Chapter 182: National Quintessence Greeting
After hearing what Jerry said, the person on the other end of the line was silent for a long moment before speaking. "You did the right thing. Things are still up in the air, so we can’t rush into a partnership with her."
Jerry breathed a sigh of relief after being praised by his father.
In truth, he was a little reluctant. Xie Changning was incredibly capable, and he could make a lot of money by working with her.
But this matter concerned the very survival of his family’s company, so he had no choice but to be cautious.
-
After parting ways with Jerry, Xie Changning took a tour of the electronics sections in various major department stores. She found that ordinary stores didn’t carry things like pagers; you could only find them in the more high-end places.
Xie Changning had originally wanted to buy a floor model.
But the moment the store manager saw she was from China, he immediately refused to sell to her.
Xie Changning was speechless. ’So petty.’
Since they wouldn’t sell to her, Xie Changning just glanced around casually before rolling her eyes at the manager and turning to leave.
The manager wanted to get angry with Xie Changning, but she didn’t give him the chance.
By the time his anger flared, she was already gone.
She knew better than to pick a fight on someone else’s home turf.
Back at the hotel, Xie Changning told everyone to wash up and get to bed early.
"Ugh, the jet lag..." That evening, as Xie Changning was washing her face, she heard the groans of her teammates.
They weren’t used to sleeping in the United States, and on top of that, there was the jet lag. It was absolute torture.
"We have to adapt. We can’t compete in this condition; we’ll be prone to making mistakes." This was precisely why Xie Changning had brought them over early.
They could have come half a month later and just mailed in their samples for the preliminary round.
But Xie Changning felt that half a month wasn’t enough time to adjust to the time difference, so she had requested permission from her superiors to leave early.
To acclimate to the time difference abroad.
As it turned out, Xie Changning was right.
On their first night after landing, no one could sleep. Everyone’s eyes were wide open, like saucers.
Left with no other choice, Xie Changning found a tape recorder and started playing an English recording.
Surprisingly, the English recording worked wonders.
None of the team members understood English, so it sounded like complete gibberish to them. Soon, they grew drowsy and drifted off to sleep amidst the "celestial text."
Since their bodies weren’t truly tired, they only slept for two or three hours before waking up again.
With nothing else to do, they started working on the data for their prototype.
Xie Changning, however, slept quite well.
It was mainly because she’d been sleep-deprived lately, so she slept for a solid five or six hours. When she woke up, she heard a few of her colleagues sitting in her room, quietly arguing about some data.
Xie Changning was speechless.
’Isn’t their own room empty?’
’Why are they discussing data in my room!’
"Do you think if we shake Mr. Xie awake now, he’ll yell at us?"
"We’re already out of line for calculating data in her room..."
"I think we shouldn’t wake him. I get the feeling Mr. Xie will beat us to a pulp any second now..." Just as Cheng Jinghao was finishing her sentence, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that their director was looking at her with an unreadable smile.
Cheng Jinghao fell silent and jutted her chin toward the others.
The others turned their heads and saw Xie Changning propped up on her hand, staring at them coolly.
They all let out a sheepish laugh.
"Mr. Xie, you’re awake?"
"We figured your data was more complete, so we came to your room. You’re not angry, are you?"
One of the girls, who wasn’t as familiar with Xie Changning, asked timidly.
Xie Changning sighed. "You could have taken these back to your room to discuss..."
"We didn’t expect you to sleep so long. We thought you were like us and just waited for you to wake up."
"..."
’Thank goodness it’s only the women in here,’ she thought. ’If the men were here too, I’d die of social embarrassment.’
She looked at them with resignation. "So, what was the issue you were just discussing?"
Resigned to her fate, Xie Changning rubbed her face and began explaining the data to them. With her guidance, many things they hadn’t understood suddenly became crystal clear.
In the next room, the men were anxiously waiting for the women to return.
Little did they know, the women were already immersed in an ocean of learning, having forgotten all about them.
When Xie Changning finished her explanation, Cheng Jinghao shot to her feet. "Oh no, we completely forgot about the guys..."
"!!!"
Only then did the others remember they’d left the others behind.
So, they hurriedly grabbed the data and went to find them.
Xie Changning got up, washed her face, and then went to join their discussion.
Of course, during the discussion, Xie Changning didn’t forget to order breakfast from the hotel.
’An army marches on its stomach, after all. How could they function without eating?’
When Xie Changning arrived with the food, nine people were sitting on the floor, surrounded by scattered drafts of data and deep in a heated discussion.
Hearing the door open, their voices came to a halt.
They saw Xie Changning arrive with breakfast. They paused their stubborn arguments, rubbed their empty stomachs, and scrambled to their feet. "Thank you, Mr. Xie!"
Hearing what they called her, Xie Changning felt a correction was in order.
"You can call me Team Lead, or you can call me Mr. Xie." The latter was a common way to address engineers in the factory, like calling someone Mr. Wang.
Since Xie Changning’s surname was Xie, they could call her Mr. Xie.
They exchanged glances, then nodded.
"Thank you, Mr. Xie."
"..."
For some reason, hearing them say that felt a little strange to Xie Changning.
But she couldn’t be bothered to correct their form of address again, so she just let it be.
After the meal, Xie Changning, worried they’d all fall asleep, took them out to browse different department stores and buy some daily necessities.
The layout of department stores abroad was different from the ones back in China. They were open-plan, without glass counters separating customers from the goods. This was a novelty for the workers, who were visiting a foreign country for the first time.
They looked at this and touched that.
Their behavior drew disdainful looks from several of the locals, who seemed to think they were a bunch of country bumpkins.
Xie Changning was walking behind her team. When she heard the locals loudly calling her people "country bumpkins," her eyes shot daggers at them.
And she offered a few choice words about their ancestors.
"You’re a vicious woman!"
The locals she had "greeted" were so incensed their eyes turned red, and they looked ready for a shouting match.
But from Xie Changning’s stance, it looked like she had a whole arsenal of insults left. They immediately backed down, spat on the ground, and hurried away.
Xie Changning rubbed the tip of her nose.
’I’m not usually so crude,’ she thought. ’I just couldn’t hold back after hearing them get louder and more out of line.’
’I’m a very well-mannered person, really.’
Cheng Jinghao, who was walking ahead of Xie Changning, turned her head and asked, "Mr. Xie, what did you just say to them?"
"Your tone sounded so casual, but they got scared and ran away..."