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Chapter 73: Chapter 65 Can you be more shameless?_1
December 9th.
Thursday.
After another week of preparation, the framework of the company finally got set up, and the management team is now well-acquainted with the company’s plans and current situation. Tang Qing has not been there over the past few days. First, Qi Yan has been overseeing things, and second, Yang Kai has been giving daily updates over the phone about the progress in various areas.
We estimate that preparations will be mostly complete by next Friday. At that time, Tang Qing will hold a meeting to meet everyone formally.
Qi Yan has been super busy this week, sending out messages all over to headhunt fashion designers. Since her department needs to hire a lot of people, according to the plan, they will basically make up more than half of the company. Most of the positions require experienced designers, given the time pressure and heavy workloads.
It’s not graduation season, and the internship season is almost over. In order to get the company on track as quickly as possible, we’re currently not hiring anyone without at least two years of experience. We can consider hiring those without much experience next year when we expand. At that time, we’ll recruit directly from major universities in the province.
Tang Qing has also been incredibly busy these days, because the fourth monthly exam is here. The Business Empire has already kicked off this week, and it’s time for his life to start taking off too.
"Old Tang, how’s your revision going? Do you feel confident about maintaining your rank? It would be really embarrassing if you lost your spot." As soon as school ended on Thursday afternoon, Li Kai rushed over, carrying a stack of books. The students on duty had to set up the examination room later, and no books were allowed in the classroom. Typically, students would take their books home with them, and the unimportant ones would be left at their residences on campus.
The duty rota for this week.
Tang Qing was initially part of it, but Su Ziwang suddenly volunteered to do it instead, quickly taking care of the tasks. Tang Qing didn’t see any issue with it. He just figured Su Ziwang was trying to make amends.
Of course, Tang Qing didn’t know that Liu Kai had called Su Ziwang a few days ago to inquire about him. That call had terrified Su Ziwang. Clearly, he couldn’t compete against Tang Qing right now, so he had no choice but to suck up to him. He wouldn’t want Tang Qing to hold grudges against him for his past wrongdoings and seek revenge.
Tang Qing glanced at Li Kai and said, "You should be more worried about yourself. Look at how hard our classmates have been studying this month. You’ll be in quite a bind trying not to get surpassed."
Thanks to Tang Qing’s stimulus, the atmosphere of study in the class has made their homeroom teacher Shen Mei exceedingly delighted. Those competitive students all wanted to become the next Tang Qing, or at the very least, they wanted to maintain their current rank, right?
"Well, there is that too, but as long as there’s an improvement in my total score, I’m fine. I’m competing against myself, not them. I can’t catch up with you anyway." Li Kai casually replied. Although he said he wasn’t competing, his effort level was not any less than the other students. He did not want to be left far behind by Tang Qing. Never mind his dad, even he himself wouldn’t be able to bear it.
"Tang Qing, good luck. If you do well in this exam, I’ll treat you. But let’s get this straight first, I can only afford a hot pot meal at most. I don’t have that much money." Wang Yan was cheering him on as she packed up her things. It’s not that she was really short of money, but compared to what Tang Qing could afford, her budget did seem quite small.
"Don’t worry, you will definitely be shocked this time." Tang Qing responded with a chuckle. He had already packed up and was now just waiting for Wang Yan.
"Pfft, shocked my foot. Are you aiming for first place in the grade? Plus, I don’t even wear glasses, so how can I get shocked..." Li Kai couldn’t help but start rambling again.
"You can at least trip and fall, right?" Tang Qing joked back.
"Nonsense... You’re the one who’s going to fall. If I don’t do well in the exam, it’s all because you jinxed it. You have to take responsibility." Li Kai took offense immediately after hearing Tang Qing’s words.
Ignoring Li Kai’s whining, Tang Qing asked, "How enjoyable is it to chat when I have to take on so much responsibility after just a few sentences?"
"Hehe, how is your company doing? When can you show us around?" Wang Yan chuckled, changing the topic of their playful banter, which she found quite amusing.
"How about this Sunday morning? I’ll be busy in the afternoon. Don’t rush it, focus on doing well on your exams first," Tang Qing said after a moment’s thought. He planned to visit Lin Jiaxue on Sunday afternoon. He hadn’t seen her in a long time and missed her. Luckily, Lin Jiaxue wasn’t one of those clingy girlfriends who would have been pestering him to death with phone calls for not seeing each other for a week.
Wang Yan was the same type of woman—kind-hearted and understanding, but not clingy. This was one of the main reasons why Tang Qing could tolerate her in his previous life. If women kept nagging and whining all day, he would tell them to get as far away from him as possible. With Lin Jiaxue’s warmth and care right there, any woman who dared to give him the princess attitude would hear only one thing from him—get lost.
"Of course I’m eager to go! I can’t wait to bring a huge pile of clothes back home," Li Kai chuckled.
"You... Can’t you be a little more ambitious?" Tang Qing disdainfully replied.
"Think about it. If I bring back a bunch of clothes, it’s going to be so heavy. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, and I’ll probably sweat a lot. See how hardworking and diligent I am? How could someone like me not have ambition?" Li Kai shamelessly countered. He couldn’t help but feel that he was getting increasingly eloquent.
"How can you be so shameless?" Tang Qing retorted with an exasperated look on his face. In his previous life, although Li Kai was somewhat similar in this regard—or maybe even more shameless and argumentative—he conceded that he was no match for him.
He could only watch as Li Kai left him far behind on the path of shamelessness, then quietly turn around and switch lanes.
"I learned it from you." Li Kai shot back.
"When have I ever been shameless?" Tang Qing immediately protested.
"You... You were toothless as a child." Li Kai quickly made that up.
"Pfft... Haha..." Wang Yan burst out laughing at that remark.
"I... When did your intellect kick into gear?" Tang Qing said, both amused and exasperated.
"You forced it out of me," Li Kai declared proudly, before quickly realizing his mistake.
"No, no, you’re the animal. You’re the one whose intellect kicked in."
"........."
"....."
Alright, Tang Qing had to admit that arguing with someone did help a lot. It swept away the tense atmosphere before the exam.
.....
After two days of intense examinations, which were corrected as the students wrote, Tang Qing’s name had become a focus of discussion among the teachers from Bain Middle School even before the exams ended.
Mathematics Paper Marking Group
"Old Liu, come take a look, there’s someone here who got full marks in Mathematics. There is not a single mistake." As everyone was marking the papers, a voice suddenly rang out, drawing the attention of the other Math teachers. After all, it’s not easy to get full marks in a senior year paper, so everyone paused what they were doing and looked over.
"Full marks? Which class? Who is it?" Asked the teacher surnamed Liu while he walked over.
"You fool, it’s sealed. How can I see the name." The male teacher directed a blank look at him. The left-hand side of the paper had been bound and the name was obscured.
"Well... Teacher Zhao... can you recognize the handwriting?" The teacher with the last name Liu said awkwardly, he had momentarily forgotten about this because of his anxiety.
"No recollection, why don’t all of you also take a careful look to see if there are mistakes, it’s full marks, let’s not make a blunder." Suggested Mr Zhao. He had already taken two looks but was still a little skeptical.
"Sure."
"Over here."
By now, several other teachers had gathered around. After all, such a situation warranted their attention, it was worth sparing some time to review the paper.
Ten minutes later, several Mathematics teachers had meticulously examined the paper.
"Can’t deduct any points, I really don’t know which class this is from. It would be great if it was a class I taught." Mr. Zhao spoke with a sense of regret.
"You keep on dreaming, the classes you teach are all regular classes, none of them rank in the top ten yet you still hope for a student with full math score?" Mr. Liu countered,
The other teachers mentioned that they did not recognize the student’s handwriting. After all, with so many students, who would remember what each student’s handwriting looks like!
At this moment, the door to the office was pushed open, Shen Mei walked in and seeing a bunch of people huddled together she curiously asked: "What are you all looking at?"
"Hey Shen, you’re back, come take a look. Someone got full marks. For the past few monthly tests, we’ve never had a full score in Math, come see if you recognize the handwriting. It’s very likely that it’s from one of your classes..." Mr. Zhao waved Shen Mei over,
"Let me take a look." Upon hearing this, Shen Mei hurried over. Taking the paper her hands, she immediately realized that the handwriting looked familiar. Instantly getting who it belonged to, she exclaimed:
"Eh? Isn’t this... Isn’t this Tang Qing’s handwriting?"
"You recognize it?" Mr. Liu asked skeptically, the other teachers also turned their gaze towards Shen Mei.
"Of course I do, it’s from our class, you all should be familiar with him too, it’s the same guy who solved problems using calculus last time." Shen Mei spoke slowly, filled with a sense of surprise. She honestly hadn’t expected Tang Qing to spring such a huge surprise on her; a full score in Math is quite a rarity, especially in the senior grades.
"Ah right, no wonder. That solution, I had to go through a higher level Mathematics textbook just to understand it." Mr. Liu suddenly realized, the other teachers also had a moment of realization. They all knew about the problem Tang Qing had solved. Initially, they thought Tang Qing was studying beyond the syllabus which wasn’t ideal but now, they didn’t believe that was the case. Envy coursed through them seeing Shen Mei with such a brilliant student.
"Well, there is no issue then, he is definitely deserving, the young fellow did well, Shen, you have a great student."
"Yes indeed, Shen, you found a gem."
"Exactly, Shen, you have to treat us to instant noodles tonight."
"Treat us to instant noodles, you really do have unique thoughts."
"So what, I just love instant noodles."
"....."
Seeing her colleagues sidetracking the conversation and gossiping, Shen Mei quickly interrupted saying, "Alright, alright, lets get back to work. I’ll treat you for supper tonight."
The Math Paper Marking group didn’t have a lot of people, it wouldn’t cost much. Besides, the school rules were, for Science monthly exams, if any student scores full in one of English, Math or Chinese, the subject teacher will get a reward of 300 yuan and the head teacher will get 200 yuan. If any of the other three subjects gets full score, the subject teacher will get 200 yuan and the head teacher 100 yuan. Once the total score for the exams came out, the money would be given out right away, which means that she would get her hands on it by Monday and wouldn’t have to wait for payday.
Currently, she is both the head teacher as well as the Math teacher, so 500 yuan will easily go into her pocket. If she doesn’t even treat her colleagues, she would feel guilty about it.
However, what really made her happy wasn’t the rewards, but the fact that her student was doing well. This was her greatest joy.
But Tang Qing’s legend had not ended yet.
PS: The second Chapter, the next one will probably be around nine o’clock. Donate some votes if you have them! Thank you very much!
