Chapter 8: Controlling People Through People (5.5k)
Yu Xing invited Liu Wanying to listen in on how the unlucky fool's confession went, but the latter wasn't interested in it and had already made plans to go shopping with a friend, so the two exchanged phone numbers, she changed her clothes, and headed out first.
Yu Xing poured a glass of water to calm his junior, first texted his bank account number to the big client, and only then listened to how the confession had gone.
The process itself was quite simple.
It was 15% stating their purpose, 80% getting scolded and lectured earnestly, 4% holding firm, and 1% confession.
"You got lectured too?" Yu Xing found it funny.
"Well, um... Xing-ge, it wasn't me saying it, it was—was—was Teacher, he..." Zhong Zhiling said awkwardly, "he guessed it."
"No surprise. I'm the one who brought you there, and Ying-jie and I discussed so much right in front of him." Yu Xing waved his hand, signaling his junior not to worry about his feelings, and said with a laugh, "Fine by me, saves me the trouble of telling him myself."
Zhong Zhiling said worriedly, "But, but, Teacher said he's going to call my mom and dad..."
Clearly admitted to grad school, clearly about to enroll in the fall, yet deferring enrollment at a time like this to go do some startup?
According to Zhong Zhiling's account, the teacher suggested the two of them go get checked out at a psychiatric hospital—he had an expert friend there!
"Teacher means well. So did he make the call or not?" Yu Xing's emotions barely rippled; he'd been through far worse situations.
"Not yet. Teacher told me to think it over carefully. He said he had a meeting to attend first." Zhong Zhiling's tears had stopped, only his eyes were a bit red and swollen.
Yu Xing slowly sipped his tea, considering the current situation, and said carefully, "Zhiling, don't panic. Teacher hasn't made the call yet, and your parents don't know. That call is coming sooner or later, but even if it doesn't, we've already burned our bridges—there's no other choice."
Anyway, in his current situation, he couldn't think of a better option for the moment. Whenever he thought about the scale of the funds he'd blown up, the only ideas that popped into his head were things like private pawn shops and mass-emailing people for money.
What he had now was both the fastest way to make money and the relatively safest.
Zhong Zhiling took a deep breath. He knew his senior was right—this was something he'd have to face sooner or later.
"Of course, if we already had some results to show, this call would go much smoother." Yu Xing changed tack and said thoughtfully, "Zhiling, I have a work insight I can share with you—you can try it in the future. It's called 'controlling people through people.'"
Zhong Zhiling found it a bit odd. Xing-ge's work experience? Did he mean in the lab group? Or from a previous internship?
But he glossed over that point and asked in confusion, "What does 'controlling people through people' mean?"
"Let's take an example. Say you lead a team selling houses." Yu Xing spoke slowly. "The team has many people, and not everyone respects you. What do you do? Spend all day trying to win them over, or spend all day giving them grief? Never mind that it could escalate conflicts—you'd end up ignoring the biggest goal of all: selling houses and hitting targets."
"In actual work, don't waste your energy on that."
"What is a person? The essence of a person is the sum of all their social relationships."
"In a team—or, more easily for you to understand, in a class—someone always gets along well with certain people. He won't listen to me, but he'll listen to the opinions, even the commands, of those around him."
"What we need to do is not subdue him, but leverage the people around him or above him. That's how you better accomplish your main goal."
Yu Xing slowly recounted some of the insights on work and management he had accumulated during his days of financial ruin.
Zhong Zhiling's expression was rather bewildered. Looking at his senior's expectant gaze, he slowly let out a sound through his nose: "Huh?"
Yu Xing drew a breath, suppressing his twitching nerves, pointed toward the other bedroom, and spat out three words: "Pillow talk."
"Pillow talk, fine, no need for all that..." Zhong Zhiling mumbled super quietly so his senior couldn't hear, but in his heart he firmly committed those words and those four characters to memory—controlling people through people.
"You have money on you?" Yu Xing asked at this point.
Zhong Zhiling answered warily, "No! I gave it all to you!"
Yu Xing nodded and instructed, "Go buy some celery, pork belly, and live shrimp. I'm going to make some dumplings for shi-niang—we can eat them tonight, and freeze the rest for whenever we want them later."
"Making dumplings will win her over?" Zhong Zhiling asked doubtfully. "What if shi-niang doesn't help?"
Yu Xing got up and headed to the kitchen, smiling. "If she won't help, so what? That's my shi-niang. Making her some dumplings is nothing."
Zhong Zhiling fell silent for a moment. His senior's character wasn't so ordinary after all.
The two split up to run their errands, neither noticing a pair of little ears listening at the end of the hallway.
Fifteen minutes later, Zhong Zhiling returned with groceries from the supermarket at the entrance of the residential complex, and found that his senior had already set out the cutting board on the coffee table, with kneaded dough beside it—and little junior sister Liu Zhishan sitting on the sofa.
"Little kid, don't watch so much TV. It's bad for your eyes," Zhong Zhiling said.
Liu Zhishan glared at this new senior brother and said nothing.
Yu Xing carried the bags to the kitchen to wash and prep everything.
Zhong Zhiling followed behind him, wanting to help, but his senior's movements were so quick and practiced that there seemed to be no space left for him.
The celery was chopped fine and salted to draw out the water.
The shrimp heads were fried for oil, the tails deveined.
Yu Xing deftly cut the shrimp tails into large pieces, then marinated them with salt, white pepper, and cooking wine. He glanced over and saw his junior standing there blankly, unsure what to do, and had to say, "Mince the pork belly for the filling. You can do that, right?"
Zhong Zhiling finally got assigned a task.
Yu Xing continued working with his hands while saying, "Don't over-mince the meat, it'll get watery. Later we'll add oyster sauce, light soy sauce, cooking wine, and shrimp oil, then fold in water three times."
He thought for a moment, then rejected the idea: "Never mind, you just mince the meat. I'll do the rest—I don't want it wasted."
"Xing-ge, what does 'folding in water' mean?" Zhong Zhiling genuinely didn't know any of this.
"It means working the water into the meat filling so it absorbs the liquid as you stir and becomes sticky and thick," Yu Xing explained in detail. "Then when the dumplings go into the pot to boil, the filling has plenty of moisture, so it doesn't get tough—it tastes tender and fresh."
Zhong Zhiling said sincerely, "Xing-ge, how do you know everything!"
"Who's born knowing this? Someone taught me." Yu Xing unconsciously showed a faint smile as he spoke—come to think of it, "folding in water" was something his little girlfriend in the dream had taught him.
The thought vanished in an instant, and he continued to his junior, "It's just like jumping out of the world of medicine. I understand that you're feeling panicked, cramped, and lost right now. As for entrepreneurship, never mind you—I have no experience either. But we really don't have much time, and we need to see results quickly, so we need to think more and be more proactive."
Yu Xing wasn't intimidating him—just laying out the current situation, plain and simple.
Zhong Zhiling knew that his own performance over the past two days had probably been quite poor. He gave a low "mm" and only said, "I hope shi-niang can talk Teacher around."
The dumpling filling needed time to sit and absorb the flavors, and the dough needed time to rest too.
The two returned to the living room. Yu Xing sat down next to his little junior sister and said with a smile, "Shanshan, gege wants to discuss something with you, okay?"
Liu Zhishan blinked and spoke like a little adult: "Go ahead, gege."
"It's too hot out. Gege will buy you ice cream later and take you to the amusement park too." Yu Xing made the promise first, then brought up the matter, "It's just—when your dad comes home tonight, if he gets angry, tell him not to be angry, and say lots of nice things about gege to your mom and dad."
Liu Zhishan turned back to the TV and asked, not very invested, "What nice things about gege should I say?"
"I'll teach you." Yu Xing smiled. "You say, 'I remember one time you came to pick me up, and it suddenly started raining and you didn't have an umbrella. You held me in your arms and sprinted all the way home. You got soaked through and got sick, but I was fine.'"
Liu Zhishan gave an "mm" and agreed crisply: "Okay."
Seeing how agreeable the little junior sister was, Zhong Zhiling chimed in with an idea too: "Shanshan, I'll teach you something too."
Liu Zhishan glanced at Zhong Zhiling and said flatly, "Who asked you to teach?"
Zhong Zhiling was stunned: "..."
Wait, you... you little kid...
Zhong Zhiling felt like everything had changed. He had been a soon-to-be grad student envied by his classmates and the pride of his family, and now he was worried about Teacher calling his parents, and even a little kid was dismissing him...
Th-this is truly rock bottom status!
He had no comeback and could only sulk quietly off to the side.
Yu Xing was also a bit surprised by his little junior sister's performance. He didn't say more, only reminded Shanshan to be obedient and take care of her mom at home.
Liu Zhishan listened obediently and agreed.
Yu Xing watched some TV with his little junior sister for a while before starting to wrap the dumplings.
As someone who once had to cook for himself to save money, he was very practiced at this. Halfway through wrapping, shi-niang Yan Lirong came out of the bedroom after her afternoon nap.
"Yu Xing, you're really in the mood today. I've never seen you show off this skill before." Yan Lirong sat down beside her daughter, rubbed her head, and said to Yu Xing with a smile.
"I practiced hard for a while. My cooking used to be bad—only now do I dare make you all try it." Yu Xing could only explain it this way, then added, "Shi-niang, half of them are already in the freezer. Whenever you want to eat them, just take them out directly."
Yan Lirong smiled and nodded. After a quiet moment, she said, "Yu Xing, when I woke up just now, I saw the text Lao Liu sent me. He wants me to talk you two out of this and get you to think it over properly. What is going on? What are you two playing at?"
"Shi-niang, Zhong Zhiling and I put money into an investment product and lost it." Yu Xing's hands never stopped wrapping dumplings, and he lowered his voice a little, "Now there's a good opportunity for a startup project, and we plan to try it first. We won't continue with school for now."
He explained the whole situation in one sentence, but didn't mention the specific amount.
Yan Lirong frowned and said anxiously, "How can that be? You can't just quit school like that! What investment? When did this start? No, no wonder Lao Liu is angry. This won't do! Yu Xing, don't be rash!"
"It's quite a lot of money." Yu Xing wasn't bitter or resentful; his tone was light but firm, "Shi-niang, we're not being rash. I talked with Ying-jie a lot today. If you think I've lost my head, ask her what she thinks of our project—and Teacher can ask her too."
Yan Lirong had seen everything during dinner and the discussion afterward. This one remark made her hesitate.
Her sister-in-law's excellence was beyond question—her job involved constantly flying between cities to work with companies.
If even she approved...
Yu Xing deftly wrapped a dumpling and looked up. "Shi-niang, if you don't believe us, won't you at least believe her?"
Yan Lirong turned it over this way and that, and sighed, "Still, you can't just quit school!"
"Shi-niang, we've found a good opportunity worth trying, so this time we're just deferring enrollment." Yu Xing said calmly, "If it really doesn't work out, we'll come back and finish school."
Yan Lirong frowned and said nothing. After a long while, she said, "This is too much of a gamble. How much did you lose in that investment? Were you scammed? Can it still be recovered? You all studied all those years to get where you are."
Yu Xing repeated the same words as before, only with a firmer tone: "Shi-niang, if you don't believe us, won't you at least believe her?"
Zhong Zhiling caught the loosening in her stance and sensed hope, chiming in as well: "That's right."
Yan Lirong looked at Yu Xing, then at Zhong Zhiling, and finally back at Yu Xing, saying tactfully, "It's not that I distrust her, or you, but starting a company—you need people helping you, right? How are you going to struggle through it all alone?"
Zhong Zhiling was about to point out that he was part of this too, when he suddenly stopped the words in his throat. Huh—believe her and believe him, so who exactly is it they don't believe? How am I suddenly not even part of it...
He bowed his head and swallowed the humiliation, realizing the little junior sister must take after someone!
Yu Xing's hands kept wrapping dumplings as he said, "Shi-niang, rich people have rich people's ways, teams have teams' ways. There are so many paths—we'll just fight it out in the cracks. Anyway, I've made up my mind."
Yan Lirong said angrily, "Something this big, and you've just made up your mind? Even if you're going to do it, you should discuss it with your family first."
Yu Xing didn't answer right away. He finished wrapping the last dumpling, arranged it neatly, patted the flour off himself, and smiled. "Shi-niang, aside from the investment matter, we wanted to tell the family after we have some results. At the very latest, before September, I'll tell my family."
Without waiting for Yan Lirong to speak, he pointed at the dumplings and said, "Shi-niang, I'll separate the dumplings out in a bit. The ones on top are for you and Teacher—eat them whenever you want. The two layers underneath are Shanshan's. I didn't put ginger in those, so don't mix them up when you give them to her."
The little girl Liu Zhishan didn't like ginger.
"Ai, you, you..." Yan Lirong looked at the neatly arranged dumplings, then at Yu Xing's resolute face, and suddenly felt a pang of sadness. She said angrily, "You finish this batch of dumplings and then you're never planning to set foot in this house again?"
"I'm afraid I'll be busy later. Before, with Teacher and shi-niang looking after me, I could bury myself in the lab without worry." Yu Xing said earnestly, "Now I'm going off to work on a project and have to worry about everything myself—I don't know how busy I'll be. But no matter what, whether Teacher is angry with me or not, he's still my teacher, and you're still my shi-niang."
Yan Lirong was pregnant, and her emotions fluctuated easily. At these heartfelt words, tears began welling in her eyes. She turned her head away, no longer looking at that neat tray of dumplings.
Yu Xing hurriedly poured her some water and mentioned taking Liu Zhishan to the amusement park in a couple of days, steering the conversation away.
Yan Lirong composed herself, knowing Yu Xing wouldn't change his decision, and fussed over him a bit, reminding him to take care of himself.
At four in the afternoon, Liu Jingrong still hadn't returned, so Yu Xing and Zhong Zhiling rose to take their leave.
Yan Lirong called the two of them back, went into the bedroom first, and came out holding a thick stack of cash, trying to stuff it into Yu Xing's pocket.
Yu Xing firmly declined.
"I don't understand the things you're talking about, and I don't know what Xiao Ying thinks, but I do know you must be short on money right now." Yan Lirong pressed down on Yu Xing's arm to stop him, insisting, "It's not much, and it's not for your business. It's for when you're hungry and need to eat, or when you need clothes and can go buy some. You say you acknowledge me as your shi-niang—then take it!"
Yu Xing had a moment of disorientation. The person was still the same person; shi-niang was still stuffing money into his hands at the moment of crisis.
He stopped refusing and accepted it: "Okay, shi-niang."
Yan Lirong nodded, satisfied, then, worried her eldest disciple might feel guilty about taking the money, added, "That's more like it. Later, when you make your big money, just bring over more things during the holidays and we'll call it even."
Yu Xing nodded in agreement, then crouched down to tell Liu Zhishan to take good care of her mom.
Unexpectedly, the moment Liu Zhishan made eye contact with Yu Xing, she said coolly: "Leave it to me. You can rest easy."
Yu Xing: "..."
He patted the little girl's head, stood up, and said to Yan Lirong, "Shi-niang, you should head back. When Teacher comes home tonight, talk him out of being angry."
Yan Lirong took her daughter's hand and said as a last word, "Ai, you two take care too. Call if anything comes up—don't be embarrassed."
Yu Xing and Zhong Zhiling left the teacher's home.
Each lost in his own thoughts, neither said a word as they walked out of the residential complex.
Yu Xing stopped at the gate: "Nine o'clock tonight, same spot by the lake as last time."
"Huh? Xing-ge, where are you going? Aren't, aren't we going together?" Zhong Zhiling wanted to tag along.
"I need to look into the potential clients on our side, and think over and digest some of my conversation with Ying-jie. She really gave me a lot of inspiration." Yu Xing said thoughtfully, "She used math to build a preliminary product model, but I think the real probability should be lower than 3.7%, which means there's a lot of room to adjust our product design. Anyway, I need to think."
Zhong Zhiling argued, "I can sit nearby without disturbing your thinking."
Yu Xing said simply, "You'd disturb."
Zhong Zhiling had grown somewhat numb to his place in things. After a few seconds of silence, he asked somewhat blankly, "Xing-ge, do you think Teacher will agree? Will that pillow talk and little-padded-jacket approach actually work?"
Yu Xing shook his head slightly: "We'll find out soon enough."
He waved goodbye and strolled off along the road.
Zhong Zhiling watched his senior's back for a while, at a loss for where to go. After much deliberation, he decided to go have dinner with his girlfriend that evening.
After the emotional rollercoaster of the past two days, he too wanted some emotional comfort.
However, before dinner even started, Zhong Zhiling received a call from his teacher. Though the man's tone was still stiff, it had softened considerably compared to his earlier stance.
Zhong Zhiling was overjoyed—on one hand, he had more or less gained temporary permission; on the other, he marveled at the power of "pillow talk" plus "little-padded-jacket talk."
He couldn't help but think again of what his senior had taught him—controlling people through people. Was it really that miraculous?
Zhong Zhiling hadn't seen his girlfriend in two days, and having first received good news, the dinner was exceptionally pleasant, with none of the vexing arguments from before.
After the meal, he went back to his dorm to shower, then headed straight for the lakeside spot where he'd met Xing-ge last time.
Xing-ge hadn't arrived yet.
Zhong Zhiling sat down and let his thoughts drift.
About ten minutes later, he saw his senior walking over.
"Xing-ge, you're here." Zhong Zhiling greeted him.
"Mm." Yu Xing nodded slightly, sat down on the ground, and asked casually, "Where's Lu Haiying? Why didn't she come?"
Zhong Zhiling was taken aback: "Huh? Why would she come?"
Yu Xing was also startled: "Eh? She didn't tell you? I called her, and she agreed to come work at the company."
Zhong Zhiling froze completely. Come work at the company?
Who?
Her??
Huh???
"Your long-distance problem is completely solved." Yu Xing said with a smile, "From now on, you two won't have to worry about a long-distance relationship. With your little problem gone, you can focus on our big problem."
He went on: "Today all the good news came together—we have a big order, a new employee joining, real progress on the project, and a more correct..."
Zhong Zhiling finally caught up, and in that instant, what surfaced in his mind was nothing else but those four characters he'd heard and seen today—controlling people through people.
Damn it, he got my girlfriend into this lousy company!
Damn it, the company hasn't even been registered yet!
Damn it, he's still talking about controlling others—this controlling, controlling, controlling, it's landed on ME!
He shot to his feet, face instantly flushed, eyesockets taut with fury, and roared:
"You surnamed Yu! Are you even human!"
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