KC | Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Zippo

Chen Xi did not like Lanhai’s rigid management style.

Lanhai had to do morning exercises and noon exercises every day. This morning, because of the big meeting, they had not done the exercises, and after the lunch break ended, they definitely had to do them. A group of people in their twenties and thirties were like fools, doing the eighth set of broadcast calisthenics Chen Xi had done in primary school, Time Is Calling.

Chen Xi did not like doing exercises, but that was Lanhai’s corporate culture. As long as you came to work, you had to do exercises.

Lanhai’s excessive pressure on sales performance made Chen Xi face assessments again and again. Lanhai had a saying, “performance is dignity,” and completing targets was the bottom line for sales. At the end of each quarter, they rushed to meet assessments, then at the start of the next quarter everything was reset to zero, and it went on in cycles. Being in sales was like a “hamster running on a wheel”, the pitiful hamster on the wheel could never run to the end, unless it left the “wheel.”

After three years in sales, Chen Xi had saved 100,000 yuan. His family added another 100,000, just enough to make a down payment for a presale apartment. Before taking possession of the house, Chen Xi still had to pay the mortgage and rent, and unlike other KAs, he did not have resources to sign big orders. His salary level was very average. When holidays came and he had to give gifts to clients, it was indeed not easy.

Smoke rings drifted upward. Chen Xi coughed twice and touched his forehead. The fever had gone down, but the physical discomfort was still continuing. Through the glass window, he looked at the clouds floating in the distance and thought, If I could also be free like the clouds, that would be great.

I have to be busy for money, to run around for a living, to work hard to live in Yucheng…

Three years of sales work had turned a young male college graduate into a sharp-tongued business elite. When classmates asked him to play ball, he had no time. When friends asked him to eat, he had no time. Even when his childhood friend got married, he did not have time to go. This job in sales drained all his energy, and in these three years, Chen Xi had almost no time of his own.

Chen Xi was very tired. He really wanted to rest for a bit and catch his breath, but life did not allow it. If he stopped, he would have no money to pay rent and the mortgage.

Smoking time was up, and employees left one after another. Only Chen Xi squatted in the corner, opened a recruitment app, and wrote his resume.

He thought: Since I can’t keep doing this at Lanhai, then I’ll switch to a new job. I can’t be without a job.

In these past few years, Chen Xi had not learned much else, only how to package himself. The AJ shoes and Gucci belt he wore were all fake goods, and in the drawer at the workstation upstairs there was still a worn-out LV tote bag with the paint peeling off. If he were not poor to a certain extent, no one would be unwilling to even replace fake goods with new ones. He strained himself dry, racking his brains, and wrote two pages of resume in one go, exaggerating and packaging his Lanhai KA experience, boasting like crazy, every item sounding reasonable and well-supported. He almost believed it himself.

After Chen Xi finished his resume, he read it over twice. He had wanted to check for typos, logic mistakes, and grammar errors, but he did not expect the more he read, the more he got into it.

Lin Yiran’s key clients really were intoxicating.

The key clients written in Chen Xi’s resume were all signed by Lin Yiran in this past year. There were framework accounts with annual consumption of tens of millions, brand accounts with quarterly ad budgets of millions, as well as traditional enterprise listed companies, and local government cultural tourism accounts…

He knew these clients’ contract amounts, contract dates, and gross profit contributions. He had witnessed Lin Yiran’s signing process and understood every step’s hardship and twists and turns. He used Lin Yiran’s key clients to package himself.

That was what Lin Yiran taught him, and he learned it.

Chen Xi had just finished his resume and was about to find another media company to submit it to when, in the next instant, he thought: why should I quit because Lin Yiran made a mistake, while he doesn’t resign, and I have to leave to look for a job?

His mind twitched, and he suddenly pieced together words Lin Yiran had said three years ago, with quite a bit of the operation of taking things out of context and twisting the facts: “I’m handsome, I have lots of tricks, I’m happy to help people, one day I’ll fli…”

I’m telling you, back then why didn’t you ask for anything in return? So you were waiting to stab me, huh!

Chen Xi did not want to keep being tormented by Lanhai’s dense work atmosphere. He did not want to sit on the cold, hard chair anymore, and he did not want to see Lin Yiran again.

Last night, Chen Xi could not remember how he had ended up lying on Lin Yiran’s bed. He was woken by pain, but his drunken body could not exert any strength, so he could only subconsciously wave his arm.

His fair arm was twisted behind his back by someone, cold and hard, like some kind of metal.

The thin figure was in a prone kneeling position, with his head down and buried into the bedding. Chen Xi sensed his own posture, and even with a hangover making his brain slow, he realized what the person behind him wanted to do.

Chen Xi sobered up half the way and suddenly turned back, meeting Lin Yiran’s deep eyes.

“Lin, Brother Lin.” Chen Xi was completely sober now, saying in disbelief, “Why are you here?”

Zhang Yuanji said he got a room for Li Hua, I came to find Li Hua, so how did I end up rolling onto your bed? Besides, didn’t you just settle the bill and leave?

The familiar metallic outline, Chen Xi had countless times seen Lin Yiran fiddling with this thing when smoking, it was a Zippo!

“Don’t move around, it’s easy to misfire.”

“Holy shit!” If the lighter misfired inside his body, and he ended up in the hospital because of this, it would definitely be on the news the next day.

Lin Yiran’s voice was very low, carrying the unquestionable pressure of someone in a superior position. He usually handled things in exactly this kind of decisive, no-nonsense style.

Lin Yiran often socialized over drinks. No matter how much he drank, there would never be the situations Chen Xi called “blanking out” or “losing consciousness.” He believed that all behavior after drinking was conscious, and that the so-called “drunk and sexually reckless” was nothing more than a way for both sides to patch things up.

Heh, so why weren’t you calling me “Brother Lin” at this time?

…

After this incident, Chen Xi had pretty much seen it clearly. On the surface, Lin Yiran hid his talents and remained modest and polite, but in private, he played dirty, flashy, ruthless, and crazy. A textbook gentlemanly scumbag.

This morning, the sound of Lin Yiran closing the hotel door on his way out woke Chen Xi. Looking at the mess all over the bed, Chen Xi almost fainted.

He supported his waist as he got out of bed, washing up while comforting himself: We’re both men, so what’s the big deal about sleeping together? It’s not like he was some innocent maiden.

Last night had been his first time, but obviously Lin Yiran was a repeat offender.

He could sleep with anyone, do any kind of trick, and cheat outside with his wife behind his back. What a fucking beast!

From the hotel to the company, Chen Xi kept thinking the whole way: what should he do in the future?

Last night it was indeed Lin Yiran who forced him, but later it changed tone. He really had been drunk, but even so, that did not stop him from doing everything he could to resist. If he had flat-out refused, Lin Yiran would not have had the chance to go all the way. In the end, it was because he had not completely rejected Lin Yiran, because he liked him.

Chen Xi had come to Lanhai on a moment of impulse. Lin Yiran was the source of the motivation that had supported him through three years of sales, but his spiritual pillar had turned into spray yesterday, and all his expectations had vanished.

This matter might not mean much to Lin Yiran, but Chen Xi felt that last night had destroyed his moral bottom line, and he would never be able to become as casual as Lin Yiran.

He could not figure out what Lin Yiran was thinking, and he did not know for what purpose Lin Yiran had forcibly gotten together with him. But since “they slept together” was already an established fact, then he had to stop the loss in time and could not continue developing further.

I like Lin Yiran, but that cannot become a reason for me to develop a secret affair and destroy someone else’s family!

So, I’m quitting.

I have to stay as far away from Lin Yiran as possible, and preferably never have any further contact with him in this lifetime.

He was not worth my liking, he was just a frivolous and loose gentlemanly scumbag.

Author’s note:

Reported, deleted 2000 words.