Chapter 36 It's all because of money
Spring arrived in March, and Jian Zhen spent her first spring in Guangzhou. Before this, she thought that she, a child who had grown up in the terrible air of the north, could survive the pollen and dust of spring and would not have to spend it in the south—ah!
She decided to take some time to go to the hospital to check for allergens, otherwise it wouldn't be right for her to be sneezing so much that her eyes were watery every day.
Xu Weisheng hasn't had time to bother her lately. She heard that the doctor gave his dying father a critical condition notice. Jian Zhen is quite envious of him. The Crown Prince is finally going to be officially recognized. However, the balance between the two of them is very delicate now. Seeing the other's success, Jian Zhen can't bring herself to offer a congratulatory message that doesn't come from her heart.
Fortunately, amidst all the chaos, there was one comforting thing – "Mystery Valley" has finished airing.
Jian Zhen couldn't imagine how many hands Lao Le must have had to stabilize the small boat of "Mystery Valley" amidst the turbulent chaos inside Qili. It was far from enough to describe it as "pressing down the gourd and the ladle floats up." He was truly a rare talent.
Because the show received positive reviews during its broadcast, the online streaming contract for "Mystery Valley," which had been suspended, was restarted. Lao Le went along with the other party's wishes to discuss a sequel, and unexpectedly, they actually made some progress. During the two days she spent back at the company getting reimbursed, she urgently convened a meeting with the project team.
Jian Zhen hadn't been to Qili Building for over a week. She was suffering from severe allergies, so she simply took leave and stayed home day and night to catch up on the main storyline of "The Hundred Demon Records".
The day was sunny and breezy. She was forced to leave home by several phone calls from Lao Le and rode her bicycle to Qili. As soon as she got downstairs, she witnessed a wonderful scene.
"Qili! Give me my money back!"
"A reputable listed company, a benchmark enterprise, is defaulting on its employees' hard-earned wages!"
Jian Zhen was dumbfounded. Qili was in arrears with salaries? How could a big company that was at the top of the industry conference before the New Year have fallen to this state in just a few months? It's faster than riding a drop tower.
She squeezed the brake pads, stopped on one foot at the roadside, and took off her right earphone to hear more clearly. Only then did she realize that the group demanding back pay was quite large, and there were many familiar faces she often saw in the elevator.
Holding banners and chanting slogans under the leadership of the person in charge who used a loudspeaker, they did not flinch when faced with the security team sent by Qili to clear the area. The security guards, relying on their height and strength, pushed and shoved, which instantly ignited the anger of the crowd, and the two sides started fighting.
Jian Zhen hadn't expected to witness such a dramatic scene. She was hesitating whether to ride her bike further away before calling the police when someone rolled out of the crowd. She recognized the person: Fei Fei.
Feifei was lying sprawled on the ground, in danger of being trampled by the crowd at any moment. Jian Zhen didn't care about that and quickly crouched down to drag him out.
"Do you want to go to the hospital?" She helped Feifei sit on the curb, went to the convenience store to buy two bottles of water, and came back to open one to rinse Feifei's hands.
Feifei had a piece of skin peeled off his hand, and it looked shocking. When he rinsed it with cold mineral water, he immediately grimaced and muttered a string of meaningless curses.
"Do you want to go to the hospital?" Jian Zhen asked again.
"Go to hell." Fei Fei shook the water droplets off his hands. After so much pain, he was numb. With a numb face, he turned to Jian Zhen and said, "Doesn't going to the hospital cost money? I don't have any money! Qi Li hasn't received a single penny of salary for two months, you know that?"
"Huh? Is that so?" Jian Zhen was so surprised that she forgot that she was holding an uncapped mineral water bottle horizontally with both hands, and the remaining mineral water was still flowing out, quickly wetting Fei Fei's shoes.
"Damn!" Feifei took two steps back from her seat.
"Oh dear! I'm so sorry." Jian Zhen patted all her pockets and found only a few eco-friendly tissues that the property management had given her last week. They were printed with the name and logo of their community. Jian Zhen had probably put them in her pocket to blow her nose, but now she took them out to give to Fei Fei to wipe her shoes.
Although it's not very presentable, it's the only option for an emergency.
Feifei saw the logo on the tissue, and the next second the logo was soaked with water and wrinkled into a clump of pickled vegetables on his shoe. He said angrily, "Mystery Valley is doing so well. No matter who the whole company owes money to, we don't owe you any."
Jian Zhen stood up straight, looked down at him polishing his shoes, and said with an "uh," "I don't know the situation. As for the salary, I can ask Lao Le for you if you need it."
"Heh!" Fei Fei chuckled sharply, then said sarcastically, "As expected of a young lady, you have so many bank cards that you can't tell which one is your salary card, can you?"
That's not very meaningful. When Jian Zhen was in school, she didn't have any extra pocket money. After she started working, she never asked her family for a single penny. Director Jian instilled self-reliance in her, and every grain of rice she ate was earned by herself.
Having already become self-reliant to the point where her aunt described it as "hardship," Jian Zhen was still falsely accused of being a extravagant young lady. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Take today for example. When she got up in the morning, she wanted to order some dim sum from a restaurant for breakfast, but after seeing the price, she only ate two boiled eggs at home before going out.
The protein was burning inside her, and she couldn't help but flare up, saying, "What did I do to offend you? You thought 'Mystery Valley' had no future and jumped ship to another project team. I was the one who stopped Lao Le from reporting you to your new team leader! Sun Fei, people die for money and birds die for food. I can understand that you're in a bad mood because the company owes you money, but you can't pretend to be a rabid dog and bite people everywhere!"
After saying that, Jian Zhen turned around, pushed her bicycle, and left. She had walked several meters when Fei Fei shouted after her, "You don't know anything!"
Jian Zhen didn't care about anything. She had had enough of Qi Li and her gang. The once warm and cozy Meng Si had changed drastically. Even the security guards who pressed the elevator buttons downstairs had been replaced three times, each one more ugly than the last. She guessed that Qi Li was indeed broke and didn't even care about saving face anymore.
In the conference room on the ninth floor, after Lao Le finished his meeting and left, he noticed that Jian Zhen hadn't left and was sitting in a corner chair looking at her phone.
"What are you looking at so intently?"
"Savings." Jian Zhen paused, then added, "And pay slips."
"You don't sound too optimistic," Lao Le said jokingly.
Jian Zhen took a deep breath, exhaled heavily, put away her phone, sat up straighter, and looked up at her, saying, "Our food supplies are almost gone."
“You had too few attendance last month. I told you to submit a report and work from home.”
"Come on, I get yelled at for taking leave and having my pay docked for doing it openly. If I really had to work from home, people would report me to the Global Times." Jian Zhen pouted, then, as if remembering something, her gaze returned to Lao Le's face: "Did you know that you ran into some people downstairs demanding their unpaid wages when you came here today?"
“This isn’t the first time,” Lau said, unfazed. “A couple of days ago, we even attracted reporters.”
"Does the company really owe money to other colleagues?" Jian Zhen didn't mention Fei Fei, but Lao Le brought him up instead.
"I heard that some senior executives have absconded with the money, and the company's cash flow is probably quite tight, but it's unlikely that they owe wages. I've heard about this; the contract with the outsourced human resources company expired, and they took the money and ran away. You know Feifei, right?"
Jian Zhen's heart skipped a beat, and she nodded.
"When he transferred from 'Mystery Valley' to Director Xiao's large team, the result of being eliminated at the bottom was not good. He only stayed because he voluntarily transferred to an outsourcing company. Now, if you see people downstairs demanding their wages, nine times out of ten it's him."
"Sigh." Jian Zhen forced a smile, gave a bitter laugh, and said nothing.
“I’ve told everyone else in the group that ‘Mystery Valley’ is in the eye of the storm right now. If we encounter those who are resentful, we can just let them hurl a few insults and let it pass. If it’s really unbearable, we can just go around them.” As he spoke, Lao Le bluntly stated, “Your situation is even more special… You didn’t have any conflicts with anyone today, did you?”
"No." Jian Zhen didn't want to mention Fei Fei. To be honest, she knew Fei Fei first and understood Lao Le later. Lao Le's evaluation of Fei Fei was completely objective and condescending, while she still had some human feelings and was unwilling to follow that condescending view.
Experience has shown that being soft-hearted towards someone who is desperate to lose can also bring disaster upon oneself.
That afternoon, Jian Zhen was about to leave home for a tour and meeting when a bucket of water was poured in from outside. Her hand was on the doorknob, and she had just pressed it down to open a crack when the door was swung open.
She slammed the door shut as if by reflex and immediately tightened both locks.
Immediately, a cacophony of vulgar insults erupted from outside the door. The noise was chaotic and mixed together, and Jian Zhen, whose hearing was poor, could barely make out that there were more than five people speaking.
They cursed Jian Zhen as a vampire, a privileged second-generation rich kid, saying that while everyone else was starving, "Mystery Valley" still got a second season; while everyone else was unable to pay their mortgages and lost everything overnight, she could still live in an upscale neighborhood and enjoy a solitary life—what is this if not extreme exploitation of resources? In a certain era, she would be on the gallows...
Jian Zhen couldn't stop the sounds from reaching her ears, so she had no choice but to stay far away from the door. She took out her phone and looked up the property management's phone number. Her fingertips trembled as she dialed the number. The thought of a group of strangers waiting for her to leave her house today sent chills down her spine.
"Hello! This is..."
The property management promised to deal with the troublemakers immediately, and then awkwardly hinted to her, "There have been some rumors about you online recently, and many neighbors have complained to the property management after reading them. If it's convenient for you, could you issue a statement to explain the situation?"
"Say it again?" Jian Zhen asked incredulously.
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