Chapter One Hundred and Sixty: Holding One’s Head High (2/2)

There were quite a few designers in SI that were unhappy with Xiao Yu. Especially after Xiao Yu suffered defeat after defeat to the mystery designer, there were many that pinned the blame on Xiao Yu’s lack of skill. After Xiao Yu had been fired, many of them had ridiculed Xiao Yu on the forums with posts such as “Xiao Yu’s strength is insufficient so he rode on others’ coattails to become the chief designer”, “Xiao Yu is completely overconfident with a non-standard background”, and “Xiao Yu doesn’t care about the company; he spends all day developing his personal career”.

These posts now seemed incomparably funny.

Xiao Yu’s strength is insufficient? He rode on others’ coattails to become the chief designer? The mystery designer stepped on SI’s director, punched SI’s chairman, fought a thousand bloody battles at the Autumn Conference, and surpassed City B and City H’s two largest design companies. Nobody could stop him.

Completely overconfident with a non-standard background? He’s the star disciple of the previous SI’s chief designer. With three years of overseas study and five years of work experience, he’s ascended to the heavens with his brilliance at age twenty-six. It’s his natural right to be proud of his success.

He doesn’t care about the company and spends all day developing his personal career? Well, this one isn’t wrong at all. He designed drafts for YL for an entire year as SI’s chief designer without anyone finding out. He gave SI no leeway at all.

The lopsided public opinion strengthened Xiao Yu’s resolve. He eagerly awaited the next time he came face-to-face against SI.

Last year, after the end-of-year designers’ evaluation, the general consensus had been that YL was the number one design company in City S. However, Xiao Yu had merged back into his original body, and YL had sunk into a depression with Yan Jin’s resignation. With SI’s announcement that Lin Zhou would take over as chief designer and the unknown status of where the mystery designer would go, the situation had become very confusing.

But that too had come to an end.

With the announcement of Xiao Yu’s identity, the title of the number one design company in the city fell back to YL. SI instead was relegated to the level of laughingstocks. Their previous decades of achievement and knowledge couldn’t rescue their reputation from this one disastrous year.

Actually, Xiao Yu didn’t hate SI. Even though it didn’t feel good to get fired, it was the result of a pressured situation. Furthermore, Xiao Yu wasn’t the type to hold grudges. He was already satisfied after all the venting he’d done. He didn’t plan to embark on a path of revenge against SI or anything.

However, that was only for SI. His matters with Lin Zhou were not yet over.

Xiao Yu still hadn’t attained his recompense for Lin Zhou drugging him, for telling him that he’d messed around with his car’s brakes, or for plagiarizing his designs.

Until recently, Xiao Yu still hadn’t given up on contacting Lin Zhou in every possible way despite Lin Zhou blacklisting him. Lin Zhou hadn’t responded to any of his calls, texts, or social media messages.

Although Yan Jin had clearly expressed that Xiao Yu could rely on him for help, for this matter, Xiao Yu never thought once about asking Yan Jin. This was his own grudge; the fewer there were involved, the better. Therefore, however he tried to contact Lin Zhou or request Jing Mo to investigate, he always did it stealthily (self-assumed) to not disturb Yan Jin (also self-assumed). Without Yan Jin’s help, Xiao Yu quickly discovered that there was no way he’d be able to meet Lin Zhou given all of Lin Zhou’s vigilance to avoid him.

And under such circumstances, the only solution Xiao Yu could come up with was to make use of the company to look for a business opportunity that would allow him to directly interact with Lin Zhou.

Thankfully, Xiao Yu did not have to wait too long for this opportunity.

……

This was probably the first time Xiao Yu found his desk location in the chairman’s office useful.

He carefully retrieved the official seal, and with shaking hands, he took out an inconspicuous-looking contract.

He felt like he was committing a crime.

Yan Jin had left five minutes earlier to lead the weekly meeting. Xiao Yu had excused himself under the pretext that he didn’t feel well.

Of course, that wasn’t true. His real aim was to use Yan Jin’s official seal to sign this order while no one was around.

Ever since he’d joined YL, the orders had come in unendingly. Yan Jin’s desk always had a pile of contracts that he’d never be able to clear. Seeing that their previous work had gotten out of hand, Yan Jin now followed a very conservative policy: he’d avoid direct conflicts the other major design companies, including SI. Since they were able to sign excellent quality work orders without needing to compete, was there any need to cause trouble?

Xiao Yu understood this policy very clearly. However, he really did not want to give up another opportunity to make contact with SI.

It was a collaboration contract. If YL signed it, they would get together with one or a couple other jewelry design companies to put together a global exhibit.

To the best of Xiao Yu’s understanding of SI, SI would find any way to participate in this.

The reasoning was quite simple. SI always had ideas of expanding onto the world stage. This global exhibition was the best platform for this in the next two years.

For a company that had just recently started in City S, YL didn’t need to expand their global influence. However, it wasn’t the same for SI. SI’s appetite could no longer be satisfied by domestic orders alone. With their repeated losses in City S, if this trend continued, SI would be forced to lay off employees to maintain their regular operations. SI definitely wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity.

Yan Jin’s habit for auditing the orders for signing was to divide the contracts into three stacks: one for those he planned to directly sign, one for those he planned to directly reject, and the last for those that he had to spend more time to consider.

Xiao Yu had tracked the progress of this order. In the beginning, Yan Jin had put it in the last pile for reconsideration. Before he’d gone to to the weekly meeting, Yan Jin had gone through the pile and finally had placed it in the “reject” pile.