Seduced the Obsessive NPC and Ran - chapter 12

A gust of wind blew past, and the wind chimes at the restaurant door rang out with a crisp “dang dang.”

The sound was clear and pleasant.

Sitting on the stool, Bai Cheng tilted his head back and looked up at Yan Jinge, who was standing against the light.

His face, already rather expressionless, turned even darker.

He withdrew his gaze, reached out with his long fingers, and took Yan Jinge’s phone.

On the screen was a photo of a chubby psychologist, smiling so hard his eyes were almost invisible. Bai Cheng lightly slid his finger and saw a line of text beneath the doctor’s photo: specializes in family and parent-child issues.

He said nothing. Instead, he scrolled through the interface, found another psychologist who specialized in love and marriage problems, then handed the phone back and said unhurriedly, “I think you should try this one.”

Yan Jinge took the phone and raised his brows.

The two of them locked eyes.

Bai Cheng suddenly stood up.

Although they had met a few times before, they had never been this close. When Bai Cheng rose from his seat, he was like a wall suddenly blocking in front of him, and only then did Yan Jinge realize that Bai Cheng was actually quite tall.

Half a head taller than him.

The kid hadn’t even graduated college yet; what had he been eating to grow like this?

Instinctively, Yan Jinge stepped back.

Bai Cheng lowered his eyes and stared at him for a moment. His lashes trembled slightly, but he said nothing. Then his body shifted as he walked around Yan Jinge, pushed the door open, and left the restaurant. He quickly disappeared from Yan Jinge’s line of sight.

Yan Jinge lowered his head again and looked at the interface on his phone, then let out a soundless laugh.

The kid actually had quite a temper.

Normally, Yan Jinge was very restrained and rarely did anything so out of line. Today he’d simply noticed Bai Cheng’s gaze, felt a chill from how gloomy it was, and been uncomfortable enough to come over on his own.

If you really wanted to argue it, his behavior had indeed been rather impolite.

But to him, this was just a tiny episode in his day.

He didn’t think much of it.

The next day, President Bai’s secretary arrived at Yan Group to formally sign the contract.

As soon as they met, the secretary smiled and explained, “President Bai is still busy right now, so he asked me to come over first. He said he trusts you, Manager Yan. He knows you definitely won’t let him down.”

Yan Jinge smiled. “Then I certainly won’t betray President Bai’s trust.”

Once the contract was signed, the stone pressing on his heart finally settled.

He had just seen the secretary out when he noticed several employees peeking around and, by chance, making eye contact with him.

Yan Jinge paused, then walked over. He tapped the tabletop with a knuckle and said in an even tone, “Everyone, stop what you’re doing for now. Save what needs to be saved.”

The people in the department all moved to click and type, then turned to look at him.

“Come to my office,” Yan Jinge said.

With that, he headed straight back to his office first.

The others dawdled, glancing at one another and silently exchanging looks, but no one knew what Manager Yan wanted with them.

“What’s going on?”

“No idea. Could it be that we’re getting a new project at a time like this?”

“Quite possible. Didn’t a client just come looking for Manager Yan?”

One person curled his lip and muttered under his breath, “We’re in the tech department. We’ve always just kept our heads down and worked. Those negotiations and discussing collaboration details, that’s all product’s job, right? Why is Manager Yan handling that too?”

“Cut it out and get going.”

The tech department had originally had more than twenty people. A few had left recently, leaving eighteen. When they all filed into Yan Jinge’s office, it looked a bit crowded.

Sweeping his gaze over them, Yan Jinge’s expression was cold, his voice even colder. “There’s been a lot of unrest in the office lately. I’ve noticed. I won’t beat around the bush with you today. If any of you are planning to leave, you can tell me now. From here on out, every project that goes through me will require a separate contract. Once a project starts, no one can quit halfway.”

Everyone froze. Those who’d been harboring such thoughts subconsciously looked around at the others.

That included Sister Wang.

She and a few others had already received word from Rongding. Yesterday they’d finally worked up the courage to come talk to Manager Yan, but at the time he’d been out on business, so the matter had been put off.

And now, before they could say anything, Yan Jinge had beaten them to it.

But who was going to be the one to stick their neck out?

Everyone had their own calculations.

In the end, one of them lost patience with the hesitation and stepped forward first. “Manager Yan, I actually have been planning to resign. I-”

He was about to cobble together some excuse to explain his situation when Yan Jinge lifted a hand to signal him to stop.

The man faltered and shut his mouth.

A second person quickly gathered his courage and raised his hand. “Manager, I might also-”

“Stand over here,” Yan Jinge said directly.

The two of them stepped out.

A third person followed right away.

He seemed afraid that Yan Jinge would be angered by all this, so he walked especially fast and deliberately stood behind the other two, as if trying to hide his face. But Yan Jinge couldn’t have cared less who he was.

He had just received a new message from President Bai and lowered his head to check his phone.

Seeing this, the others hurried to follow.

In no time, the people in the office had split into two camps.

Only six remained on the original side.

The twelve who had stepped out were stunned as well, sneaking peeks at one another.

-A few people had already left Yan Corporation previously, rumored to have followed Lin Xiaoxu to Rongding. Logically, there shouldn’t have been that many vacancies left. Yet somehow, there were twelve of them standing on this side…

What was going on?

Had some of them jumped to other companies?

Or was Rongding currently expanding and needed this many people?

Curious as they were, no one dared to ask aloud, not in Manager Yan’s office.

After a while, Yan Jinge finally looked up.
He’d already looked through everyone’s personnel files, so he knew what each person was good at. Seeing that the ones heading out were mostly programmers, plus two testers and one UI designer, he gave a slight nod.

Perfect.

Rongding’s team had openings to fill.

Yan Jinge said, “Alright. When are you resigning?”

…Was that a literal question, or was there something else hidden between the lines?

A few of them looked at each other.

No one knew how to answer.

Yan Jinge waited a bit. When nobody replied, he said bluntly, “Since you won’t say it, I’ll decide for you. No point picking another day-today. Do your best to get the procedures finished within a week.”

-So he could clear out seats at Yan Corporation for that bunch of drenched, pathetic souls from Rongding.

Everyone present had a different look on their face.

So urgent?

But they really had already planned to resign.

At this point, if they tried to ask for a few extra days, it would make them look like they were clinging to Yan Corporation’s paltry paychecks.

So they all agreed.

Yan Jinge said, “You twelve, go out.”

They filed out one after another.

Yan Jinge glanced at the six remaining people and nodded slightly. “My assistant went to print the contracts for this project. She should be back soon. Wait off to the side for now.”

“Okay, Manager.”

The one answering was a young woman, her eyes shining as she looked at Yan Jinge.

He remembered her. She seemed to be called Liu Tian.

Sweet, just like her name-her smile was sweet too. Earlier, in the pantry, she’d nearly slipped, and he’d reached out to steady her.

He hadn’t expected that after hearing Lin Xiaoxu’s whole speech, she still hadn’t decided to resign.

Yan Jinge gave her a friendly smile.

Liu Tian nearly passed out.

As a full-on looks enthusiast, she’d been conquered by Yan Jinge’s face from the start. That was why she’d decided to keep staying at Yan Corporation.

Now, seeing the faint smile on his lips and those eyes that looked like they held starlight, she immediately felt she hadn’t made the wrong choice!

Before long, the assistant returned with twenty-two copies of the contracts. The moment she saw that only six people were left in the room, she went blank.

What happened?

How was it down to six people?

Then why had Manager Yan told her to print twenty-two contracts?

She ventured carefully, “Manager Yan, these extra contracts…”

“Set them aside. They’ll be useful,” Yan Jinge said.

The assistant agreed and put away the extra copies. Even so, she couldn’t help turning her head-first to look at Yan Jinge as he guided the employees through signing, then to look outside the office at the twelve people sitting at their desks, all of them distracted and absent-minded.

Tsk, tsk.

Yan Corporation was about to change.

That was what the assistant thought, but she wasn’t overly worried.

If this had happened two weeks ago, she might have panicked too-might even have started thinking about quitting.

But recently she’d been following Yan Jinge around, and she felt he wasn’t the useless rich kid people imagined. He had real skills.

If you thought about it, it made sense.

Only in novels or TV dramas-written for the audience’s wish-fulfillment-did you get those strange rich second-gens who got slapped in the face again and again in the business world by male or female leads from ordinary families.

In real life, the environment a rich second-gen grows up in determines that the education they receive is often better than what most people get. And the money sense and investment awareness they develop later-those are wealth stored in their minds.

Even if they start out with little work experience, it’s something they can make up for quickly.

But the rest of the company didn’t know how capable Yan Jinge actually was.

They only saw what was on the surface.

-Yan Jinge had parachuted in as the Technical Department manager.

In nearly three weeks, he hadn’t brought in a single order.

During that time, he’d rejected countless ideas from the Product Department.

People in the department had resigned one after another.

In the end, there were only six left!

It was downright horrifying.

“I heard even Sister Wang quit this time. Sister Wang’s skills are insane, and even she got driven off.”

“They say a new official lights three fires when they take office, but I’ve never seen anyone burn things down this hard.”

“Yeah. Who knows what they went through to get pushed into resigning on the spot.”

“Now there are only six people left-how are they supposed to work? I heard that guy even bypassed Product and took an order directly. The product manager is about to explode… Sigh. But what can you do-he’s the Crown Prince…”

“President Yan is pretty incredible too, letting him toss the company around like this.”

“He’s his son, of course he spoils him. And I’ll be blunt-this is just… just not treating employees like people, is it? Just because he’s his son, he can mess with everyone however he wants?”

Outside the office building, rain poured down in sheets.

The sudden storm trapped a lot of employees at the entrance. The weather had been like this lately anyway, and summer downpours always came in bursts-give it a while and it would pass.

No one was in a hurry, so they started chatting and swapping gossip.

Liu Tian stood on the outer edge of the crowd. Hearing what the people next to her were saying, her face flushed bright red, and she couldn’t help snapping back, “This isn’t Manager Yan’s fault. The ones who resigned wanted to climb higher-to go to Rongding-so they left Yan Corporation!”

“Is that true?”

“Rongding?”

One of them shot Liu Tian a contemptuous look and sneered. “Little girl, do you think we’re idiots? A whole department resigning together-what, twenty people? Rongding can swallow that many? And besides, if a bunch of employees quit at once, that means it’s Yan Jinge’s problem.”

“I’m in the Technical Department! Why would I lie to you? I-” Liu Tian started to argue, but someone patted her shoulder.

She turned around.

Yan Jinge was standing behind her. He reached out and handed her a black umbrella. “It’s a long walk from here to the subway entrance. Take it. Hurry home-so you don’t have to keep listening to idiotic takes.”

Author’s Note:

Other CPs: exchange contact info.

Yan Jinge and Bai Cheng: recommend therapists to each other.

…