Fifteen hours of flight came to an end, and the Gulfstream G650 private jet landed at Jingbei International Airport.
This was easily the most pleasant flying experience Song Xinya had ever had.
She had eaten her fill, drunk well, and then climbed straight into the bed to sleep.
When she woke up, the plane had already arrived at its destination.
The moment she stepped out of the cabin door, all the crew members waved her off warmly and bowed to see her off.
After sleeping for a full fifteen hours, all the soreness in Song Xinya's body had eased up.
Only her lower back still had a pain relief patch stuck to it.
Ugh, that endlessly insatiable husband of hers.
The second she walked out of the airport, her assistant came up to greet her: "Ma'am, President Qin sent me to pick you up."
Song Xinya glanced over the top of his head.
On normal days, even when strong winds were blowing, she had never seen the assistant wear a hat.
But today, when the sun was shining bright and the weather was warm, the assistant was wearing a hat.
Song Xinya thought it was odd, but she didn't press the matter. It was his personal business, and she wasn't the type to be nosy enough to nitpick over other people's appearance.
Oh right, she didn't have any balls to itch anyway.
Yep, that's right, that little appendage isn't something everyone is blessed with.
The assistant took the luggage from Song Xinya's hand and led her forward.
The driver opened the door of the Rolls-Royce, and just as Song Xinya was about to get in, she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye that the driver's raised arm knocked the assistant's hat right off, revealing a completely bald head.
Song Xinya stared at the assistant's "bald egg" in shock.
"Why did you change your hairstyle?"
And to such a jaw-dropping one at that.
The assistant scrambled to pick the hat up from the ground and plopped it back on his completely hairless head.
He didn't dare tell her that President Qin was the one who had ordered him to shave it all off.
"Ma'am, I just thought my old hairstyle was super common and totally unoriginal, so I went for this new look instead."
The driver chimed in: "This bald egg hairstyle is definitely super distinctive. If you carried a wooden fish and banged it as you walked, you could pass for Tang Sanzang heading out to collect alms."
The assistant shot him a sharp glare, and the driver quickly shut his mouth.
When they got home and Song Xinya called Qin Yuhe to check in and say she had arrived safely, she brought up the whole incident.
"Did you know your assistant changed his hairstyle?" she asked.
Qin Yuhe's tone was completely calm: "I knew."
Song Xinya asked curiously: "Why did he shave all his hair off?"
Qin Yuhe said: "Probably to look cool."
Song Xinya: "????"
A bald head? Cool?
The next day, Song Xinya went into the office.
The second Chen Siyan spotted her, he stretched both his arms up toward the sky and then bowed all the way down, calling out in a high-pitched, exaggerated voice: "Welcome back, Consort Xi~"
Song Xinya said: "You may rise, Little Chen."
Chen Siyan wiped his hands across his chest with a dramatic flourish, then dropped down on one knee: "Understood, ma'am."
Dong Dongdong walked past holding a stack of documents and chuckled casually: "Manager Chen, you really are generous. We were apart for just one night, and you went and cut off your most precious thing already."
Yuan Jingcheng said: "If you threw that precious thing away somewhere, I've been craving some extra-nourishing oxtail soup, I could pick it up and toss it in to boil."
Everyone else: "..............."
Everyone else: "!!!!!!!"
Chen Siyan: "No one's more ruthless than you, Mr. Yuan."
The general manager walked by, and everyone immediately hurried back to their workstations to get back to work.
Yuan Jingcheng walked up to Song Xinya, his face a little awkward and sheepish, and said: "Teacher Song, the day you left for your trip, when those few fired former coworkers cornered you, I didn't run away because I didn't want to help. I turned and ran right away to go get backup."
Now that everything was long over, he was saying that to her.
Song Xinya had no idea if he really believed that was what he was doing, or if he was just making up an excuse to save face for himself.
After all, standing by and letting someone die is hardly a respectable thing to do, and it makes a man look terribly ungentlemanly.
There are men who have no gentlemanly qualities to speak of, yet they crave that image and go to great lengths to fake it.
Song Xinya smiled faintly. "That incident the other day? I've long forgotten about it. I never waste my thoughts on people and things that don't matter to me."
Yuan Jingcheng gave a dry, awkward laugh. "I knew Teacher Song was broad-minded, and would never misunderstand anyone."
He was still making excuses for himself, and even trying to put a moral spin on things to pressure Song Xinya: if you call me out for standing by and doing nothing back then, you are the one being unreasonable and misjudging me.
After Yuan Jingcheng left, Chen Siyan spat in the direction of his retreating back. "Ugh! What a disgusting man!"
He had only found out that day that Song Xinya had once been cornered and attacked by a group of former colleagues.
"Running away saying he was going to get help? That's total nonsense after the fact! Does he have any idea how dangerous it was to leave a girl all alone surrounded by a bunch of men?" Chen Siyan fumed.
"If we really had to wait for him to bring backup, it would be way too late! It's the kind of thing where the baby dies and you suddenly remember to breastfeed, the car smashes into the tree before you realize you should have turned, the stock skyrockets only after you decide to buy, the snot drips into your mouth before you remember to spit it out, and the knife is at your throat before you decide to change your ways. All of that is just far too little, far too late."
Chen Siyan looked down on that kind of behavior with utter contempt. "I'm telling you, if I had been there at the time, I would have fought those men tooth and nail. Even if I got beaten half to death, I would never have left a girl all alone to be hounded by a group of thugs."
"A real man stands tall and unyielding. Even if he has to die, he should die for something that matters, and die with honor!"
Song Xinya knew Chen Siyan's character well, and was fully confident that he would step up without a second thought if he saw someone in trouble.
But Yuan Jingcheng? That was a whole different story.
"After working alongside him for so long, I've figured Yuan Jingcheng out," Chen Siyan said. "He's not exactly evil through and through, not like Zhao Yinian, who lives for nothing more than stepping all over everyone else and cackling with glee whenever things go wrong for other people. Yuan Jingcheng is just incredibly selfish. He only cares about benefits, never about human feelings, and puts his own interests above absolutely everything else."
"To give you a perfect example: if he saw a little girl being bullied by a scrawny, weak man, even if he was 100% sure he could beat that bully easily, he would never lift a finger to help. The most he'd do is call 911 for you."
"These people who are obsessed with their own gains do absolutely nothing unless it benefits them. If helping someone else might get them tangled up with troublemakers, they'll turn their backs on you in a heartbeat."
Song Xinya thought Chen Siyan's assessment of Yuan Jingcheng was spot on.
"Let me tell you another secret," Chen Siyan went on. "Yuan Jingcheng is the president of the International Education and Training Association, and one of the judges for the Gold Medal Lecturer selection. He holds the power of life and death over that whole competition."
"Of course, we can badmouth our superiors all we want behind closed doors, but out in public we still have to show them respect, and give them all the face they expect."
We're all adults here, after all. No one wears their true innermost thoughts on their sleeve.
That's something only kids do.
Over the next few days, Song Xinya kept busy reaching out to new clients, keeping in touch with existing ones, and meeting clients in person, all while working on the presentation for the Gold Medal Lecturer campaign.
That's just how the modern world works. The people who are good at doing things can't keep up with the people who are good at talking, the hardworking folks get walked all over by the smooth-tongued ones, the honest people get taken advantage of by the sly ones, and the kindhearted get outmaneuvered by the crafty.
People who can talk their way out of any situation always land on their feet and live comfortably, while the people who aren't good with words end up stuck doing all the backbreaking work and getting nothing to show for it.
Song Xinya has always had outstanding work performance. No matter which company she works for, she is always among the top performers, and no matter how many strong rivals she faces, she consistently ranks firmly in the top three.
It is not difficult to talk about all her work experiences since she started her career.
What is difficult is to make the story telling engaging and impressive.
Song Xinya searched for speech videos of various major entrepreneurs online, and watched every single video she could find.
She even reviewed them over and over again, studying them repeatedly.
By chance, Song Xinya came across a speech video from Qin Yuhe's early years.
Back then, Qin Yuhe was only 19 years old.
His appearance was not much different from what it is now, only his demeanor carried the unique high-spirited energy that comes with being young.
At the age of 19, he already stood on a national-level stage as a representative of the nation's outstanding young entrepreneurs to deliver an important speech.
The audience below the stage was full of political and business celebrities. Standing on the high platform at 19, Qin Yuhe spoke fluently, and every word he said was full of his unique wisdom and insight.
It was not the kind of rigid, dogmatic speech filled with stock phrases. Instead, his words were laced with humor, and he interacted with the audience.
During the speech, he carried himself in a relaxed, carefree manner. His opening line was a question to the audience, "Have any of you heard me speak before?"
This was his first time standing on the national Outstanding Young Entrepreneur speech stage, so naturally, none of the others had heard him speak.
The audience replied honestly, "No, we haven't."
The corners of Qin Yuhe's lips curled up, and there was a vibrant, mischievous glint in his smile as he said, "Since none of you have, then I'll just start talking nonsense."
The whole audience burst into laughter right away. Even those stern officials were amused and could not help laughing out loud.
This guy really does things in his own unorthodox way.
The originally dull, lifeless venue instantly became lively, and everyone who was on the verge of falling asleep perked up completely.
After that, Qin Yuhe began his formal speech, and he explained those obscure, hard-to-understand financial concepts in a very humorous and approachable way.
The entire speech was absolutely brilliant.
Song Xinya watched this speech video of Qin Yuhe no less than fifty times.
She studied it frame by frame.
She learned the tone of his voice, the pauses he used, his sense of humor, his relaxed state, and the way he made eye contact when interacting with the audience.
As time ticked by, the day of the Gold Lecturer selection competition soon arrived.
When Song Xinya woke up in the morning, she received a video call from Qin Yuhe.
His beautiful eyes were like the brightest stars in the night sky, as he gently reminded her, "Yaya, you usually speak a little fast in daily conversations. Remember to slow down your pace appropriately when you give your speech. If you get too nervous on stage, try pausing for a second, take a breath, and then continue speaking. Keep in mind that giving a speech is not a one-person show on stage. You need to connect and communicate with the audience."
"If you are really too nervous, just imagine all the judges down there are radishes and cabbages, and think of yourself as speaking to a bunch of radishes and cabbages."
Song Xinya was feeling quite nervous at first, but when she followed Qin Yuhe's suggestion and pictured herself talking to a group of radishes and cabbages, what was there to be nervous about?
She burst into a smile, and her nervousness eased up a great deal.
Qin Yuhe cheered her on, "Yaya, go after your dream boldly. Don't be afraid of failure, because no matter what happens, I will always be right behind you."
