29 Chapter Twenty-Eight
Li Yingqiao also smiled and called out, "Brother Lianfeng," just like Yu Jinyang.
Li Yingqiao's first job after graduation was at Shengzhimei Biotechnology. Before it faced liquidation, she had already been laid off. The company's performance had been declining for years, and she knew that restructuring was inevitable, but she never expected it to happen to her so soon. After all, she had once shared street food with the big boss.
Later she learned that what brought her success could also bring her downfall. Those who had eaten skewers with the boss were all laid off without exception. A perceptive colleague in her group figured out the truth and immediately understood the whole story. The two of them, carrying their suitcases, prepared to head home. Just as they stepped into the elevator, Zhao Pingnan, before the doors even closed, leaned against the elevator car and sighed deeply, gossiping with her: "You're the one who suffered an innocent misfortune. You got a call from a client that day and left early, so you don't know what happened afterward."
Li Yingqiao turned to look at her, asking curiously, "Is there any other story behind this?"
Zhao Pingnan said, "The boss got drunk that day and went crazy, doing some stupid things. The team recorded it, but he blacked out and doesn't remember anything. I guess someone leaked the video, and other teams found out. And then, the face mask we were working on recently had a major scandal, and with Lucas stirring things up, our team was shut down."
Li Yingqiao was unaware of this matter. She only knew that she was laid off not because of this incident, but because she had failed to reach an agreement with the boss. These capitalists have endless tricks up their sleeves. Regarding the layoffs, he had been secretly making moves a month in advance, even demagnetizing the access cards. Several people who couldn't swipe their cards actually skipped work and were immediately marked absent without leave.
He then held various talks with the relevant departments, proposing a pay cut for all employees. He said, "So what if the pay cut is taken? Jobs are hard to find these days. Those who are willing to work will stay, and those who are unwilling will resign voluntarily."
What's particularly inhumane about this boss is that he and all the department heads signed a salary reduction agreement, reducing everyone's salary by 30%. As long as the department heads cooperated in optimizing their departments, even if they used some underhanded tricks to get employees to resign voluntarily, the 30% would be returned as a bonus after the optimization was completed.
Because he didn't want to pay N+1 severance pay.
After Li Yingqiao finished her talk with her boss, she didn't want to make things difficult for her colleagues in the group. The key was that there weren't many people in her group. Zhao Pingnan was an optimistic person with a high degree of insensitivity. Even if you pointed at her forehead and scolded her by name, she would only be a beat slow to react and say, "Huh? Me?"
As for the others, there's only Xiao Guan, Lin Xiaobei, and Sister He left. Each of them is difficult to deal with. Sister He's mother is still in the intensive care unit, and she's struggling to make ends meet every month to pay her mortgage. She and Xiao Guan have to scrape together the medical expenses.
Li Yingqiao didn't sign the contract, took off her work badge and handed it back; she decided to leave on her own.
She just hadn't expected that such a cunning, treacherous, and stingy capitalist would actually get so angry that he would shut down their entire project team. The good thing was that at least they all received N+1 compensation; Zhao Pingnan said it was hush money, a buyout of the videos Xiao Bei had. Xiao Bei, fearing he wouldn't give N+1, sent all the videos to us.
Li Yingqiao was incomprehensible and looked utterly incredulous. If she weren't holding the box in her hands, she would have grabbed Zhao Pingnan by the neck and shaken her until the world turned upside down: "Why didn't Xiao Bei send it to me? He had such important leverage, and he didn't! Send! It! To! Me!"
Zhao Pingnan said apologetically, "...Xiao Bei thought you wouldn't get fired. Yingqiao, where are you planning to go next?"
Actually, quite a few headhunters tried to recruit Li Yingqiao at that time, but she wasn't in a hurry and planned to stay in Beijing and slowly find a job.
"And you?" she asked Zhao Pingnan in return.
"As for me," Zhao Pingnan had already made her plans, so she left without hesitation this time, "I'm going back to my hometown. My mother just contracted a tea mountain, and I'm going back to sell tea."
To my shame, even though we've been colleagues for almost two years, I still don't know where she's from. I didn't want to ask any more questions, so I just said, "Then have a safe trip."
Zhao Pingnan leaned against the elevator car, looking at her with a half-smile.
Li Yingqiao felt uneasy at her smile. Why was she making that face? Was she trying to sell her tea? No way!
Li Yingqiao, holding the suitcase, gave her an apologetic smile in advance.
Sorry, I'll delete you when I get on the subway.
As the two of them carried their suitcases out of the company building and walked silently toward the subway station, Zhao Pingnan suddenly spoke up again: "Sister Yingqiao, actually I'm also from S Province. I know you're from Fengtan."
"..."
S Province is useless; I still have to delete her on WeChat. However, Li Yingqiao has rarely been in contact with anything or anyone related to Fengtan in recent years, so those two words sounded somewhat unfamiliar to her. Upon hearing them for the first time, she was a little dazed and slightly surprised: "You're also from S Province? Where are you from?"
“I’m from Qingyi.” Zhao Pingnan still had that mysterious smile. “You don’t know, do you? I knew you were from S Province like me as soon as I joined the company, but I rarely mentioned it, afraid you would think I was trying to get close to you.”
When Li Yingqiao's project team was first established, she often had meals with the team members to try and build rapport. After a few rounds of drinks, her colleagues would start talking about their hometowns, their eyes sparkling, but she usually remained silent. Over time, people rarely discussed her hometown with her, assuming she had no connection to it.
Zhao Pingnan and she walked with the flow of people towards the subway station. They stopped at the traffic light intersection. She looked at Li Yingqiao and said, "Sister Yingqiao, do you also really want to go back to your hometown? Do you remember that time we had a dinner party? You drank quite a bit that day, and after making a phone call to someone, you kept crying. Xiao Guan asked you what was wrong, and you said you wanted to go back to Fengtan, that you really wanted to go back to Fengtan."
Although they had been colleagues for two years, Zhao Pingnan wasn't actually very close to Li Yingqiao. Li Yingqiao didn't seem to have many friends and was always alone at the company. However, she was actually very cheerful. The reason they didn't want to get too close to her was simply because she was their superior, so they always kept a distance from her.
But Zhao Pingnan actually admired her a lot. A top student from Peking University, no matter what project was handed to her, even when they were still battling with the "brain fog" problem, she could handle it with ease and write out the plan meticulously. When she first joined the company, she was actually her mentor.
Li Yingqiao was also standing at the traffic light with her suitcase, her gaze somewhat absent-minded, until a Koenigsegg roared past her on the street in front of her. Then, as if remembering something absurd, she laughed and said, "I really forgot."
"Do you remember when I first joined the company, you were working with me on the NYI stem cell project? At midnight, the boss suddenly told me that our proposal had been shortlisted, but only as a backup. This was because one of the companies suddenly went bankrupt late at night, which is why we got this backup spot. At that time, I had just finished working overtime as an intern and hadn't even slept for half an hour when you called. They asked us to come to NYI's headquarters before 7 a.m. the next morning to present our proposal, but their headquarters is in Shijiazhuang."
Upon hearing this, Li Yingqiao turned his gaze to her and slowly nodded, saying, "I remember, it was a snowy day."
“Yes, the boss said to let it go, that the other party was deliberately making things difficult for us,” Zhao Pingnan said. “But you made a crazy decision, driving to Shijiazhuang overnight. We set off at 1:30 and arrived at the Renmin University building just before 6:00. We were still squatting in the public toilet next door, washing up and putting on makeup, covered in dust. The cleaning lady saw how pitiful we were and even left us an extra pack of toilet paper. But there was a man who kept loitering at the toilet door, staring at us. Do you remember?”
“I remember you said you didn’t sleep well in the car and were worried it would affect your presentation. But when you were dealing with that guy, I was completely relieved. I felt you were very clear-headed.”
"Yes, I remember I was going to call the police."
"No, it was when you accurately grabbed my powder compact from among our mixed-up cosmetics and used it as a weapon that I knew NYI's plan that day would definitely be ours."
Zhao Pingnan: "..."
Zhao Pingnan felt somewhat unfamiliar with Li Yingqiao's sudden change in demeanor. At the company, she was usually overly calm and rational, but when they went out for dinner, she was very easygoing, or rather, quite agreeable. She would let them make a ruckus while she stayed in a corner of the sofa, watching them play around and laugh heartily. Then she would quietly pay the bill and leave. She was a boss who made people feel very safe, but also someone they didn't really want to get close to.
Seeing that she was speechless, Li Yingqiao laughed again and pointed with her chin to the light sign in front of her, "The light is green, let's go."
As the two entered the subway station, Zhao Pingnan's heels clattered loudly on the steps as he continued, "After we secured the proposal, you said something to me, do you remember?"
Which sentence?
“Wow, Sister Yingqiao,” Zhao Pingnan said, feeling hurt. He glanced at her and said, “We’ve been colleagues for so long, but we’ve hardly ever had a heart-to-heart talk. How can you not remember? Are you someone who just talks big?”
Li Yingqiao slowly descended the steps, calmly smiling, "That's because you don't understand us Fengtan people. We Fengtan people like to talk a lot of nonsense. When we have nothing to do, we even like to make up rhymes for others—"
"After we finalized the plan, we went to the police station and arrested the guy who was running around in the restroom. You said that if something like this happened again, you would definitely be the second to stand up for me. I asked you why you weren't the first, and you said that we should always be the first. What I mean by this is that I'm planning to go back to selling tea now. Do you support me?"
Li Yingqiao: "..."
I knew she would be waiting here.
Zhao Pingnan laughed heartily until her hands, which were carrying the box, ached. She turned and walked towards her own platform, waving vigorously at Li Yingqiao with her back to her, saying, "Don't delete me on WeChat! I know you'll definitely delete me as soon as you leave, but we're from the same hometown. Come visit me in Qingyi sometime."
Li Yingqiao still hasn't deleted Zhao Pingnan's WeChat, and was even pestered by Zhao Pingnan to add her private WeChat account, which belonged to a pure-hearted dung beetle who dances the cha-cha. Li Yingqiao had just returned to the gua sha clinic when Li Shuli asked her if she had eaten. Li Yingqiao mechanically nodded and said she had, when her phone vibrated in her pocket. Zhao Pingnan's WeChat message popped up, asking if she was in Fengtan.
Li Yingqiao had just replied to her when another WeChat message popped up; it was from Yu Jinyang.
D321: "Address".
The innocent dung beetle hops the cha-cha: "Send a location."
The innocent dung beetle hopped around like a cat: "Meow, this."
The next second, D321: "Are we home?"
The innocent dung beetle hops the cha-cha: "Yes!"
Another second later, D321: "I agree too."
Li Yingqiao laughed out loud, and the innocent dung beetle hopped around like a little boy: "See you tomorrow."
It took a long time before Li Yingqiao went back to her room to take a shower, and only then did Yu Jinyang return.
D321: "See you tomorrow."
***
Li Boqing chose a place in a mountain villa on Fengtan Mountain. Over the years, Fengtan Mountain has remained largely unchanged; the mountains are still high, the stars are still bright, the roosters still crow clearly and loudly, and the wheat fields remain silent.
The muddy dirt road remained damp and sticky until wide tire tracks covered the original footprints, stretching towards the deep, dark green mountains. Two cars drove into the mountain resort gate, one after the other. Just then, a tall figure emerged from the restaurant entrance, striding towards them and calling out loudly, "Jin Yang!"
Yu Jinyang pulled the car over to the side of the road, rolled down the window, and greeted the man with a smile, "Brother Lianfeng."
The man who arrived was Li Lianfeng, the eldest grandson of Li Boqing. He was in his early thirties, with a handsome and refined face, and wore frameless glasses. He currently worked for the municipal government and was Li Yingqiao and Yu Jinyang's senior from Tanzhong School, two years ahead of them. He wasn't familiar with Li Yingqiao; this was their first meeting. He was fairly familiar with Yu Jinyang, as there weren't many young people in Fengtan, and the two of them had played ball together a few times.
As soon as Li Lianfeng saw him, he smiled and teased him: "A rare guest, Jin Yang. You wouldn't come no matter how much I called you before, but today you're willing to come with a girl?"
Yu Jinyang caught a glimpse of Li Yingqiao getting out of the car in the rearview mirror, and followed suit, but didn't say anything. When Li Yingqiao walked up to them, he leaned against the car door and introduced her, saying, "Secretary Li's grandson, Brother Lian Feng."
Although Li Lianfeng had never met Li Yingqiao, he had heard the old man describe her as a somewhat fierce girl. He hadn't expected her to be so out of place in this area, completely unlike a native of Fengtan, aloof and tall. His eyes lit up, and he skillfully extended his hand: "Yingqiao, I've heard so much about you. I've heard my grandfather talk about you many times."
A person who can naturally omit the surname and address someone by their first name upon first meeting them, without sounding frivolous, possesses an innate ability.
Yu Jinyang is naturally lacking in this sense; in his WeChat contacts, everyone has their full name, with a level of rigor comparable to the household registration management of a police station.
Li Yingqiao grasped his hand in return, then quickly released it, and followed Yu Jinyang's lead, smiling and calling out, "Brother Lianfeng."
He was poised and confident, speaking fluently and confidently. Li Lianfeng's smile deepened, the wrinkles on his face rippling like waves on a cool lake, his laughter echoing in waves.
After exchanging pleasantries, Li Lianfeng let Li Yingqiao go in first, then handed a cigarette to Yu Jinyang, who was leaning against the car door, and pointed meaningfully to the flower bed next to them, saying, "Shall we chat for a while before we go in?"
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