Chapter 004: Riding a Donkey while Looking for a Horse
In Feng Mao Building’s Japanese restaurant, two young women in professional attire were sitting together for a meal and chatting.
“You said last time that your department was getting a new VP. How is he?”
“Don’t get me started. He’s only been here for half a month and he’s all anyone’s been talking about in our IBD!” The speaker was Lin Han, a financial analyst at Ming Tai Securities.
“What’s the situation?” Sitting across from her was Lin Han’s college schoolmate and best friend, Zhang Qingqing. Zhang Qingqing was currently working in the sales department of the Bank of China branch located in Feng Mao Building. Because they were both in Feng Mao, they often went out for meals together and they chatted about the going-ons in their workplace while they were at it.
“You know? He’s only 26 years old this year!” Lin Han brandished her chopsticks and said excitedly, “It’s absolutely crazy. I’m still an analyst at 27 and he’s already a VP at 26!”
Zhang Qingqing said in surprise, “No way! Is it possible he’s got a backer?”
Lin Han: “No!”
They had similar suspicions when they first heard about Fu Yansheng’s age. After all, in a place like Ming Tai where elites gathered, no matter if you were from Qing, Bei, Fu or Jiao, coming in, you would still need have to a solid mix of experience. A Vice President at 26-years-old really was a bit too young.
That was until someone picked up the other’s resume…
“That guy went to university at the age of thirteen. He studied in the Department of Mathematics at T University. After getting his undergraduate degree, he went to the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before coming to Ming Tai, he had been in Harbor City's Huan Sheng for five years…”
Zhang Qingqing interrupted her. “Huan Sheng? Isn’t that the most famous securities company in Harbor City?”
Lin Han nodded. “Originally, given his qualifications, he should have already been president upon joining Ming Tai. I heard that it was the director who was afraid that he wouldn’t be accepted by everyone because of his young age so he’s having him do a stint as Vice President…But it makes no difference. His last name’s Fu and we all call him President Fu”
Zhang Qingqing sighed. “Really, the rear waves of the Yangtze River drive on those before…”
Lin Han said again, “Not only is he young, there’s also nothing you can criticize about his looks. On the day he joined the company, all the single ladies in our entire department made such a commotion.”
Zhang Qingqing’s eyes gleamed. “Oh? So, he’s handsome, is he?”
Lin Han gestured and said, “Really tall, with very fair skin and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses on his face. He looks like that cold senior in our university…what was his name? Song something?”
Zhang Qingqing: “Song Puxin?”
“Right. Right. Right.” Lin Han nodded repeatedly.
They both graduated from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Song Puxin was a senior two levels higher than them. He was also the university male god who had nearly all the girls going after him like a flock of ducks.
Zhang Qingqing thought back for a moment and said, “As I remember, Senior Song didn’t wear glasses.”
Lin Han: “Yeah, but the overall temperament of the two is very similar. Anyway, they’re both the refined kind, with first-class IQ, who don’t like paying attention to others very much.”
Zhang Qingqing cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and whispered, “It’s the fault of my young girl’s heart but in the beginning, I also had a secret crush on Senior Song.” For a while, she let herself be lost in her starry-eyed infatuation. Then she felt that she just couldn’t quite imagine it. “But, how can such a person be a VP? Don’t the VPs of investment banks have to deal with customers?
“He doesn’t look like someone who’s been immersed in this circle for a lot years… but who knows? Maybe that’s just his outward appearance.” In any case, Lin Han didn’t believe that Fu Yansheng was as refined and harmless as he appeared on the surface. After all, in the financial industry, it was impossible for a person with little ambition and wolfish instincts to just muddle along.
“But I have to say, his outward appearance is very deceptive. Just a few days after he arrived, all the departments in the company sent their representatives to ask about his relationship status.” Lin Han said.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Zhang Qingqing: “What?”
Lin Han: “He chose dare!”
Zhang Qingqing let out a “pfft” and laughed out loud. “What’s the matter? It’s only natural that he doesn’t want to say it.”
“No, no, no. I haven’t gotten to the point yet…” Lin Han looked around, leaned in closer to her, and whispered, “At that time, there was a super handsome little gege sitting not far from us. Visually, he was probably no older than twenty. Manager Chu from our group had been eyeing him for a long time. When she heard President Fu choose dare, she asked him to ask for his contact info for her. And how did it turn out? He went over there and we don’t know what he told him but soon the two of them were kissing! Lips to lips too! They kissed for a full seven or eight seconds!”
Although she had kept her voice low, Lin Han still described the story so well that Zhang Qingqing was left wide-eyed and mouth agape. “Oh my god. Mind blown!?”
Lin Han: “Right? We were all shocked at the time! When he came back, he told us, looking all serious, that it was the little gege who asked him to kiss him, that he’d give him his contact details if he did…”
Zhang Qingqing: “……”
Lin Han took a bite of the vegetable salad in front of her and then said, “Hey, just what do you think he was thinking? Word of him kissing another man in the bar has spread throughout the company this past couple of days. There’s probably a lot of people now who suspect that he’s gay…Although that little gege he kissed was a real stunner, could a regular straight guy accept kissing another guy that easily? No way!”
Zhang Qingqing: “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think… But anyway, based on what he’s said and what he’s done, it’s basically him telling everyone he isn’t open to discussing a relationship… He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could easily open up to others…”
Lin Han nodded and said, “I don’t know if it’s because everyone’s been gossiping about him recently, but it kind of feels like he’s been in a bad mood. Last week, Manager Chu brought us Lady M cake and gave him a piece. After she came out, she told us that President Fu had been standing by the window in a daze, holding his mobile phone. Who knows who bullied him but the atmosphere in there was cold enough to form a millennia’s worth of ice…”
“And the morning before yesterday, our group held a meeting to give him a financial verification report for a certain company’s IPO. After listening, right in front of us, he circled a few problematic data that needed serious reassessment. He said, ‘Next time you make a report, better have the SA review it again before you show it to me. If the other company really has this kind of elementary school-level financial problems, then there’s no need to waste everyone’s time.’ — Wow. At the time, I was breaking out in cold sweat.”
Zhang Qingqing was taken aback. “He can see financial data problems right as the meeting’s going on?”
Lin Han: “That’s right. He’s super sensitive to numbers. Although he can’t do an accurate calculation of it in his head but he’s pretty close about pinpointing problems… At first, we didn’t believe it but later on we verified and now, we’re all convinced.”
Zhang Qingqing: “Damn, my mediocre brain really limits my imagination!”
Lin Han: “Hey, he wouldn’t have been able to sit in this position at such a young age without the skills to back it up… Okay, let’s hurry back to work as well. If we keep chatting, we might have to work overtime again.”
The two settled their bill and went to the elevator hall.
It was the noon rush and there were a lot of people waiting to use the elevators. Zhang Qingqing caught sight of an acquaintance among the people standing around in twos and threes. She went up to say hello. “President Xu, have you eaten?”
The man was wearing a smoky gray Bvlgari shirt. When Lin Han saw him, she thought he looked a little familiar.
“Your colleague?” she asked in a whisper.
“No,” Zhang Qingqing introduced them. “This is the CEO of Shan Yu Investment Company. Another company that shares the same parent company as Shan Yu has had business dealings with us. I’ve met President Xu a couple of times.”
Seeing Xu Jing smile at her, Lin Han also hurriedly gave her greeting, “Good afternoon, President Xu!”
Back at the office, when Lin Han went to the bathroom, she suddenly remembered where she had seen this person before.
It just so happened that Chu Meng came in to fix her makeup. Lin Han blurted out, “Hey, Manager Chu. I just saw the man who was drinking with that handsome ge in Skyline!”
“Who are you talking about?” Chu Meng didn’t react.
“That one who…” Lin Han quickly explained.
While playing Truth or Dare at Skyline, Chu Meng had just spotted Qi Yu and had excitedly pulled over Lin Han to look. At the time, there had been a man sitting opposite the handsome ge, who was more Lin Han’s type and so, he had made more of an impression on her.
“Unexpectedly, he’s the boss of an investment company. I just ran into him in the elevator hall. Up close, he looked really young.”
Chu Meng finished putting on her lipstick and snorted coldly, “Don’t be fooled by his appearance. I heard that many of the executives in this building are gay. That boy from before was pretty young too. Who can say? Maybe he’s his sponsor!”
Lin Han was startled. “Huh? No way…”
“And why not? This industry’s a mess.” The two of them wiped their hands and exited the bathroom together. Chu Meng said harshly, “Moreover, I think that deceitful kid must have been scheming. He’s already got a sponsor and while he was away, he seized the chance to tease our President Fu. In the workplace, that’s what you call “riding a donkey while looking for a horse”. Tsk tsk, young people these days…”
While they were talking, the two ran directly into Fu Yansheng.
Lin Han hurriedly pulled Chu Meng’s sleeve. In her heart, she was going ‘It’s over!’ Manager Chu’s voice was so loud just now, President Fu definitely must have heard it. Chu Meng unexpectedly continued as she was and without the guilt at having gossiped behind his back, calmly greeted Fu Yansheng.
Fu Yansheng nodded, passing by the two of them.
When he returned to his office, his expression slightly sank.
…… Riding a donkey while looking for a horse?
He took out his cell phone from his trouser pocket. Fu Yansheng clicked on the address book and glanced at the phone number that had already become unreachable. A light flashed in his eyes.
A few seconds later, he opened the official website of Feng Mao Building. In the company directory, he found three investment companies. He then switched back to the specialized search page. He entered the company names one by one and searched. He then finally locked onto his target——
Shan Yu Investment Management Co., Ltd.
Registered capital: XXXX million RMB
Shareholders
Si Yuan Group: 50%
Xu Jing: 50%
Executive Director: Xu Jing
……
Fu Yansheng stared at the name and seemed lost in thought.
***
May; the start of summer has passed but the Lesser Full Grain had yet to arrive.
It was a weekend afternoon. The sky was blue and there was a gentle breeze, and the air was filled with the faint fragrance of while magnolias.
Fu Yansheng rarely took breaks but he was asked out to tea by a client he met while working in Harbor City.
“Xiao Fu, you’re already here in Haicheng. Why didn’t you tell us? If Wang Dong hadn’t ran into you at the Yufu Hotel that day, I wouldn’t have known you’d already jumped the manger.”
The person asked to meet him was the CEO of an Internet company, surnamed Liu. Last year, his company’s listing in Harbor City’s stock market had been handled by Fu Yansheng’s team.
“Hehe, I’ve only been here for a month. It’s mainly because I didn’t had time to call on you.”
“Why did you want to go to Ming Tai? As I remember, Ming Tai isn’t as big as the Huan Sheng where you were before.” Mr. Liu handed him a cigarette.
Fu Yansheng took the cigarette but wasn’t in any hurry to light it. The corner of his lips ticked up slightly and he said lightly, “I just moved cities. It’s all the same everywhere.”
“It’s all the same?” President Liu smiled and shook his head, “You’re the only one who’d dare to say something like that.”
There were other business people present and President Liu introduced Fu Yansheng to his friends beside him. He talked about how Fu Yansheng helped his company raise the valuation and double the financing. The tone was unabashedly grateful and full of praise.
While the other party was talking nonstop, something outside the window had caught Fu Yansheng’s attention ——
The teashop they were at was located on the seventh floor of Xingyue Harbor in the city’s southern district. Looking out from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the private room, they could almost look down on the flow of people in the atrium of Xingyue Harbor.
One level down, opposite the teashop, there was a men’s clothing store. Two young people were picking and choosing by the new product display shelf. One of them was a little taller and so attractive, he was almost dazzling. It was “Qi Feng” who had teased Fu Yansheng at Skyline a month ago.
Fu Yansheng held the cigarette between his lips and took a puff. His eyes narrowed slightly.
President Liu, next to him, was still saying, “I asked him to be my secretary for double what he was getting at Huan Sheng, but he refused. I though he was being all proud and arrogant, turning his nose up at my offer. To think that he’d run off to Ming Tai…”
Another person said, helping to smooth things over, “Ming Tai’s not bad. What is President Fu doing at Ming Tai now?”
Fu Yansheng: “I’m heading a few internal teams. I still do the same things, issuing shares, underwriting, handling mergers and acquisitions.”
“President Fu, let’s exchange business cards. If there are any good companies going public in the future, remember to notify us in advance to buy shares.”
“Okay……”
Fu Yansheng socialized while distractedly observing the movements outside the window.
He saw the young man hold up a T-shirt against his companion, making visual measurements. The young man then leaned over to say something into the other’s ear. Whether it was his smile or his actions, all of it appeared so ambiguous that it made people’s imaginations roam.
Fu Yansheng suddenly felt a little irritable. He took away the cigarette and took a sip of the silver-tipped white peony tea in front of him. He still didn’t feel well.
After a while, he stubbed out the half-finished cigarette on the ashtray. Turning to President Liu, he said, “I’m so sorry. I just learned that a ‘friend’ is also in Xingyue Harbor. Would President Liu mind if I go down and say hello first?”
The author has something to say: [Little Theater]
Fu Yansheng: Asking online: What should I do if I can no longer get through the number left by the little minx I fell in love at first sight with at the bar?
——A good colleague in China, a good assist from China, will provide you with new clues!
Chu Meng: “That boss may be his sponsor.”
Xu Jing: “No, no, you’ve misunderstood. (〒▽〒)”
Chu Meng: “That kid is riding a donkey while looking for a horse!”
Fu Yansheng looked into Xu Jing: “So, this person is a donkey?”
Xu Jing: “You’re the f*cking donkey!”
Half a month later, Fu Yansheng ran into Qi Feng and Ling Ke in Xingyue Harbor.
Fu Yansheng (frowning): I haven’t seen you in a month. Is he the horse that you’ve found?
Ling Ke: You’re the f*cking horse!
Qi Yu, far away in the United States: I serve and brush off my clothes, I deeply conceal my merits and fame!
————
【System Tip】Because the Gege’s ‘tease and run’ tactics are too flirty, he has been locked up in a small dark room for two chapters as punishment. [doge]
Qi Yu:? ? ?
Thanks for the chapter!!! <3
Oh shit lol he about to meet the wrong QY. Damn i can’t wait to see QY and FY meet again
Thanks for the chapter!!! Cant wait for them to cross path again
patpat FYS sorry dude, you got the wrong Qi 🤣
ok. first of all it is none of his business what the twins do.
secondly, I hope he goes all snarky to Feng and Ke and they just deck him lol
thanks for the chapter <3
ah drama drama how i love thee 😌🍵
thank you for the chapter 💖
nooooo why is qi yu being punished, our gege is just being playful TT
sa probably senior analyst?
qi yu you’re acting like a scum shou hahahaha. so exciting~
thanks for the chapter!
So funny😝😝😝😝
hurriedly running to read the next chapter
D to the R to the A to the M to the A