After I Lost My Memory, My Wife Started To Chase Me - Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Pride
After the meeting, Beige’s assistant, Zhou Yu, followed her back to the office, holding a stack of documents. Beige glanced at her phone; Weishu was likely busy with work and hadn’t replied.
Zhou Yu organized the files and began to list Beige’s schedule for the coming week. “Boss, you have so many appointments to catch up on these days. Mr. Yang from Fantan and Bernice from IKP have both invited you to dinner. What do you want to do? Keep postponing or accept?”
Beige immediately responded. “Accept Mr. Yang’s invitation and postpone Bernice’s. Clear my schedule for next Friday. Don’t make it a dinner.”
The first request was easy, but the second one made Zhou Yu a little hesitant. “Boss, Mr. Yang only has time in the evening.”
“Alright. You pick the restaurant, find a place with a refined ambiance, and have the general manager come with me.” Beige thought for a moment and added, “Remember to put down a deposit in advance. Mr. Yang has a lot of rules. And have the company’s bodyguards come along too.”
Zhou Yu nodded and turned to leave, but Beige suddenly called out to her. “Who is in charge of managing our company’s third-party designers?” Her tone was calm and unchanged, as if she were asking a casual question.
Zhou Yu was in charge of taking meeting minutes and already knew about the overdue designs. She had found out who was responsible on her way back to the office. “The general manager is in charge of that. But he doesn’t personally oversee every one. The company has a list of over ten regular design firms, and the specific person in charge of each project makes the final decision.” Zhou Yu’s tone was calm and matter-of-fact.
Beige “hmm’d” in response, then sat up straight, staring at the desk for a few seconds. “From now on, when you write up the reports, include the names of all the third parties.”
Zhou Yu blinked. Before she could say anything, she heard a hint of emotion in Beige’s voice, a tone of dissatisfaction. “Like with the Shu Se Studio this time, how am I supposed to know which one it is if you don’t list the name?”
Zhou Yu was stunned, thinking, Why would you need to know which one it is? She immediately responded, “Understood.”
Beige managed such a large company by focusing on the big picture and ignoring the details. The general manager handled all of these minor things, and even he didn’t check every one. “Cycle” was just one of many software programs developed by Kuangye Company, and it wasn’t even the main product. Zhou Yu thought about it but couldn’t figure it out, so she let it go. It was just a matter of adding one more line to the report, anyway.
After Zhou Yu left, Beige picked up her phone again. The only message in the chat was the “pat-on-the-head” emoticon she had sent. Weishu still hadn’t replied.
Song: Are you busy?
Beige put down her phone and signed a few documents. Before lunch break, she checked her phone four times, but there was still no response.
Zhou Yu knocked on the door from outside. “Boss, should I get you lunch?”
“No need,” Beige said after a brief pause. She stood up, grabbed her jacket and bag, and walked out the door. As she passed Zhou Yu, she said, “Send any important files to my email. Call me if it’s urgent.”
Zhou Yu nodded blankly. “Yes, Boss.”
After Beige left, Zhou Yu’s colleague tugged on her sleeve and whispered excitedly, “Is Boss not coming in this afternoon?”
Zhou Yu glanced at her. Seeing no one else around, she lowered her voice. “That’s right.”
Her colleague clasped her hands to her cheeks, her eyes full of admiration. “I haven’t seen Boss in so long. She finally came in today, and now she’s gone again.”
Zhou Yu gave her a sideways look. “The boss isn’t at work, and you’re not happy about it? Hurry up and get lunch. You’ll have to wait in line if you’re late.”
Zhou Yu thought to herself, She’s right, the boss has changed a lot lately. She used to be a workaholic who practically lived at the office. Now, she wouldn’t show her face for weeks at a time, and after working a little overtime yesterday and holding a meeting today, she had already taken off. What could be more appealing than work?
…
On the road, Beige drove fast, skirting the speed limit to take a shortcut home. She walked in the door, not even stopping to pet Ding-Dong, and went straight to the second floor. The housekeeper had already made lunch and covered it with a food screen on the dining table. Beige went upstairs and then came back down, scooping some of each dish onto a plate and bringing it upstairs.
“Darling,” Beige said, standing at the door of the study. She had heard someone’s voice inside and gently knocked, her tone deliberately soft, like she was coaxing a child. “It’s time for lunch.”
The voice inside stopped instantly, followed by the sound of shuffling slippers. Weishu opened the door, her face beaming with surprise. “You’re home?”
Beige peered past her and saw what she expected: two computers, three monitors, a laptop, a drawing tablet, and a bunch of tools were all turned on.
“Are you working overtime?” Beige’s voice was a little weak. She was the one who had requested leave for Weishu and delayed the project, only to find herself the client demanding the drafts. It pained her to think that Weishu was working overtime because of her oversight. Weishu had just been discharged from the hospital, there was a large mass in her head, and her left arm was still in a cast, which wouldn’t be removed until next week. The thought of her working overtime to rush designs broke Beige’s heart.
Weishu took the plate from her, pulled her inside, and kicked the door shut with her foot. “Yeah, I am. Wait a minute, I’m just wrapping up, and then I’m off work.” Weishu sat Beige on the small sofa next to her desk and lifted her laptop screen. “That’s it for today. If you need anything, text me. Meeting adjourned.”
Beige immediately turned her head, her eyes wide as she stared at the laptop. “You… you were just in a meeting?”
Weishu had already closed the laptop. She looked up and met Beige’s gaze with a smile. “Yep. Two projects are pretty urgent, so we held a quick meeting to discuss them.”
Beige looked down at her feet, then up again. “What projects? Why are they so urgent? Can’t they be delayed for a few days?”
Weishu laughed, her mood obviously upbeat. “No need. Those two projects… they must be done, even if it means working overtime.”
Beige’s head sank lower. She had only just found out that Weishu had taken on her company’s design drafts. But Weishu was the one doing the work; she must have known which company the designs were for all along. Given Weishu’s attitude, Beige wasn’t sure how to respond.
Weishu hummed a tune, tossed the laptop aside, cleared the small coffee table in front of the sofa, and set down the plate of food. She poured herself a glass of water and began to eat. “Have you eaten?” she asked Beige.
Beige looked up at her quickly, nodded, and looked down again in a flurry. Weishu swallowed her food, took a sip of water, and watched Beige for a few moments. She thought Beige was still avoiding her because of what happened that morning, so she didn’t ask again.
The faint sound of chewing and the fresh scent of seafood broth filled the room, along with the faint smell of ink. The drawing paper, crayons, and colored pencils were scattered in their boxes, a riot of colors.
Beige suddenly remembered Weishu right after she graduated. Weishu had gone abroad at fourteen, attended high school there, and returned to the country at eighteen for university, where she studied art and design. She opened a small studio that initially had only three people. It was small, and the start was slow and difficult. She could only take on small, scattered online projects. Beige wanted to help and offered her company’s projects to Weishu. Predictably, Weishu flatly refused.
It was raining outside that day, a continuous, gray drizzle. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the sky was a dreary blue-gray. Weishu sat in front of the window, her back to Beige, painting a watercolor on her easel. She was wearing light-colored denim overalls that stained easily, and a pure white T-shirt underneath that was already splattered with various dyes. She was enveloped in the gloomy colors of the rain. Her voice and appearance were unclear, and when she looked up, she seemed to dissolve into the background like a brushstroke of watercolor. It was an overwhelming, almost suffocating artistic intensity.
Weishu seemed to be smiling, or perhaps just whispering a pronouncement that, when Beige recalled it now, still sounded as clear as a resonant chime. “I will fight for your company’s projects myself.”
Now, the head of the cycle project would rather report that the design drafts were overdue at the meeting than suggest finding a new designer. The original trademark for dimon was done by a top-tier design firm in the country, and changing it required a firm of equal or higher skill. Both of these projects had been given to Shu Se Studio without any interference from Beige.
Beige thought to herself, She really did it.