As the atmosphere became more lively, the team members’ faces grew redder. The table was so full of bottles that some had to be placed on the floor beneath it.
Though small in number, this was the table bringing in the most revenue for the establishment.
“Manager Lee.”
Hae Jin called out to Byung Soo, who was about to grab some food. Hae Jin glanced around the table and underneath it before speaking.
“It seems everyone was thirsty for a company dinner.”
Byung Soo also looked around and chuckled at Hae Jin’s words.
“Yeah, we should have done this more often.”
Regret flowed from Byung Soo’s lips. As the mood suddenly dipped, Hae Jin quickly changed the subject.
“Manager Lee, how long have you been working with the team leader?”
“I’ve been in this field for about 15 years, and I’ve worked with the team leader for about 5 years.”
Though he looked young, his words boasted a longer career than expected, deepening Hae Jin’s curiosity.
“So you’ve worked with the team leader for 5 years.”
“That’s right. I’ve been with him since the moment he first joined the company.”
Hae Jin clapped her hands and pointed at Byung Soo.
“So you’re the one who picked the team leader that I’ve only heard about!”
Byung Soo was Hae Jin’s first recruitment target, the second-in-command. His lips naturally curled up at her playful tone.
“Is that so?”
He scratched the back of his head sheepishly and downed his drink in one go.
“Back then, we used to have company dinners with the team leader often. He wasn’t originally such a cold person.”
Surprised by Byung Soo’s unexpected words, Hae Jin put down her chopsticks. Tae Hong was not one to talk much about himself. With company dinners being rare, this might be the only chance to hear about him.
So she kept asking. She grew curious about what kind of person he was.
“Really? I thought he was always cold.”
“Nah. How could someone be like that?”
Oh, but they could. Such people are always close by.
“He seemed like a fresh young man until that incident happened.”
Incident? What incident?
Hae Jin shifted in her seat and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. Byung Soo, sitting across from her, pushed up his glasses and leaned back.
Ah, he’s feeling uncomfortable.
Hae Jin casually pushed some food towards Byung Soo.
“Eat up. You’re the backbone of the Strategic Planning Team, you need to keep your strength up.”
Acting as if nothing had happened, Hae Jin returned to her original position, clearing her throat while secretly waiting for Byung Soo to speak again.
“Jung Hae Jin.”
Byung Soo cautiously looked around and leaned forward towards Hae Jin.
Then, taking advantage of the other team members being busy talking amongst themselves, he gestured for Hae Jin to come closer. Hae Jin, not knowing what to expect, also leaned in while glancing at the others.
“Since you’re in charge of the team leader, let me give you a piece of information.”
Hae Jin instinctively tensed at Byung Soo’s hushed tone. It felt like he was about to impart a top-secret formula.
“There’s something you should absolutely never ask the team leader.”
“W-what is it?”
Hae Jin quickly pulled out her mental notepad, ready to jot down information about Tae Hong.
“Never, ever ask about family and women.”
“Family and women?”
“Shh. Shh.”
Byung Soo quickly raised a finger to his lips and looked around. Fortunately, no one was paying attention to Byung Soo and Hae Jin.
Family and women. Is he saying not to ask about personal matters?
Suddenly, that day flashed in Hae Jin’s mind.
“I’m confident I can handle any woman.”
“Even if she’s my half-sister, she’s still of Yeon Chang Group blood.”
Could it be some kind of makjang drama scenario? He doesn’t ask about his sister and brother, and he recoils at even the slightest mention of office scandals. Even with just a moment’s thought, she understood why they needed to keep quiet.
As Hae Jin kept her mouth shut, recalling that memory, Byung Soo, assuming she understood his meaning, returned to his seat.
“I’m sure Hae Jin will be tactful, but remember this well.”
At his words emphasizing once more, Hae Jin mimed locking her lips and kept her mouth firmly shut.
“What are you being tactful about?”
Just as she was about to think more deeply, the gumiho Kim appeared. Smeared eyeliner and lipstick that had flown off somewhere. She was quite drunk.
“It’s nothing.”
Byung Soo gave Hae Jin a subtle look and spoke in his normal tone. But the drunk gumiho absolutely wouldn’t let it go.
“It’s not nothing. I saw everything. You two were exchanging secret words.”
“Secret?”
Hae Jin momentarily bristled at Yeon Jung’s strangely interpreted words. But her opponent was not in a rational state.
Ah, calm down. Calm down. While she was trying to control her mind, Byung Soo seated Yeon Jung.
“Manager Kim, you seem quite drunk. Should I call you a taxi?”
“Aw, come on Manager. I’m not drunk.”
Hello. Drunk people never admit they’re drunk. Hae Jin, still thinking of her as a team member, placed a glass of cold water in front of Yeon Jung.
“What, you want me to drink cold water and sober up?”
There’s always someone who takes kindness the wrong way. Hae Jin shook her head.
“Manager Kim. Your face is flushed, so I’m offering this to help cool you down.”
“That’s the same thing!”
As Yeon Jung shouted in a high pitch, the other team members turned their attention to Hae Jin and Yeon Jung.
“Hey, Jung Hae Jin.”
With others’ attention on her, Yeon Jung’s shoulders rose as she looked down at Hae Jin with a contemptuous gaze.
“If you’re a parachute, act like one. Find your landing spot and stay quiet like a dead mouse.”
Hah, Hae Jin let out several deep sighs, drawing them up from her core.
“Do you think a parachute that’s landed once can go up again?”
Hae Jin chewed on her lower lip.
You know, I’m just faithfully fulfilling my contract with the chairman and getting paid for it.
I never had any intention of going up.
Hae Jin let out one final breath and gulped down the water in the glass in front of her.
“Manager Kim Yeon Jung.”
She called out to her after finishing the last of the water and setting the glass down on the table. Instead of answering, Yeon Jung just stared at Hae Jin with a strange mix of dismissal and contempt in her eyes, arms folded.
“Are you jealous of me?”
“What?”
While recruiting team members to her side was one of Hae Jin’s important goals, she still questioned whether she needed to recruit even those who viewed her negatively from the start.
“Or are you afraid of me?”
Hae Jin filled the empty glass with water again and gulped it down. Byung Soo and Yeon Jung could only watch with dumbfounded expressions as Hae Jin drank refreshingly.
“I wasn’t going to say this, but…”
Since you provoked me, you have no choice but to listen.
“Why did you only give me outdated materials among the documents you provided?”
“W-what?”
Staying still doesn’t mean being a pushover, and if this kind of thing keeps happening, the work-related mistakes would clearly fall on Hae Jin. So she had to address it at least once.
“I, I didn’t, I gave you the proper documents.”
Such brazen behavior, it’s unbelievable.
“Hah, you only gave me old documents from the joint project with Daechang Construction, and you completely left out the materials from the final stages with Daeyang Construction.”
As Hae Jin listed the issues one by one, the expressions of Byung Soo, Yeon Jung, and the other team members became lost.
“H-how did you…”
“So, please stop thinking that I don’t know anything and cooperate properly with the work from now on.”
She drew a clear line. Don’t think you can look down on me because I’m a parachute. Don’t think I’m just sitting at my desk doing nothing.
You might think I just dropped in and don’t know how to do anything, but I have no intention of being irresponsible when it comes to work.
Having held back for so long, Hae Jin’s face was calm after her rapid-fire outburst. The other team members, aside from Byung Soo and Yeon Jung, wore expressions completely opposite to hers.
“T-team leader?”
Huh? What’s wrong with these people? Why is that title coming up in this situation? Hae Jin turned her body towards where their focus was directed.
And, really, he appeared.
“So this is where you all were.”
“Team, leader, what brings, you, here.”
Surprised, her words came out in choppy fragments.
“I was passing by and saw some familiar faces.”
“To say you were just passing by, this place is in the opposite direction of where you were supposed to be.”
Tae Hong sat down naturally next to Hae Jin with a calm expression. Byung Soo quickly set up a new place setting in front of him.
“I’ll pass on the alcohol.”
At Tae Hong’s gesture of placing his palm over the glass, Byung Soo sat back down.
“What were you all talking about that left everyone looking so shocked?”
“Well, Jung Hae Jin seems to have grasped the work quite well.”
Byung Soo explained to Tae Hong about the work Hae Jin had understood so far, as if showing off a new employee. Yeon Jung kept her head down, while Hae Jin shifted her chair slightly to the side, trying to become invisible.
“I guess it’s because Jung Hae Jin majored in Business Administration. She grasps the flow well.”
Hae Jin could clearly hear Tae Hong’s muttered words. After listening to all the praise for Hae Jin, Tae Hong tilted his head slightly and closed his mouth again.
With Tae Hong’s arrival, it seemed the company dinner would go on longer, but surprisingly, it ended very early. Byung Soo said he was going in the same direction as Yeon Jung and took her with him, while the other employees dispersed on their own.
The only people left were Tae Hong and Hae Jin.
“Team leader, I don’t think I’ll be able to drive you home today.”
“I know. I came to take you home today.”
Why? The words that had caught in her throat were pushed down again. Hae Jin had no choice but to follow Tae Hong, who was walking ahead.
“Let’s get in for now.”
The passenger door that he always sat in opened. She should get in, but was it okay to do so? The longer she hesitated, the more uncomfortable it became.
With no other choice, she finally got in. It was also awkward how Tae Hong courteously closed the door for her.
“You can sleep if you’re tired.”
Even adding such uncharacteristically kind words.
“I’m fine.”
A heavy silence fell after her short answer. She must have heard wrong.
“Actually, I don’t have any backup data on Jung Hae Jin.”
He definitely said that. She heard it clearly and remembered it accurately. And yet he already knew everything. Then how much did he know? Or rather, since when did he know?
So she needed to clarify what had been bothering her and causing her mood to plummet rapidly.
“Team leader. How did you know I majored in Business Administration?”
__________
“Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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