Chapter 54 Maybe I should retire earlier
At 4:50, the plane slowly landed in Jiang City.
For this long trip, Chen Jiashang not only brought his assistant Zhang and Lao Song to handle official business, but also two nannies.
Two Mercedes-Benz seven-seater minivans were parked in the front car, with Chen Jiashu and Zhang Zhu sitting in the front car, and Lao Song driving.
Outside the car window, the dazzling lights of the Jiangnan water towns flashed by. In stark contrast to the north, Lao Song kept his eyes straight ahead the whole way, only glancing at the rearview mirror when waiting at traffic lights.
"The newly installed smart connectivity app has compatibility issues with certain older router models..." Assistant Zhang scrolled through the list of problems on his tablet, then reported, "Another user experience defect exists. Based on data from 2000 e-commerce reviews and 1000 customer service recordings, the airflow design has blind spots, resulting in a high frequency of water droplets remaining on the inner walls after washing..."
Sitting in the passenger seat, Assistant Zhang twisted his body, listening and taking notes of the key points in his notebook. Chen Jiashu spoke at a moderate pace, occasionally pausing for a few seconds to wait for Assistant Zhang to stop writing before continuing.
The car started again. As for driving, Lao Song was not as steady as Xiao Jun. Chen Jiashang was slightly propelled forward by the inertia.
Suddenly, Old Song paused, thinking he was about to be reminded to slow down again, but then he heard Chen Jiashu say, "Next Wednesday, we'll arrange to receive Minister Huang and Mayor Ding."
Not to him.
"Understood," said Assistant Zhang.
Seeing that the man gave no further instructions, Assistant Zhang turned around, leaned back in his chair, and immediately contacted the administrative and marketing departments.
*
My aunt told me that it had been raining in Jiang City all week, and the sun only came out yesterday afternoon. It seems that God is blessing the newlyweds.
Qin Qiao brought out the fruit platter prepared by Yang Shuhua from the kitchen, walked into the living room, and placed it in the center of the coffee table.
"Shuhua, stop!" Auntie shouted into the kitchen. "We're going to build the house right away."
In their area, there's a "preparatory feast" the night before the wedding, held separately by the bride and groom, either at a hotel or at home. This is the groom's family, and tonight's feast is being held at their country home, in a large tent they set up themselves. Besides relatives, neighbors who helped out are also attending.
Zhaoye, Danie, and Xixi are playing with their aunt's two little granddaughters in the living room, bouncing balloons.
The sounds of "slap slap slap" accompanied by the children's cheerful laughter floated in the air.
"Zhaoye, Xixi, Danie, come to your third aunt's house." The third aunt stood at the entrance and waved to the children.
I got home at 3 p.m. and the door has been wide open ever since. On days like today, you can go to anyone's house without having to change your shoes and just come and go as you please.
The children immediately stopped playing and turned to look at Qin Qiao with questioning eyes. After receiving a smiling nod of approval from their mother, the three children immediately ran over.
Yang Shulan turned to the side and looked at Qin Qiao from her angle. She could only see that Qin Qiao's back was wrapped around the two children in front of her, and the two children were looking up, quietly waiting for something.
Like my eldest aunt, my third aunt gave the children birthday red envelopes from long ago. Because they don't come back often, these red envelopes had been kept until this meeting. And because there were other children in the house, the adults deliberately kept quiet while handing them over, afraid the children might be sensitive or overthink things.
This is a habit of older generations. Young people may prefer to speak frankly and openly. Although Qin Qiao does not fully understand it, she respects this habit.
"Dad!" the child suddenly exclaimed.
Immediately afterwards, she ran over calling out repeatedly. Qin Qiao got up and went around the glass partition, where she saw Chen Jiashu half-squatting on the ground, his arms around the two children.
"Jia Shu is here," Auntie San said.
Third Aunt's husband followed up: "Jiashu, it's been a long time."
Chen Jiashu got up from the ground. He recognized his third aunt's voice. "Hello, Third Aunt."
This man should be my third aunt's husband, but I can't quite remember.
At that time, my third aunt's husband was always at work on New Year's Eve, so I didn't see him often.
"And you are?"
Qin Qiao took a few steps to Chen Jiashu's left side, affectionately took his arm, and whispered in his ear, "Third Uncle."
Yang Shuhua, who had just come out of the kitchen, happened to see this scene. She grabbed the apron around her neck, wrapped it halfway around, took it off, and casually hung it on the back of the chair.
Chen Jiashu stepped forward half a step to show respect: "Third Uncle, it's been a long time. I'm so sorry, it's not very convenient for me to see things here. I didn't recognize you at first glance. I was a little hesitant to recognize you just by your voice. Please don't take offense."
From the door to the entrance, there were one or two meters. For Chen Jiashu, this distance was so short that he could only see blurry, colored shadows, unable to even discern the outlines. Therefore, to onlookers, Chen Jiashu's gaze was not properly fixed on his third aunt's husband's face, but rather seemed to be directed at his third aunt.
Qin Qiao also noticed that Chen Jiashu's blindness was mostly manifested in his ability to find things. His eyes were deep and clear, and he could always pinpoint the location of whoever spoke to him, leading her to believe that he simply couldn't see clearly.
At the shareholders' meeting six months ago, at the nearly twenty-meter-long conference table, his gaze always fell squarely on the face of whoever spoke to him. Suddenly, Qin Qiao remembered that every time someone spoke to him, the assistant beside him would bend down and say something to them. Did that mean they had another way of communicating?
Her heart suddenly ached, as if it had been scalded by a raging fire.
It was both painful and spicy.
Feeling the increased force on his arm, Chen Jiashu glanced at Qin Qiao. Although he could hardly distinguish the lip movements of people up close anymore, he could still vaguely make out that her red lips were tightly pursed.
On the way to the countryside, Qin Qiao and Chen Jiashu rode in one car, while the children rode with their older siblings. All five children rode in the nannies' car.
Chen Jiashu moved closer to Qin Qiao, whispered in her ear, and said, "I haven't told you yet, but my vision is now 0.02."
A warm breath brushed against her earlobe, and Qin Qiao's slender shoulders trembled slightly, her body tensing up a little. As she turned her head, her face brushed against his cool lips, and the man's large hand climbed up her back, his slender and well-proportioned fingers gently holding her bony shoulders.
“The difference between 0.04 and 0.02 isn’t that significant.” His breathing was slightly heavy, but his tone remained calm, as if he were talking about someone else. “During company meetings, everyone’s seats are fixed and rarely changed… I can usually pinpoint the location accurately from a blurry figure up close, and my assistant gives me a clear direction from a distance, like ‘three o’clock.’ But that was before. Now… I often find other things to do, like pretending to think, or twirling a pen… Everyone in the country knows that Chen Jiashu has poor eyesight, and the people in the company are used to it.”
Qin Qiao understood the man's deliberately understated words; he meant 0.04 before, and 0.02 now. But her heart felt like it was being twisted into a rope, throbbing with pain.
"Now... about two weeks ago."
Chen Jiashu nodded gently, noticing the tremor in Qin Qiao's voice as she tried to control herself. He patted her shoulder and said, "This is part of the illness. As time goes on, this will happen more often."
"Can't you control yourself?"
"The doctor said that if I use my eyes less in the future, it might last longer." He hooked a strand of hair on her cheek with his fingertips, tucked it behind her ear, and smiled: "How about I retire early and have more time to take good care of you?"
retire?
Chen Jiashu is only thirty-eight years old, the prime age for an entrepreneur. Moreover, the group has been in a phase of expansion in recent years, and he's already thinking about retirement... Was it the suggestion from people within the group?
Does he think that way himself?
The Chen Jiashu she knew, though occasionally frustrated, never gave up when faced with problems; instead, he always sought solutions. Otherwise, he wouldn't have cultivated his team, especially considering the tens of thousands of employees and their families behind him. Stepping down would inevitably cause internal turmoil, as Chen Jiashu is someone who values responsibility above all else.
Can an "eye disease" really defeat a person?
The person seemed frozen in place. Chen Jiashu paused for a moment, then laughed: "What are you thinking about?"
Qin Qiao turned her head, gazed into his smiling eyes, and pondered for a moment: "Have you ever tried using a voice assistant?"
“I’ve tried it, and it makes mistakes. For example, when humans read ambiguous passages, they subconsciously pause and emphasize the words, while machines simply read in a flat and straightforward manner, executing cold commands. Obviously, it’s not my ‘assistant’; at most, it’s a ‘novel reader.’ After reading it from beginning to end, I only got a general idea, and the worst thing for contract terms is to be vague.”
Qin Qiao pursed her lips, suddenly unsure of what to say. What she could think of, Chen Jiashu had probably already tried.
That's why he set up a team, but given his intolerant attitude towards data errors, the team wasn't entirely reliable. Humans are more flexible than machines, but they are also too flexible. Often, the calculations in people's hearts are harder to guard against than algorithms.
In his years working in finance, Qin Qiao has seen too many cases of subordinates deceiving and covering up for their employees due to poor health and lack of energy. For example, in Silicon Valley, USA, the founder of Aurora Tech colluded with the acting CEO and the CFO to secretly modify the project's pre-sale fund supervision agreement during his retirement due to illness. The hole left behind has not been filled to this day.
Take, for example, the famous Yongkang Group in Beijing. The old man suffered a stroke and went on leave for three months. His son-in-law then misappropriated design and R&D funds to invest in high-risk futures trading, resulting in a lack of new products for three core brands and a halving of the stock price. All these cases reveal a fact: once a person loses control of the game, someone else will make the moves for him.
She then asked, "What about verification from multiple sources?"
"Hmm." Chen Jiashu nodded: "Let different people report the same thing from different perspectives. By piecing together the fragments, we can always see the original picture."
It just requires the recipient to have a strong memory and logical reconstruction ability. Although it's not difficult for Chen Jiashu, it would be very tiring to do this mentally and physically in the long run.
The city lights outside the car window flashed past their faces, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, depending on the speed of the car.
A face with sharp features, a high nose bridge, and eyes that are sharp and aloof when not smiling, but gentle and tender when smiling. Reflected on the glass window, they become exceptionally clear in the dark.
Qin Qiao looked at him without speaking, and after a moment of silence, said, "It's too mentally taxing."
He smiled wryly and said, "It feels like I've gone back to that time, when you would also help me come up with ideas."
At that moment, two buzzing sounds came from her shoulder.
What is it?
“I visited Chen Cheng a while ago and took a look at his company’s operations. He gave it to me. It has a feature that’s perfect for visually impaired people like us. My eyesight started to decline last year, and my mechanical watches have been gathering dust at home. I use my phone to tell the time.”
He pulled his hand back, his other thumb rubbing the edge of the watch. The screen lit up, and a mechanical female voice announced, "It is now 5:40 PM Beijing time."
"I've tried two watches on the market. One is a fairly common manual watch with a button on the side that chimes the time with a sharp sound. The main problem is that it's not waterproof, so I have to take it off even to wash my hands. It wasn't a problem when my eyesight was good, but now I hate having to touch it all the time. The other one is a smartwatch that chimes the time when you raise your wrist, but it can be accidentally triggered. Six months ago, during a board meeting, I didn't dare to make any big movements for fear of activating its function..."
Chen Jiashu's words, tinged with a touch of humor and helplessness, successfully conjured up the scene in Qin Qiao's mind, making her chuckle.
"This watch has a customized wake-up function. Touching the left side of the watch wakes you up and announces the time; touching the right side announces your real-time heart rate; and tapping the screen twice announces your blood pressure. If either my heart rate or blood pressure is abnormal, it will issue a health alert, and my emergency contact will immediately send an email."
Chen Jiashu spoke so much at once, it was more like a user experience manual, and it was obvious that he really liked the design by Chen Cheng's team.
Chen Cheng's team's design satisfied his desire to have 100% control.
A sudden inspiration struck Qin Qiao, and she realized that this kind of watch had a great market potential. It wasn't just for visually impaired people; for example, she herself would like to have a watch that "understands me."
“I feel there is a market for this product,” Qin Qiao said. “It is suitable for a wide range of people, not just the visually impaired.”
Chen Jiashu glanced at her with his dark eyes: "Guess why Chen Cheng gave me one?"
Qin Qiao chuckled: "It seems this 'thoughtfulness' took ten times the effort. Chairman Chen... he's really stuck to you."
The laughter wasn't loud, but its clear, resonant sound vibrated through the air inside the car, bringing with it an indescribable itch—not an itch in the throat, but rather a very light tickle on the tip of a feather to the heart.
"Jiashu...is there something wrong with your watch?" Qin Qiao asked, her voice filled with confusion.
The car lurched slightly as the wheels rolled over a speed bump. Chen Jiashu's Adam's apple bobbed slightly as he leaned back in his seat. He turned to look at Qin Qiao: "It's nothing."
Just then, a cold, mechanical female voice rang out clearly: "Warning: Heart rate too fast. Warning: Heart rate too fast."
Chen Jiashu quickly pressed the button on his watch screen. The alarm stopped abruptly, and a subtle and eerie silence fell over the car.
The leather seats creaked slightly. Old Song in the front seat unconsciously straightened his back, turned the steering wheel half a turn, and the car turned onto a country road. Two kilometers to go to their destination.
Chen Jiashu suddenly chuckled, his laughter clear and bright: "First time trying out this alarm function."
Qin Qiao couldn't help but joke, "It seems that what's more terrifying than negotiating is having Qin Qiao sitting across from you."
The man stared at her for a few seconds, neither admitting nor denying, but simply looking at her calmly. Then, a helpless smile appeared in his eyes, and he nodded.
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