"You're home." Hardly had I closed the door when Yan's voice floated out from the mirror. The latest variety show was on TV. Obviously, Yan was watching TV again.
"Right." I took off my shoes, unable to stop thinking. Only after I opened the fridge and took a tin of cold Coke did I feel better.
"Hey— —" Yan lowered his head as he played games and talked. He was not watching TV, but listening to the TV.
"I'm so sleepy. I don't want to say anything right now." I was afraid that Yan would ask me about Avalokitesvara. I knew If he asked me, I would tell him everything. So, I interrupted him.
"Alright, I just want to ask you to call the maintainer. The TV has been turning on automatically recently, as if there is a ghost in it. Oh, I'm a ghost, "Yan looked at the television, completely ignoring me, as if I was the one who didn't exist in this room, "OK, let's talk about it another day. These programs are interesting. Don't blame me for wasting your electricity. "
"Wasting my electricity? Hehe, I don't care." I smiled wryly and went to sleep. Yan did not ask me any more questions. He just watched a comedy show in the mirror all night. He was so happy that he had almost forgotten about his current situation. I was a little envious of him now. Facing such a big difficulty he could laugh it off. In his words, now that he's got the worst cards, he should continue to play them well, and there might be surprises.
It was a pity that I didn't know how to play cards, nor did I have Yan's mentality. I tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep at all. It was almost six o 'clock in the morning when I send a message to my manager to tell him I would be late.
Anxiously, I sent a WeChat message to my manager. After that, I laughed with self-mockery. Just one day ago I was standing on the Wind-Fire Wheel and subdued Hong Hai'er, the Great Demon, but I still had to punch in at work and ask for leave and worry about being late when I came back.
I didn't get up until noon. After washing up in a daze and having lunch, I went to the company. Hardly had I checked my emails when Liu Shuai rushed over in a hurry and whispered to me, "damn, Zhou Yuan got in trouble."
I said impatiently as I opened an email, "what could have happened to him? Did he break a vase or accidentally hit a colleague? He has such a good temper that he smiles at everyone he meets. "
Bang! Liu Shuai closed my notebook and looked at me seriously. He was about to speak when he suddenly saw all the colleagues around looking at us, so he pulled me into the conference room.
"Zhou Yuan might get fired." Liu Shuai closed the door and said.
I was stunned, looking at Liu Shuai in a daze. I couldn't believe it. "That's bullshit! Even though Zhou Yuan's designs were so awful before—" I peeked outside of the conference room to make sure there was nobody else, then I lowered my voice and said, "he didn't get fired. Now he has made great progress. He can't be dismissed. Maybe he got a promotion. "
Zhou Yuan sighed with a bitter smile, "the timing wasn't right for him. There was a dispute between him and someone."
I was instantly unhappy, "when did you learn the obscure speaking pattern from Avalokitesvara? Let's get things straight! "
"Whoops, I can't even tell you whose problem it is." Liu Shuai thought for a moment, then he told me the whole story.
The contradictions started with a trifle. Zhou Yuan's design skill had recently improved remarkably— these were the exact words of our director. It seemed like the missing of the soul had produced an obvious effects—The director decided to buy Zhou Yuan a lunch at noon to reward him, so he called the whole team including Zhou Yuan and Liu Shuai to have a big meal together. Our director used to be a product manage, and he liked to talk about products and industry trends. At dinner, he commented on the current sharing economy, "As I said last year, Bicycle Sharing would not last more than a year. You can see how many bosses have absconded with money, and how many customers can't get their deposit back today. Fortunately, my judgment was accurate. I have never used a shared bike even once, and I have not placed any deposit at all."
As usual, other people praised the director for his accurate judgement and foresight, but Zhou Yuan said, "Bicycle Sharing had already slid into a decline at the end of last year, so it is not difficult to make a judgement at that time. As a product manager, you chose to judge it only by subjective opinions instead of experiencing a new thing yourself. That's not fair."
The director thought that Zhou Yuan was joking. He looked at the colleagues and everyone showed a smile. Then he turned to Zhou Yuan playfully, "Wow? Zhou Yuan had his own views? So, what's your opinion? You mean that I was wrong?"
Zhou Yuan said expressionlessly, "I'm not saying you were wrong. I'm saying that you had no judgement."
The director took a deep breath. He smiled at Zhou Yuan, "then tell me, if I had no judgement, why is the current situation of Bicycle Sharing the same as I predicted?"
The others felt embarrassed, so they all lowered their heads to eat, Liu Shuai was sitting right next to Zhou Yuan. He pulled at Zhou Yuan's clothes to stop him. But Zhou Yuan seemed to not understand it. Just as he was about to say something, Liu Shuai quickly said, "hha, it's obvious that our Director Yang"—Our director's name was Yang Lao De. He always boasted that he got a nice name which meant to take the income from his efforts for granted— "Lao De is reasonable. Last year he made a prediction which has come true this year. Zhou Yuan was just joking. Hha. Let's eat."
When Liu Shuai said this, I knew something horrible was going to happen. I knew why Zhou Yuan had said that. With Zhou Yuan's current state, which was completely unaffected by his emotions, he must have understood a lot of things and objectively made some judgments that he considered as correct. If Liu Shuai forcefully played the role of a peacemaker, Zhou Yuan probably wouldn't care about his feelings. The situation would get worse.
As I suspected, Zhou Yuan looked at Liu Shuai with a serious expression, "you don't have to mediate. I have my own reasons." Liu Shuai felt awkward and didn't know what to say. He looked at the others as them stared at him. Then they all lowered their heads to eat.
And Zhou Yuan looked at the director, "The reason why Bicycle Sharing is in exactly the way you expected it to be is not that you judged the business to be bad, but you've always had a habit to think so as long as it's an emerging industry."
The director was startled. He did not expect Zhou Yuan to reply like that, and he did not know what to say.