“Sister Qiao Xi, is older brother very angry?” Before the second offline event started the following day, the little calf was brought to the company early in the morning by Gong Nanxing via text message, looking utterly dejected.
He knew he should not have spontaneously spoken off-script. When the event ended yesterday, he had wanted to apologize and make amends to Gong Nanxing, but that man had been so busy he vanished after a single phone call. When the calf returned to the dormitory, his roommates had all gone home. Sitting alone on his bed, the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. He secretly messaged Qiao Xi, only to receive a reply saying Gong Nanxing had not mentioned a single word about it afterwards, leaving him feeling like a criminal awaiting sentencing.
“Not at all. Didn’t you perform well last time? Both the on-site reaction and online feedback were great. Rest assured, if Mr. Gong were genuinely angry, there is no way you would still be seeing the morning sun today.”
Seeing the calf’s gloomy expression, Qiao Xi could not help teasing him, though her words only made the calf’s skin tighten in panic. What if Gong Nanxing spent the entire night pondering and decided to fire him?! What if he got turned into spicy stir-fried little beef calf?!
The guillotine… or rather, Gong Nanxing’s office door swung open. The moment the calf laid eyes on him, his bovine eyes and ears instantly drooped.
“What is that expression? Did you wake up too early and not get enough sleep? That cannot be right, aren’t you the type who can start plowing fields the second you wake up?” Gong Nanxing chuckled, the corner of his lip curving up as he teased the calf. “Why are you just standing there? Come over and drink your coffee, I added the good stuff.”
Seeing him smile, the calf finally shuffled from the doorway over to his seat. Who would have thought that the moment he picked up his cup, Gong Nanxing’s next sentence would nearly choke him.
“…By the way, take a look at this contract.”
“Wuwuwu! Older brother! What kind of contract is this! You do not want me anymore!”
“Huh?” Struggling to comprehend over the calf’s loud wailing, Gong Nanxing tried to make sense of what he meant by not wanting the calf anymore. “Shh… quiet down, what if Assistant Qiao misunderstands and calls the police again! Just take a look at the contract first!”
The calf’s lower lip trembled as he tearfully picked up the contract on the desk: “Party A and Party B agree that starting from the release of Mountain’s first-generation insulated mug, Party B shall be entitled to ten percent of the product’s profits… Huh? Older brother? What does this mean?”
“Are you an idiot? This product unexpectedly became a hit because of you. So even though you haven’t started live-streaming yet, pre-order links are already up, meaning the sales profits this time will be shared with you too.”
“Really?!” Upon hearing this, the calf instantly turned his tears into laughter, reading through the contract once more in disbelief. “Really! Older brother! I am getting money!”
What an absolute little money-grubber. Watching the calf dance around with excitement, Gong Nanxing could not suppress his smile at all and quickly stood up to stop him from spinning continuously in his swivel chair.
“This one is already stamped. Just sign your name to show you are aware of it. Your pay from live-streaming might be adjusted upward as appropriate later, so don’t you want to hurry up and practice your Mandarin?”
Gong Nanxing was like someone heating up a wok of oil, tempting the calf to jump right in. How could the calf resist the hint of making more money? He nodded like a garlic-pounding pestle and signed his three big characters, “Mu Asu,” onto the paper.
“Older brother! Can I still go to your place this holiday then? I will go there to study! Hehe!”
It was rare nowadays to find someone who would help count the money after being sold, or offer to pick their own teeth after being eaten. Although Gong Nanxing hadn’t done anything malicious—on the contrary, he even remembered the calf’s wish to build roads for his hometown and bumped his commission share up by two percent—even though it was a good deed, why did he always feel so guilty?
“Older brother… then I won’t stay over, I will just go back to campus right after studying.”
Noticing Gong Nanxing’s furrowed brow, the calf assumed he wasn’t welcome, yet he drooled so much at the thought of commissions that he tried to negotiate with Gong Nanxing a bit.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. Alright, that is settled. Get ready for today’s session, and don’t pull any more surprises on me!” To cover up his guilt, Gong Nanxing feigned anger and tapped the calf on the head. During this holiday, he could once again play the carefree boss at home; aside from occasionally having to discipline the calf, life was pretty comfortable.
At Mountain’s second product launch event, Gong Nanxing did not stay on stage for the entire duration like he did the first time, simply following the opening two steps before stepping down. With his experience from the first event, the calf wasn’t as stage-frightened anymore. Even when occasional off-script questions popped up mid-way, he had learned to brush them off with his harmless, silly grin.
Although the venue had changed, the procedure didn’t differ much from the previous one. However, influenced by internet buzz, the audience appeared even more enthusiastic this time, actively requesting to come on stage and try on Mountain’s current-season shell jackets. The interactive atmosphere between the stage and the audience was fantastic. Just as Gong Nanxing thought today’s event would wrap up successfully and strolled gracefully toward the stage to deliver closing remarks, the background music happened to shift into the instrumental version of an upbeat foreign song.
The crowd’s mood was instantly ignited by this classic track. After Gong Nanxing finished speaking, they requested to play the music again, wanting to pull off a mass sing-along. Realizing this offered great promotional material, Gong Nanxing signaled the host to let the audience participate. Maintaining his cheerful expression, the calf waited alongside them for the music intro.
Gong Nanxing’s gaze accidentally swept across the microphone in the calf’s hand, and a bad feeling struck him. If this calf started howling, how on earth was he supposed to handle it? He hurriedly used hand gestures and eye contact to signal the backstage crew to cut the mic in the calf’s hand immediately. However, he had no idea that his covert, secret-agent-like gesturing was seen entirely by the calf standing not far away.
Why is older brother giving hand signals to backstage? Could there be some other hidden procedure? The calf pondered for eight beats, then a flash of lightning hit him. Terrible! The song is about to start! Wanting to raise the mic and call a halt, he discovered there was no sound. In a moment of desperation, he stretched his long legs and dashed like a superhero right beside the host. Taking advantage of everyone clapping to the rhythm, he drew a deep breath to belt out the first syllable. In the blink of an eye, the calf snatched the microphone and blurted out:
“Stop! You cannot sing! Mr. Gong gets motion sickness from songs!”
The sudden turn of events left everyone present frozen for a fraction of a second, while the calf felt a profound sense of relief after speaking. Fantastic! Nobody started singing! That was a close call, older brother almost fainted! Huh? The sentence I just said was also in very standard Mandarin! I didn’t make any blunders this time and actually managed to turn the tide, hehe.
Good heavens, you cannot punish me through a giant black calf just because I, Gong Nanxing, tend to be a bit sharp-tongued in daily life. For the very first time in his life, Gong Nanxing experienced the urge to throw his hands up and let total chaos reign. Even though his brain had completely short-circuited, his muscle memory dragged his body forward to snatch back the microphone.
“College student humor can be a bit hard to understand. Thank you everyone for supporting Mountain’s offline launch event, have fun.”
Uttering the final syllable, the calf grabbed Gong Nanxing and bolted in a hurried escape down the stage. Outside, the music instructor jumped straight into the chorus, and a loud, echoing chorus erupted from the crowd, starting out ragged before gradually aligning into harmony. It was an old foreign folk song about mountains, its cheerful and melodic tune matching the visual of the calf dragging Gong Nanxing through the long, empty employee corridor—strangely resembling the ending of some arthouse film.
Gong Nanxing suddenly understood Aidan’s endless rambling about a sense of atmosphere, fate, and freedom—provided the origin of all this wasn’t because the calf suddenly remembered the ridiculous motion-sickness excuse he had blurted out earlier simply to avoid hearing the calf’s terrible singing.
“Older brother, why did you stop? What are you smiling at? It’s fine as long as we didn’t sing in your face, right? Are you feeling dizzy now?”
Dragged to a halt halfway by Gong Nanxing, the calf could still vaguely hear the cheerful chorus of the crowd outside, feeling genuinely worried that Gong Nanxing might faint. On second thought, however, carrying Gong Nanxing on his back would be an absolute breeze for someone as strong as him!
“Dizzy my foot, you’re going to get me killed by your stupidity. Let’s go, it’s over, pack your things and come back to my place.”
For some reason, Gong Nanxing didn’t feel like explaining the truth to him. He managed to suppress his smile, restored his stern expression, and reversed roles by dragging the calf forward instead.
“Huh, older brother? But I didn’t bring any clothes?”
“You’ve got clothes to wear, do you think you’re bulkier than me? Stop dawdling, we need to go back tonight and correct those weird retroflex sounds of yours.”