Chapter 74: Sapping the Foundation
Yong Ming was in the middle of straightening Shou Jiaxun’s body just as the car turned a corner. Shou Jiaxun’s body was pushed by inertia, and his head hit the car door with a thud.
Immediately, he opened two drowsy eyes and questioned the old, mischievous colleague, “What did you push me for?”
Yong Ming quickly pressed his phone screen against his leg and silently hit the power button to kill the display.
Then he flatly denied it. “I didn’t push you! The car just turned; you hit it yourself. If you don’t believe me, ask the driver.”
Shou Jiaxun couldn’t be bothered to “investigate” such a trivial matter, but the driver took the initiative to clear his leader’s name.
The man in front solemnly echoed, “It really was because of the turn just now. Why don’t you lean on Director Yong’s shoulder to sleep? Let him support you.”
Shou Jiaxun let out a small chuckle. “Your Director Yong spends all day waiting on leaders, clients, and even a partner like me—he’s tired enough. Are you trying to give him more work?”
The driver said, “True, we really feel for Director Yong too.” He skillfully turned Shou Jiaxun’s teasing into concern for Yong Ming.
Shou Jiaxun was amused by him. “You’re quite the talker. What’s your name?”
“Qian Chao.” After giving his name, the driver paused for two seconds and suddenly cried out, “Ah! President Shou, why are you asking my name?”
Yong Ming hummed a laugh and joined in. “He’s putting it in his little notebook. He’ll find an assassin to take you out later.”
Shou Jiaxun clicked his tongue. “Am I that kind of person? I see you have the gift of gab. Later, I’ll have my company’s HR call you and poach you with a high salary.”
Yong Ming added lazily, scaring his own subordinate, “Once you’re in his company, he’ll use overtime to slowly torture you.”
“Ah, that…” Comrade Little Qian, acting as the driver, deliberately put on a terrified expression before pleading insincerely, “President Shou, don’t! I can’t resist the temptation of a high salary…
So, when exactly are you coming to poach me?”
Yong Ming chuckled softly. “If he’s poaching anyone, he’ll poach me first. Why would he poach you? He doesn’t lack drivers.”
Shou Jiaxun turned his head to scrutinize this executive from the big-name advertising firm. He calculated in his mind that if he really could poach Yong Ming to his company, he would truly be adding wings to his tiger.
However, although Yong Ming’s position in “Dentsu” North China wasn’t the absolute highest, it was extremely central; he was a profit-making hub, highly valued by the foreign bosses.
Yong Ming’s direct boss—the tea-drinking man from Eastern Fujian—had also been promoted from this position to General Manager of the North China region.
The man from Eastern Fujian was already sixty, clearly nearing retirement age. If Yong Ming stayed steady in “Dentsu” for another three to five years, it was highly likely he would go from Director to President.
By then, President Yong would have all the money and prestige he could want, ruling North China like a local emperor. That would be even more satisfying than being his own boss.
So why would he be willing to jump ship?
Shou Jiaxun silently curled his lip. A character like Yong Ming couldn’t be poached through normal means, and he absolutely would not use non-normal means.
Weighing the pros and cons, he decided to forget it.
What Shou Jiaxun didn’t expect was that while he had nipped the idea of “poaching” in the bud, a “poaching war” targeted at him was about to begin.
The fuse for the whole affair could be traced back to Yong Ming’s “blackmail photo”—
The following week, both “Dentsu” and “Yunfeng Advertising” placed almost all their focus on liaising with the major North American client, “Huancheng.”
From morning till night, they were either on the move or in meetings.
Since the itinerary included many “check-ins” at modern cultural scenic spots, it was only natural for both hosts and guests to use their phones to record many moments as a testament to their friendship.
Consequently, a chaotic situation soon arose where “your phone has me, and my hand has you.”
Among them, Shou Jiaxun and Yong Ming, as the two core figures, appeared in the most photos.
People took photos, but they weren’t willing to let these “work records” excessively take up their phone memory.
Deleting them was out of the question, so they created a dedicated work group for sharing photos. The “frontline” personnel dumped the photos into the group all at once, while the colleagues back at the company in charge of logistics sorted and archived their own leaders’ photos for records or as souvenirs.
For the first two days, Yong Ming was diligent, picking out photos with Shou Jiaxun one by one to throw into the group. Later, he got bored and simply used the face recognition feature in his album to select all photos featuring Shou Jiaxun with one click and sent them directly to the group.
They took hundreds of photos every day. Because it was all work-related content, aside from the “logistics” staff sorting the photos, no one looked at them closely.
And the “logistics” support responsible for sorting photos at “Yunfeng Advertising” was none other than Liang Bo.
In the photo, Shou Jiaxun was leaning obediently in Yong Ming’s arms, his eyes downcast and his expression peaceful. Yong Ming was full of pride, his grin so wide his canines were visible.
What made Liang Bo even more furious was that Yong Ming’s hand, which was around Shou Jiaxun’s shoulder, was even making a cocky “V” sign at the camera.
As if he were showing off.
He really wanted to ask Yong Ming to his face: What are you so proud of? What have you gained? Did Shou Jiaxun agree to go to bed with you? Or did he promise to marry you?
How could that be possible? All of that was absolutely impossible.
Liang Bo enlarged the photo until Shou Jiaxun’s face filled the entire screen. He brightened the image and turned up the contrast. In the pitch-black photo, he could finally see clearly… “Oh, so Shou Jiaxun wasn’t being ‘obedient with downcast eyes’; he was asleep.”
So, his Omega was only sleeping in the arms of another Alpha.
Bai Fan came to find Liang Bo for lunch at noon. Seeing his face as ashen as if he were in stomach pain while slumped over his desk, he thought he was feeling unwell.
Liang Bo went with the flow and said he had diarrhea and would take the afternoon off to go home and rest. In reality, after leaving the company, he drove straight to “Fanrong” headquarters.
He thought, Perhaps when the power of choice is in your hands, you will always be indecisive. In that case, I might as well help you make the decision and make it clear to you… that I am the only suitable choice for you.
Over ten hours later, Shou Jiaxun only accidentally saw the photo of the two of them in the car that Yong Ming had posted when he was uploading photos himself. As it happened, he was currently sitting in the same business van as Yong Ming, so he tapped the photo on the spot and demanded, “Yong Ming, bother to explain to me what this is?”
Yong Ming was stunned for two seconds, but he quickly adjusted his expression and acted shamelessly. “I don’t know! When was this? Where? Huh? Why don’t I have this one?”
“Nonsense, you sent it yourself. You have the nerve to play dumb.” Shou Jiaxun gave him a massive roll of his eyes.
Although he wasn’t very happy, a photo was just a photo. At most, it was an ill-timed prank by Yong Ming. A few curses to vent his anger would suffice; there was no need to look deeper.
At this moment, he couldn’t yet imagine how this small prank would deal a devastating, foundation-sapping blow to his company.
The inspection team from the North American “Huancheng” was communicating well with the Imperial Capital hosts, but they hoped to finish the entire trip before signing the contract.
So, before the Imperial Capital trip ended, they invited Shou Jiaxun to accompany them to the subsequent stops.
By this time, the contract details had all been finalized; only the signatures and stamps remained.
For the Shanghai trip, Shou Jiaxun’s identity changed from host to accompanying guest. If he brought several subordinates along, it would seem unreasonable.
Thus, the previous reception team from “Yunfeng Advertising” was completely disbanded. Shou Jiaxun sent his subordinates back to the company to organize project work, while he personally took the official seal and followed the group to East China.
And just the day after he landed in Shanghai, he suddenly received a call from the company’s HR department. “President Shou, Yu Heng has submitted his resignation. How should we handle this?”
“Who? …Yu Heng?” Shou Jiaxun was in disbelief and immediately pressed the HR Manager, “Why is he resigning?”
“He said there’s an emergency at home and he needs to stay in his hometown for a while. I asked for specifics, but he said it’s a personal matter and not convenient to disclose.”
The information from the HR manager was too vague. Shou Jiaxun personally called his capable general that night to convince him to stay.
Alas, though he spent two hours earnestly pleading and promised the man a promotion, a raise, paid leave, and stock options, he still couldn’t make the other man turn back.
Perhaps communicating in person would have been more effective, but Shou Jiaxun truly couldn’t go back.
Persuading Yu Heng was with the hope that he would continue to follow the “Huancheng” project. He couldn’t lose the “Huancheng” deal just to keep the man.
An employee wanting to resign was perhaps even more irrational than a parent wanting to resign. Seeing he really couldn’t persuade him, Shou Jiaxun could only drop the matter.
On one hand, he instructed the HR department to hire a senior planner as soon as possible, while on the other, he calculated who to appoint in the crisis to quickly fill the massive gap left by the departure of his top planner.
To Shou Jiaxun’s surprise, during the week he spent traveling between Shanghai and Guangzhou, two more planners from his company submitted their resignations following Creative Director Yu Heng.
One was another Marketing Department manager he had originally planned to transfer over to take over Yu Heng’s group.
The other was Yu Heng’s original assistant.
Shou Jiaxun returned to the Imperial Capital from Guangzhou with the signed contract, should have been overjoyed and ready to start the project step-by-step.
Instead, he was faced with the awkward situation of having soldiers but no generals.
What was even more extreme was that he got off the plane at past ten at night, and the first email he received upon turning on his phone was a resignation letter from the HR Manager.
He had been counting on the man to hire people quickly; now, even the person in charge of recruitment was gone.
President Shou had become a literal “General without an Army.”
Fortunately, his company wasn’t small. Even though the managers were running away one by one, as long as the boss held on as much as possible, the company’s projects wouldn’t necessarily paralyze immediately.
Besides, he still had the reserve forces from “Guoran Trading.”
It was just that the trivial matters President Shou needed to handle personally had suddenly doubled.
Shou Jiaxun’s face was reflected by the high-wattage fluorescent lights of the airport, looking completely devoid of color. Combined with his lack of expression, he looked like a skeleton returned to life—a walking corpse.
Liang Bo stepped forward with a deep frown, also appearing as if facing a formidable enemy. He took the suitcase from Shou Jiaxun’s hand and suggested in a low voice, “I should take you home. Rest first; it won’t be too late to handle things tomorrow.”
Seeing him come to pick him up was quite a surprise for Shou Jiaxun. He asked blankly, “Why are you here?”
Liang Bo lowered his eyes and pursed his lips in a smile. “I guessed that you might need me right now.”
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