Chapter 259 Luo Xiaoxi’s Courage

Since Su Yuanyuan’s case, Su Jianan had not yet gone back to work.

Recently, the court had ruled on Chen Xuanxuan’s case. She was convicted of a.s.sault and accidental homicide and was sentenced to prison, and no one appealed for her.

Then, Su Jianan received Captain Yan’s call. He wanted her to go back to work.

Initially, she had been looking forward to this call for a long time, but now, since something had happened to the Luo family, she worried about Luo Xiaoxi, so she asked for a leave.

Today, Su Jianan deliberately got up early to prepare breakfast for Luo Xiaoxi and they went to the hospital. Suddenly, she heard from the nurse that Mrs. Luo was in critical condition and was in emergency treatment.

Su Jianan hurried in front of the emergency room and saw Luo Xiaoxi standing there alone, helplessly looking at the closed door like a child awaiting her fate.

Luckily, it was a false alarm, but Mrs. Luo was transferred back to ICU and still hadn’t returned to a stable condition.

Before Su Jianan could comfort Luo Xiaoxi or Luo Xiaoxi could heave a sigh of relief, the company called her. An important director handed in his resignation to Human Resources and wanted to leave immediately despite needing to pay a penalty.

No one knew how Luo Enterprise would go, and some other company must have poached him. The reason he did not care about the penalty was probably that his employer would pay it.

However, he could not leave, because once someone left first, more great employees would subsequently follow him in leaving.

Luo Xiaoxi called in person to persuade him but it was in vain. He only told Luo Xiaoxi that she should soon find a replacement, or he couldn’t hand over his work and would even take his team to his new company.

After the call, Luo Xiaoxi finally broke down and squat down to howl.

Never did she expect that someday she would face this dilemma and this huge pressure.

Su Jianan tried to comfort Luo Xiaoxi while she asked Lu Boyan what to do on the phone.

“Can’t she persuade the director at all?” Lu Boyan asked.

“Not at all.” Su Jianan sighed. “Xiaoxi almost begged him, but he insisted on leaving. “How do we keep this from affecting the other employees?”

“Find a more capable and more well-known director in the business.”

Su Jianan thought this was a good method, but where to find such a director?

She thought about it. “How about you lend one to Xiaoxi temporarily?”

Lu Boyan slightly smiled. “I’ll have Shen Yuechuan contact some headhunters.”

Shen Yuechuan was fast in handling affairs and after an hour, sent good news. Luo Xiaoxi should go to the company to interview the manager candidate.

Su Jianan accompanied Luo Xiaoxi to Luo Enterprise. The two met the candidate in the president’s office. Su Jianan widened her eyes, but the man signaled her, so she had to pretend that she did not know him.

Luo Xiaoxi had never interviewed anyone before, but the young man named Zhou looked elegant and handsome. He was the eye-catching type in a crowd. He and Su Yicheng graduated from the same famous university. Maybe because he had been educated abroad, he looked very gentlemanly.

“From your resume, I can see that Mr. Zhou is doing well abroad. Why did you suddenly quit to return home?” Luo Xiaoxi asked.

“I didn’t suddenly quit. In fact, I’d been planning to return home for more than a year.” Zhou Wenhao said, “The reason is simple. My parents are getting older and they can’t leave their homeland, so I have to come back.”

The word “parents” touched Luo Xiaoxi. She stood up and reached her hand to Zhou Wenhao. “Welcome to Luo Enterprise.”

Zhou Wenhao shook hands with Luo Xiaoxi and offered to get the work handed over from the previous manager. Su Jianan chimed in. “Xiaoxi, go back to work. I’ll see Mr. Zhou off… for you.”

Luo Xiaoxi didn’t suspect a thing and just nodded.

Outside the office, when Su Jianan was sure that Luo Xiaoxi couldn’t hear them, she asked Zhou Wenhao, “Brother Zhou, how did my brother talk you into this?”

Zhou Wenhao put both hands in his pockets. “He begged me to do it.”

Su Jianan: “…”

“I’ve known him for a long time and it was the first time that he had talked to me in that way. I wondered which woman had changed him to be like that, so I agreed.” Zhou Wenhao smiled. “It turned out to be Luo Xiaoxi, who had never stopped chasing after him in the last decade or so.”

In fact, Luo Xiaoxi knew almost all of Su Yicheng’s friends. However, Su Yicheng knew this Zhou Wenhao after going abroad to study. Su Jianan had met with him a few times, but Luo Xiaoxi didn’t know him.

Just like Luo Xiaoxi had seen on Zhou Wenhao’s resume, Zhou Wenhao was doing very well abroad and many headhunters must have been trying to reach him after he returned home.

If Su Yicheng persuaded him to help Luo Xiaoxi, Su Yicheng definitely did more than just beg him.

“Anyway, I’ll thank you for Xiaoxi.”

“You’re welcome.” Zhou Wenhao smiled. “You know, your brother especially told me not to let Luo Xiaoxi know about this.”

Then, he followed the human resources manager to get the previous work handed over.

When the department staff heard that their manager was leaving, many of them had thought about following him. However, unexpectedly, they had another major expert in business, Zhou Wenhao, as their new leader—many of them wors.h.i.+pped him. More importantly, he was younger and more handsome than their former manager. Also, he had a better wardrobe.

Not only the department, but the entire company boiled. Someone snapped a shot of Zhou Wenhao and posted it on the company’s internal forum. After one morning, Zhou Wenhao had become the latest heartthrob.

The staff had already put the director’s resignation and the company’s crisis behind them. All they did was exclaim how fast Luo Xiaoxi had been in hiring Zhou Wenhao, and think about how to chat him up.

Luo Xiaoxi finally felt a little relieved because in the meeting in the afternoon, the board of directors seemed to look at her differently. They did not treat her as if she were a child. However, they still asked her about the cooperation with the UK firm.

Vice President Chen spoke for her. “You can’t push her too much. Experienced directors couldn’t do it in half a year, so how can you demand that Xiaoxi do it in half a month? Look, Xiaoxi has handled the personnel s.h.i.+ft very well today. Could any of us present have gotten Zhou Wenhao so quickly?”

“Hmph. Who knows what Ms. Luo did to get Zhou Wenhao. Judging from the gossip during the compet.i.tion, she seems to be good at… getting things she wants with dirty tricks.”

They implied that Luo Xiaoxi was too obvious with her unwritten rules, and then the entire conference room fell silent as if it were frozen.

Zhou Wenhao, who attended the company’s meeting for the first time, took the initiative to speak. “Director Han, please have some respect for women. And I have a girlfriend; I don’t think she’d like what you just said.”

“Director Han,” Luo Xiaoxi suddenly answered, and dozens of eyes unanimously fell on her. They saw her lips curve into a hint of a sneer. “You can’t think all the women are the same just because your daughter had traded her body for a third-rate foreign university’s diploma.”

Director Han’s face instantly changed, and he pointed to Luo Xiaoxi. “You…”

“You think I disrespected you, do you?” Luo Xiaoxi smiled. “As a senior, you don’t respect yourself first, so you can’t blame the younger one for shaming you. Last time, when you proposed to have Vice President Chen act as the deputy president, I didn’t do anything, but not because I’m weak.”

With a “slap”, Luo Xiaoxi threw a file in front of Director Han. “Don’t think that no one knows you’ve been using your position to help your relatives and also get commissions from the company. I wanted to turn a blind eye, but now, I think I’ll transfer your business to someone else.”

She glanced at other surprised directors. “I know what all of you have done. I made Director Han lose face in front of everyone because he upset me, so, you don’t have worry for now.”

There was no anger on Luo Xiaoxi’s beautiful face; she even kept smiling the whole time. However, everyone present still feared her and didn’t dare to act boldly.

After a while, another director spoke hesitantly. “Ms. Luo…”

“Don’t call me Ms. Luo.” Luo Xiaoxi looked fierce. “In this company, I’m now the deputy president!”

The meeting could not carry on. Luo Xiaoxi got up to leave, and after a while, everyone present realized that the meeting had finished. They left one by one and no one spoke.

Zhou Wenhao went to see Luo Xiaoxi. She wearily lay on the chair and didn’t at all look as fierce as when she had thundered.

Maybe it was because Lu Boyan had introduced Zhou Wenhao, but Luo Xiaoxi did not guard against him and even subconsciously treated him as someone close to her. She seemed not to mind that he saw her like this, and she managed to cheer up. “Do you want to see me?”

“I’ve sorted out a file and need your signature.” Zhou Wenhao put down a folder and added, “You looked cool just now. After you left, those old guys were shocked for quite a while.”

Luo Xiaoxi rubbed her temples, but withdrew her hand when she remembered that it was what Su Yicheng used to do when he got upset. Then, she smiled. “I used to think that if I acted polite as a junior, they wouldn’t make things difficult for me. But they took my politeness as weakness.”

Even if she really lost her parents and Luo Enterprise really got into a crisis today, Luo Xiaoxi would never let people bully her.

“I’ll help you.” Zhou Wenhao said, “Someone entrusted me, so I’ll do my best to help Luo Enterprise through this.”

“Thank you.” Luo Xiaoxi said, “And send my thanks to Luo Boyan.”

Zhou Wenhao smiled a little awkwardly and left after discussing some business matters with Luo Xiaoxi.

He wanted to tell Luo Xiaoxi that she really should thank Su Yicheng!

“Wenhao, this time, I’ve got to beg you.” Even on the phone, he could imagine Su Yicheng’s bitter smile.

“What happened?” He joked then. “Want me to help get some pretty girl?”

“Actually, you’re right. I really want you to do that for me.” Su Yicheng sighed.

Zhou Wenhao detected something abnormal in his sigh.

In the past, some proud girls would ignore Su Yicheng at first, but in less than a day, they would turn into his prey. However, Su Yicheng had never treated them seriously. Women all knew his rules, which were that he would never cry or get maudlin because of them.

Intense curiosity made him sign the deal, plus he really was waiting for a good work opportunity. Though currently, it had been very unstable, Luo Enterprise was still a huge platform. He took the job and also made Su Yicheng owe him one.

Nevertheless, Su Yicheng especially reminded him not to disclose anything, and he really couldn’t tell her anything. Thus, he could only let Su Yicheng be the man behind the scenes.