Chapter 43: Strike

A woman may only experience love once in her life. Xu Mo seemed to have come across this sentence in a book a long time ago. She probably saw it while sitting in a bookstore in her hometown, watching the rain trickle down the windowpane, leaving streaks, and gazing at the lush greenery of the hills in the distance. The words, written in a tiny corner amidst the long, square characters on the white page, were but a fleeting moment to her, leaving no ripple in her heart at the time.

But time has passed, and now she is standing at the airport to see Lin Jingchuan off. She sees Lin Jingchuan turning back and greeting her frequently, but she feels relieved in her heart and inexplicably recalls this sentence.

At different stages of her life, perhaps she pursued different things. Before the age of 26, she enjoyed the feeling of loving and being loved, which might be the most important thing in life. In recent years, as she grew older, she had ups and downs in the workplace, and became less and less concerned about love. This state had already begun to show in the second half of her relationship with Zhao Tingyu.

At that time, she was traveling to different business destinations all over the world, and she had no intention of reacting to Zhao Tingyu's cold treatment. Instead of stubbornly proving Zhao Tingyu's love for her, she was more willing to devote her energy to completing each DDL in front of her. After all, this would affect her score in the boss's heart, and also affect her survival index in the workplace. Compared with illusory love, tangible benefits seem to be more attractive to adults.

In the taxi on the way back, Xu Mo leaned back, her eyes fixed on the dim street lights outside the window. The flickering light shone on her calm yet slightly tired face. At this moment, her melancholy was not because of the separation from her partner, but about how to face the challenges of next week's work.

In four months, it will be the annual performance review month, and she has to achieve results before this deadline.

Xu Mo closed her eyes and thought, when her cell phone suddenly vibrated and she answered the call.

There was no sound from the other end of the phone.

"Hello." Xu Mo asked while holding the phone.

Zhao Tingyu's slightly hoarse voice came through the electronic device: "Are you at work?"

"Yeah." Xu Mo looked out the window. At this moment, the taxi was crossing a river. The black river water was surging darkly. The temperature outside the window was very low. Even though the heater was on in the car, it was not very warm.

"What's wrong? Are you in a bad mood?" Zhao Tingyu asked. After being together for many years, he understood the emotions behind every tone of her voice.

Xu Mo lowered her eyes: "It's just okay."

"What happened?" Zhao Tingyu asked. "Work? Or did you have a fight with him?"

Xu Mo raised her head and took a deep breath: "Why do I have to go to work again tomorrow?"

She sighed, "Didn't we just go to school yesterday, damn it."

Zhao Tingyu was silent for a while, then said, "Then don't go. I'll support you."

"How can it be that easy?" Xu Mo shook her head. "I really envy you for inheriting the family business right after graduation."

"What's there to envy? No matter how much money you make, it's just a small workshop." Zhao Tingyu frowned slightly. "What's wrong with you? Are you having trouble at work?"

Xu Mo said: "It's not a big deal, just a little bit stressful."

"Oh." Zhao Tingyu said, "Get off the blacklist for me. You can also chat with me when you feel stressed."

"Not yet."

"Why not?" Zhao Tingyu took a sip of the whiskey on the bedside table and typed on his phone, "Are you still mad at me? But after all, we lived under the same roof. Do you really want to cut off contact with me forever?"

"I'm not answering your call now." Xu Mo got back to the point, "What's the matter with you calling me tonight?"

Zhao Tingyu pursed his lips, raised his head and took a sip of wine: "No, I just want to apologize to you."

"What are you apologizing for?"

"Just between us these years."

Xu Mo thought that Zhao Tingyu seemed to have forgotten that he broke into her room at noon on the second day of the Chinese New Year, touched her face, and wanted to kiss her.

So he must have been drunk that day? That's why he lost his memory. Xu Mo explained it this way.

In that case, it would be better for everyone to pretend nothing happened.

"Well, I accept it." Xu Mo said, "You have indeed been very sorry to me over the years."

Zhao Tingyu put the bottle back on the table and stood up from the bed: "Can you give me a chance to make amends?"

Xu Mo: "If you really feel sorry for me, you can give me money."

Zhao Tingyu: “…”

Seeing the hotel right in front of him, the driver turned around, slowed down, and turned back to ask her: "Girl, is this the place?"

Xu Mo said, "That's right."

She hung up the phone.

After returning to the hotel, Xu Mo calmed down, read several research reports on the agricultural and animal husbandry industries, and fell asleep at exactly 11 o'clock in the evening.

Even though she was hit hard, she should continue to work in a good state, she thought so before going to bed. As Lin Jingchuan told her, two experts from the group will come next, and she doesn't need to worry too much about the delivery of future projects.

But what she didn't expect was what happened the next morning.

Not only two experts from the Landa Group came to the conference room, but also a young woman.

Probably not much bigger than myself.

She introduced herself to the project team in the conference room: "Hello everyone, I'm Han Yan. Manager Wu assigned me to this project as the project manager."

Isn't Xu Mo the project manager? Why is Han Yan here again?

Wu Siyue heard the subtlety in it. She looked at Xu Mo, only to see a crack in Xu Mo's calm expression.

Zou Kexin glanced between the two of them, watching the fire from the other side of the river, with a subtle expression of enjoying the show.

"Yeah." Zou Kexin raised her hand and waved to Han Yan in a friendly manner, smiling, "You're the colleague we just hired from the neighboring agency, right? I just heard about you from colleagues in Guangzhou yesterday, and I didn't expect to see you today."

Han Yan nodded slightly at her. She didn't communicate much with Zou Kexin. Instead, she walked up to Xu Mo and extended her hand toward her. "Hello, Xu Mo. I need to hand over something to you."

Xu Mo raised her head and said, "Did Manager Wu ask you to come here? She didn't tell me."

Han Yan pursed her lips slightly and nodded at her.

Lin Jingchuan had been in meetings all morning, as the issue of the new factory's commissioning had been a pressing issue for a week.

Fei Yiming attended the meeting with him and roughly understood the whole story.

The new factory was completed before the New Year, but on the eve of its opening, it encountered a problem. Villagers from the downstream river near the factory came to the factory to make trouble, claiming that the feed factory had polluted their village's water source.

These people hung banners and played loudspeakers at the factory gate all day long, preventing the factory from starting work as scheduled.

The meeting these days was discussing this matter. The factory general manager was extremely anxious and kept pacing around in front of Lin Jingchuan.

"We received some orders before the New Year, and customers have already started preparing to plant seedlings. If we can't produce as scheduled, they may change the material, which could cause huge losses."

Lin Jingchuan had just returned from the north last night. After getting off the plane, he sent a message to Xu Mo, but she hadn't replied yet. He was already annoyed. Seeing him circling around in front of him, he became even more upset. "What are the villagers saying now?"

"The previously agreed compensation was $500,000, but yesterday they suddenly changed their mind and asked for $1 million."

When Fei Yiming heard the amount, his eyebrows jumped: "This is outrageous! It's simply asking for too much!"

"Yes, actually we can afford the money, but we are afraid that once we open the door, it will be difficult to handle similar situations in the future." The general manager wiped the sweat from his forehead. Lin Jingchuan's face looked really bad, and he was a little nervous.

Fei Yiming: "What about calling the police? Even calling the police is not an option?"

"Mr. Xiaofei, even though the government has sent people to coordinate, they can't do anything about these unreasonable villagers. After all, it's impossible to arrest everyone. That wouldn't be acceptable. The government's message is that the factory needs to resolve this matter with the villagers themselves."

Lin Jingchuan pressed his eyebrows. This kind of thing had happened to him before, but the amount of money involved this time was probably the largest ever, so he had to deal with it personally as soon as possible.

Lin Jingchuan said: "For the current orders, we will first give priority to nearby factories to arrange production."

"Okay, thank you, Mr. Lin, for your coordination," the general manager said gratefully. He hesitated for a moment and continued, "But if the villagers don't resolve the issue, even if this order is delivered on time, I'm afraid they'll continue to cause trouble in the future."

"Please make an appointment with the village chief for me. I'll go with you this afternoon."

Xu Mo handed over to Han Yan with mixed feelings. For the whole morning, her expression showed a hint of death.

Wu Siyue sent her a WeChat message: [Baby, are you okay? ]

Xu Mo replied with an emoticon that said she wanted to die on the computer.

Wu Siyue: [Don't overthink it. Manager Wu isn't trying to kick you out. He's just adding another person to our project. We can still work on it together.]

Xu Mo didn't reply to her, she was not in the mood to reply.

The handover was almost done, and Xu Mo stood up to get some water. There was a person standing in front of the water dispenser in front of her, and she lined up behind him. While waiting in line, she checked the recruitment software to see if there were any opportunities.

As she was brushing, she didn't notice that the person in front of her had already filled the water bottle.

"Consultant Xu?" The man's voice was steady and mellow.

Xu Mo raised her head and found that the person in front of her was the product expert sent by President Ou, whose surname was Qin.

At this moment, the other person's gaze fell vaguely on her phone screen. Xu Mo quickly turned off the screen and politely greeted, "Dr. Qin, just got here this morning?"

"Last night's flight," the other person said. "It wasn't too urgent."

Xu Mo nodded, and Dr. Qin also nodded at her, smiled meaningfully, and turned to leave the tea room.