Chapter 23 – Colleagues from the Same Department
Zhao Ming stopped speaking.
Mr. Lu had been listening attentively to the reports from each department, so when he suddenly interrupted at this moment, everyone grew tense.
All the people in the room turned to look at Lu Heng.
Lu Heng raised his hand, his index finger lightly brushing against his lips. He lifted his gaze, sharpness filling his eyes, and asked, “Why isn’t the project leader’s name written here?”
After he said that, everyone seemed to let out a quiet breath of relief.
He hadn’t brought up any of the key technical issues.
Several of them then turned their eyes back to Zhao Ming.
Zhao Ming pushed up his glasses and said with a smile, “It was done in too much of a rush. It was probably just forgotten.”
Like an old fox, his answer was watertight — neatly shifting the responsibility away from himself and pushing the problem onto his subordinates.
But Lu Heng had no intention of indulging him.
If everyone handled things like this, where was the fairness in that?
Anyone could easily replace him on this project.
Lu Heng saw through him at once. He lowered his hand, crossed his legs, and his expression turned indifferent — cold enough to make people shiver at a glance.
“As the director, this is something you should have verified.”
“Yes… this was indeed my oversight.” Zhao Ming awkwardly pushed his glasses up again, his head lowering unconsciously.
Removing the name had been deliberate. He was only trying to confirm one thing.
“This project was done very well.” Lu Heng continued flipping through the submitted documents and nodded.
When they heard that, the assistants standing nearby whispered among themselves, “This is the first time President Lu has praised someone like this.”
Their voices were low. Then Lu Heng spoke again, “It was handled by Lin Yan from your department, right?”
Zhao Ming looked up with a smile.
“Yes.”
It seemed his guess had been correct.
…
The [Worked-slaves] Group suddenly went into its usual inappropriate frenzy of nonstop notifications.
Lin Yan was scratching his head while staring at the screen full of letters — he was about to go cross-eyed.
The entire screen was packed with long strings of characters.
The more he looked, the more blurred his vision became, yet his hands couldn’t stop moving.
Before coming in, he had thought that after completing a project, he would finally get a little breathing room.
But that beautiful fantasy lasted only for the next second.
Once a thought like that appeared, it was shattered immediately.
He hadn’t even stepped fully into the department when Zhao Ming dumped a mountain of work onto him.
These past few days, sleeping while hugging Meiqiu had calmed him down a lot.
He had been sleeping better, his overall condition clearly improving —but the moment he returned, he was buried under tasks again.
The corners of Lin Yan’s mouth never lifted.
His entire face looked utterly miserable.
He glanced at his phone.
The group chat had suddenly become lively.
Without even thinking, he knew Sun Ning must be there —when that happened, everyone could only talk in the group.
After finishing one page, Lin Yan casually opened the chat messages.
cx Little Angel: [Engineer Lin, you’re treating!]
cx Little Angel: [Image]
Lin Yan was confused and opened the image.
It was a screenshot of a chat conversation.
It was between Chen Xin and Yang Yao, the head of the finance department.
The two of them were very close. They came from the same hometown, worked at the same company, and naturally became familiar with each other over time.
Having a good friend in the finance department was incredibly useful — you could always find out the salary date in advance, and even learn about upcoming bonuses early.
Last time, it was Chen Xin who had inquired and found out that once the project was completed, they would receive a special bonus personally approved by the CEO.
Before the secretary’s office had even issued an official notice, they already knew the news, and Lin Yan was able to benefit from that information as well.
Once he learned about the bonus, Lin Yan immediately thought about buying more fun toys and tasty food for Meiqiu, and his motivation for work skyrocketed.
The main content of the chat screenshot read:
President Lu praised your department at the company meeting — especially Lin Yan.
Seeing this, Lin Yan felt a little excited.
Could it be that his talent had finally been discovered?
He was happy, but when his eyes moved downward, he saw another line:
This bonus is basically guaranteed.
Even though he didn’t know how much the bonus would be, at the very least it was something he had earned himself — and others might not even get it.
Thinking this way, Lin Yan felt secretly pleased.
The next several messages were all the same: [Engineer Lin, treat us to dinner!]
Lin Yan replied: [When the bonus arrives, we’ll go eat barbecue and drink beer — everyone’s invited.]
He didn’t read the following messages.
He exited the group chat and tapped on Moments from the bottom navigation bar.
The first post he saw was from someone he hadn’t contacted in a long time.
His graduate school classmate, Gu Han.
Caption:
Successfully graduated with my PhD. Thanks to my advisor for the guidance over the past few years. My combined master’s and doctoral program has officially come to an end.
Lin Yan opened the photo attached to the post.
Standing in the center was his advisor, Tian Yu.
By calculation, Lin Yan had already graduated three years ago.
In the photo, Professor Tian looked almost the same as when he had supervised them, except his temples were a bit grayer now.
After graduation, Lin Yan hadn’t met his professor for a meal in a long time.
He only sent greetings during holidays.
He thought that he really should find time to invite his professor out to eat.
As if on cue, the moment he opened Professor Tian’s chat window, the phone rang.
Lin Yan answered immediately.
“Hello, Professor Tian.”
“Oh! Xiao Lin.” Tian Yu’s voice sounded a bit hollow, and the surroundings were noisy, but in the next second, the background noise was blocked out.
“How have you been lately? Everything going okay?”
Hearing his teacher’s voice again, Lin Yan felt as if he had returned to his student days, when he discussed research topics with his advisor every day.
“I’m doing well, Professor.”
Tian Yu’s voice was still full of energy.
The little old man in his fifties still sounded like a strong young man.
“You’ve been working for three years now. How is it? All settled in?”
“Pretty good, Professor. Honestly, if it weren’t for your recommendation, I might not have even gotten in.”
“There’s no need to say that, Xiao Lin,” Tian Yu replied.
“You were my most outstanding student. I originally wanted you to continue your studies, but you insisted on going to work instead.”
“Professor, I had to get out and start working eventually.”
“Alright,” Tian Yu continued. “You’ve been officially confirmed as a full employee, right? I heard it from your company’s HR a few days ago.”
“Yes, I was just confirmed not long ago.”
“My students are never bad,” Tian Yu laughed heartily.
Lin Yan laughed along with him.
“And now your company has come to my research group again to recruit people.”
Lin Yan’s heart skipped a beat —hopefully it wasn’t the person he was thinking of.
Then, the next second, the voice on the phone said,
“Gu Han. Your fellow student. He should be joining your company soon.”
Lin Yan didn’t know why, but he responded vaguely, “That’s… good.”
Tian Yu chuckled happily.
“You joined earlier and you’re already familiar with things, so you’ll need to take good care of your old classmate.”
At that moment, a burst of laughter came from the other end of the phone.
Lin Yan didn’t hear it often, but he knew exactly who it was.
“Of course,” Lin Yan said more softly, keeping up the social pleasantries.
“We’re all Professor Tian’s students. It’s only right that we help each other. I’ll be relying on him too.”
As soon as he said that, the professor laughed even more happily.
“That’s right. When are you free? Let’s get together.”
“Whenever it’s convenient for you, Professor. I’m free.”
“Today.”
That wasn’t Tian Yu’s voice —it was the other person on the line.
Lin Yan bit his lip.
“Alright… today it is.”