Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

But Lin Yanhe only pressed her lips together and said nothing, hanging her head as though she had done something wrong.

Yang Yongjin knew what was the matter with her. He quickly set the beef noodles he had brought to one side, then reached out and took Lin Yanhe into his arms from behind. "Zhiyun, what's wrong?"

"A-am I very stupid?" Lin Yanhe let her head droop weakly and said in a low voice.

"Stupid? What do you mean, stupid? Who said you were stupid? How could you be stupid?" Yang Mo asked, astonished. "Has someone been saying things about you? Tell me who, and I'll beat him so badly that you won't recognize him the next time you see him."

"Heh." At Yang Juehuan's words, Lin Yanhe finally could not help laughing, and her mood improved a good deal. She shook her head and said, "No, it's not that. No one said anything. It's just how I feel. I really do seem to be rather stupid."

"Why would you say that?" Yang Wenru frowned, unable to understand how Lin Yanhe had suddenly come to such a conclusion.

There was no hiding it from Yang Ce now anyway, and Lin Yanhe knew these matters could not be kept from Yang Juehuan in the end either. So, as though mustering great resolve, she poured out what was on her mind: "Yang Ce, I've realized that I really am terribly stupid. I know absolutely nothing about running a company. Watching the employees below me handle business so skillfully and come up with ideas for the company's operations, I feel so useless. I'm the deputy manager, and yet I can't do anything and can't do anything well. I can't even compare to Zhao Sisi—at least the company's publicity work is all her responsibility, while I can't help with any of it—"

"Everyone very respectfully calls me Vice President Lin, but I feel like a person with nothing to do. So—so every day after work I write down what everyone has said, along with the techniques for handling business. I'm afraid I'll forget it all as time goes by, so I've kept at it every day after work, recording and then sorting and summarizing it all—"

Yang Xutang was struck dumb by Lin Yanhe's explanation and did not know what to say. When he had put Lin Yanhe in the deputy manager's position, he had not thought about it so carefully at all; he had simply felt that, as his woman, she ought to have a career of her own. But it had never occurred to him that he was placing such pressure on her.

Looking back now, it seemed he had been too impatient. Lin Yanhe was, after all, only a nineteen-year-old college freshman—how could she bear such a heavy burden?

"Then these books on business management—are they also what you study on your own after work?" Yang Ce asked, pointing to the thick volumes on the desk, textbooks on management by Philip Kotler.

"Mm." Lin Yanhe gave a slight nod.

"Ah." Yang Yongjin could not decide whether to be annoyed or amused. "Zhiyun, the truth is, as a company's manager, all you need to do is grasp the overall picture. You don't have to know how to do everything. It's like the owner of a restaurant—he doesn't necessarily know how to cook. It's the same principle."

"That's not the same. He may not know how to cook, but he certainly understands the process of cooking, the ingredients required, and the costs. I know I don't need to understand how jewelry is made, but I must understand how the company operates. It's the same principle," Lin Yanhe retorted, full of conviction.

Yang Xutang was rather surprised. He had not expected Lin Yanhe to be able to articulate such reasoning—which showed that she really had made progress; otherwise she could never have produced such well-founded arguments.

"All right, I'll grant that you're right. But you can't ruin your health by studying and improving yourself so desperately, can you? It would break my heart." Yang Ce pinched Lin Yanhe's cheek and smiled. "Look at you—you've gotten thin."

"Don't all you boys prefer skinnier girls?" Lin Yanhe had finally said the thing she had kept bottled up for so long, and it came as a relief. Most of all, Yang Ce had not laughed at her—he had even offered a few words of comfort, which lifted her spirits, and she began teasing him back.

Yang Jiyan was taken aback. "You learned that from the people at the company too?"

"Mm. Little Tao was joking around with a client during a business meeting today, and I remembered it just now while I was going back over my notes." Lin Yanhe nodded, a little embarrassed.

"Ha, learning all the wrong things." Yang Ce reached out and tapped her on the forehead. "Me, I like fuller girls—they feel better to the touch." As he spoke, he moved his hand toward Lin Yanhe's chest.

"Stop it, don't mess around, this is the office—I'm the vice president, how bad would it look if someone saw us?" Lin Yanhe was badly startled and quickly batted Yang Juehuan's hand away.

"It's nighttime, there's no one here." Yang Hengye grinned, then suddenly slapped his forehead. "Oh, right—I've been talking so much I forgot, I bought beef noodles. If we don't eat them soon they'll go soggy and lose their chew."

Yang Ce hurriedly opened the noodles in a disposable container, set out the side dishes, and handed the chopsticks to Lin Yanhe. "Wow, smells amazing. Good timing too—I haven't eaten either, let's eat together."

To be continued

891. Yang Juehuan's Fallacies

891 Yang Juehuan's Fallacies. Lin Yanhe had no choice but to stand up, take the chopsticks Yang Ce held out to her, and sit down at the coffee table nearby. "You're just sabotaging my studying. In a minute I won't remember a word they said."

"Enough—Rome wasn't built in a day. A towering building rises from the ground, and haste makes waste." Yang Hengye spoke with an easy air. "Everything has to be done step by step. Who else does things the way you do, working this hard every single day?"

"But I'm an economics student. I feel like I don't know anything, and your company is bound to keep growing. I don't want to be a useless idiot who can't do anything." As Lin Yanhe said this, her expression dimmed with discouragement.

"Who says so?" Yang Ce thought her mindset had gotten stuck in a rut and that he had to talk her out of it properly. "How could Yang Juehuan's woman possibly be useless? That's the wrong way to think about it, Zhiyun. You have to understand—yes, you're an economics student, but you're only a freshman.

You're only in your first year, and just the first semester at that. What we're studying now probably hasn't even touched the professional courses yet, so you can say you're still someone with no foundation in management at all. How could you possibly compare yourself to people who've been scrambling in the real world for years? Give it time, and you'll be stronger than all of them.

And look at me—what do you think I know? I don't understand a thing about the company's affairs either, and yet I can run a company. A boss doesn't have to understand everything; he only has to know how to use people, and that's enough.

Zhiyun, no one will look down on you, because in those employees' eyes, whatever else you may be, you're their boss—and that's one thing that will never change.

"But I don't do anything all day." Lin Yanhe felt that Yang Ce seemed to be making some sense, though something about it still didn't sit right.

"Of course a boss doesn't do anything. If the boss could do everything himself, what would he need employees for? No employee wants a boss who's omnicompetent—that way, wouldn't his own job be in jeopardy?" Yang Puqi said with an air of perfect righteousness.

"Ah?" Lin Yanhe was dumbfounded and stood there blankly for quite a while. It really did seem to be so?