My Perfect Enemy is Finally Broke Novel - Chap 37
Ji Ran was late for his second day of work.
Cheng Peng’s villa was some distance away from his office. Furthermore, it was peak hour; they were caught in a traffic jam and only reached the office after it was time for work.
Afraid that they wouldn’t make it in time, Ji Ran took the wheel. Once they got off, he said, “I’ll compensate you if your salary is deducted for coming in late.”
Qin Man raised his eyebrow but did not refuse. “Okay.”
Ji Ran had just taken two steps before he stopped.
It was already past the start of work hours. The carpark was empty apart from several late staff as well as the boss who didn’t need to be on time. Or he should say, the boss’s son.
Ji Wei’s car wasn’t far from them. The Maybach had just stopped, and Ji Wei soon got off, wearing a white suit. The two people, who were like fire and water, met each other’s gaze for only a few seconds and had a tacit understanding.
Ji Ran clicked his tongue and turned towards the elevator.
“It’s now 9.36 a.m.” Ji Wei’s voice rang out from behind him. “Employees who are late will have their record marked and receive a demerit.”
Ji Ran couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge him, let alone turn his head back.
It was too early and Ji Wei also had no desire to fight with him. He turned to the person beside him and asked, “How is it? After working for a day, are you used to it?”
Qin Man replied faintly, “It’s fine.”
“Have your colleagues been treating you well?” Ji Wei continued to ask.
Qin Man pretended he didn’t hear the implications in those words and simply replied, “Not bad.”
With a pause, Ji Wei asked again, “…How is Xu Lin?”
Qin Man laughed helplessly. “It’s only been a day. I haven’t even completed a single project, so it’s hard for me to give an answer.”
“How does my employee have anything to do with you?” The elevator arrived and Ji Ran interrupted them as he walked in.
“Worry for yourself.”
In fact, Ji Wei was already confirmed to be the next person in charge of the company’s staffing. However, he hadn’t officially taken office yet, and Ji Ran’s employees were indeed none of his business.
Ji Wei’s face turned dark. He didn’t plan to waste precious time on Ji Ran.
In the lobby, Qin Man bid farewell to Ji Wei and followed him out of the elevator.
Everyone in the office was on time and their expressions were normal; no one felt that Ji Ran’s tardiness was anything strange.
Although Ji Ran’s position wasn’t high, his presence in the company was indication that the Ji Family had acknowledged him. They wouldn’t be surprised even if he decided to skip work.
Ji Ran was tired.
After thinking about the honey water all night, he hadn’t rested well yesterday. He endured his tipsiness all night and only managed to fall asleep after 4 a.m.
He casually slung his jacket onto a clothes rack and sat down on the office chair. His eyes had only shut for a few seconds before he couldn’t help cracking one eye open to peek at the person sitting in the corner.
Qin Man’s back was upright.
It had only been a few minutes since he entered, but he was already in work-mode and concentrating on a file another colleague had sent over.
Ji Ran began to doubt whether he was hallucinating from last night’s drinks.
Until now, he had always regarded Qin Man’s service as a mere transaction. He forked out money while Qin Man serviced him, it was a completely harmonious and transactional relationship!
However, he was clearly asleep yesterday. Why did Qin Man still kiss him?
And he even wiped his face and fed him honey water?
Before leaving, Qin Man even tucked him in properly and left a water pitcher by his bedside.
Ji Ran thought about it for a long time and only arrived at one conclusion…
In a place where his golden thigh could not see, he continued to work hard and viewed all work as equal. With great patience, he would endure beatings and scoldings…
Was this the rumoured occupational disease?
Was Qin Man a perfectionist?
… Don’t say it. It really seemed to be the case.
The sound of the door opening broke Ji Ran’s thoughts.
“Team Leader, there’s a project. You can sign the contract in the afternoon…” Xu Lin walked in. Seeing the person on the chair, he unconsciously fell silent.
Xu Lin’s observational skills and memory retention ability were great. He immediately noticed that Ji Ran was wearing the same outfit as yesterday.
He instinctively looked towards Qin Man. Sure enough, he was wearing a simple white shirt. However, he was sure that it was also from yesterday.
Ji Ran retracted his gaze. “Where is it? Why did you stop speaking?”
“Uh.” Xu Lin reacted and said, “It’s at the office. They will send a representative over. Do you need me to reserve a meeting room?”
“Go on then.” These words had just left his mouth when Ji Ran recalled something else. “… Wait.”
“En? What is it?”
“Get me a copy of the company’s logs.”
Qin Man’s action of reading through the documents slowed.
In order to protect the company’s privacy on various social software, most companies had their own internal chat software. Yong Shi naturally had it, too.
Yong Shi’s internal chat not only contained the chat function, higher-ranking employees also had access to department chat records. These records could even go back prior years.
Most company announcements were made internally, so in Yong Shi, even a low-ranking employee will receive an ID number when they join the company. Of course, Xu Lin had not forgotten this.
However, the higher ups simply didn’t give Ji Ran an ID number.
“That,” Xu Lin paused for a moment, “It’s my oversight. I’ll help you apply for one immediately.”
“Apply? How long do I have to wait?” Ji Ran asked.
“It won’t take long.”
Ji Ran clicked his tongue. “Hurry up, then. I have an important need for it.”
Xu Lin complied and asked again, “Is there an urgent matter?”
“That’s right.” Ji Ran rested his chin on his hand. “I’m bored to death from sitting here all day. I’m in urgent need of chatting with others, can’t I?”
It was silent for a moment before Xu Lin replied, “I will do it quickly.”
After he left, Ji Ran slowly turned on his work computer and casually opened up one of the projects.
Qin Man had previously done some homework for him. In addition, he had learnt some things in order to graduate, so he was at least able to understand some of these plans.
Ji Ran only glanced at it for a few seconds before his eyes unconsciously drifted over to the side.
It was also strange how although both of them hadn’t had a change of clothes, Qin Man still appeared more kempt than him.
Ji Ran suddenly thought of something.
“Hey.”
Qin Man stopped writing.
“Huh?”
“What’s your ID? Give it to me,” Ji Ran said.
Qin Man laughed. “I’m your person, why would Yong Shi give me an internal ID number? Even an additional desk is already a big favour.”
Ji Ran pursed his lips and put the cup in front of him. “In that case, go get me a cup of coffee.”
“You drank last night. Milk would be better, there’s some in the pantry.”
“… Whatever. Hurry up.”
A second after Qin Man left, he immediately closed the file he had been looking at.
With practiced familiarity, he entered Yong Shi’s intranet platform and arrived at the login page. He swiftly entered a line of words and the message ‘login successful’ appeared on the screen.
[Name: Zhao Si]
[Department: Logistics]
【ID号：91198】
[ID: 91198]
……
…
He easily entered the chat records and found that two days before he joined the company, there were two additional pages. He read everything without missing a single word and found that it was merely a casual chat between colleagues.
Of course, as the main focus of Yong Shi this month, Ji Ran’s name was mentioned within it, but nothing about it was positive.
However, he couldn’t be bothered to spare another glance at such content, only closing the page in frustration.
Then, he called Cheng Peng.
“Can you help me to hack into another employee’s account?”
Cheng Peng’s voice came from the other end. “Do you think your family’s company is some small business? How could a top-level account, each containing many secrets, be so easy to hack into? Didn’t your father give you an executive position? No matter what, it should be better than these logistic staff’s accounts. Have you taken a look at it yet?”
“What family company? I have nothing to do with Yong Shi. Also, they didn’t give me any account,” Ji Ran told him.
“I can’t believe it.” Cheng Peng paused. “Alright, I’ll try again.”
After hanging up, Ji Ran sank into silence for a moment before wiping away any traces of him.
In the afternoon, Ji Ran walked into the meeting room.
The contract partner had already arrived.
Ji Ran glanced over and slowed down once he saw the people who were waiting.
Wen Xiao wore a grey suit and had his hair styled. Even his face had been touched up and he was looking towards…the person behind him, Qin Man.
“What a coincidence. I didn’t expect you to be the one in-charge of this project.” Wen Xiao extended a hand towards Ji Ran. “Looking forward to a pleasant cooperation.”
Ji Ran ignored him and simply took his seat.
When the people who’d come along with Wen Xiao saw this, their expressions grew subtle. “Team Leader, this is Manager Wen, the representative from our company…”
“I’m not from your company. Why are you telling me all these things? The contract terms have already been agreed upon, let’s end this quickly.”
The person beside him nearly flared up, but was stopped by Wen Xiao.
He pursed his lips and shot Qin Man a helpless look.
However, Qin Man didn’t receive it. He sat down beside Ji Ran and pushed the contract over.
“This is the contract our side has drafted. Previously, we’d already sent over a copy. You just need to check it over and if there’s nothing else, we can sign it.”
Since this was something they had already discussed and agreed upon before, the only thing left to do was to sign after checking it.
Ji Ran just noticed he hadn’t brought a pen. He fidgeted a little and was about to speak when Qin Man suddenly brought out a fountain pen.
“Use this.”
After peeking for some time in the office, Ji Ran quickly noted that this wasn’t the pen Qin Man usually used.
“…Where’d you get it from?”
“I saw it when passing by a shop the other day,” Qin Man’s tone was light as he continued, “I thought you might need it.”
Without hesitation, Ji Ran took it and signed his name.
Qin Man glanced at it. Ji Ran’s words were the same as before, messy but not ugly.
Wen Xiao maintained a smile. He had long known that there was a contract between Yong Shi and his company. After asking and learning that Qin Man would be present at the contract signing, he immediately took over the job.
With the contract signed, everyone left the meeting room together. Ji Ran was intending to return to his office when the person behind him spoke.
“Wait.” The person beside Wen Xiao said, “Letting your clients leave right after signing a contract. What kind of etiquette is this?”
Ji Ran slowed down. “What? You guys don’t know the way? Should I turn on the gps for you?”
“You…”
“It’s fine.” Wen Xiao silently signalled to the person behind him with a smile. “Actually, I just took over this project. Though I have some understanding of it, I wish to discuss more about the agreement details with you guys. It’s better than simply hearing it from my assistant. I believe that a discussion would be more comprehensive.”
“Since you’re an important person with many things to tend to, I won’t hold you up.” Wen Xiao blinked. “I’ll just borrow your assistant. You won’t mind , right?”
It was rare for Qin Man to feel a bit of regret.
Had he known that Ji Ran would drink so much, he wouldn’t have provoked the other man last night.
He only wanted to let this little hedgehog be more honest in front of him, under the condition that he wouldn’t get hurt.
There was no way he would make the same mistake twice. Qin Man wore an indifferent expression as he prepared to refuse.
“You’re wrong.” Ji Ran suddenly laughed after a moment of silence. “I’m the most idle person. Apart from money, I only have time.”
“Didn’t you not know the way? Let’s go, I’ll send you.”
Wen Xiao didn’t expect such a change in attitude and his smile faltered. “I don’t want to trouble you. Qin Man is enough…”
“How can that be? He’s just a useless assistant. How is he worthy of sending such a noble Bodhisattva like you?” Ji Ran threw the contract to Qin Man and said, “You head back to the office first.”
The ‘useless assistant’ received the file and said softly, “I’ll come with you.”
“What for? To take the opportunity to get closer to Wen Xiao?” Ji Ran lowered his voice and asked unreasonably.
Qin Man laughed helplessly, “… I’ll go back and wait for you.”
Wen Xiao could only watch reluctantly as Qin Man grew further from him. He only came back to his senses after his assistant reminded him.
“No need to continue looking. That person has nothing to do with you.” Ji Ran sneered, “Let’s go, I’ll send you off properly.”
