Seduced the Obsessive NPC and Ran - chapter 13

“Brain-dead comment?”

The few people who had been talking about Yan Jinge behind his back turned around. The moment they saw it was really Yan Jinge standing there, their faces went from green to white, panic and embarrassment crashing together so hard their cheeks felt like they were on fire.

Question: What does it feel like when you’re bad-mouthing someone behind their back and they catch you in the act?

Answer: Thanks for the invite, it feels like you might as well drop dead on the spot.

There were people all around. No one said a word. It felt like everyone was watching their joke.

They couldn’t even pretend nothing had happened. After some shoving and nudging, they exchanged a glance, then bolted without hesitation, ignoring the rain entirely as they dashed straight into the downpour toward the subway entrance.

Rain poured down in sheets.

A moment ago, some people had been thinking it was getting late and maybe they should just make a run for it. But once they saw those few step into the rain and get almost completely soaked within seconds, they quietly pulled back their testing little feet.

Liu Tian held an umbrella, watching those retreating backs. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest. “People who don’t bother to find out the truth and just talk shit behind others’ backs are really out of line!”

Yan Jinge glanced at her, not commenting on that. He only said, “You live pretty far. Head home. Remember to bring the umbrella back tomorrow-it’s company property.”

Liu Tian couldn’t help laughing. “Okay! Thank you, Manager Yan.”

Yan Jinge had three umbrellas in his hand altogether. He gave one to Liu Tian, then handed the other two to a pair of employees who were taking the subway. Once they were sorted, he headed back to the office.

The people still standing outside stared at one another.

“…Damn, Manager Yan actually came all the way out here just to bring umbrellas to the staff?”

“I’d heard gossip before and thought this Manager Yan must be terrible, driving off so many employees. But now, looking at him, being his employee actually seems kind of great. And he just straight-up called that guy’s comment brain-dead-that was so badass…”

“Hahaha, yeah. But to be fair, he does have the capital to be that bold. Up close just now, he was really handsome! I thought his photos online were all filters.”

“Is this what they call the superior genes of rich second-generation heirs?”

“President Yan doesn’t look bad either! His wife is a celebrity, of course their kid was going to turn out good-looking.”

“Honestly, we can’t really say our manager doesn’t care about us. He didn’t even have an umbrella himself. He hitchhiked with the director to get here…”

“…That’s tragic.”

Meanwhile, as soon as Yan Jinge got back to his office, he found Yan Wei sitting in his chair, face solemn.

The two of them locked eyes. Before Yan Jinge could speak, he heard Yan Wei frown and demand, “Jinge, what’s going on with this mass resignation from your department? I didn’t hear a thing ahead of time! I hear you’ve already approved their departures. Why didn’t you discuss it with me first?”

Yan Jinge knew exactly how to handle Yan Wei, so he started with, “Dad.”

His voice was clear and pleasant.

As expected, this trick worked every time.

Yan Wei’s gaze immediately softened.

He sighed and said earnestly, “I’m not here to scold you. It’s just that you’re in the middle of negotiating a collaboration with Nirvana, aren’t you? If your people all leave, what are you going to use to deliver their product? At a time like this, for the sake of keeping the company running smoothly, you should’ve stabilized your subordinates first. Once you’d found suitable replacements and trained them up, then you could have kicked out the ones who wanted to leave-”

Just thinking about those who had resigned made Yan Wei furious.

Back in the day, many of Yan Corporation’s employees had been personally interviewed by Yan Wei himself. He’d squeezed time out of his packed schedule to sit with HR, carefully sifted through candidates, made the final decisions himself, found mentors to train them, and offered them plenty of chances to attend external trainings. It had taken all that work to polish them into what they were now.

The others had been poached at great expense.

And now they’d just up and left!

Yan Wei had picked up some whispers through people he knew: they were all going to Rongding.

He could understand it, in a way. People die for money, birds die for food.

But when he thought of how much he’d invested in training them, he couldn’t help but be furious.

In recent years, Yan Corporation had indeed been on a downward slope, while Rongding was looking very much like the rising star. Thanks to its marketing, a lot of people now assumed Yan Corporation couldn’t measure up to Rongding anymore.

But they weren’t at the end of their rope yet, and these people were already kicking them while they were down!

Yan Wei’s anger kept building. He looked at Yan Jinge again, still wearing that cool, indifferent expression with no real sense of pressure about him, and couldn’t hold back. “You’re just too young! See? Reality’s just taught you a lesson, hasn’t it? Sigh, tell me, what roles is your department short on now? I’ll transfer a few people over from the other managers for you…”

Yan Wei started to ramble.

“Dad.”

Smiling, eyes curved, Yan Jinge cut him off. “Please don’t dump anyone on me. The reason I chased those people out so quickly was to make room for the talent that’s about to land in my lap.”

Yan Wei: “?”

Yan Wei froze.

Make room for the talent that was about to land in his lap?

What talent?

Had Yan Jinge already found replacements for the people who left?

Yan Wei looked at him suspiciously, clearly doubtful.

Yan Jinge spread his hands. “I worked at Rongding for two years and built it up from nothing to what it is now. Your son can’t even bring a single team willing to follow him out?”

Yan Wei’s small eyes widened abruptly.

“Rongding?”

After years in the president’s chair, Yan Wei had learned to keep his emotions off his face in front of outsiders. But in front of his own son, there was no need to hide anything. He stared in shock. “Are you serious?”

Yan Jinge’s eyes curved further. “Dad, why would I lie to you?”
“That’s true.”

Yan Jinge really had no need to lie to him about something like this.

But…

Yan Wei asked again, “Where are they? When are they coming in to handle onboarding?”

Only once they were truly in the door could Yan Wei finally put his mind at ease. And just thinking that the people coming over were from Rongding made him rub his hands together in excitement.

Employees from Yan Corporation had jumped ship to Rongding, and Yan Wei had been fuming. Yet now those industry-famous top-tier tech experts from Rongding were actually jumping ship to Yan Corporation!?

It was like the two companies were swapping staff-poaching back and forth-so absurd it made Yan Wei laugh and cry at the same time.

And most importantly, real talent was hard to come by.

Compared to Rongding’s crew of elite experts, Yan Corporation’s employees looked painfully ordinary. That was an undeniable fact.

Looked at this way, Yan Corporation had come out ahead.

Yan Wei looked at Yan Jinge with eager anticipation.

Yan Jinge glanced at the date. “Monday.”

“Good.”

Yan Wei nodded, delighted. “Perfect. We’ve got the weekend-let’s go take a look at Old Liu’s Summer Villa!”

While Yan Wei was over the moon, Bai Wei’s side was far less pleasant.

His expression was stormy. “Even with double pay, they still won’t stay?”

“Yes. Director Wang said it’s not a money issue.”

The secretary’s face was deathly pale, her nerves on edge. “And… this batch of contracts was signed by Secretary Yan back then. There’s a clause stating that as soon as the projects they’re contracted for are completed, they can submit their resignations at any time, as long as they finish the handover within two weeks. Today is exactly the last day of those two weeks.”

“Which means…”

The secretary lowered her voice as she drew her conclusion. “It’s possible Yan Jinge had already planned to leave the company-and take several core technical staff with him-from the very beginning of the project…”

From the beginning of the project?

…Three months ago?

Back then, Bai Wei hadn’t even been engaged to Yan Jinge yet. Yan Jinge had still acted so dependent on him. Later, in order to keep the situation stable, Bai Wei listened to his parents and made that engagement arrangement with Yan Jinge.

Yan Jinge had been thrilled.

For those few days he was practically obedient to a fault; even when Bai Wei threw a tantrum, Yan Jinge didn’t get angry.

Bai Wei had even thought Yan Jinge was ridiculously easy to control.

But now everything pointed to the opposite-back then, Yan Jinge had already wanted to separate from him.

Bai Wei suddenly hammered the desk with his fist. A heavy thump rang out.

In the office’s pin-drop silence, all that remained was Bai Wei’s harsh, rapid breathing.

Yan Jinge… Yan Jinge…

You really know how to put on a show.

No wonder-from the night of the engagement, when he was caught in the act, all the way to Yan Jinge’s resignation, and then their face-to-face confrontation at the company over the gifts-Yan Jinge had stayed calm from beginning to end.

It was all planned.

All of it was something Yan Jinge had calculated.

Bai Wei sucked in a breath, eyes bloodshot, and yanked hard at his tie. The neatly pressed shirt was crushed into wrinkles in his fist. “Fine. Fine! Go on, then. They want to leave? Let them leave! Rongding is a company this big-do they think we can’t keep running without them?”

“Heh. They really think they’re some kind of big shots-?”

The secretary kept her head down, but she could feel it-something was off about Bai Wei’s mood.

Warning bells went off in her mind.

If it were any other day, she would have taken the opportunity to show her loyalty, echoing Bai Wei’s anger and saying a few bad things about Yan Jinge. But today she didn’t dare go over to comfort him like before. She answered quickly and hurried out of the office.

“Bang!”

“Crash-”

The secretary flinched, neck instinctively shrinking.

Almost the moment she stepped out, the sounds of smashing and breaking erupted from inside. The commotion was frightening-more than enough to show how furious Bai Wei was.

Standing at the office door, the secretary’s expression turned faintly blank.

Was the man inside really the same gentle, refined President Bai from before?

And her…

Was she really going to be with someone so unpredictable, just to marry into a wealthy family?

No.

Bai Wei was only like this because Yan Jinge had provoked him.

Once this passed, his emotions should stabilize.

Yes.

It had to be.

…

Bai Cheng stood before a huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the world outside.

He was like a giant, taking the entire city into his gaze. At the intersection not far away, the people coming and going were as tiny as ants, slowly inching along.

A knock sounded on the office door.

Bai Cheng said flatly, “Come in.”

The secretary who had previously met Yan Jinge walked over and said respectfully, “President Bai Cheng, the contracts with Yan Corporation and Rongding Technology have all been signed. Should we begin executing the plan on our side?”

Bai Cheng seemed to think of something and let out a soft laugh, his features twisting for a brief moment.

Fortunately, he had his back to the secretary, so she didn’t see his expression.

When the smile faded, he turned around and gave a casual “Mm.” As his voice fell, his phone vibrated at just the right time.

Bai Cheng glanced down.

The message was from Yan Jinge.

Yan Jinge: “President Bai, are you free this weekend? I know a Summer Villa with a nice environment and wanted to invite you to come.”