Xia Wei walked out of the director’s office, and only then did she relax. Because she had been too nervous when walking in just now, she hadn’t noticed that the looks her future department colleagues gave her were unusual—there was curiosity, sympathy, and more than anything, encouragement.
Why encourage her? Xia Wei turned back and glanced once more at the tightly closed office door.
“Hello, you must be the new colleague, right? My name is Xie Xiaoqing. Let me take you to pick up your office supplies,” whispered the colleague who had bought Song Qiao’s coffee yesterday as she walked up to Xia Wei’s side.
Xia Wei nodded: “Okay, thank you, Sister Xiaoqing.”
“You’re welcome, follow me.” Xie Xiaoqing led Xia Wei away from the Product Promotion Department.
As soon as they left, the department became lively again.
“What a pity, such a good-looking person, and a visual-hound like me won’t get to look at her for many days,” someone murmured and wailed softly while hammering away at their keyboard.
“Not necessarily. Just now when I went to the pantry, I heard that this assistant was chosen personally by the director,” said the person, keeping their voice very low.
Just as the words fell, the door to the director’s office opened. Song Qiao crossed her arms and swept her gaze around. Everyone shrank their necks like quails, terrified of meeting her gaze.
“Is the workload insufficient?” Song Qiao’s tone rose, as if she had discovered something joyful and thought she was being humorous.
“No, no, Director, we’re busy.”
Song Qiao’s gaze landed on an empty seat, paused for two seconds, and then she turned and went back inside.
Xia Wei followed Xie Xiaoqing and took the elevator down to the next floor.
“Xiaowei, can I call you that?” Xie Xiaoqing asked.
Xia Wei nodded: “Any is fine, you can also call me Little Xia.”
“Director Song is someone with quite a few requirements. If there’s anything you’re unclear about, you can come ask me.” After saying this, Xie Xiaoqing looked at Xia Wei’s expression, which was normal and as usual.
She worried that Xia Wei hadn’t taken it to heart; if this assistant left too, then Song Qiao would really just be bleeding her dry alone.
“You must keep it in mind. If you’re unclear about something, be sure to come ask me, don’t try to figure it out by yourself,” Xie Xiaoqing continued.
Xia Wei nodded again: “Mm, I’ll come ask Sister Xiaoqing.”
“However, Director Song is also quite a good person, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.” Xie Xiaoqing was truly afraid that Xia Wei wouldn’t last a single day before running off, so she hurriedly tried to patch things up.
Xia Wei continued to nod, keeping up with Xie Xiaoqing’s pace.
If Song Qiao were really good, wouldn’t so many people have come to give her a preventive warning?
From the moment she entered this building this morning, starting with the very first person she met, everyone had been telling her that Song Qiao was difficult to get along with.
Forget it, she had come here to try it out anyway. If she truly couldn’t take it, she was still in her probation period, so there was no need to hand over anything.
Xie Xiaoqing glanced sideways at Xia Wei, unsure of how much she had actually listened to.
As soon as she finished tidying up her workstation and sat down, before Xia Wei even had a chance to catch her breath, the door to the director’s office opened and Song Qiao stood at the entrance: “Coffee.”
Xia Wei didn’t even have time to ask what kind of coffee was wanted before Song Qiao had already gone back inside, closing the door behind her by the way.
Xia Wei took a deep breath. Not even a “please” was said, and she didn’t even spare her an extra glance; the door, however, slammed shut quite loudly.
“Double-shot iced Americano, as iced as possible.” Seeing Xia Wei look over at her, Xie Xiaoqing smiled with relief.
Xia Wei picked up her phone and got up to head downstairs.
Placing the order on her phone, standing by the window waiting for the coffee in the spare moment, Xia Wei once again heard the moniker of Director Song. Pretending to dodge the sun with her phone, she moved closer to those two people.
“Aiyou, you have no idea, yesterday when he came back from Director Song’s place, his face smelled so bad… tsk tsk.”
“Who ended up delivering the materials?”
“The intern, of course, who else could they find? Who’s willing to go poke that bad luck?”
Xia Wei wanted to listen more, but she heard the store clerk calling out the pickup number, destined to miss out on this gossip.
She also missed a key piece of news: she herself was Song Qiao’s hand-picked choice.
“Dong dong…” Xia Wei knocked on the office door.
“Come in.”
“Director Song, your coffee.”
Song Qiao didn’t even raise her head, her fingers tapping fast on the keyboard as if there wasn’t an extra person in the room at all.
Xia Wei placed the coffee on the desk and pushed it slightly toward Song Qiao’s hand.
No reaction.
She pushed it a little bit more.
Song Qiao finally raised her eyes, glanced at the position of the coffee, and then glanced at Xia Wei, her look seeming to say, “Is there something else?”
“Something the matter?” she asked.
Xia Wei pressed her lips together and asked, “Is there anything you need me to do?”
“No, just stay put on your first day of work.” Song Qiao raised an eyebrow, a flash of odd color crossing her eyes at Xia Wei’s initiative, and then she lowered her head again to continue typing on the keyboard.
Xia Wei nodded, exited the office, and gently closed the door behind her.
The moment the door closed, she leaned against the hallway wall, let out a long breath, and rolled her eyes.
“Just stay put on your first day of work”—Xia Wei imitated Song Qiao’s tone, having a sudden fit of illness in front of the office door, making it sound like she was so unwilling to stay.
When bossing someone around to buy coffee, why didn’t she say to just stay put?
When she returned to her workstation, Xie Xiaoqing was lowering her head to type, catching her return out of the corner of her eye, turning her head slightly to ask in a low voice: “How was it?”
“Nothing much, told me to just stay put for now.” Xia Wei sat down and turned on her computer.
Xie Xiaoqing’s expression changed subtly, hesitant to speak, but finally leaned over to lower her voice: “Then… you should just get familiar with the environment first, look at internal company materials and things like that. Director Song… is probably quite busy today.”
Xia Wei heard the reservation in her words, translated as: She doesn’t have time to torture you today, so consider yourself lucky.
She nodded and opened the company’s homepage.
The Product Promotion Department’s office area wasn’t large, around a dozen people, with no partitions between workstations, allowing a view from end to end at a single glance. While browsing the company introduction, Xia Wei used her peripheral vision to observe her surroundings.
The girl sitting diagonally across from her looked to be around her age, with a high ponytail, typing frantically at her screen, stopping from time to time to frown in thought.
Two seats further down, a male colleague wearing glasses leaned back in his chair, spinning a pen in his hand with a blank expression, as if waiting for some program to finish running.
In the corner, two other people were huddled together whispering, their voices kept very low so the content couldn’t be heard, but one of them gestured with their chin toward the director’s office while speaking.
Xia Wei pulled back her gaze and continued looking at the screen.
Just as she was engrossed in reading, the internal communication software at the bottom right of her desktop suddenly flashed.
A message popped up; the sender was Song Qiao.
Xia Wei clicked it open, and there was only one line of text: “Two o’clock this afternoon, Meeting Room Three, follow up on the project.”
She stared at this line of text for a few seconds and replied with a “Got it.”
Just as she closed the dialogue box, another message popped in, still from Song Qiao: “Arrive ten minutes early.”
She replied with another “Got it.” This time she waited a few more seconds to confirm there was no third message before closing the window.
Xie Xiaoqing’s chair slid over beside her, and she peeked at Xia Wei’s screen: “Sent by Director Song?”
“Mm, asked me to go follow up on a project at two o’clock this afternoon.”
Xie Xiaoqing’s expression shifted back and forth, looking as if she had breathed a sigh of relief while also sweating bullets for her.
“What project is it?” Xia Wei held her mouse and turned her head to ask Xie Xiaoqing.
“The publicity for the Starlight Plan.” Xie Xiaoqing lowered her voice, “The company’s key project for the second half of the year, personally monitored by Director Song.”
Xia Wei didn’t respond, waiting for her to continue.
But Xie Xiaoqing didn’t say any more, only patting her shoulder: “When the time comes, just watch more and listen more, talk less. Director Song doesn’t like people interrupting when she’s talking about matters.”
Xie Xiaoqing didn’t tell Xia Wei that the assistant who had been with Song Qiao for five years was the one who left because of this very project.
“Okay.”
Xie Xiaoqing slid back to her own workstation. Xia Wei leaned against her chair, staring blankly at the four words “Starlight Plan” on the screen.
She suddenly thought of what she had said during yesterday’s interview.
Things like “Your company values my practical experience and ability” and “My personal ability matches your company’s position”—her mouth was truly fast, speaking so eloquently at the time; thinking about it now, she really wanted to slap herself twice.
Xia Wei self-deprecatingly curled the corners of her mouth and began searching the internal system for information related to the “Starlight Plan.”
Since she had to follow up on the project this afternoon, she couldn’t just walk in completely blind.
After lunch, Xia Wei didn’t return to her workstation, instead hiding in the small garden downstairs to catch some sun, half-closing her eyes to look at the light filtering through the tree leaves.
Song Qiao stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, lowering her gaze to watch Xia Wei’s figure. Since the floor was quite high, she couldn’t clearly see what this person was doing either; by the time she snapped out of it, she had already been staring at Xia Wei for quite a while.
Xia Wei timed her return to her workstation precisely; she wasn’t familiar with the people in the office.
The door to Meeting Room Three wasn’t open. Xia Wei glanced at the wall and saw there was even an access control lock. Fortunately, she had arrived fifteen minutes early, so she turned around to go find Xie Xiaoqing.
Opening the door to the meeting room, she set her things out and chose a seat on the edge. Not long after she sat down, footsteps echoed in the hallway.
The crisp “ta-ta” sound of high heels, with neat and decisive paces.
“The broadcasting rhythm this time needs to be compressed further. If the KOLs refuse to cooperate, just replace them directly; I don’t have time to waste with them.” Song Qiao’s voice came from outside the door, fast-paced and unquestionable.
“But their influence on social media—” another voice tried to defend.
“No matter how big the influence is, uncooperative means zero.” Song Qiao walked into the meeting room, her gaze sweeping over the interior, pausing on Xia Wei for a fraction of a second before landing on the projection screen, finally speaking two words: “Replace them.”
Following behind her was a man in his early thirties wearing thin-framed glasses, holding a stack of materials with a hesitant expression on his face.
He caught sight of Xia Wei, froze for a split second, and then nodded to acknowledge her.
Xia Wei nodded back in response.
Song Qiao took her seat at the head of the table, opened the notebook in front of her, and said without raising her head: “Sit.”
It wasn’t clear who this was addressed to, but both Xia Wei and the man sat down.
“Xia Wei, the new assistant.” Song Qiao quickly introduced the two to each other: “Lin Yuan, project lead.”
Lin Yuan smiled at Xia Wei: “Welcome.”
“Thank you, Brother Lin,” Xia Wei responded politely.
Song Qiao had already opened her materials and begun explaining the project progress.
Her speaking speed was extremely fast, with clear logic; the time nodes, persons in charge, and existing problems for each link were all listed out one by one. Xia Wei scribbled notes frantically, her hand barely able to keep up with Song Qiao’s mouth, while her computer generated updates synchronously.
“Give me a reply from the KOL side by tomorrow at the latest; if not, initiate the backup plan.” Song Qiao closed her notebook and looked at Lin Yuan, “I’ve sent the visual revision comments to your email; have the design team provide the new version before tonight.”
“Tonight?” Lin Yuan frowned, “That’s a bit rushed.”
“Then work overtime.” Song Qiao’s tone was indifferent. She stood up, “We need to finalize the draft before Wednesday, no dragging it out.”
Xia Wei lowered her head as she took notes, silently complaining in her heart: Today is Tuesday, finalizing the draft by Wednesday leaves at most a day and a half in between. Is this person treating the design team like robots?
Lin Yuan opened his mouth, ultimately said nothing, and nodded.
Song Qiao picked up her notebook and walked out, pausing slightly at the door to look back at Xia Wei: “Send me the meeting minutes before off-duty.”
“Okay.” Xia Wei opened her mouth as well, finally agreeing to it.
Song Qiao said nothing more and turned out of the meeting room.
Lin Yuan let out a long breath, leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose: “Every meeting feels like going to war.”
Xia Wei didn’t reply, lowering her head to organize her notes. Just now when Lin Yuan had walked in, she had noticed the dark circles under Lin Yuan’s eyes—he clearly looked like someone who had pulled several all-nighters.
Lin Yuan put his glasses back on, looked at Xia Wei, and suddenly smiled: “You’ve got some composure. The last one—their face turned white after the very first meeting.”
“Maybe I haven’t reacted to it yet.” Xia Wei’s eyes were glazed, staring at the dense block of text on her computer screen; Song Qiao spoke far too fast, leaving her no time to think about anything else.
Amused by her reaction, Lin Yuan stood up as well: “Alright, work hard. Director Song might be a bit strict, but as long as you can keep up with her rhythm, she won’t make things difficult for you.”
“Thank you, Brother Lin,” Xia Wei thanked him politely.
Lin Yuan left with his materials, and Xia Wei hugged her computer and notebook back to the Product Promotion Department.
Originally hoping to get off work a bit early today, it looked like overtime might be necessary now. Xia Wei pulled out her phone, opened the chat dialog with Zhou Ci, and rolled her eyes.
“First day of work, it’s alright.”
After sending the message, she added another line: “Working overtime tonight, not coming back for dinner.”
Zhou Ci replied in seconds: “Working overtime on the very first day???”
As soon as she finished reading it, another message popped right up: “If it’s too tired, don’t do it, Mom will support you.”
Xia Wei looked at the screen, the corners of her mouth curving up. She didn’t reply; she didn’t believe her mother’s empty words at all—this morning, her dear elder mother had personally pushed her out the front door.
This was just like how her grandmother always claimed she was old and wanted to hand over her social security card, only for Xia Wei to never once see what her grandmother’s social security card actually looked like. Xia Wei turned her phone face-down on the desk and continued organizing the meeting minutes.
By the time she finished organizing the meeting minutes, double-checked the time nodes and names, and confirmed everything was correct before hitting send.
The sky outside the window had already darkened, and the lights of the opposite office building had long since lit up. Xia Wei lowered her gaze to look at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer: it was close to seven, and not a single colleague around her had left yet.
The light in Song Qiao’s office was also on.
Just as Xia Wei raised her hand, preparing to stretch, the sound of a sliding chair came from beside her. Xie Xiaoqing ambled over holding her water cup, lowering her voice: “How was it, having a meeting and following a project on your first day?”
“Not bad, it’s just that the amount of information is a bit huge.” Xia Wei stretched her neck.
Xie Xiaoqing pulled over an empty chair nearby and sat down, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “Let me tell you, Director Song… she has quite a few rules. If you want to stay here, you’d better understand them in advance.”
Xia Wei glanced at the hand Xie Xiaoqing placed on her bag and nodded: “I’m all ears.”
Xie Xiaoqing looked back in the direction of the director’s office; the door was closed, the light was on, and Song Qiao was clearly still inside. Without making a sound, she flipped a small notebook out of her pocket—the cover was already somewhat worn, with the edges slightly curled.
“Here, take this and look at it.” Xie Xiaoqing handed the notebook over, her expression carrying a hint of solemnity. “It was compiled by Little… well, the previous assistant. I think… you should find it useful.”
Xia Wei took it, opened the first page, dense blocks of text… she immediately snapped it shut and looked up at Xie Xiaoqing. Xie Xiaoqing nodded at her, looking at her encouragingly, and reached out to help flip the notebook open for her.
Xia Wei’s eyes glazed over again; she wanted to go home, she wanted her grandmother’s social security card.