Chapter Seventy-Eight: An Uninvited Guest

Miko said, “It’s not fully settled yet. My guess is that Xuemei Xu plans to take over the whole team under Nifei Ni, keep them on in a hidden capacity, and actually set up a second puppet crew to stand in the spotlight. Then she can use the Ni team’s name and cachet as a concealed executor to sidestep their noncompete agreement. So it looks like Xuemei’s goal is expansion too. She’ll probably acquire the very things you want, President Yu. The process is about the same, except Xuemei’s final aim is to go public and cash out.”

Chengmin Yu caught a great deal from that and trusted the little undercover all the more. Smiling, she said, “Interesting. A dead-eyed tech nerd like you explaining all this to me only proves you’re highly credible. Yes, given what I know of that bitch Xuemei Xu, she’d absolutely do that.”

Miko went on, “Although Nifei Ni dislikes taking over those trash websites and apps, her temperament would dislike your counterplay even more: you refusing to go public.”

Yu Chengmin found the oddball even more interesting. Though he had saddled her with a pile of junk, it seemed his salary hadn’t gone to waste after all. She nodded. “Go on.”

Miko said, “Ni hasn’t made up her mind either, but you can imagine the terms Xuemei offers are a little too generous. And in workplace politics, there’s no way Nifei Ni can stay here anymore. If someone has to hand things over, then besides herself she also has to think of her team. So the odds of her ‘marrying’ Xuemei are very high.”

Yu Chengmin nodded emphatically in agreement, then let out a cold laugh. “Damn Xuemei Xu. Damn Nifei Ni. She’s far too naive. Just to make my life difficult, she’s started letting her ass decide for her brain. She really knows nothing of power. Does she think Xuemei Xu is some kind of good person? No one else may know, but do I not know exactly what kind of woman Xuemei Xu is? If she’s offering such favorable terms, then to say she has no other purpose would be a joke. If Ni thinks that simply, she’s only escaped one den of tigers and wandered into another. Since when do sharks in this world not taste blood?”

Miko said, “Then what should we do? Since you’re colleagues, you ought to part on good terms. However you look at it, you should help Nifei Ni.”

Yu Chengmin shook her head slightly. “Enough. I’m actually glad you have this attitude. If one day I fall on hard times and you still feel this way toward me, that will prove I didn’t waste you today. But for now you’re overthinking it. First, Nifei Ni won’t listen to me; if she would, things wouldn’t have come to this. Second, Xuemei Xu is far too complicated. Even I don’t know what tricks she’s hiding. Without knowing the inside story, trying to help Nifei Ni from my position would backfire. No one would believe me. They’d all just laugh at me.”

Miko said, “In any case, you’re bound to go to war with Xuemei Xu sooner or later. You don’t seem to be short of money, President Yu, so why not start now? Disrupt her acquisition plan. If she can’t secure those shares, she won’t have influence over the industry, and then Nifei Ni’s team won’t be useful to her. Sister Ni won’t have to walk into the wolf’s den.”

Yu Chengmin said, “Stop spouting nonsense. This isn’t about whether I have money. It’s that Xuemei Xu has certain connections behind her that can’t be touched, extremely sensitive and tangled. If you can’t sort those relations out and just rush in to smash her cake, whether it’s legal or not is beside the point. Something will definitely go wrong. If not in this circle, then in another; if not in this line of business, then in another. None of that is your concern. In any case, you’ve already fulfilled your responsibility and duty to the company this time. Your suggestion was at least somewhat interesting. I won’t take it, but this time you’ve proved yourself. Fine, this talk ends here. Get out.”

With that, she rose as if discarding a bridge after crossing the river, returned to her desk, and ignored Miko.

Miko, unconvinced, stayed planted there.

Yu Chengmin looked up again, exasperated. “I’ve already praised you twice out of the ordinary. I don’t owe you wages. What, do you want to see me bow and scrape and lick your shoes?”

To be fair, Miko really did want to see that. The elegant boss lady had seen through everything, hadn’t she.

After he was ushered out and the door shut behind him, Miko wasn’t sure why, but he had become intensely interested in every move Yu Chengmin made. The stronger she acted, the more he wanted to pin her down, just like last night, sprawled over the boss’s wife.

So Miko indulged in the full sweep of his fantasies.

At that moment, an unexpected visitor arrived. The instant Miko saw her, he wanted to run. It was Zhou Dongyun, the female academic with the somewhat anime-inspired style, an authority in the field.

As he thought this, Miko ducked his head and flopped onto the desk. He didn’t run because he had not brought a state security agent with him, and it was already too late anyway—she had seen him.

Zhou Dongyun came up to the desk wearing those oversized black-rimmed glasses with their very anime look. She glanced at Miko and blinked, but said nothing.

After a moment, she gave him a look that seemed to say, just you wait, then went into Yu Chengmin’s office.

Damn.

Seeing her, Yu Chengmin’s own head seemed to explode a little. Awkwardly, she stood. “Professor Zhou, I’m sorry. I said I’d send your computer over, but that time I was a bit busy and everything was a bit chaotic…”

Zhou Dongyun was equally sharp-tongued, cutting her off. “Enough, don’t explain. I’m no freer than you are. It’s all excuses. From your position, you should know better than anyone that doing one thing well isn’t hard. If it wasn’t done well, it’s because it wasn’t done with heart. And if it wasn’t done with heart, it’s because there was no respect.”

Yu Chengmin was instantly embarrassed and simply dumped the blame on Miko, pointing outside at the culprit. “It was indeed negligence. The root cause is that he didn’t remind me. He’s my secretary. I’ll dock his pay. If it happens again, I’ll fire him.”

Zhou Dongyun was taken aback. Of course she knew Yu Chengmin was talking nonsense. But if Miko hadn’t reminded her about this, then he really couldn’t shake off responsibility. The first rule of the workplace is that the boss may forget everything without consequence, but the secretary cannot.

Fearing that Zhou Dongyun wouldn’t believe her, Yu Chengmin pointed at the computer again. “He has all sorts of problems. I don’t know whether there was some misunderstanding, but today I had him act as my system administrator to handle the security of the network. And do you know what he did? He installed a whole junk bundle on my machine.”

Zhou Dongyun nearly sprayed water into the fish tank, but after thinking it over, she laughed too. “Then uninstall it. The computer will have fewer problems. Bare-metal running isn’t exactly unusable.”

Yu Chengmin said awkwardly, “Honestly, it wouldn’t matter if it stayed. My computer doesn’t lack that little bit of computing power. It’s just that this kid feels rather obnoxious—hard to control.”

Zhou Dongyun nodded in deep agreement. “There’s a thin line between genius and madman, and also between genius and child. Why he installed that bundle for you, I don’t know, just as I don’t know why Einstein, after failing to pursue a girl, started pursuing her mother instead. For now, let’s classify this as a mark of genius behavior. With that mindset, you’ll quickly build your own language and code and slowly understand the logic of his actions. Logic is only a kind of relative. The logic in your world is not necessarily the logic in his. And because every world has different logic, people once said the earth was round, and people once dreamed of flying a machine into the sky or sending voices across a thousand miles. None of that was considered normal logic at the time—it was magic. Yet now it has become axiomatic.”

“Fine, fine,” Yu Chengmin said, looking as if she had a headache. “If our logic is different, don’t beat around the bush. Professor Zhou, just say what you came for. I promise I’ll send your computer tomorrow.”

“Can I borrow him for a bit?” Zhou Dongyun asked, pointing outside at Miko.

“This…” Yu Chengmin hesitated.

“Don’t worry. He won’t install a bundle for me.” Zhou Dongyun’s expression had become somewhat anime-like again.

What Yu Chengmin was actually worried about was something else entirely.

But at the same time, she felt rather pleased. Having a figure of Zhou Dongyun’s stature come asking to borrow her assistant was, in its own way, a kind of bragging right.

Seeing Yu Chengmin squint and smile without saying anything, Zhou Dongyun pressed on doggedly. “Well? Is that a yes or a no?”

“All right, take him with you. No need to thank me.” Yu Chengmin waved a hand and then lowered her head to fiddle with the computer again.

“You still deserve thanks. And by the way, remember to uninstall that junk bundle.” As Zhou Dongyun left, she said this once more.

Yu Chengmin rolled her eyes at the retreating back.