“Please wait a moment,” the secretary immediately relayed the message. Soon, she looked up with an apologetic expression, “I’m sorry, Manager Shao, Mr. Huo is busy, and he says—”
“I understand,” Shao Pingxi cut her off, knowing she had been denied entry, but she would not back down.
Just because he didn’t invite her in didn’t mean she couldn’t go in!
“Manager Shao, you can’t do this!” The secretary, seeing Shao Pingxi about to forcefully enter the CEO’s office, turned pale and stood up to stop her.
“Don’t worry, if Mr. Huo reprimands me for this, I’ll take full responsibility and won’t implicate you,” Shao Pingxi said as she pushed open the office door.
As if everything was expected, Huo Junren sat leisurely in a black leather chair, directly facing Shao Pingxi, who had entered without permission.
“Mr. Huo, Manager Shao she—” the secretary said with a slightly trembling voice.
Huo Junren waved his hand, signaling the secretary to quickly leave.
As if granted amnesty, the secretary hurriedly left the eerily tense CEO’s office.
“With Mr. Huo’s intelligence, I’m sure you understand why I’ve come to see you!”
Huo Junren stood up from his chair, hands tucked into his suit pants pockets, taking steady steps towards Shao Pingxi, his cold voice emerging: “Every day, just looking at some documents, signing a few names, and you can earn 180,000 a month. Besides the base salary, there are countless benefits and allowances… Such an ideal job would be hard to find even with a lantern, right?”
“According to what Mr. Huo says, should I be grateful and work diligently in this unproductive managerial position?” Shao Pingxi’s words dripped with sarcasm.
His tall body circled behind her, his low, rich voice rhythmically sounding: “From your tone, it seems you’re not quite satisfied with this high-paying arrangement.”
“To be frank, I am not satisfied.”
“Then, do you want to make a bet?” He paced back into her line of sight.
“A bet?” Caught off guard by the unexpected word, Shao Pingxi was momentarily stunned.
“You’re not satisfied with your current work? I’ll give you a chance to prove your work capabilities.” A meaningful smile blossomed on his handsome face.
“I’m all ears.” A hint of calculation floated in the air, but she was willing to listen.
Huo Junren pivoted on his heel, returned to his desk, and picked up a thick file.
“Take this,” he handed her the file.
Receiving the weighty file, Shao Pingxi looked at him. He nodded, and she formally opened the file.
After a moment, she looked up, “Huo’s wants to acquire Yizhi?”
“There’s such a plan,” he now sat on the desk, his long fingers lightly tapping the surface. “But I haven’t fully considered it.”
“The opportunity you mentioned is for me to write a report on whether to acquire Yizhi. Correct?”
“Exactly.” He had long known that the target of his revenge was an intelligent woman. “If you can make a decision beneficial to Huo’s, you can be a manager in any department. On the contrary—”
“If I make an incorrect acquisition decision, in the future, whatever work Mr. Huo assigns me, I will do without a single word of complaint,” Shao Pingxi swiftly completed Huo Junren’s unfinished sentence.
Huo Junren couldn’t help but cast an appreciative glance at her. He knew how clever she was, yet he couldn’t help but feel admiration.
“Time limit?”
“Three days.” She was direct, and so was he.
“Understood.” The opportunity was in her hands. Regardless of whether this was a trap specially set by Huo Junren, she had to give it her all.
Working at Huo’s was now an irreversible fact, but whether she would do meaningful, challenging work or mind-numbingly boring work was still her choice.
“Mr. Huo, I’ll go work now.” Not a second could be wasted!
Huo Junren made a gesture of approval, and Shao Pingxi quickly left the CEO’s office.
He had long known that she would not be satisfied with boring work and would come to argue with him—it was just a matter of time. The key to determining Shao Pingxi’s future work nature—the Yizhi acquisition case—had, in fact, already been shelved by him.
Based on Yizhi’s surface performance, Shao Pingxi would most likely recommend the acquisition.
Once she submitted a report recommending the acquisition, she would lose this bet!
“Admitting defeat is your character, isn’t it, Shao Pingxi?” Huo Junren whispered softly.
He had a scheme with a success probability of almost ninety-nine percent. The loopholes in the Yizhi acquisition case could not be discovered without extraordinary keen insight and exceptional meticulousness.
Shao Pingxi would not be an exception.
“Logically reasoning, it should be like this…” Huo Junren’s brow furrowed slightly.
But why did his heart feel a tiny bit of – unpredictable unease?
The three-day deadline passed in the blink of an eye.
“You oppose the Yizhi acquisition?”
The uneasy premonition actually came true! Although Huo Junren felt surprised and unexpected, his face still displayed the usual cold expression.
“That’s right.” Shao Pingxi spoke with a firm voice.
“Shao Pingxi, do you know?” He looked at her leisurely, “I once dispatched a team of investigators specifically to thoroughly investigate Yizhi. The report they submitted stated that Yizhi is a safely acquirable enterprise. On what basis do you oppose Huo’s acquisition?”
Huo Junren spoke only facts, though he didn’t mention that afterward, those useless investigators were rendered unable to establish themselves in the business world.
“I have submitted a report detailing the reasons,” Shao Pingxi said calmly and confidently.
“I want to hear your verbal report.” He tossed aside the detailed report she had submitted for his review.
“No problem.”
Shao Pingxi didn’t mind at all and began to report methodically: “I have repeatedly studied Yizhi’s performance reports, and I find most of them unproblematic, except for 1997.
The 1997 performance report shows that Yizhi received a substantial insurance compensation, and I tried to find the reason for this insurance payment in the report, but couldn’t.
There are only two possible reasons – first, Yizhi accidentally omitted it; second, Yizhi deliberately concealed it.
After a thorough investigation, I found that Yizhi received this huge insurance payment because in 1997, their main factory suffered a serious accident, with nearly 80% of the main factory destroyed, forcing Yizhi to suspend production for almost two months, causing massive losses, and that insurance payment originated from this.
Such a serious accident would inevitably negatively impact Yizhi’s 1997 performance. However, the performance report shows that 1997 was actually their best-performing year.”
Huo Junren finally spoke, asking with a questioning tone:
“Yizhi’s main factory had issues, but they have other subsidiary factories. Would the main factory’s shutdown really impact them so significantly?”
“That’s right. According to Yizhi’s own data, nearly 70% of their production comes from the main factory’s production line, with other subsidiary factories serving only auxiliary roles. If the main factory encounters problems, it would definitely affect Yizhi’s performance,” Shao Pingxi said with conviction.
Huo Junren said nothing more, so she continued:
“The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis – I’m sure Director Huo remembers. That year, Yizhi first experienced serious damage to their main factory, and then encountered the Asian Financial Crisis. Their performance would definitely have declined. Yet, their performance report tells a completely different story. Therefore, I absolutely have reason to suspect that Yizhi is fabricating their accounts.”
Shao Pingxi was extremely confident in her reasoning, even though he had not expressed any opinion about her explanation.
