The next day, I got up early, had breakfast in a hurry, and then carried the prepared renovation plan, visiting and comparing several decoration companies.
By the afternoon, I had visited eight relatively large decoration companies in the city. After I explained that the project schedule was tight, all of them promised to prioritize and provide a renovation budget within two days. After receiving the budgets, I would do further screening, but actual construction would likely start no earlier than five days later. My initial optimistic assumption of starting within three days was clearly too idealistic, which showed my lack of relevant experience. Therefore, whether starting a business or managing operations, one shouldn’t be blindly optimistic, as too many unexpected and uncontrollable incidents can occur.
It was just past 5 p.m. when I finished meeting with the decoration companies. I suddenly remembered that the night before, Mi Cai had asked me to make lunch for her, but I had refused. Since I still had time, I decided to make her dinner as a gesture of compensation.
I immediately called Mi Cai. It took her a while to answer, and her tone was still rushed: “Hello, what’s up?”
Generally, when Mi Cai spoke to me in this tone, it meant she was busy working. But wasn’t it the weekend today? I asked with some confusion, “Are you at the office?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Mi Cai replied, without explaining why she was at work on the weekend.
I guessed that Mi Cai probably wouldn’t have time for dinner either, so I said, “Nothing really, just calling to mess with you!”
“Boring!”
“I didn’t know you had to work on the weekend…”
Before I could finish, Mi Cai had already hung up the phone, as usual, clearly annoyed by my childish behavior.
Putting the phone back into my pocket, an idea suddenly came to me: although Mi Cai was too busy to come home for dinner, I could still prepare it and deliver it to her company. Although I had repeatedly rejected her in terms of work, in life, I was willing to give her the best care. I also believed that the dinner I had carefully prepared would taste much better than her usual work meals.
After making the decision, I immediately went to the supermarket to buy some vegetables and fruit, then returned home and started cooking busily. It took me more than an hour. When dinner was finally ready, it was already dark outside. Worried that Mi Cai might have already eaten, I quickly packed the food into a thermal container and rushed to Zhuo Mei as fast as I could.
Upon arriving, I chose a restaurant downstairs at Zhuo Mei and called Mi Cai again. This time she picked up quickly, but her tone was even more impatient than before: “Zhaoyang, I’m working. I don’t have time for your nonsense.”
Unfazed by her impatience, I smiled and asked, “Have you eaten yet?”
“No.”
“I knew you hadn’t. I made you dinner.”
“What? …But I really can’t come back now.”
“That’s fine. I brought it to you. I’m at the restaurant downstairs at Zhuo Mei now. You must have time to come down and eat, right?”
Mi Cai thought for a moment and said, “Well, we’re not ordering from that restaurant, so it’s not good to occupy a seat. Just bring it to my office.”
“Is that convenient?” I asked in surprise, though secretly hoping she would say yes because I really wanted to see where she worked.
“It’s okay. It’s the weekend, not regular working hours. When you get to the office area, I’ll have my assistant come get you.”
I said “Okay” and hung up the phone, grabbed the thermal container, left the restaurant, and ran all the way into Zhuo Mei Shopping Center before taking the elevator up with the crowd.
Arriving at Zhuo Mei’s office area, I indeed saw a woman waiting at the visitor registration desk. Before I could confirm whether she was Mi Cai’s assistant, she spoke first: “You must be Mr. Zhaoyang, a friend of General Manager Mi’s?”
“Exactly. You’ve got good eyesight. You recognized me right away. Is it because I’m so distinctive—maybe because I’m so charming and charismatic?”
The assistant smiled and said, “I recognized you because I’ve seen you before. Once, when I was accompanying General Manager Mi on a site inspection, I saw you walk into a women’s lingerie store. That’s why you left such a strong impression.”
“Can you not emphasize that it was a women’s store? You make it sound like I have some special fetish… I was just desperate that day and ran into the first place I could find!”
The assistant smiled again and said, “You’re pretty humorous. No wonder General Manager Mi is willing to be friends with you.”
“So you’re saying that if I weren’t funny, she wouldn’t be friends with me? You should explore my deeper qualities instead of staying on such a superficial level.”
The assistant nodded repeatedly and then guided me toward Mi Cai’s office. Along the way, she used a general manager’s access card to unlock several secured doors before finally reaching the general manager’s office. I couldn’t help but admire Zhuo Mei’s strict management—inside the company or not, if you weren’t truly senior management, it would be difficult to even meet Mi Cai.
The assistant knocked on the door and said, “General Manager Mi, Mr. Zhaoyang has arrived.”
From inside came Mi Cai’s voice: “Come in.”
The assistant opened the door and gestured for me to enter. Her professionalism was impeccable. I couldn’t help but want to chat with her a bit more—like asking whether she had a boyfriend or how much she earned per month—but she left quickly.
I walked into Mi Cai’s office carrying the thermal container. The space was so large it almost dazzled me. It was a single office, over 100 square meters in size. I had never seen such a spacious and luxurious office before. I was even more convinced of Zhuo Mei’s strength. No wonder it was Suzhou’s top department store—its presence was truly imposing!
At that moment, Mi Cai was working at her computer. I placed the thermal container on the coffee table and asked her, “Do you have time to eat now?”
“Mm, almost done,” she replied.
I took the opportunity to open the container and set the bowls and chopsticks for her. Finally, Mi Cai came over and looked at the food on the table, saying, “Looks pretty rich!”
“Of course it’s rich—it took me over an hour! Hurry up and eat.”
Mi Cai sat down beside me, and I handed her the chopsticks. She asked curiously, “Aren’t you eating?”
“I only brought one set. You go ahead. I’ll eat when I get home.” I said, then stood up and walked toward Mi Cai’s desk, wanting to experience what it was like being a CEO.
Sitting in the wide, comfortable office chair, I looked around solemnly and couldn’t help but exclaim, “You high-level executives really have it good!”
“Good?” Mi Cai replied lightly.
“Of course it’s good! You know, the office chair I used to sit on when I worked before was so tight for someone with a bigger butt. It can’t compare at all to the hardware in your general manager’s office!”
Mi Cai, in a good mood, smiled and said, “Was the office environment at Baoli really that bad?”
“Definitely not as good as Zhuo Mei’s.”
Mi Cai didn’t respond further and continued eating. Out of boredom, I opened one of her desk drawers and couldn’t help but laugh. It turned out that even the seemingly aloof Mi Cai had such a side to her.
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