Lin Qi wasn't a self-propelled gun. It was impossible for him to meet a woman for the first time and immediately start imagining what position they should maintain when confronting each other that night.
In a small room in another world, he had once listened to a friend tell a story. His friend's story was neither as fantastical nor as exciting as other people's stories. It was simply a story about numbers that kept growing.
He hadn't actually done anything particularly impressive. While bragging about his brief, glorious life, he had summed up several important keys to success. One of them was that you absolutely had to persuade the accountant to take your side...
An accountant could do far too many things—so many that most people couldn't imagine them. The simplest example was that an accountant could make millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions in funds disappear without anyone noticing. If certain people didn't need to use the money and discover that something was wrong, the matter might remain hidden forever.
Here, they could also easily muddle the sources of certain funds and submit the money to the Federal Revenue Service for review, although most of the time, people hired accountants to reduce the amount of taxes they had to pay.
The world Lin Qi now lived in was far from highly informatized. Many things were still preserved through handwritten records. This also meant that the special role of an accountant would be even more important.
An accountant who stood on his side was very important. She could use her professional knowledge to help Lin Qi deal with all sorts of trouble. Some things couldn't be completely mastered through simple study. He needed a reliable woman.
Being reliable didn't mean that the two of them had to become a tightly knit team. Rather, their fates needed to be closely bound together, so that they wouldn't separate after some conflict arose and have one of them expose the other's Black Materials. It was a very strange kind of connection.
If either person casually opened their mouth and destroyed the other, they would destroy themselves as well. Thus, before speaking, both of them would carefully consider and weigh the consequences.
Compared to male accountants, who were more inclined to seize the initiative, women were somewhat easier to control. Many people said that men were creatures controlled by hormones, but women actually were—even if some women still believed in love.
After hearing Lin Qi say all this, Vera's expression turned a little strange. She even laughed once before sighing. "I'm grateful for what you said. I know you're only trying to draw us closer..."
This was one of the advantages of being handsome. Without saying a word, other people would take the initiative to consider Lin Qi's position and find suitable excuses for him. She looked at Lin Qi and shook her head slightly. "I'm already married. It's inappropriate for you to say things like that. Let's only talk about work, all right?"
Lin Qi pressed his lips together and nodded. "Only talk about work..."
Once a person's emotions and complicated internal chemical changes began to develop, was it already too late to tell them to stop? The two of them seemed not to have developed any barriers because of their brief, interesting exchanges. They continued discussing work with all their effort, but only they knew whether that conversation they had supposedly forgotten had truly had any effect.
After a short period of negotiation, Lin Qi hired Vera as the accountant for Great Empire, placing her fully in charge of all accounting-related work there. If Great Empire's business broke through in the future, there wouldn't be only one person in the office. There would be more.
After they settled on her salary, Vera said goodbye to Lin Qi. She needed to return to the firm to file the paperwork and then apply for an employment agreement—she would only work at the firm when she didn't have a full-time job.
The firm was something like a comprehensive agency. On one hand, it handled bookkeeping services; on the other, it sent accountants to companies to work full-time. It could also provide various other related services.
This seemed as if it would cause the firm to lose its talent, but in reality, it didn't. Some talents were indeed extremely scarce, while others could be produced in batches. And the one thing society was least short of was people.
The accountants who left the firm would expand its influence throughout the city and even across the entire Bayer Federation, bringing the firm more attention and clients. It was a virtuous cycle of development. Not to mention, those accountants themselves were still affiliated with the firm.
As long as Vera submitted the application and signed an agreement with Lin Qi, she could go from earning hourly wages as a part-time worker at the firm to receiving a full-time accountant's salary on a regular schedule. This was also a tremendous improvement for her.
When she returned home that evening, she told her husband about it. Vera's husband was an auditor. Interestingly enough, most people always praised women for being cautious with numbers and attentive to detail, yet when it came to important matters, they never trusted women.
For example, when it came to important work, people were more willing to trust men. In larger companies, the proportion of male accountants was also higher.
"You came home a little later than usual. Did you get a new job?" Vera's husband worked for a large corporation and earned a good salary. Deep down, he looked down on his wife for working at a small firm.
It was like professional athletes looking down on semi-professionals or newcomers to the field, filled with the disdain that came from having accumulated experience and status.
He flipped through the Transaction Newspaper in his hands, reading the latest domestic financial news. There had supposedly been a tax scandal in Kuli Lan City. The local Federal Revenue Service's management had colluded with local merchants to evade taxes, and someone had exposed them. The matter was now spreading, and it had apparently implicated several Members of the House of Representatives. The entire federation's tax system had turned its attention toward the city. This case might very well trigger changes to the state's taxation and financial systems.
After all, aside from the Basic Law, local laws clearly took precedence over national laws. This included laws related to taxation and official corruption.
As a top-tier accountant, a member of the Middle Class, and part of the social elite, Vera's husband was clearly very interested in these developments. He hoped to uncover some subtle opportunities and become a junior partner at the company within two years.
All his attention was focused on the newspaper. That question was merely an "absentminded slip" made instinctively to maintain the necessary communication between family members. He might not even have realized what he had said.
Vera went into the kitchen and began preparing dinner for her husband and child. As she handled the ingredients, she nodded in agreement. "The firm introduced me to a job. I thought it was just bookkeeping, but it turns out they need me full-time."
The matter actually hadn't been finalized. The firm would make its own decision about who to send to work for Great Empire's service company, unless the employer made a strong request.
Even though nothing had been precisely negotiated or confirmed yet, Vera had affirmed in those words that she would become an accountant for Great Empire's service company. Her heart was far from as calm as she appeared.
If she had been struck in the head by a bullet that had crossed through space, she might have said the word "yuanfen." Oh, her pronunciation wasn't quite accurate—it was "fate."
Her husband raised his eyebrows. Only several seconds later did his attention return from the newspaper to reality. He turned halfway around, his face in profile, but his eyes were fixed on the carpet rather than his wife's back. "Full-time?"
"Mm, full-time!"
That piqued his interest slightly. "How much registered capital does the company have?"
Vera's hands paused slightly. She felt a little embarrassed. "One hundred dollars!"
Her husband quickly turned back around, crossed his legs, and opened the newspaper. "That's pretty good. One hundred dollars. At least you'll have more time to do the things you want..."