"He was only watching to see which of us would come out ahead.
The Xi Family had always been short on familial affection. When Old Madam Xi's life was hanging by a thread after she gave birth to Xi Defeng, Old Master Xi was still at the racetrack racing horses against others. Whether between father and son, brothers, or grandfather and grandson, their indifference to one another was frightening. Perhaps the blood in the Xi Family's veins was cold by nature.
Meanwhile, after Bai Le returned to the company, Ye Xiaosi immediately set about arranging work for him.
Under his supervision, Bai Le finally worked for more than half an hour straight. He gradually became genuinely absorbed in his work, keeping his head down as he reviewed documents.
"This proposal won't do."
"What's wrong with it? I'll have the people below revise it."
"Let me be more precise. The problem isn't the proposal itself, but the project it concerns."
"What?"
"Don't invest in this drama." He knew something was going to happen to the production.
But he couldn't say so outright, so he made something up. "A master appeared to me in a dream and told me the production was going to go bankrupt."
Clearly, this excuse failed to convince Ye Xiaosi. He pushed up his glasses and replied in a stiff, methodical tone, "Science is the only truth. President Bai, you're making the mistake of objective idealism. I know you went to university abroad, but you attended high school here. I don't know how well you did in your high school politics classes, but such an obvious tendency toward error..."
Bai Le was just about to interrupt his rambling when a wave of nausea rose in his stomach, making him want to retch.
He hurriedly gestured for him to stop. "Fuck, enough, enough."
"..."
Looking at Bai Le bent over as if he were about to vomit, Ye Xiaosi belatedly felt humiliated for the first time in his life.
But seeing how pale Bai Le's face was, he couldn't help asking with concern, "Do you... want to go to the hospital and get checked out?"
The author has something to say: Ahhh, why doesn't the app have a function for sending red envelopes? I still have to turn on my computer to send red envelopes to the fairies from the previous chapter. Thanks to the little angels who sent me overlord tickets or irrigated me with nutrient solution between 2020-02-12 21:22:03 and 2020-02-14 11:45:22~
Thanks to the little angel who threw a grenade: Yin Xing Yong Yi, 1;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated me with nutrient solution: Wu Ti, 2 bottles;
Thank you all so much for your support. I'll keep working hard!
Chapter 13
Bai Le shook his head dismissively. Why go to the hospital? It wasn't anything serious.
Ye Xiaosi said nothing more and withdrew.
Bai Le looked at the oranges on his desk. He had already demolished more than half of a large plateful, which might have been the culprit.
His stomach was so full that he felt a little nauseous. Perhaps he had indigestion and his stomach was upset.
Bai Le took a sip of tea, suppressing the nausea a little. He planned to take advantage of Ye Xiaosi's absence to slack off for a bit.
As soon as he opened Weibo, a few large characters in the trending searches caught his full attention.
#Xiao Yang suspected of cheating#
The post was marked as having been sent just now, and it had made the trending searches with only a few comments.
Fuck!
Bai Le hurriedly called the direct line. "Call a meeting, now! Someone's targeting us. Where's Xiao Yang's management team? Tell them to get their asses over here!"
Xiao Yang was the company's latest breakout star. He had shot to fame after appearing in a hit drama, and his getting together with the actress who played the female lead, who was also with the company, had become a wish shared by many fans of the drama and their pairing. The company had poured resources into cultivating him, sending his popularity soaring. He was a rising cash cow with numerous endorsement contracts, and if his image suffered, there was no telling how many lawsuits they would face.
Public opinion came at them with a vengeance this time. Because the story ranked so high in the trending searches, it immediately drew comments from countless netizens, who condemned Xiao Yang's scumbag behavior.
As soon as Bai Le reached the conference room, he glanced at the people present and found that Bai Huizhang hadn't shown up. While he was still wondering why, Ye Xiaosi leaned down with a stern face and spoke in his ear for a while. Bai Le's expression settled, and he took the seat at the head of the table.
It seemed the old man was deliberately testing him to see whether he could handle this crisis smoothly.
"Never mind the rest for now. The PR department should contact them and get the trending search taken down immediately."
They were used to seeing Bai Le fooling around and laughing without a care, so seeing this serious, focused side of him all of a sudden, they couldn't help viewing him in a new light.
Bai Le turned his gaze to Xiao Yang, who looked deeply uneasy. "What do you have to say?"
Only after listening to Xiao Yang stammer through his explanation did Bai Le manage to piece together what had happened. Xiao Yang and the drama's female lead had never actually become a couple. His team had seen how popular the drama was and planned to hype up their relationship offscreen as well, then do it again when they broke up, using fans' heartbreak to cement their loyalty.
In other words, the supposed mistress exposed online was his real girlfriend.
Bai Le's face darkened. "From now on, you'll all follow my lead. Everyone on the team needs to do their own job properly."
"Where's Shu Mei? Have her post on Weibo and make her position clear."
Shu Mei was the actress at the center of the incident who had supposedly "fallen in love" with Xiao Yang through their work on the drama.
After receiving her instructions, she posted on Weibo to explain that they had broken up long ago but hadn't found a suitable opportunity to inform the public, clearing him of the accusation of cheating.
Then Xiao Yang wrote an apology letter by hand. Of course, he hadn't come up with the letter himself. After all, in a situation like this, a single wrong sentence could cost them everything.
The PR team drafted the apology letter, then gave it to Xiao Yang to copy out by hand and post.
Fortunately, the matter didn't escalate any further, and the many brands Xiao Yang represented didn't hold him responsible, but he had still taken a serious hit.
"Have Xiao Yang take a break for a while."
Ye Xiaosi understood what he meant and nodded to show he knew.
"Someone was definitely pulling strings behind the scenes this time."
"Fuck, if I find out who did it, I'll definitely make him pay."
The matter had been resolved fairly satisfactorily. Whenever Bai Huizhang saw Bai Le after that, he finally stopped bristling and glaring, and could even ask after him. Bai Le found it incredible.
Wu Hua and the others also popped up in the group chat every day, routinely tagging Bai Le, who had been absent lately.