My Boss Always Flirts With Me - Chapter 25
Chapter 25: Dreams
He Chi’s travel day was packed. He got up at 4 a.m. In his semi-conscious state, Fang Ci groggily grabbed his sleeve, his voice muffled as if he had cotton in his mouth. “So early?”
He Chi changed his clothes. “Did I wake you?”
Apparently not. Fang Ci fell back asleep the next second, his eyelids unable to stay open for long. He Chi usually stayed in luxury hotels for his overseas trips, where everything was provided, so he didn’t need to pack luggage.
Before leaving, he turned back to look at Fang Ci once more, tucking his exposed arm back under the blanket.
Fang Ci slept until broad daylight. When he woke up, he felt unaccustomed to the empty space beside him.
The flight was over ten hours long. By the time he arrived in the foreign country and settled in, it was already night. Fang Ci opened WeChat and saw that He Chi had requested two reports in the group chat. He probably couldn’t stay idle on the plane either.
The boss is so busy.
Fang Ci smiled at himself in the mirror. Hmm, so busy, but he still knows to search the internet for marriage tips.
…
The Car Ride
“Xiao Zhu, please integrate the final confirmed proposals and send them to my email, with a copy to CEO He,” Fang Ci said in a voice message on his way out.
Xiao Zhu was confused. “I already sent the final version of each proposal, though.”
Fang Ci explained, “Just compile them and send them as a single package. CEO He went to the R&D center today; he might need it. But no rush, you can just send it during lunch.”
Xiao Zhu was surprised. “CEO He is on a business trip?”
Fang Ci: “Yes, he just left not long ago. The flight must be over ten hours.”
Ordinary employees wouldn’t know where the CEO went. They would only know if he was in the office that day. Xiao Zhu was curious. “How do you know so much?”
Fang Ci was in a good mood today, so he teased her. “Guess.”
Xiao Zhu: “Guess what? There must be an insider in the CEO’s office!”
Fang Ci laughed and pulled the conversation back to business. “Thanks for compiling it.”
Xiao Zhu: “No problem! Have a smooth day, too.” Fang Ci had a task today as well. He was going to meet a famous engineer in the industry to discuss the new product’s software and hardware development.
Shang Qu was there to pick him up and drive him. After meeting a few times, the two had gradually become more familiar. Shang Qu asked, “Are you going to look around after you finish the project meeting?”
Fang Ci said, “I’ll just go back to the company.”
Shang Qu smiled. “CEO He gave you a half-day off. Aren’t you going to take a break?”
Fang Ci rubbed his nose. “I’m anxious waiting for the prototype, so I don’t have the mind to do anything else.”
Shang Qu looked at him in the rearview mirror. “CEO He and you are quite similar in that regard.”
Fang Ci gave him a curious look.
Shang Qu said, “Once he starts talking about a new product, he can’t stop. Before a prototype is ready, his mind is filled with models.”
Fang Ci laughed. “It’s work. You have to be serious about it.”
Shang Qu raised an eyebrow. “It’s not quite the same. You have to have a passion for it to have the motivation to push forward. Everyone knows that it’s hard to sell and innovate with smartphones now. Foldable screens, modular designs, the chip war—none of these hurdles are easy to overcome.”
Fang Ci nodded. He agreed with Shang Qu’s summary, but there was one point he didn’t quite agree with. “I’m just a regular employee. I want to get a promotion and a raise. I can’t help him with much at my current stage, let alone influence the industry.”
Hearing him say this, Shang Qu became curious. “Then why did you come to Zhuyun Tech? The risk here is huge. There are so many industry leaders out there. Those companies are more stable.”
Fang Ci was taken aback. He hadn’t thought about this question in detail. At the time, it was just a burst of impulse. After joining, he found the company full of vitality and liked it a lot. So, he turned the question back to Shang Qu. “What about you?”
Shang Qu said, “For me, it was pure chance. I guess I was fated to be with Zhuyun. I sent out a ton of resumes and went on one interview after another. When I got to Zhuyun Tech, I found that the company was tiny, with only twenty-something people crammed into four big rooms. They didn’t even have a conference room. I was about to leave, but then I thought it was hard to find a job, so I just sat down.”
Fang Ci listened as if it were a story. “Then what happened?”
Shang Qu said, “I was the only person who came for an interview that day. Later, I found out that a lot of the people who were supposed to interview disliked how small the company was. Graduates from prestigious schools wouldn’t even consider a startup.”
“So you were kept on?”
Shang Qu: “Yeah. That’s why I said it was fate.”
Fang Ci laughed. “Hey, that’s not fate. That’s having a good eye.”
Shang Qu laughed heartily. “You’re right! It’s a good thing they didn’t come. I got a good deal. It’s a shame, though. They didn’t get to see CEO He back then. He was so young and handsome. If they had, they wouldn’t have been able to leave!”
Shang Qu remembered something and asked Fang Ci, “You didn’t join the company early on. So you probably never saw what CEO He was like back then, right?”
Fang Ci, however, said, “I did.” On a projection screen, on the world stage, a confident young man was shining.
Shang Qu was quite surprised. Fang Ci just smiled and didn’t explain.
…
The Flight
After soaring through the clouds for over ten hours, the plane finally landed at a foreign airport. As they walked out of the terminal, the car was already waiting for them outside.
After Yuan Cheng reviewed the itinerary with He Chi, he asked if he wanted to send a message to his family. He Chi looked up from his computer screen. “Is it important?” He didn’t have this habit.
Yuan Cheng said, “Just to let them know you’re safe. My brother-in-law sends a message to my sister every time he goes on a business trip.” It seemed the CEO’s wife hadn’t told him to do it, so Yuan Cheng took it upon himself to remind his boss.
Although He Chi didn’t follow others’ advice blindly, he was good at learning from others in areas where he was lacking. Yuan Cheng had also noticed this, which was why he dared to speak so frankly.
Sure enough, he saw He Chi pick up his phone and send a message. It was concise: “I’ve arrived.”
He then switched to his notepad, writing something down.
There was a time difference, so it was a long time before his phone rang again. He Chi looked at it. Fang Ci’s reply was also simple: [You’ve worked hard, CEO He.]
He Chi frowned at the words “CEO He,” but then relaxed when he saw the particle at the end.
When He Chi arrived at the hotel, Fang Ci sent another message: [I’m going to sleep now. You should also get some rest.]
He Chi looked at his notepad and sent him a little bunny “goodnight” emoji. Fang Ci: [!?]
[Goodnight.] He Chi said.
Fang Ci sent a little bunny nodding emoji.
…
The Gaming Session
In his room, Fang Ci had already sat up with his legs crossed. On the other end of the phone, Shen Liu was yelling at him to get on the game: [Come on, your guy’s not around. Hurry up, we’re pulling an all-nighter tonight.]
[Where are you? Ci-pien, where are you?!]
Fang Ci: [I’ll be there in a sec. I’m texting He Chi.] He was actually looking for the little bunny emoji.
Shen Liu: […]
Besides work, this was Fang Ci’s most-used set of emojis, but he couldn’t find a “goodnight” one, which was why he had sent a nodding one. He scrolled back a few pages and finally found the 3.0 update, which had daily messages like “good morning” and “goodnight.”
He Chi’s style is a bit off today, Fang Ci thought to himself as he downloaded it.
After all that, he finally summoned Shen Liu, only to find that he had already teamed up with a stranger…
Fang Ci watched them play for over ten minutes before Shen Liu died in the poisonous zone. Fang Ci laughed at him. “Who told you to play with a kid?”
Shen Liu: [(Smiling face emoji) Are you even a human being?!]
Fang Ci was pulled into a new map. This time, with the other two roommates added, they were a well-coordinated team. They successfully eliminated five squads and sped away in an off-road vehicle.
In the car, Shen Liu yelled at Fang Ci, “Feel this. Do you know what this tastes like?”
Fang Ci: “…What?”
Shen Liu: “The taste of freedom!”
Fang Ci: “Are you crazy?”
Shen Liu burst out laughing.
The group stopped their car in a valley and hid in a building. While Shen Liu was aiming, his mouth was still busy. “There are a lot of people in this round. We’re playing until we get the chicken dinner!”
Fang Ci stood back-to-back with him. “You’re playing games for revenge, aren’t you?”
Shen Liu sighed. “I worked overtime with all my heart for two weeks. Can’t I get a break?”
When he said that, the other three felt a sense of camaraderie. Their industry was a killer when it got busy. Shen Liu had recently been developing a car’s central control screen, and the client had only one request: for it to be big.
One word hid a million difficulties, which was killing Shen Liu’s team.
Shen Liu said, “My dream is dying.”
A roommate threw him a bandage. “Oh, you have a dream? We didn’t know that.”
Shen Liu looked up at the sky and lamented, “You guys don’t understand. It was on a warm afternoon in college. I was lying on my wooden bed, wanting to revolutionize the definition of a product, to drive industry change, and I also wanted…”
“To be hung on the wall in the hallway,” Fang Ci poked him. “There’s someone on your right on the stairs.”
Shen Liu yelled “Oh!” and fired two shots. The other side was alerted, and they all started fighting in the narrow stairwell. In the end, they barely won and all four of them escaped, jumping back into the car.
“That was so scary. I thought my dream of getting a chicken dinner tonight was dead,” Shen Liu complained as he healed himself.
The others just laughed.
But things didn’t go as smoothly as Shen Liu had hoped. The wish of pulling an all-nighter didn’t come true. As soon as the round ended, Shen Liu was called by a client. He resigned himself to his fate and left the game.
The group chat was filled with the friends’ antics: [Let us know how big it is when you finally design it.]
Shen Liu: […Get out!]
Fang Ci laughed along from inside his blanket.
When the group finally settled down, he put his phone down and turned over. The space beside him was still empty. He stared into the darkness for a while.
“Dreams, huh…”