at other workstations.

July is the final deadline for the H1 sprint of all branches of Beijing Smart Internet, and everyone else in the delivery department is busy with the final sprint of their respective projects.

This node is the responsibility of the region if it can get back an acceptance report.

The result of the project inventory in Sucheng District last night was that the current amount of rights and responsibilities in Sucheng District is still short of about 1.1 million.

Xia Zhongqin’s centenary project is included in these 1.1 million rights and responsibilities.

Except for the general manager Wang Dayu, the heads of the sales department, delivery department, administration department and human resources department do not have independent offices.

In order to return to her workstation, Xia Zhongqin had to pass through the position of Sucheng District Delivery Director.

Except for the Sucheng District project inventory at 18:30 every Monday night, she has no communication with the Sucheng District Delivery Director on weekdays.

Since he took on the role of Centennial Project Manager, Xia Zhongqin never once contacted the Sucheng District Delivery Director, even when encountering many difficulties in the Centennial Project.

Every time there was a problem on the project, Xia Zhongqin would find ways to solve it one by one, because the contract amount of her project was too small and it could only be considered a small project in Sucheng District.

A small project like this is not qualified to find a delivery director who works almost all year round in Sucheng District.

As the delivery director of Sucheng District, someone has always played the role of a fire captain. He is rarely seen in the company. It is rare for him to be in the company today. Xia Zhongqin was very surprised.

Xia Zhongqin really didn't want to greet him, but he was her leader after all. It would be too rude to just walk past him without saying anything.

When Xia Zhongqin was standing at the door of the delivery department, hesitating, someone immediately stopped what he was doing after hearing her footsteps.

Someone turned around and saw her standing at the door.

"Zhong Qin, I'm back."

The person who called her was the young man sitting in the position of delivery director of the delivery department.

The man had a handsome face and thick hair that stuck tightly to his handsome head, giving people a simple and capable feeling.

The man had well-defined facial features, a high nose bridge, red lips, white teeth, and eyes that sparkled with wisdom. He was wearing a white summer T-shirt issued by the company, and he gave off a feeling of strength and capability.

The man's voice was the same as when he presided over the inventory of projects in Sucheng District last night. It was very steady and no emotion could be heard in it.

It was just a simple greeting, and the man didn't ask about the results of her visit to the Centennial Project site today.

After hearing the man's voice, Xia Zhongqin raised his left foot and walked into the delivery department.

When passing by the man's workstation, Xia Zhongqin only replied with a very unconfident "hmm".

When Xia Zhongqin was about to walk to her workstation, a man's deep voice came from behind her.

"First, please sort out the details of today's visit to the Centennial client site and the prerequisites for the Centennial project acceptance. We'll meet in the conference room in twenty minutes."

When he arrived at his workstation, Xia Zhongqin replied, "Okay, Mr. Lian."

The man's surname is Lian, and his full name is three characters - Lian Yijian

In the company, people in the Sucheng District Delivery Department and other departments generally call him "Yi Jian", "Brother Yi Jian", "Lian Yi Jian", "Mr. Lian", "General Lian" and "Boss".

There are few people who call her "General Lian", and she is one of them.

The acceptance prerequisite that Lian Yijian mentioned is the level to which the project must be completed before the customer agrees to accept it.

In fact, Xia Zhongqin has already fulfilled the pre-acceptance conditions proposed by the client of the Centennial Project.

Sitting at his workstation, Xia Zhongqin wrote a simple document about today's visit to a century-old customer site.

Xia Zhongqin racked her brains to think about the pre-acceptance conditions for the Centennial Project, but she couldn't think of any other pre-acceptance conditions proposed by Wang Xuesheng, the general manager of Centennial Accounts.

Xia Zhongqin took less than ten minutes to sort out the two items that Lian Yijian had just mentioned.

Seeing that it was already lunchtime, Xia Zhongqin had only eaten one bun in the morning, and she hurried to the century-old customer site. She was now very hungry.

Xia Zhongqin wanted to finish early and have lunch, so she stood up and said, "Boss Lian, I'm ready. I'll go to the conference room and wait for you."

Lian Yijian seemed to be organizing the business solution for a key project of the company.

Ever since Xia Zhongqin entered the delivery department, Lian Yijian's eyes never seemed to leave his desktop computer.

Xia Zhongqin stood there waiting for almost a minute before she heard Lian Yijian reply, "Okay, I'll be right there."

Of course, when saying these words, Lian Yi Jian did not look at Xia Zhongqin, his eyes were still on the computer screen.

Xia Zhongqin took her laptop and went to a small meeting room next to the main meeting room in the company.

In the small conference room, she waited for about ten minutes before Lian Yijian came in with his Apple laptop.

Lian Yijian sat down on the right side of Xia Zhongqin.

This was the first time the two of them were so close, less than one meter.

Xia Zhongqin felt a little embarrassed, and her body unconsciously leaned slightly to the left.

Xia Zhongqin's subtle movement was inadvertently seen by Lian Yijian.

Lian Yijian knew that Xia Zhongqin's behavior might not be directed at him. He was the planner of the Sucheng District Delivery Department, and he only saw the overall situation of the projects in the district. He had never been a person who cared about details.

But when facing Xia Zhongqin, Lian Yijian couldn't help but ask, "Zhongqin, am I that scary?"

"No!" Xia Zhongqin immediately denied it, then continued, "It's too hot, and it's even hotter if we're close."

The central air conditioning in the small conference room was on, and the temperature in the room was just right. It was such a lame excuse that Lian Yijian was too lazy to expose her.

He simply moved his office chair slightly to the right, creating a small distance between them.

Xia Zhongqin then briefly reported to Lian Yijian about the visit to the century-old customer site to sign the acceptance report this morning.

When it came to the acceptance preconditions, Xia Zhongqin said, "Boss Lian, we've already fulfilled the acceptance preconditions that Boss Wang proposed last Tuesday, but he still refuses to stamp the Centennial Project acceptance report."

"It's really a once-in-a-century undertaking. This customer and project situation are indeed rare. To put it bluntly, he just wants us to use the money he would have spent on the motorcycle to deliver him a BMW." Lian Yijian analyzed.

"Zhong Qin, after we finish our discussion, please make an appointment with Mr. Wang for 9:00 AM tomorrow. I'll go with you to the Centennial client's site. This Centennial project falls within H1's responsibilities, and we must secure it."

Hearing that Lian Yijian was going to the client's site in person, Xia Zhongqin immediately said, "Boss Lian, I'll make an appointment right away."

Xia Zhongqin has always had a strong execution ability. As soon as she finished speaking, she immediately called Wang Xuesheng.

In less than a minute, the call between Xia Zhongqin and Wang Xuesheng ended.

"Mr. Lian, Mr. Wang said that tomorrow morning at nine o'clock is no problem. We can just wait for him in the conference room on the first floor of the Centennial Comprehensive Office Building." Xia Zhongqin told Lian Yijian the results of the communication as soon as possible.

"Zhong Qin, don't be too anxious about this project. You should write a PPT report on the Centennial Project in the company this afternoon, and then talk to him after the report tomorrow..." Lian Yijian had only said half of his words when his cell phone rang.

The call was from Liu Jijun, the project manager in charge of the Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank project.

The Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank project was awarded at the end of last month and just entered the site last Wednesday. It is also an important million-level project that the region needs to pay attention to.

The Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank project was deployed using a trusted computing environment. Liu Jijun had no experience with this and he had been working on it on site for almost a week but still hadn't gotten it done.

Zhang Qin, the customer project manager of Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank, was in charge of the project team. Liu Jijun checked a lot of information and consulted many people, but he still couldn't solve the problem.

Under Zhang Qin's constant urging, Liu Jijun had to find Lian Yijian.

Lian Yijian received a call from Zhang Qin this morning. Lian Yijian told Zhang Qin on the phone that he would be there this afternoon.

Now Liu Jijun called again, it seemed that the customer was extremely anxious.

Lian Yijian could only tell Liu Jijun the steps of deploying the ICT system over the phone.

After chatting for half a minute, Liu Jijun on the other end of the phone still couldn't understand the deployment steps of the trusted innovation environment that Lian Yijian was talking about, so Lian Yijian hung up the phone first and decided to go over and deal with the problem immediately.

Before leaving the small meeting room, Lian Yijian said, "The functional modules of the Centennial Project have been launched. Zhong Qin, please compare it again with the contract to see if there are any omissions.

"I'll go with you to the Centennial Project site tomorrow morning. Now I have to go to the Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank."

After giving the instructions, Lian Yijian picked up his Apple computer.

When he reached the door of the small conference room, Lian Yijian's steps suddenly paused. He turned back and reminded, "Don't skip lunch again. Zhong Qin, we can get the acceptance report for this Centennial project before the end of the H1 sprint."

Before Xia Zhongqin could utter the word "OK", Lian Yijian had already left.

It has been more than a year since he came to the company. In Xia Zhongqin's impression, Lian Yijian has never visited the customer site for any project in Sucheng District with a contract value of less than 500,000 yuan.

At Beijing Smart Internet Co., Ltd., only projects with a contract value of more than 500,000 yuan are considered large projects, while the contract value of the Century Project is only 290,000 yuan.