Chapter 17: Introducing an assistant
Translator: Aafkee
Proofreader: ChaiTea
He didn’t receive a reply for over ten seconds after he had sent out the “gotcha”, which had a hint of cuteness. He thought maybe he had acted a bit too casual.
After all, they had only met each other twice and chatted for a bit. The difference in status between them was too great. Perhaps he wasn’t even considered a friend to the other party.
Just as Shen Yu was overthinking it, he felt his phone vibrate. He received a voice message from someone he had saved in his contacts as “Mr Pit Jumper”. Seeing the notification, Shen Yu quickly dug for his earphones from his pocket.
“Are you still lacking an assistant? I can introduce one to you.”
The man’s voice was deeper and more attractive when it reached Shen Yu’s ears through the earphones.
However, Shen Yu had no time to appreciate it as he subconsciously typed out his refusal, “I can look for one myself; I do not want to impose.”
Shen Yu wasn’t sure if Da-Chuan, his previous assistant, could continue to work for him after he had terminated his contract with the company so it was indeed necessary to hire someone new. However, Shen Yu didn’t want to trouble Zhong Simo with such things.
Shen Yu admired and looked up to Zhong Simo, so it was no surprise that he want to keep in contact with him. But because of that, he did not want to become and seem like someone who approached him just for easy access to resources and opportunities.
Shen Yu was still contemplating how to explain himself better when Zhong Simo sent him another voice message. It was twice as long as the previous one.
“My studio was recently hiring, and there’s one with a really good CV, but the quota is already full so it’s a bit of a pity. I’ll have my assistant send her information to you. If you approve of it, you guys can get in touch.”
It turned out Zhong Simo was only offering the contact of someone his company rejected. Shen Yu breathed out a sigh of relief. Since Zhong Simo even bothered to tell him such details, it would be insensitive of him to refuse further.
Shen Yu replied, “Thank you, Director Zhong.”
“No worries. Rest early. Leave your thoughts to tomorrow.”
There was a hint of a smile in the man’s voice, and it was extremely pleasant to the ear. Feeling a slight numbness in his ears, Shen Yu frantically pulled out his earphones.
Shen Yu sat quietly for a moment, puffed up his cheeks, and convinced himself, “Director Zhong sure is a perfect person.”
At the same time in an upscale club, Zhong Simo, who left his bad friend Yan Caizhu and his designer, slipped out of the suite once again, seemingly pondering on something. After sending that last voice message to Shen Yu in a secluded corner, he looked through the people in his studio’s work WeChat group and found a particular person.
“Is Xiao-An there?”
“I am here. What do you need me for, boss?”
She replied very quickly and succinctly. Zhong Simo recalled that sharp and competent lady at the interview from a few days ago and smiled with satisfaction.
“Has Mary assigned you any work?”
“Not yet. She asked us to first observe the different departments before she makes arrangements next week,” In an apartment outside of the fifth ring road of Beijing An Wei, who was nestled on browsing through Weibo, put down the ice cream in her hand and sat up as she answered her boss’s private chat message apprehensively.
“You don’t need to observe starting tomorrow. I’ll assign you new work.”
An Wei was shocked. She was pretty confident in her performance during the interview, and she had just gotten the notification of employment, too.
“Don’t worry, you’re hired by the studio, and you get paid monthly as usual. I want to send you out to be an assistant for an artist for a period of time.”
An Wei was relieved to see her boss’s extra explanation. Thank god she wasn’t fired. But if she was assigned to an artist, was her boss intending to create a precedent and begin to sign artists?
“Who is the artist?”
“Shen Yu. Not sure if you’ve heard of him.”
“Boss, did you just say Shen Yu?” The lady’s tone was obviously more excited than before. Seeing that, Zhong Simo raised his eyebrow.
“Why? Do you know him?”
“I do. No, I don’t. But I am Brother Yu’s fan.” An Wei’s hands were trembling slightly. She could not believe it.
“I have liked Brother Yu since his drama series, Corpse-searching Widow, from three years ago. He was exceptionally good as the female lead’s little husband, Gu Erlang. He was the personification of a small puppy, he was so fierce and cute.”
An Wei was getting more and more excited as she continued. She even started to “sell” her idol subconsciously.
“It was such a pity that the character died early.”
“How did you know, boss?”
“The title is literally Corspe-searching Widow. Do you think there would be a widow if the husband didn’t die?” Zhong Simo typed out his reply with a calm expression after he minimised the web browser page with Baidu* and switched back to the WeChat messaging interface.
(T/N*: Baidu is the Chinese version of Google.)
“Brother Yu was only a side character in that series, and he only appeared in a few episodes but because he acted really well as that character, he was very popular among the viewers. Most of his current fans followed him because of his character Gu Erlang from that series.”
An Wei paused her rambling and was keenly aware of Zhong Simo’s anomaly.
“Boss, are you planning to have Brother Yu sign with our company and nurture him?”
“Work hard as Shen Yu’s assistant. You can ask Mary anytime if you have any doubts, we’ll consider the other things next time.”
Zhong Simo never thought the new hire he picked turned out to be Shen Yu’s fan. He couldn’t help but think that this must be the work of fate. Thankfully, that would probably mean that An Wei would prioritise Shen Yu more, so it was definitely a good thing.
“Remember that while you’re a fan, you’re also a professional assistant. You need to consider things from all angles, and don’t be impulsive.” Zhong Simo advised.
Afraid that she might lose this opportunity, she responded immediately, “Don’t worry, Boss. I am a full-fledged employee who passed your interview, after all.”
“Oh, right. Remember that you’re to tell Shen Yu that you failed the interview and was introduced to Shen Yu by Mary, and that it has nothing to do with me.” Zhong Simo instructed.
She could almost feel a headache from her boss’s weird request. She had a vague feeling that the situation might not be as simple as it seemed.
Half an hour later, a person who referred herself as Zhong Simo’s assistant named Mary added Shen Yu on Wechat and sent An Wei’s information to him.
“Sister Mary, do you have any idea why Boss decided to send me to Shen Yu to become his assistant?” The more An Wei pondered on it, the more she thought it was strange so she decided to send Mary a private message to clarify her suspicions. Her boss told her she could ask Mary if she had any questions anyway.
“I can’t say, I can’t say.” Mary, who had just talked to both Zhong Simo and Shen Yu separately, answered absentmindedly. She rubbed the corner of her forehead and thought that the day she had to help her boss with his emotional problems had finally arrived.
“Ah-Zhe, I think my work environment will be filled with the sour smell of love in less than a year.” Mary put down her phone and began ranting to her tall, half-Chinese, half-Korean boyfriend. She already had her suspicions at Qujing City, it turned out her boss had his eyes on that Good Samaritan Mr Yu.
“Let us get married within half a year, then.” Ah-Zhe smiled in response and passed Mary an already peeled lychee.
“Yes, I can get married,” Mary hmphed and decided to leave her boss with his own emotional problems.
Hi! Thanks for the update! The spacing on this chapter seems a bit weird and it makes it kinda hard to read - can the formatting be updated to fix that?
ReplyDeleteOh, that is so odd. It seems fine on PC but is screwed up on mobile. Let me see what I can do. Thank you for telling me!
DeleteThank you for fixing it! It looks good now!
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