Chapter 259 - 199: Who’s Fooling Who?

"President Shan, I believe I once reported to you about the income of NLB’s store staff."

Dan Biao nodded. He’d done the math back then; a store clerk’s income was around 10,000 yuan, while a store manager could make over 15,000. At this thought, his heart skipped a beat.

Sure enough, Xia Jie said faintly, "In that case, do you think my income as a supervisor would be less than a store manager’s?"

He was stunned. "It’s that much?"

He had been stuck in his own mindset. At Futong Commerce, a base salary of 7,000 for a supervisor was considered high, so he had subconsciously assumed Xia Jie was making about the same here. But as soon as she said that, Dan Biao suddenly realized, ’That’s right. The store managers make 15,000, so wouldn’t she make even more? With an income like that, what’s the point of Futong Commerce even trying to poach her?’

He even started to feel a little resentful. He had worked under Li Yang for so long, and his salary was only 20,000 yuan a month—and that was after the most recent salary adjustment. Yet Xia Jie, who used to be a bottom-tier employee in the operations department, was now earning almost as much as him.

’Almost as much?’ He couldn’t help but ask again, "Roughly how much is your income?"

Xia Jie thought for a moment. It wasn’t exactly a secret. "A base salary of 18,000, plus a 0.2% commission on performance."

Dan Biao was floored. ’What kind of god-tier compensation is this?’ Normally, a supervisor could manage ten stores, no problem. Even if not all of them had sales figures like this NLB store, let’s say ten stores did 10 million in sales a month. Her bonus alone would be 20,000. Add that to her 18,000 base salary, and that’s a monthly income of nearly 40,000.

He started to question his life choices. ’Have I been living like a dog all these years?’ He had always thought Futong Commerce was a big company, a major platform, with the best compensation in the industry. That entire perception just collapsed. He wondered if he’d been brainwashed by Li Yang for too long, to the point of becoming an idiot.

"And I won’t even mention the other things, like high-temperature subsidies, two company trips a year, and so on. President Shan, tell me, why would I go back to Futong Commerce? To earn a beast of burden’s pay for a slave’s life?"

Dan Biao gulped down his coffee. His entire worldview had collapsed. He had always thought that as the Operations Director at Futong Commerce, he was already quite successful among the working class. He had even accepted Li Yang’s brainwashing that he would never find a higher salary if he left Futong Commerce.

"Sigh... Xia Jie, congratulations! With compensation like yours, even I want to come over."

He left Xinyue Square, his spirits dampened. ’In the future, Futong Commerce had better not try to poach anyone from here.’ Once you find out their salary, your first thought is whether you can get into Yanghe Commerce. If you can’t, you start to question your current job, which affects your work performance. If even he, an Operations Director, was having such thoughts, what hope was there for anyone else?

Yang Hui received a message from his landlady, Aunt Zheng:

[Aunt Zheng: Mr. Xiao Yang, your relationship with Xiaomei has been progressing quickly lately! I feel like she’s not against the idea of dating you now. When are you going to come over for a meal?]

Faced with the enthusiastic auntie, Yang Hui didn’t know how to reply. ’Is this about her not rejecting me? I’m the one rejecting her! I can accept a curvy figure, but not obesity. Besides, I already have a girlfriend.’

[Yang Hui: Auntie, thank you. I’ll bring my girlfriend to visit you some other day.]

[Aunt Zheng: You have a girlfriend now? Weren’t you and Xiaomei getting along so well? I thought she had a good impression of you too.]

Yang Hui didn’t know how to explain. In the beginning, both he and Hu Mei had just been humoring Aunt Zheng about her matchmaking attempts. But one lie needs ten more to cover it up, and now he had no idea how far Hu Mei had spun this tale. ’A good impression of me? We haven’t even spoken in days.’

Just as he was wondering how to reply, another WeChat message came in:

[Lamb In The Tiger’s Maw: Yang Hui, my mom keeps telling me to invite you over for dinner. How about you just come over once?]

[Yang Hui: It’d be so awkward for me to go over if you’re there.]

[Lamb In The Tiger’s Maw: Are you that scared to see me? I don’t bite.]

[Yang Hui: I know that. You only eat meat.]

He thought of the image in his mind of Hu Mei, a fatty weighing over 200 jin, who probably ate meat by the pound, and a sudden chill ran down his spine.

[Lamb In The Tiger’s Maw: Figure it out yourself. Anyway, my mom told me to invite you, and I did. If you don’t come, she can’t blame me.]

’So she’s just trying to placate her mom, too.’ Yang Hui didn’t take it seriously anymore. It would be so awkward to go over for dinner, with the two of them just staring at each other. After a while, though, he really could bring Shen Meng over for a visit. He’d heard from Yang Na that Aunt Zheng was quite helpful and had pulled a lot of strings when the company was dealing with some paperwork.

Bringing Shen Meng to meet Aunt Zheng was also a way to make her give up on the idea. But from Yang Hui’s own perspective, he didn’t think he would only have one girlfriend. He already had the makings of a scumbag, and now that he had a system to back him up, remaining devoted to just one woman would probably tarnish the reputation of all players who possessed a golden finger.

In the evening, as closing time approached, Yanghe Commerce’s NLB livestream ended. The total sales for the entire stream reached 4.1 million. Shen Meng took the fruit juice Xia Jie handed her. After streaming for most of the day, her mouth was dry, and she desperately needed a cold drink to soothe her throat.

"Shen Meng, you’re amazing! You made two months’ worth of business for one of our stores in a single stream."

She gently shook her head. "Xia Jie, you can’t look at it that way. For this online event, Xinyue Group provided unlimited consumer subsidy coupons. They’re actually losing money to do this for us. This kind of business isn’t sustainable. I heard from Yang Hui that he’s preparing to talk with President Tian about it. We’ll offer to cover half of the subsidy cost, which would be equivalent to leaving Xinyue Group with a 1% profit margin. That’s the only way it’s a win-win, and only win-win deals can last."