Chapter Twenty-One: Sacrificing the Pawn to Save the King

"What... what did you say?" Chu Qingzhu stared in disbelief, her eyes wide with shock.

For five years, Liang Wenru had cherished her as precious as a jewel. Even back then, when she abandoned him to go abroad, he never uttered a harsh word to her. Yet now, he was yelling at her.

Her eyes stung, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Wenru, if I've made you unhappy, I can leave Xingye. I won't bother you anymore or make things difficult for you."

Most of Liang Wenru's anger dissipated. He got up and gently embraced her shoulders, picking up a tissue to softly wipe away her tears.

"Qingzhu, that's not what I meant," he said, his tone now gentle and earnest. "You know Xingye's situation—it's almost at the point where expenses exceed income. The old employees have all left or drifted away."

"Your senior classmates are taking twice the salary, but after more than half a month, not a single project has been secured for the company. I can't justify this to the shareholders."

Chu Qingzhu couldn't understand how things had come to this. After all, Liang Wenru had been a star at their school, outstanding in both appearance and ability.

But when it came to running the company, he always seemed to hit dead ends.

Today, there was no choice but to sacrifice the pawns to protect the king.

She nestled against Liang Wenru's shoulder, her watery eyes suffused with tenderness. With considerate understanding, she said, "Wenru, do what you must. I support your decision."

Liang Wenru nodded in satisfaction. "They haven't been in the company long, so there's no need for severance pay. Besides, it's only mid-month. I'll have the secretary send out dismissal letters and pay them half a month's salary."

Chu Qingzhu forced a smile. "I'm sorry, Wenru. I've caused you trouble. I thought that, as managers from big enterprises, they could help Xingye rise to a new level, but not only did they fail to achieve anything, they dragged you down."

Liang Wenru looked down at her—so obedient and understanding—and felt a bit less troubled. "You just graduated and came back from abroad. It's normal not to understand the market and misjudge people. Don't take it to heart."

Chu Qingzhu feigned admiration and kissed him. "Wenru, you're incredible. If you weren't here guarding Xingye, who knows how much the company would lose. I need to learn from you."

Ever since Liang Wenru married Pei Susu and began working together at Xingye, the phrase he heard most often was that everyone should learn from Pei Susu. No matter how hard he worked, he could never lift his head in public or private.

Only Chu Qingzhu truly understood him.

After their kiss, he handed her a contract. "Xingye has pitifully few projects. I chased an out-of-town businessman for three days recently and landed a million-dollar project."

"This project is under your name. In times of crisis, you'll handle it, and the shareholders and employees will remember your contribution."

Chu Qingzhu joyfully took the document, scanning it and roughly estimating the profit it could generate. Her eyes sparkled. "My god, the profit is so high! Wenru, how did you get him to sign?"

After her initial excitement, she calmed down and asked suspiciously, "Did he really agree to all the terms? He won't suddenly go back on it, will he?"

Liang Wenru raised his brows proudly. "He's an outsider, unfamiliar with our city's market. He heard that Xingye is the local leader and signed without much thought."

"It doesn't matter; it's just a one-off deal. He only has a short-term project. Once it's done, he'll return to his own city."

Chu Qingzhu considered his words and found them reasonable. She took the contract back to her office, reassured.

"If he breaches the contract, he'll have to pay a huge penalty. He won't go to such trouble. Besides, we're only taking an extra ten percent profit."

Little did she know, as she stepped out of the elevator, a folder was hurled at her, followed by a paper bag, books, fountain pens—and two pairs of smelly socks landed squarely on her face.

Her senior classmates stood at the elevator, arms full of boxes and bags, trembling with rage when they saw her.

"Chu Qingzhu, we treated you like a junior, always helping you at school. Yet you, not only ungrateful, dug a pit for us in the end!"

"You cried over the phone about how hard things were at Xingye, how much you needed us. We were fools to believe you were sincere, so we rushed to quit our jobs at big enterprises and came to Xingye."

"With your prestigious university degree, you could have had a respectable career, but instead you played the mistress, thinking you're somebody?"

Chu Qingzhu, hands shaking, took the smelly socks off her head, her eyes flushed with anger, abandoning all pretense of vulnerability.

She grabbed a senior classmate by the hair, dragged her into the elevator, and stomped on her foot with her high heels, her bloodshot eyes glaring fiercely at them.

"You have the nerve to criticize me? After five or six years at major companies, you haven't improved at all. No wonder you'll never get promoted!"

"I did contact you and brought you to Xingye, but don't you know your own worth? When I offered double the salary, who was so eager to grab the money that you came without even handing over your previous work?"

Security personnel, hearing the commotion, rushed over and surrounded the group.

The senior classmates, seeing this, dared not lay another hand on Chu Qingzhu. They coldly picked up their scattered belongings and packed them in boxes.

"Chu Qingzhu, remember what we said today. You’d better never need our help again."

"Ha! You're saying our abilities are lacking? We were managers at Fortune 500 companies. No matter how bad we are, we wouldn't fail to secure a single project."

"You don’t even realize that the man you're involved with has offended the Fu Group. In the current climate, who would dare risk working with Xingye?"

"We're leaving."

Chu Qingzhu stared in a daze at their departing figures.

Liang Wenru really provoked the Fu Group?!

—

Fu Group.

Pei Susu and the HR director were interviewing candidates for the deputy general manager position. Among the interviewees were two men in sharp suits and a mature, elegant professional woman.

The two men, with slicked-back hair and an air of elite professionalism, sized each other up in silent competition, seemingly dismissing the female candidate as a rival.

"I graduated from University A, spent three years studying at a top 15 global university, and served as general manager at Jianhang, a company on par with Xingye, for seven years."

"I graduated from the slightly less prestigious University B, majoring in finance. I completed my bachelor's, master's, and doctorate consecutively, and was head of the finance department at a Fortune 500 company for two years. I recently returned to develop locally."

The professional woman listened to their impressive resumes, her gaze uncertain. "I hold a master's in management from University A. I served as general manager at Mo Group for a year, but two years ago, I resigned to become a full-time housewife after getting married and pregnant."