After returning to Beijing, Tan Xiao had nothing much to do at home, so he decided to take up Secretary Feng’s invitation and work in the President’s Office. He ran it by Zhang Xingchuan too.
Zhang didn’t much care. Tan Xiao could play if he liked or work if he liked. If he got bored enough to work at a competing travel app, Zhang wouldn’t mind. All that mattered was that Tan Xiao was happy.
Besides, whenever there was serious work to be done, Tan Xiao was an exceptionally dependable young man.
And so Consort Xiao truly returned to the palace, going back to work in WenCheng’s President’s Office.
The office wasn’t actually in quite as bad a state as Feng had suggested.
Jiaxin was a midlevel manager with extraordinary coordination skills. While she was there, she’d already built an excellent system for the office’s basic operations. Though she had transferred out, her systems remained. It was just that without its central figure, some colleagues seemed at a loss. Feng handled administrative work flawlessly, but he couldn’t respond well to moments when people needed reassurance. He was perceptive enough to sense their unease, and he wanted to help, but didn’t know how. As a result, Feng himself grew anxious.
Tan Xiao had worked under Jiaxin before and knew the office’s responsibilities. His former colleagues had always enjoyed working with him. Now he also had the buff of being a member of the CEO’s family, so they cooperated readily with his temporary assignment.
Two weeks later, Assistant Tan had helped Secretary Feng get the President’s Office running smoothly again.
To avoid any appearance of impropriety, however, Tan Xiao rarely went in and out of the CEO’s office during the day, making a point of not being seen alongside Zhang during working hours.
At night he would stay at Zhang’s house, or Zhang would stay at his. The number of nights was almost evenly split. Either way, they spent every night together, only separating when they got to work in the morning and each went about his business.
During his winter internship, Tan Xiao had dressed fashionably but still looked like a university student, with the fresh-faced air of an intern. This time Feng had invited him back for a purpose. He deliberately dressed a little more like a professional, wearing suit trousers and business shirts and sometimes even a narrow tie for reception events.
Zhang secretly credited Secretary Feng for this achievement. His wife in an elite-businessman skin was incredibly hot.
Once July arrived, Zhang got busy. Unusually busy. Summer was the peak season for travel, true, but the CEO didn’t personally handle day-to-day bookings. Tan Xiao felt something was off.
That evening, Tan Xiao was idling in the President’s Office. He claimed to be working overtime on miscellaneous tasks, but he really wanted to wait and go home with Zhang.
Zhang’s office was empty. He’d gone off to some other department again.
Tan Xiao had spent the previous night at Zhang’s home, but Zhang came back very late. Work calls woke him several times during the night, and he went out to take them. Tan Xiao waited for him and wanted to ask what was wrong, but Zhang looked exhausted, so he let him sleep.
In the morning, Tan Xiao was chatting with the housekeeper as she made breakfast when Zhang hurried downstairs and said he had to leave early.
Tan Xiao followed him outside anxiously. “What’s happened? Is something wrong?”
The driver was waiting outside. Zhang had already descended the steps, but he hurried back and offered a brief, earnest explanation. “Company business. There’s a problem with one of our hotel-supplier partnerships. The relevant departments are already waiting to discuss it with me. I’m running out of time, so I have to go.”
Tan Xiao only needed to know what was going on. “Okay. Then hurry.”
Zhang squeezed his hand, got into the car, and left.
Tan Xiao didn’t see Zhang all day. The atmosphere in the President’s Office was oppressive too. He knew he couldn’t casually go around questioning people. Although he occupied an ordinary desk, everyone knew he wasn’t an ordinary employee. During a sensitive period, anything he did might be interpreted as an instruction from Zhang.
After nine that night, Secretary Feng, whom he also hadn’t seen for most of the day, hurried in to retrieve a power bank from his desk drawer and immediately turned to leave.
“Where are you meeting?” Tan Xiao asked.
“The large conference room.” Feng apparently didn’t realize Tan Xiao wasn’t informed. He was in a rush. “Don’t wait for the CEO. With something this difficult happening, who knows if he’ll even get home tonight.”
Tan Xiao followed him out. Feng walked quickly and entered the large conference room. It was brilliantly lit inside, and Zhang was there with several senior executives Tan Xiao recognized. WenCheng was facing a serious crisis.
One of WenCheng’s longtime partners was a global hotel chain, the M Hotel Group. Their current agreement would expire the following month. Renewal negotiations had been proceeding normally and everything had seemed calm. But early that morning, M Group had abruptly sent a formal notice claiming a strategic adjustment and announcing it would not renew its agreement with WenCheng.
M Hotels then used a “system upgrade” as its pretext to sever its API connection outright. WenCheng lost access to room availability and pricing across all of the group’s hotels, from luxury properties to economy chains. Pages for hundreds of hotels at home and abroad automatically displayed: No rooms currently available at this hotel.
Among domestic online travel platforms, WenCheng was only just at the bottom end of the first tier. When a supplier as enormous as M pulled this stunt, traffic to the platform immediately fell noticeably.
The matter hadn’t fully spread yet. Financial news outlets were still watching. Once reports framed it as a supply-chain crisis at WenCheng, the consequences could become very hard to control.
Other small and medium suppliers were beginning to notice, and naturally worried about the safety of their receivables. Several had already demanded shorter settlement cycles or advance payment. If the situation continued, it could turn into a run on payments.
Then public anxiety could expand, the company’s funding chain could come under pressure, and panic could spread from one area to another very quickly. WenCheng’s share price would inevitably suffer too.
Vice President Sun of the Financial Business Division had been on vacation. The sudden disaster hit like a bolt from the blue, and he rushed back. Zhang had already spoken to him individually and consulted the other key executives throughout the day.
The company’s cash flow was strong, and it had a plan. At such a moment, it was even more important to steady the executives: everyone’s positions, stock options, and equity holdings would be protected. As WenCheng and its people weathered this difficult period together, they needed to trust one another.
Reassured, the other people in the room were fairly calm.
The exception was Vice President Sun, who was furious. He’d rushed back from Aranya and still had beach shorts on under his suit trousers. “Who on earth offended M Hotels? We’ve worked together for years without a problem. WenCheng has a clean record! We operate openly and honestly! If they’re going to cancel contracts, they should cancel with those platforms that are constantly getting hauled in for regulatory talks. Why take it out on us?”
Jiaxin stood nearby, composed. She’d been a deputy director in the Business Travel Division for less than a month when this happened, so of course she wasn’t happy either. Still, she joked, “If WenCheng were constantly being summoned by regulators too, M Group might not have dared to send such a reckless termination notice.”
It was clearly a giant upstream supplier exerting pressure on a downstream platform. They didn’t yet know its motives or objectives, but M could behave this brazenly because WenCheng wasn’t one of the top domestic platforms, held a limited market share, and complied strictly with relevant laws and regulations. All of which made it appear easy to bully.
Zhang exchanged a few brief words with the head of public relations. Users had begun noticing anomalies on the site, and comparison screenshots were circulating online, showing hotels listed as unavailable on WenCheng but bookable as usual on competing platforms.
If financial news outlets picked up the story, WenCheng would have to respond publicly at once.
Zhang suddenly noticed Tan Xiao standing outside the glass partition. He gave an instruction to someone beside him and hurried out.
“Why haven’t you gone home?” Zhang still managed a smile. “Go back first. I have no idea how late I’ll be.”
He had to settle the company’s strategic response and communicate it to everyone that night.
Tan Xiao stared at him, looking lost.
“Be good. Go home first,” Zhang said.
“Could it be…” Tan Xiao took several deep breaths before he managed to finish. “Did my family do this?”
Zhang didn’t answer, but his reaction was subtle.
Tan Xiao spotted it immediately. Zhang must also have noticed, or at least suspected, that the source was some force in Europe previously unconnected with WenCheng.
“I think it’s my sister.” Tan Xiao organized his thoughts. “In 2021 she led the acquisition of a large hotel-management company. That company manages operating systems for more than three hundred hotels worldwide. M refusing to renew could be called a strategic adjustment, but shutting off the API overnight? Very likely the Doria family already held the maintenance and operations permissions.”
“…”
Zhang had guessed Tan Xiao’s family might have pressured M Group through their shipping business. Apparently they didn’t need to go to nearly that much trouble. His horizons really had been too narrow.
Tan Xiao had optimistically believed Tan Yun wouldn’t interfere with his relationship. He’d even indulged the fantasy that she might come to congratulate him.
But given her temperament, this was how she expressed opposition. Unlike Zhou Ruofei, she had no time for idle arguments. She wouldn’t come in person to ask why her brother was dating a man. She’d simply crush Zhang’s small company with one finger, and the matter would be over.
Beyond the partition were WenCheng employees working themselves to exhaustion over a crisis they never should have had to face.
Tan Xiao felt terrible. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” Zhang responded immediately. “It’s really not such a big deal. We can handle it. Besides, when everything is peaceful all the time, people get too comfortable. That isn’t good for a team’s growth.”
He looked utterly calm. But the capybara would look calm even if the sky collapsed, so that was normal. It was hard to judge the seriousness of the crisis from Zhang’s response.
Tan Xiao was genuinely guilty. “I should at least call her first. If it really is her…”
“I don’t think you should contact her right now,” Zhang interrupted.
“Why?”
“If the force behind this is your sister, or anyone else in your family,” Zhang said, “their target isn’t me, and it isn’t WenCheng. These people and businesses mean nothing to them. All they want is your obedience.”
That had to be it. Tan Xiao agreed with the reasoning. The Doria family wouldn’t care how Zhang led WenCheng through the crisis.
Tan Yun was probably just waiting for Tan Xiao to bow his head, return obediently to the family, apologize, and swear never to date another man again.
“Even so, I need to speak to her,” Tan Xiao said, calming down. “She’s doing something that hurts people without benefiting herself. At the very least she should give me a chance to speak.”
Seeing he’d decided, Zhang didn’t try to stop him. He held Tan Xiao’s hand for a moment. “Don’t beg her for anything. Not unless you want to make me furious.”
Tan Xiao understood. Zhang didn’t want him to exchange any promise for WenCheng’s peace.
He couldn’t help hugging Zhang fiercely. Zhang returned the embrace just as tightly.
Tan Xiao went somewhere quiet to call Tan Yun.
Zhang returned to the conference room. Colleagues who knew the truth about their relationship all withdrew their gazes at once and pretended they hadn’t seen anything.
Tan Xiao had always been somewhat afraid of Tan Yun, but she was also the one person in the Doria family he accepted as family. He had no feelings for the others but disgust. He loved Tan Yun as his sister.
The phone rang for a long time before she answered, pronouncing his name in German. “Julian?”
“Alexandra.” Tan Xiao replied in German too and went straight to the point. “Is the M Hotel Group one of your business partners?”
Zhang had a complete plan to respond to the crisis.
Naturally, he was a little troubled by this disaster he hadn’t invited. But the form it had taken also left him much more at ease.
What he’d feared most was that Tan Xiao’s queenly sister would suddenly employ some devastating, quasi-mafia tactics. This was much better. Just the suppression of one business through modern commercial mechanisms, exactly the kind of action he had anticipated.
Things had happened as predicted. All he had to do was work seriously to resolve them. That gave Zhang a strange sense of reassurance.