Walking on Thin Ice

A lot of work? You mean a lot of work?

After hearing Ye Shuang, Liu Mei froze. How was that possible? She instinctively glanced at the formidable young lady not far away. Who would dare assign her a mountain of work?

Even Ted wouldn’t have the nerve to do that, right?

Besides, everything had been fine over the past two weeks. The workload had always been reasonable, and Bai Yuyou and Keke were both diligent, so nothing had happened. Sometimes, Liu Mei even forgot that Bai Yuyou and Keke came from no ordinary backgrounds.

“Uh… Director Ye, I’ll go find out what happened first. Maybe there was a mistake in the arrangements?” Liu Mei began to sweat nervously. She never would have imagined that Ye Shuang would come in person.

I’ve spent my whole life walking on thin ice. Why does it feel like I’m really done for this time?

“It’s fine. Go find out what happened first.” Ye Shuang smiled, but that gentle smile made Liu Mei feel as though trouble was just around the corner.

Ye Shuang sat down beside Bai Yuyou. “Why aren’t you going home?”

“Work…” For some reason, Bai Yuyou looked like a child who had done something wrong. “I wanted to help. I’m sorry…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. What are you apologizing for?” Ye Shuang said gently. She picked up the documents and started looking through them. The work wasn’t difficult; it was just tedious and time-consuming proofreading—the kind of task that required a lot of effort for very little reward.

“Come on, I’ll do it with you,” Ye Shuang said.

“Okay…”

When Liu Mei saw Ye Shuang preparing to handle the work herself, her legs nearly gave way. She hurriedly said, “Director Ye, why don’t you take Miss Bai home first? We can take care of the rest.”

“It’s fine. Do you think I can’t do it?” Ye Shuang asked.

“Of course not!”

“All right.” Ye Shuang waved a hand, signaling Liu Mei to be quiet.

As Ye Shuang and Bai Yuyou worked together on the documents, everyone besides the Two Fish and Big Backpack, who were happily watching the drama unfold, felt extremely uneasy. Liu Mei in particular had already imagined herself being fired the next day for having entered the company with the wrong foot.

By seven in the evening, they had finally finished most of the documents.

“That was more exhausting than I expected. At least it’s done.” Ye Shuang organized the documents in her hands and handed them to Liu Mei behind her. “Miss Liu, check them and see if everything is in order.”

“Yes, yes, they’re fine!” Liu Mei replied repeatedly. She had been standing behind Ye Shuang the entire time she and Bai Yuyou worked, so the moment the documents were handed over, she answered without even looking at them.

“How can you be so careless? You didn’t even take a look,” Ye Shuang said.

Danger!

Liu Mei hurriedly explained, “I—I was standing there watching Director Ye the whole time…”

Inwardly, she let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Thank goodness I’m quick on my feet. I actually managed to turn that around.

“Since you had so much free time to watch us, why didn’t you lend a hand?” The moment Ye Shuang said this, Liu Mei’s heart leaped into her throat again.

“Um…” Liu Mei looked as though she was about to cry.

“I’m just joking. Don’t be so nervous. Am I really that scary?” Ye Shuang said with a smile. She wasn’t actually angry. After all, as a manager, she couldn’t act on impulse over every little thing.

Liu Mei was speechless.

You fire people without even blinking. Who wouldn’t be afraid of you?

When the company had previously carried out a restructuring and major reshuffle, Liu Mei had nearly thought her career was coming to an end. She wasn’t good at flattering her superiors, and her work was merely average without anything particularly outstanding. Yet, in the end, she had been kept on.

“All right. I’ll leave the rest to you. I still have to take them home for dinner.”

“Yes, Director Ye.”

After Ye Shuang left with Bai Yuyou and the others, Liu Mei’s body went limp, and she collapsed into a chair.

“Sister Liu, are you all right?” several employees asked as they gathered around her.

“Fuck! Damn it! Who pulled this crap?!” Liu Mei slammed a hand on the desk. “Who did it?! Was it Ted?!”

“The team leader wasn’t here today,” said a girl from Bai Yuyou’s group. “It was Tao Yiyi. She dumped all her work on the intern. She’s done that before, too.”

Liu Mei felt her chest ache with anger. “I’m so pissed off! She won’t do her own work properly and dumps it on someone else. And of all people, she had to dump it on the intern? Does she really think every intern is easy to push around?”

Dumping one task on someone else might have been forgivable, but she had even made the other person continue working after hours. Didn’t she know that Bai Yuyou went home with Director Ye after work?

Now look what happened. She had dumped the work on Director Ye, and Director Ye had ended up finishing it for her.

How could someone cause such a massive disaster?

She went home after work, while her supervisor finished the job for her.

“Sister Liu, calm down. We’ll message Yiyi right away.”

“Don’t send her anything! I’ll question her myself tomorrow!”

The others fell silent.

Clearly, Liu Mei was absolutely furious.

…

Meanwhile, in another part of the parking lot, Ye Shuang and the others were getting ready to leave. Since they had finished work so late, they decided to eat out instead of going home to cook.

“Good thing Sister Chen Qin is away on a business trip today.” Ye Shuang smiled as she held the steering wheel.

Otherwise, with two company heads standing there to protect their people, Liu Mei probably would have been scared stiff.

Bai Yuyou sat in the passenger seat, playing with her phone. She seemed to have realized that she had done something wrong and made everyone spend so much extra time because of her.

“All right, I’m not blaming you.” Seeing Bai Yuyou lower her head, Ye Shuang reached over and gently rubbed her hair.

“Didn’t I teach you before that you need to learn how to say no?”

“Mm.” Bai Yuyou nodded.

“Actually, learning to refuse people works the same way whether you’re at school or in society,” Ye Shuang continued.

“If you don’t know how to refuse people at school, others will see that you’re easygoing and keep asking you to do this or that for them.”

“The workplace is the same. If you become a people-pleaser at work, you’ll only bring yourself a lot of unnecessary trouble. Just like today—as soon as you make an exception, people will keep piling more and more work on you that doesn’t belong to you.”

“Not everyone in this world knows how to be grateful,” Ye Shuang continued.

“If you’re always helping others and then refuse them just once, all you’ll get in return is their resentment.”

“On the other hand, if you always refuse people and only help them once in a while, they’ll be grateful to you.”

“One grain of rice given in kindness becomes a debt; a whole bushel given becomes a grudge. I’ve taught you this before.”

Bai Yuyou took her words to heart. In fact, she understood the principle.

“I know…” The girl paused. “I was afraid that if I didn’t finish the work, it would affect the company and drag you down, Ye Shuang.”

“Haha, silly girl.” Ye Shuang lightly tapped her on the head.

“The group is far too large for something this minor to have any impact at all. All you need to do is focus on learning and gaining experience. As for whether you’re dragging anyone down, that’s something the management is supposed to worry about.”

Bai Yuyou seemed to understand, though not completely. She simply nodded.