Song Jia's Frustration

After hearing Liu Shang's words, Manager Zhong burst out laughing and gave him two hard slaps on the back.

"You brat, how can you be so infuriating when you talk?"

"By your standards, I'm afraid more than half the people at the workstations outside would be unemployed!"

"By the way, Liu, how well can you use PowerPoint slide files?"

Liu Shang thought for a moment. "PowerPoint is still a bit harder than Word and Excel."

"I can't do those 3D animated demonstration graphics at all, but I'm decent at everything else."

As Liu Shang said this, Xu Tiande happened to be drinking water nearby. He truly could not hold it in and spat out a mouthful of water.

Then the old man nearly choked to death!

"Cough, cough..."

"3D animated demonstration graphics?"

"The people in our company can't even make the simplest flat animated images when I ask them to!"

Manager Zhong was so exasperated that he laughed. "You little punk, you really are infuriating! So arrogant!"

"But with your impressive Office skills, I really have no right to lecture you!"

At that moment, Liu Shang smiled. "Professor Xu, Manager Zhong, if there are no problems with the technical proposals and construction reports I make, you can leave this work to—"

Before he could finish, Manager Zhong waved him off.

"Those design proposals and reports are not very useful. They're just for the client's approval process."

"Leave those things to someone else. Having you do them would be a waste of your talent!"

"Professor Xu and I have plenty of technical materials that need to be compiled for the year-end summary. Now that we have you, this is wonderful!"

Watching the three of them chatting and laughing happily in the office, everyone else in the room frowned inwardly.

They simply could not understand what kind of magic Liu Shang, a freshman, possessed to win over both Xu Tiande and the hot-tempered Manager Zhong so thoroughly.

At lunchtime, the company's leadership, along with heavyweight figures like Professor Xu and Manager Zhong, ate in a separate room.

The dishes on the table had been specially prepared by the chef, much like in a large private dining room at a restaurant.

Meanwhile, department managers, deputy managers, and everyone else ate in the cafeteria hall, picking up trays and serving themselves.

It was cafeteria food, but the quality and taste were fairly good.

In the elegantly furnished room where the boss Song Guangyuan and the other core figures ate, Manager Zhong and Xu Tiande openly praised Liu Shang in front of everyone, calling him a treasure the company had discovered.

Seeing the two of them act this way, everyone else was stunned and found it hard to believe.

However, whenever Liu Shang was mentioned, boss Song Guangyuan looked somewhat listless and deeply displeased.

It was Sunday. Originally, his precious daughter Song Jia had planned to come practice driving again, just as she had the day before, then play on the computer in his office.

But because of Liu Shang, their family had gotten into a huge argument the previous night.

Faced with Song Guangyuan and his wife's earnest guidance and instruction, Song Jia had reacted extremely fiercely!

In the end, she had slammed the door and gone straight back to school, leaving behind one sentence as she left: "I'm already an adult. You don't need to interfere in my affairs anymore!"

This left Song Guangyuan and his wife shocked and extremely worried.

Could their daughter already be falling into Liu Shang's trap?

If Song Jia had known what they were thinking, she would have been so frustrated she might have coughed up blood.

What annoyed Song Jia was merely her parents' baseless suspicions and absurd assumptions.

At school, Liu Shang did not even know her. The two of them had never exchanged a single word, yet her parents were inexplicably analyzing things wildly.

She found it unreasonable and irritating, which was why she had run back to her dormitory.

On the other side, after getting his tray and serving himself some food, Liu Shang quietly sat alone and ate.

At a table not far from him, several colleagues were joking with Ma Yuan.

"That Liu Shang is really just a freshman? He's remarkably composed!"

"He's completely unruffled!"

"Also, look at how much Professor Xu and Manager Zhong like him. It's obvious they intend to focus on cultivating him like a closed-door disciple."

"Ma Yuan, that was the treatment you got when you first joined the company. Looking at it now, the role you'll play in the company's future seems a little uncertain!"

Hearing this, Ma Yuan, who was already angry and resentful, felt even more distressed.

However, in such a setting, he still had to smile as though nothing was wrong. "Listen to yourselves. Liu Shang is my junior fellow student. Not only Manager Zhong and Professor Xu—if I get the chance in the future, I'll also do my best to help and guide him."

"Besides, he's only a freshman right now. There are still many variables ahead, and the chances of him staying with our company long-term probably aren't that high."

Although he said that, Ma Yuan had secretly made up his mind. No matter what, he could not let Liu Shang have his way.

Professor Xu's attention and cultivation belonged to Ma Yuan. He had to find a way to win Professor Xu's favor back!

Thus, when work resumed in the afternoon, Ma Yuan took his laptop and a list of carefully prepared questions to Xu Tiande.

Again and again, he kept seeking advice, presenting himself as humble and eager to learn.

When Ma Yuan had first joined the company, Professor Xu had genuinely wanted to cultivate him well because Ma Yuan was formally trained at Oil University.

But as time passed, Ma Yuan became superficial and lost the humility and drive to learn that he had initially possessed. He put most of his energy into petty tricks and other matters.

As a result, Professor Xu could only give up on his own initiative and lose faith in Ma Yuan.

Now, the moment Liu Shang arrived, Ma Yuan suddenly became like this again. Anyone with eyes could see the reason clearly, and Xu Tiande, who understood Ma Yuan extremely well, saw through it even more thoroughly.

However, Xu Tiande had come from an academic background and had a gentle temperament throughout his life. Faced with Ma Yuan's questions, he still explained and answered them with great patience.

To everyone's surprise, despite Ma Yuan's obvious attempt to vie for favor, Liu Shang showed no sense of urgency or reaction at all.

Nor did he follow Ma Yuan to seek advice from Xu Tiande.

Just as he had that morning, he remained quietly seated at his workstation, methodically handling the chart-related technical work assigned to him by Xu Tiande and Manager Zhong.

At around three in the afternoon, Ma Yuan was still constantly hanging around Xu Tiande's office.

It seemed that he had monopolized Xu Tiande for the entire afternoon.

Thus, with nowhere else to go chat, Manager Zhong came over to Liu Shang, bent down, and teased him with a low laugh.

"Say, Liu, why am I starting to feel more and more that Ma Yuan looks like a freshman, while you look like some seasoned office veteran who's been working for more than a decade?"

Liu Shang laughed along with him. "Haha, Manager Zhong, you're making fun of me again!"

"I already said before that I came here for that four-thousand-yuan salary, not to study or write papers."

"So I can only justify this position by working efficiently, right?"

Manager Zhong smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Alright. Your mentality and composure are far stronger than Ma Yuan's."

"Old Xu is busy right now, so come to my office with me. Let's discuss the separate-zone water injection process you mentioned yesterday."