The moment Manager Cui saw that An Zi Yan had returned, he went straight to his office. His attitude was neither warm nor cold. “I know the trip was exhausting, but you came back before the matter was finished. How am I supposed to explain that to senior management? I handled the early stages, yes, but I can’t share responsibility for what happens afterward.” An Zi Yan said nothing and tossed the documents in his hands into Manager Cui’s arms. Manager Cui flipped through them, his expression growing uglier with every page. He could hardly believe An Zi Yan had already arranged everything, but the proof was right in front of him. He could only force out a thin smile. “You don’t mind if I keep these documents with me for the moment, do you?”
“Whatever.”
Back in his own office, Manager Cui opened the documents again and clenched his fist. He refused to admit that An Zi Yan had handled the matter better than he had. In his mind, An Zi Yan had only succeeded because Manager Cui had already laid the groundwork during the early stages. Manager Cui had spent nearly two months there, while An Zi Yan had stayed only one week. No matter how he calculated it, the credit and reputation for this job should belong to him. Sending An Zi Yan on the trip had been intended to embarrass him, but Manager Cui had prepared another move too. Senior management did not care who actually traveled on behalf of the department. They only looked at the final result. So Manager Cui copied An Zi Yan’s work into another set of documents, making it appear that An Zi Yan had never touched the matter and Manager Cui had handled everything himself, then submitted them upward. Everyone already knew he had been responsible for the case for a long time. What could An Zi Yan possibly say?
Manager Cui’s “success” earned praise from several senior executives, and even the amount of his year-end bonus increased. He gained both reputation and reward. His behavior infuriated An Zi Yan’s subordinates. The matter Manager Cui had failed to resolve had clearly been completed entirely because of An Zi Yan, yet Manager Cui had turned around and stolen the credit. Mai Ding was the angriest of them all. He tried to suppress his temper while listening to his coworkers. “This is so infuriating. He took all the credit.”
“I’m going to die from anger. Those middle-aged men are going to start showing off in front of us again.” Fan Shao Jun kept patting his chest. Gao Shuang said darkly, “After work, let’s go let the air out of his tires.”
Mai Ding held his anger in at the company, but the moment he got home, it exploded. He paced back and forth in front of An Zi Yan with his hands behind his back. “Shameless. Completely shameless. How can he do something so rotten? We worked ourselves to death over there. Did we spend two whole days organizing those documents just for him?” An Zi Yan’s attitude was no different from usual, as though the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
“Aren’t you angry? You never should’ve given him the documents.” Mai Ding sat beside An Zi Yan and leaned closer. “Or have you already figured out how you’re going to deal with him? Tell me too.” Mai Ding could not accept An Zi Yan being bullied. This time he was absolutely on An Zi Yan’s side. As long as nobody broke the law, Mai Ding was prepared to be very tolerant.
“No.”
“How can you not have a plan?”
“What he wants to do is his business. As long as he doesn’t bother me, I don’t care.” An Zi Yan’s casual nature showed itself again. Whether he did something or did nothing depended entirely on his mood, and right now he had no interest in dealing with Manager Cui. Mai Ding folded his arms and changed his interpretation. “I was too immature. Your way of thinking is right. A real man knows when to bend and when to stand tall. We should learn from Goujian sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall.” Mai Ding had completely misunderstood An Zi Yan’s thinking.
The bitter cold stopped observing the season’s proper schedule and suddenly descended, frightening the city and everything inside it while enjoying the sight of people shivering in its arms. Mai Ding, bundled in a thick coat over his suit, trembled as he swiped his bus card and stood among a crowd of exhausted commuters drained by the early hour. He looked out at the weather. Awful. An Zi Yan’s habit of sleeping late became far worse in winter than in summer. Hopefully he would not be late today. For that reason, Mai Ding had bought ten alarm clocks yesterday and hidden every one of them. When would An Zi Yan finally understand the depth of his good intentions?
He hurried into the company and gradually warmed beneath the central heating. After removing his coat, he stepped into the elevator. Public Relations had become even more divided than before. An Zi Yan’s subordinates disliked the way Manager Cui and his elite group behaved. Fiercely protective of their boss and full of young blood, they had stopped silently accepting all the miscellaneous work the veterans did not want and dumped on them. Now they refused. Perhaps what had happened to An Zi Yan resonated with them. They too had often helped senior coworkers only to watch those seniors claim all the credit afterward. Yet their “master” understood none of their passion or feelings. He entered in a foul mood, shot Mai Ding a vicious glare, and disappeared into his office.
“Yan must be feeling pretty bad too.”
“Let’s all chip in and take Yan somewhere good to eat.”
Only Mai Ding knew that An Zi Yan’s bad mood had absolutely nothing to do with Manager Cui. It was because of the alarm clocks that morning, each one carefully chosen by Mai Ding for having the shrillest possible ring. Wanting to save his coworkers money, Mai Ding kindly said, “You really don’t need to waste your money.”
“Ungrateful bastard. You don’t care about Yan, but we do.” Everyone attacked him at once. Mai Ding’s kindness had been completely mistaken for heartlessness.
Being told he did not care about An Zi Yan made Mai Ding feel terribly wronged. If there was anyone in the world who cared about An Zi Yan most, it was probably Mai Ding.
Feng Fei Meng hung up the phone and stood. “Get ready. President Wang wants everyone in Public Relations in the conference room.” After saying that, she went to notify An Zi Yan too. People in the department rose one by one and headed toward the elevator. At some point An Zi Yan appeared beside Mai Ding, and the two of them stood at the very back. This was Mai Ding’s first full department meeting since joining the company. What did President Wang want to say? In Mai Ding’s impression, President Wang was probably in his forties, younger than Manager Cui, with a kindly face and an easy temper. If you saw him on the street, you would never imagine he was an executive at a major company. You would probably assume he taught history at some school. While Mai Ding was thinking all this, cold fingers slipped beneath his clothes and pressed directly against his waist. His warm body suffered a sudden attack, like an ice cube sliding straight down his collar.
“Hiss~~” Mai Ding stepped forward and landed on the back of Guo Ping’s heel. Everyone in the elevator turned to stare at him. An Zi Yan had already withdrawn his hand and asked coldly, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Sorry.” Mai Ding answered awkwardly. Once his coworkers turned away again, he immediately glared at An Zi Yan. So what if he had set ten alarm clocks? He had done it for An Zi Yan’s own good, and An Zi Yan was taking revenge! By the time they left the elevator, An Zi Yan, who had been in such a foul mood earlier, seemed considerably happier.