Chapter 122

Chapter 122

The moment Nan Mu got off work, he received a text from Wen Miao.

Wen Miao: “Are you off work? If you are, come to the new hotpot place in Xincheng.”

Nan Mu was just about to ask where the hotpot restaurant was when a location pin came through from the other end.

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When he transferred elevators on the fifth floor, there were so many people waiting that the area was packed. Everyone from the sixth to the ninth floors had to switch elevators here.

No wonder, he thought. Earlier, when work ended, everyone would rather sit around in the office chatting than get up and leave. So this was why-it was too crowded.

Amid the surging crowd, he even spotted Wen Xin, who had been swept to the other side by the flow of people.

One after the other, the two of them got on the subway, then got off at Xincheng Station and exited.

As soon as they came out of the station, a young woman in a pale yellow cardigan stood out at once.

“Wen Miao?”

Wen Miao was talking to her advisor on the phone. Hearing Nan Mu’s voice, she didn’t answer, but with a smile on her face, she raised her hand and waved at him.

Only after watching Wen Miao report back to her advisor in a few brief sentences and hang up did Nan Mu speak. “You could’ve just waited at the restaurant. Why did you come all the way here?”

By late October, the weather had already started to cool down. Especially after yesterday’s rain, today’s autumn wind felt particularly bleak and cold.

Nan Mu took off his jacket and draped it over Wen Miao’s shoulders. “Wear this. It’ll be warmer.”

Wen Miao froze. She felt a rush of heat shoot straight to her cheeks, and even without looking in a mirror, she knew her face had to be red. But she pressed her lips together and silently accepted Nan Mu’s kindness.

Wen Xin even saw Wen Miao’s fingers clutching the two sides of the jacket tightly, as if she were afraid it would be taken back. His suspicious gaze lingered over the two of them.

Something was off!

There was definitely something off with these two!

===

The three of them ordered two large platters of grilled skewers.

As soon as they sat down, Wen Miao couldn’t wait to ask what they had gained today.

Nan Mu told them about running into Jia Lingyuan’s niece.

“So how are you planning to… start with her?” Wen Miao fidgeted in her seat. “Are you planning to… use a honey trap?”

Wen Xin was in the middle of opening a bottled soda. Hearing the words “honey trap,” his hand slipped, and the soda surged out like it was boiling over.

“What exactly goes on in that little head of yours?” Nan Mu was amused by Wen Miao’s wild imagination. “Liang Mingqi is close to Jia Lingyuan, and both her work and achievements still depend on this uncle of hers. I figured she must care a lot about him in daily life and probably visits him now and then to check on his condition. I can build up an image in front of her as someone who admires Jia Lingyuan. Then, when the time comes, I can find an excuse and say I want to visit my idol with her or something.”

So he had no intention of using any kind of honey trap. His plan was perfectly proper…

Wen Miao’s ears reddened. Ashamed of her own thoughts, she hurriedly pulled down the stray hair she had just tucked behind her ear, trying to hide her wandering gaze.

But in Nan Mu’s eyes, what she was doing only made it even more obvious.

Nan Mu couldn’t help laughing softly.

His voice was low, and even with the table between them, Wen Miao still felt as if her ears had been scalded, leaving behind a faint tingling numbness.

She could only lower her head even further.

In the end, Wen Xin couldn’t take it anymore. He poured each of them a glass of soda. “Drink, drink. Why are you both staring at the table?”

Nan Mu picked up his soda and took a sip, then asked him, “What about you? How was the materials team?”

Wen Xin recounted some of what he had seen that day. It was basically no different from Nan Mu’s experience.

When he got to the end, Wen Xin suddenly asked Wen Miao, “Oh right, I remember your graduation project last year. Didn’t you make some kind of air purifier, or was it a detector?”

“What air purifier? That was a radiation detector!”

Wen Miao couldn’t help correcting him, then asked in confusion, “What’s wrong? Why bring that up all of a sudden?”

Thinking of the gossip he had heard that afternoon, Wen Xin couldn’t help rubbing his spine. “I think there’s something not quite right about that lab of mine. Do you still have that radiation detector? If you do, let me borrow it later when we get back. Saves me from having to buy one.”
“There is one, sure.” But Wen Miao still didn’t understand. “But how could there possibly be radiation in a laboratory?”

If there really were radiation levels above the normal standard, wouldn’t the people working in the lab have had problems ages ago?

Wen Xin nodded emphatically. “That’s exactly because there are problems!”

Wen Xin only knew about it because, close to quitting time that afternoon, he’d seen the people from Materials Team Two and Materials Team Four arguing.

Each lab had a maximum funding limit every quarter. Apparently, because this month’s funding quota was already close to exceeding the limit, Finance had originally planned to approve the funds for Team Four. But then Team Two suddenly popped up at the last minute, saying they needed an additional budget to buy materials.

The problem was, if they approved the materials for Team Two, Team Four’s budget for the quarter wouldn’t get approved. But if they approved Team Four’s, then Team Two would have no budget left to purchase materials.

There were five materials teams in total. On the surface, there was no hierarchy between them; everyone was just part of the materials division. Their research directions were simply a little different.

But from the numbering alone, you could actually tell something. Why was Team One Team One, and Team Five Team Five? It was because Team One had been established the earliest when the company was founded, and the people in it were all founding-veteran-level figures. The farther back the number, the less senior the team generally was. Even the head of Team Five, for instance, was an apprentice Meng Ran had personally trained. When the company launched a new project and needed to establish a new team, Meng Ran had picked him out from among the many candidates to take charge of Team Five.

To the head of Team Five, Meng Ran was both his teacher and the senior who had promoted him with her own hand. Although they were both team leaders and technically on the same level, if Team One and Team Five came into conflict, could Team Five’s leader really straighten his back in front of Meng Ran?

Inevitably, he would have to give Meng Ran some face and swallow the loss in silence.

So when Finance told Team Two and Team Four to negotiate, Team Two simply notified Team Four as if it were only natural. After all, every time there had been a budget conflict before, Team Four had accommodated Team Two. This time, they didn’t think it would be any exception.

But Team Four just so happened to refuse this time. They said they had always yielded to Team Two before, but this time, no matter what, they couldn’t yield again. Besides, Team Four had been the one to start the approval process for this budget first.

The two teams started arguing. Team Two cursed Team Four for being heartless, while Team Four cursed Team Two for having no sense of decency.

The other three teams were afraid of getting dragged into the mess, so none of them wanted to invite trouble. They all kept their heads down and pretended to work hard, when in reality, every last one of them had their ears perked up for gossip.

At the time, Wen Xin had found it strange. “They’re just going to let them argue like that? No one’s going to do anything?”

Xu Ziran, who had been responsible for onboarding Wen Xin, pressed Wen Xin’s head back down behind the partition just as he was craning his neck to watch the show. Lowering his voice, he said, “Hold it in! Don’t look at them. The people from Team Two are really good at arguing. If they get worked up enough, even a dog walking past would get cursed out twice.”

Forced to lower his head, Wen Xin heard a string of shouted insults flying back and forth.

Xu Ziran said, “Team Two has always been a thorn in everyone’s side, but they only dare to start fights when Teacher Meng isn’t around…”

Curious, Wen Xin asked, “If Team Two is so overbearing, why is Team Four standing up to them this time? Didn’t you say Team Four always yielded to them before? Why are they suddenly refusing to give in now?”

Xu Ziran sighed. “Isn’t it because Teacher Liu, the one who leads Team Two, fell ill? It seems pretty serious. I heard there’s no guarantee he can even be cured. Teacher Liu joined the company in the same batch as Teacher Meng Ran. When he was still around, of course the people from Team Four didn’t dare go head-to-head with him. Now that he’s gone, and there’s no telling whether he’ll ever come back, Team Four naturally dares to fight Team Two. Besides, maybe Team Four has been holding in a bellyful of resentment for ages and was just waiting for today.”

Wen Xin sighed. “I didn’t expect there to be so many factions inside a laboratory.”

“Tell me about it.” Xu Ziran had the air of someone who had seen it all. “Wherever there are people, there is a jianghu.”

Wen Xin glanced at Xu Ziran. Seeing the worry all over his face, he actually felt that his own luck wasn’t bad. At least Xu Ziran, the one mentoring him, wasn’t the difficult type.

Wen Xin said, “Good thing we’re in Team One. Teacher Meng Ran is basically the top boss of the materials division, right?”

He had meant to comfort Xu Ziran. But when Xu Ziran heard him mention Meng Ran, he seemed to become even more distressed instead.