“What kind of future is there in architecture? The entire industry is freezing over right now; what are you relying on to stick it out?!”
“Just look at Shu Yang! She exhausted all her effort to pass the exams, and isn’t she still staying at home to raise children and look after her husband?”
“Even if you want to honor your parents’ wishes, you have to look at the times…”
“Yanbeibei, come to Jingdu. Your little aunt will back you up.”
The alarm rang three times before Lin Yanbei woke fuzzy-headed from her chaotic dreams. She had actually slept on the sofa the whole night; when she cupped her neck to give it a turn, it felt stiff and painful.
On her very first day of work, waking up hadn’t gone smoothly; she had gotten a stiff neck.
Morning in Jingdu was as bustling and hurried as ever. The sun was even more hardworking than the corporate slaves, bestowing another light sheen of sweat upon the people commuting in dishevelment.
Lin Yanbei twisted her neck with difficulty. At the nearest convenience store, she grabbed a sandwich and orange juice for breakfast. The store owner scanned and checked out her items mechanically. Taking advantage of a free moment, Lin Yanbei asked her how to reach the Cross-River Tunnel entrance. The owner pointed out a direction with her finger and immediately moved on to serve the next customer in line.
Because it was her first day on the job, Lin Yanbei arrived very early. Her workstation had been arranged right in front of Jiang Ran’s office door. By the time she tidied up her space and finished the sandwich bought from the convenience store, it was only 8:40 AM, and colleagues were just beginning to arrive one after another.
Her neck was still stiff when she moved it. Lin Yanbei drank the rest of the orange juice in her hand. Carrying the empty bottle to the pantry area, she intended to get some hot water for a warm compress to ease the discomfort.
“Morning.” A familiar greeting sounded.
Lin Yanbei raised her head toward the voice. Greeting her was a female colleague in her late twenties, whose staff badge read Senior Architect: Sun Wen.
“Engineer Sun, good morning,” Lin Yanbei greeted politely. HR had already introduced her yesterday. Currently, many of Jiang Ran’s projects were being assisted by Sun Wen, making her Lin Yanbei’s primary contact for work handover at this stage.
Sun Wen stood before the coffee machine holding her own mug to get coffee, striking up a casual conversation: “You came quite early.”
“Mm, yes.” Lin Yanbei tilted her head, nodding stiffness away as best she could.
“Not drinking coffee?”
“No thanks, I drank orange juice.” Lin Yanbei held her small bottle, waiting for the water temperature on the direct drinking dispenser to rise.
Sun Wen smiled: “I mean, since you arrived so early, why not get a cup of coffee for Engineer Jiang? In this kind of weather, she usually drinks an iced Americano in the morning.”
“President Jiang?” Lin Yanbei glanced toward the office labeled Executive Chief Architect.
“She doesn’t like being called President Jiang; everyone still calls her Engineer Jiang. Besides Engineer Jiang, the company has a few other shareholders. The largest is President Qin, Qin Ji, though unless there’s a major project, she isn’t usually at the company. For matters big and small, Engineer Jiang is still the one coordinating everything.” Having said that, Sun Wen gestured toward the coffee machine with her eyes.
Realizing that Sun Wen was pointing out her superior’s preferences to her, Lin Yanbei hesitated for a few seconds before responding: “All right.”
In her previous jobs, she had often been assigned chores like serving tea, handing out water, or buying coffee for leaders. Lin Yanbei didn’t think there was any problem with it; on the contrary, she felt quite grateful for Sun Wen’s guidance.
Turning her head within its limited range of motion, she searched the pantry area for a suitable coffee cup. A good number of cups were set on the cup rack, but she didn’t know which one belonged to Jiang Ran. Her eyes then landed on disposable paper cups.
Seeing this, Sun Wen hurriedly waved her hand: “Engineer Jiang’s cup isn’t here; it’s in her office. The white insulated mug on her desk will do. Iced Americano, add six ice cubes.”
Seeing how well she knew Jiang Ran’s habits, Lin Yanbei thought nothing further of it and went to the office as instructed.
The white insulated mug was placed right to the right of the computer. She carried the mug back to the pantry, added ice cubes, and brewed the coffee in one smooth motion. Only after confirming that the coffee was sufficiently cold did she screw the lid tight and return the insulated mug to its original position.
As she passed Sun Wen’s workstation, she even offered her a smile. Strangely, Sun Wen no longer had her previous familiarity, and didn’t even pay attention to her.
Lin Yanbei sensitively sensed that the surrounding atmosphere was a bit odd, though she didn’t yet know the reason why.
At nine o’clock sharp, Jiang Ran entered the company right on the dot. A crisp silk shirt paired with high-waisted suit trousers made her shoulder line look structured and her proportions long and lean. Facing the chorus of good-morning greetings, she merely glanced over faintly and gave a slight nod.
However, this cloud-like calm came to a halt two minutes after she entered her office.
The office door was pulled open rapidly from the inside, making a sound that was neither too quiet nor too loud. The knuckles of Jiang Ran’s hand holding the white insulated mug were faintly turning white.
“Who moved my cup?!” It was an icy interrogation squeezed out as if from between her teeth.
Jiang Ran scanned the entire office with a dark face. Everyone was dead silent, and subtle, indirect glances were cast toward Lin Yanbei one after another.
No one around dared to look Jiang Ran straight in the eye; the drop in atmospheric pressure made Lin Yanbei feel a cold chill down her back.
“It was me…”
When she stood up, her peripheral vision swept toward Sun Wen; her workstation was empty.
She realized belatedly that something was not quite right.
“Come inside!” Jiang Ran threw down those two words and turned around.
Lin Yanbei gritted her teeth, followed her inside, and nervously closed the office door.
Jiang Ran slammed the insulated mug heavily onto the office desk. Three parts anger surfaced in her distant eyes as she knit her brows and snapped sternly: “Lin Yanbei, when you took my personal item, did you get my permission?”
Lin Yanbei explained: “I’m sorry, I just wanted to help you get a cup of coffee…”
Jiang Ran spoke in a voice that was icy and extremely slow: “Get coffee?”
She sneered: “Do you have nothing else to do? Or are you simply better at brown-nosing and offering this kind of uncalled-for flattery? Then you shouldn’t have come here; go see if other companies are hiring personal assistants.”
Stung to full redness in the face by the phrase personal assistant, Lin Yanbei lowered her head, furious and deeply embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, I…”
She clenched her trembling fingers tightly into fists, already aware that she had done something stupid. Her brain was also spinning wildly, trying to figure out at which step she had stepped into Sun Wen’s trap and touched upon Jiang Ran’s minefield.
Was it the coffee, or…
Her eyes landed on the white insulated mug.
The words of explanation reached her lips only to be swallowed back down, because explaining was useless; the person who had taken the mug from the office without permission to get coffee was indeed her.
Hearing her hesitate as if wanting to speak yet stopping with nothing further to say for half a day, Jiang Ran felt her anger flare up even more, her voice growing increasingly cold.
“If you don’t want to speak, then don’t. Think clearly about what you came here to do, and if you can’t figure it out, go read the onboarding materials. Everything belonging to your job responsibilities is written crystal clear in your job description; please strictly maintain your work boundaries!”
“Just this once. If it happens again in the future, please seek employment elsewhere!”
Jiang Ran’s voice fluctuated, her eyes brimming with anger shifting toward her hand. As soon as her words landed, she raised her hand and threw the insulated mug straight into the trash can.
Clang! The loud sound shocked Lin Yanbei into a start.
She stared at the trash can, her brows furrowing tighter and tighter.
She couldn’t understand, for just a matter of getting a cup of coffee, why Jiang Ran had to get excited to this extent? To be sure, she had moved her belongings without permission, so getting scolded or having the coffee poured out would be understandable.
But throwing away the coffee along with the mug right in front of her face carried quite a bit of insult with it.
Her chest heaved up and down. The anger from being set up by Sun Wen and the fire ignited by Jiang Ran surged up together; a full measure of resentment and grievance rushed straight up to her head.
If this could be tolerated, what couldn’t? Lin Yanbei snapped her head up, opening her mouth ready to talk back. Who could have known that before any sound came out, because the motion of raising her head was too fast, the torticollis in her neck struck her with a violent blow first!
It hurt!
It hurt so much that she bit her lip tightly, her eyes turning red on the spot.
Just like that, Lin Yanbei looked at Jiang Ran with a tightly furrowed brow and an appearance on the verge of tears. Her lips trembled and quivered, and without a single word coming out, two streams of tears fell first.
…
Scolded to tears?
Jiang Ran was stunned for a moment, clearly not having expected it to be like this; her lowered eyelids blinked.
She began to recall whether the words just now had been said too harshly… Who in the design department hadn’t been scolded by her before? But she had never encountered a subordinate crying.
Was she too young?… She was 23 years old already. Lin Shiyu seemed to have said she was very obedient; did she end up getting scolded to tears by herself on her very first day at work?
Jiang Ran tightened the corners of her mouth. She thought she should say a few comforting words, but the words revolved half a circle on the tip of her tongue and turned into two words: “You leave.”
Lin Yanbei’s pupils underwent an earthquake.
Was she being driven away now?!
She was so shocked that she almost forgot the pain, merely standing there in a daze while those two streams of tears hung on her face, dropping onto the floor with a pitter-patter.