“What is it, Sister Qin?” Lin Ze stood with his hands braced on the counter, looking at the manager.
Seeing the manager’s worried expression, unsure of how to start, she had just opened her mouth before swallowing her words back down.
“Sister Qin, we’ve known each other for so long. Is there anything awkward between us? Just say it straight!”
“Lin Ze, your work contract is about to expire. The management has seen your performance over the past few months, so our superiors drafted a contract proposal for you. We want to see if you can accept it.”
“Sister Qin, tell me about it first.” Lin Ze nodded with a calm expression, pulled out a chair, and sat down facing the manager.
“Well, to keep a talent like Little Ze, the management has pulled out all the stops and secured many benefits for you. They just hope you can stay.”
Manager Qin, who was in her forties or fifties, radiated kindness. Every twitch of her brows and every smile made people let down their guard.
Ever since Lin Ze entered this industry, Manager Qin had taken good care of him.
Whenever someone came looking for trouble with Lin Ze at the club, she would step forward righteously to defend him.
Lin Ze had shared many conversations with Manager Qin over the days, and their dynamic resembled that of an aunt next door.
Therefore, he was quite willing to listen to Manager Qin’s words.
“Little Ze, take a look at this contract first,” Manager Qin said.
A black-bound document was handed over to Lin Ze, who unhurriedly opened it and began to read.
At first, he nodded with a calm expression, but as he reached the later pages, Lin Ze’s brows furrowed slightly.
Manager Qin noticed the change in Lin Ze’s expression and asked, “What is it?”
“The benefits and compensation are indeed quite good, and I can meet those conditions, but does the contract really have to be signed for a full three years?”
“Ah, well, staying here for three years means you can continuously enjoy better benefits than you have now, and your salary will double.
You’re a freshman right now, and you could have this stable job all the way until graduation. Don’t you think that’s a good thing, Little Ze?” Manager Qin looked at him, not quite understanding Lin Ze’s hesitation.
“I don’t know if I can truly stay here in peace for three full years. I don’t really want to be locked into a fixed term. Although the perks and salary are really tempting, once I breach the contract and leave, I’ll have to bear unimaginable, massive compensation penalties.”
Lin Ze hesitated. Although he had fantasized about pies falling from the sky and really wanted to earn that money, the moment a pie actually fell on him, he remained cautious and full of concerns.
“Little Ze, what do you think?”
The manager clasped her hands together, unsure of what Lin Ze’s response would be.
She was very nervous inside, as this was the first time her superiors had given her a direct order to keep Lin Ze.
“Forget it.” Lin Ze politely refused.
He refused to let greed and blindness trap him into signing this life-or-death agreement.
In his next three years, life would be unpredictable, and he would have many free choices. He didn’t want to bury his head working hard in this smoke-filled entertainment establishment.
Once freedom entered the conversation, Lin Ze felt money didn’t necessarily have to be earned in such massive amounts after all.
“Did he really say that?”
Yi Yan played with the prayer beads in his hand, a dark, inscrutable glint flashing in his eyes.
“Yes, that’s what the bar manager reported.” The secretary kept his head lowered as he spoke.
“Heh, humans truly are greedy creatures. On one hand, they say they need money, but on the other, they can’t bear to let go of certain things.” He spoke quietly.
The ice-cold, sarcastic tone caused goosebumps to crawl up the spine of the secretary standing nearby.
Yi Yan’s slender fingers kept spinning a pen around, the gleaming tip flashing with golden light, dazzling the secretary’s eyes.
Everyone said working and making money under the Yi family was easy.
Yet the secretary felt that enduring the high pressure of working alongside his own boss was already a miracle he had survived.
Wasn’t his high salary completely justified then?
Ordinary people lacked his psychological resilience; he totally deserved every penny of that pay!
Even though he was currently on the verge of being scared piss-less by his own boss.
“Secretary Ling, tell me, how do you make prey jump into a trap of their own accord?”
Yi Yan curved the corners of his lips, revealing a faint smile.
In Secretary Ling’s eyes, Yi Yan’s smile was far worse than no smile at all. It wasn’t that Yi Yan wasn’t handsome when he smiled.
It was simply that having spent so long by his side, Secretary Ling could roughly guess what Yi Yan was about to do just by watching him twitch a toe.
Whenever Yi Yan wore this kind of smile, it usually meant he already had some wicked idea brewing in his mind.
As for what the wicked idea entailed, he had no idea.
“President Yi, I honestly can’t think of anything.” He managed an apologetic smile toward Yi Yan.
“So stupid. You’ve been by my side for so long, and you’re still this clumsy.” Yi Yan chuckled derisively, tossing the pen with pinpoint precision straight into the pen holder.
Secretary Ling forced a stiff smile, his nose flaring and contracting while his face turned red in a circle.
He was enduring this!
This damned little brat was so young, yet his temper was already this vicious!
Did he not realize the person standing in front of him was twenty years his senior, old enough to be called an uncle?
Yet no matter how Yi Yan verbally humiliated him, though Secretary Ling was gnashing his teeth on the inside, he still maintained a professional, smiling facade as he looked at him.
“Apply pressure. We can pull in the fishing net we cast earlier.”
Standing before the huge floor-to-ceiling window, he looked down upon the bustling world below, narrowing his eyes with the demeanor of a supreme ruler as he smiled and stretched his arms.
That smile.
It truly looked like the Grim Reaper had possessed him.
Just imagining it sent another cold shiver rippling through Secretary Ling’s body.