New Times, New Hell

Chapter 29 - Godly Boss

As soon as Shang Que spoke, the surrounding students simultaneously gasped.

Had they heard wrong?

Give-give-give, giving shares?

The school newspaper’s reporter who was hiding among the crowd and originally wanted to interview Yu Zhengdu even came up with a headline in their head:《Shocking! To Fight For One Male Student, the Bosses of Two Companies Publicly Did This During the Graduation Ceremony&#k2026;&#k2026;》

Everyone turned to look at Yu Zhengdu in shock. They actually already knew that he was skilled; after all, he had appeared on the school’s official website and won a national prize before, but they hadn’t imagined that he was skilled to this degree. Two big bosses already begging for him to join their companies as shareholder, and right after graduation.

There was no need to talk about what level Jiao Shanlan was on.

Though they were uncertain about the background of the man in front of them, adding together the facts that he could make Yu Zhengdu reject Jiao Shanlan to join his company and also all the information Zhu Yan had revealed earlier, it seemed that his company should be at least a little better than Jiao Shanlan’s laboratory.

But most importantly, the boss was so handsome……and was so gentle to his employees.

What kind of godly company was this? And what kind of godly boss ah?

Only to see Yu Zhengdu hurriedly shake his hands, “Don’t don’t don’t, there’s no need to be so polite.”

Just their ghost·company, signing a contract could cause rebound at any time, much less owning shares!

Shang Que’s gaze dropped. “You still want to go to that laboratory?”

Yu Zhengdu didn’t know how to answer either. He originally wanted to say that he wanted to wait for his current contract to expire, but upon seeing Boss’s expressionless face, he somehow seemed to be able to discern what he was feeling for the first time.

Boss seemed to be a little nervous……

Finally, Yu Zhengdu scratched his head. “I’m not going anymore.”

At this time, Father Yu who had been off to the side watching the presents finally couldn’t hold himself back. He butted in, holding on to Shang Que’s hand and refusing to let go: “Xiao Shang, you really can’t give us anything else. I still don’t even know what present to return you after that set of antiques last time.”

Shang Que’s hand was caught in Father Yu’s grip. He seemed quite uncomfortable and tried to yank it back, but couldn’t. It was obvious how excited Father Yu truly was.

Shang Que could only say, “Antiques are antiques. Shares are shares.”

Father Yu’s heart instantly stung. “……We can’t afford to return a present to you for either!”

With this interruption, the talks about giving shares stopped. The surrounding students completely froze this time.

This boss……had gifted Yu Zhengdu antiques??????

What happened to the same world, same kind of boss?

How come Yu Zhengdu’s boss is different from everyone else’s!!! Did he secretly add credit when he reincarnated?

Zhu Yan couldn’t help himself from asking, “Boss, is your company still hiring? Zhengdu and I are from the same dorm. I’m graduating with honors and easy to use!”

Yu Zhengdu: = =

Shang Que slowly looked over Zhu Yan. His eyes stopped at the arm he had swung around Yu Zhengdu’s neck. He asked, “Do you have no muscle strength?”

Zhu Yan: “……” This boss really isn’t a human! Why are his words so venomous!

He furiously cussed him out in his head, but still carefully took his hand back under Shang Que’s gaze.

Shang Que’s appearance doubtlessly traumatized a lot of their surrounding classmates. Everyone present was a graduating student, but how come some people were already so far ahead?

Among them, the one who had been hurt the most was Hou Guangzong.

His work, graduation gift, and beautiful girlfriend, all meant to be points of envy, became Yu Zhengdu’s background once again with Shang Que’s appearance.

……Yu Zhengdu seemed to be that hurdle he couldn’t cross in life!

He loathed him!

Nobody was paying attention to Hou Guangzong. Even Fang Mingyi’s expression wasn’t so great.

Finally, Hou Guangzong could only grab Fang Mingyi with a dark expression on his face. “Let’s go, we need to head backstage to prepare.”

……

After they took the group photo, the graduation ceremony was about to start too. The students gathered in groups of two and three to walk towards the auditorium.

Yu Zhengdu and Shang Que walked together. He was still explaining why he had started working at Luofeng back then.

Starting in university, Yu Zhengdu had used the ID of “singer” to be active on the starflicker forum. Because his skills advanced extremely rapidly, he quickly became one of the masters on the site, and also subsequently became acquainted with lan, osone, and the others.

There were actually a lot of guesses regarding the true identities of lan and the others on the forum. People knew that with their capabilities, they had to be important people in the field. But it wasn’t until Yu Zhengdu was in his last year of university that he knew lan was the legendary graduate of their school, Jiao Shanlan.

And he only revealed that because Jiao Shanlan was planning to start a laboratory and consequently wanted to invite Yu Zhengdu to join.

Because Jiao Shanlan had still been overseas at that time, Yu Zhengdu went to attend Nova’s campus hiring alone. With his abilities, he should have been able to secure an offer from Nova quite easily. Thus, Jiao Shanlan didn’t specially tell the company’s HR representatives to take note. The original plan was for him to transfer Yu Zhengdu into his laboratory after it was formed; this way, it would be more official too.

But neither of them imagined that after the New Year, Yu Zhengdu would receive a notification from Nova saying that his offer had been rescinded.

This obviously wasn’t normal. Yu Zhengdu was on high alert from the beginning, and suspected that someone had purposefully taken his spot.

Soon after, his suspicions were proven to be true. Hou Guangzong, whose skills were subpar and who had initially failed Nova’s hiring test, suddenly got in.

Though Yu Zhengdu couldn’t be 100% sure that Hou Guangzong was the one who had taken his spot, he knew that things definitely weren’t as simple as they seemed.

The addition or removal of an employee for a company on the scale of Nova didn’t cause any noticeable effects. If the other party had connections and only wanted to get into Nova, then it was entirely possible to ask Nova to simply add a spot on the list. There was no need to remove his offer.

The only explanation was, the other couldn’t bear to see him appear at Nova.

With this thought in his mind, Yu Zhengdu naturally also realized that the other would continue watching him from the shadows. Unless they were sure he couldn’t regain his footing again, they wouldn’t leave him alone.

The feeling of being watched by someone wasn’t a good one. Yu Zhengdu didn’t want to spend his days before graduation keeping an eye on others, so planned to find an inconspicuous little company to work at first. He wanted to make the other lower his guard.

Either way he had already finished discussing with Jiao Shanlan about work a long time ago. As soon as Jiao Shanlan returned to the country, he would directly join the laboratory.

Of course, he could also spend this time collecting evidence. When the time was right, he would give the other an unexpected blow.

The plan was originally impeccable. The only problem was the multiple job seminars their school had held before graduation. They emphasized the importance of labor contracts and social security, which resulted in his first reaction upon getting hired at Luofeng to be signing the contract.

Though the time he was going to be working wasn’t long, he still needed the basic protections……

“……That’s basically everything that happened.” Yu Zhengdu sighed. He still felt a little guilty sharing the truth, because he had somewhat used Luofeng as a coverup in his plan. But in actuality, he was the one who had fallen into a pit.

He could only say this was karma. Of course, at this time, he felt more conflicted than he did at the beginning.

He would understand if Shang Que was angry. After all, Shang Que had been pretty good to him……If it were him who had treated an employee so sincerely, only to find out the employee had always been thinking of jumping ship, his mood wouldn’t be great either.

Shang Que held onto the bouquet of roses, an indecipherable expression on his face. But his voice was lower than usual, “Something must be wrong with that Hou Guangzong!”

Yu Zhengdu froze for a second. “What?”

Only to hear Shang Que cussing, “The amateurs always cause more trouble!”

Yu Zhengdu: = = A normal beautiful boss, his aura being held back by games. Who knows if spending money can prevent him from learning all this trashtalk……

Shang Que freed a hand and a cold smile appeared on his face. “Let me lower the thunder fire and smite him into a burnt dog.”

“Calm down, calm down!” Yu Zhengdu hurriedly pressed his eager hand down. “You’re the respected Ghost King of Luofeng Mountain. Disputing with the likes of him is too degrading.”

Shang Que thought about it, then reluctantly lowered his hand. “You’re right.”

Yu Zhengdu tilted his head to look at him, slightly surprised. “Aren’t you mad?”

Shang Que stared at him. “Of course! But didn’t you tell me he wasn’t worth fussing about?”

Yu Zhengdu: “……” Clearly, he and Boss weren’t on the same wavelength once again.

But he was weirdly touched, too. He never imagined that Boss’s initial reaction after hearing everything wouldn’t be to be angry at him for using Luofeng as a stepping stone, but to help him yell at Hou Guangzong first.

Yu Zhengdu: “I meant……The fact that I planned to jump ship after graduation……”

“It’s not in my place to be angry about that?” Shang Que held onto the roses and exclaimed arrogantly, “You were originally going to go to that person’s company, but ultimately came to our company. If anyone should be angry, it should be him!”

Yu Zhengdu: ……Boss, passes logic√

But although Shang Que wasn’t angry, he was still a bit worried. He said, “Actually our company’s benefits aren’t bad. When your contract expires, I hope you can consider renewing ah……”

Yu Zhengdu laughed. “I’ll seriously consider it.”

……

The assembly hall at Fu City University was very large. Because of this, aside from the graduating students, a few students per major could also bring one family member in with them. Yu Zhengdu had luckily won one of these slots. He originally planned to bring his mom in, but after Shang Que arrived, Mother Yu said she would wait outside with Father Yu. She gave the opportunity to Shang Que.

Yu Zhengdu led Shang Que to find their spots. As soon as they sat down, people from all around looked over.

There was nothing to do about it. He himself was handsome; Boss was even more handsome. Now that the two of them were sitting together, they were the brightest corner in the entire auditorium.

Some people hadn’t been present earlier, so didn’t know what was going on. They wanted to gossip but didn’t dare to ask in person. One secretly sent a WeChat message to Yu Zhengdu:【The guy next to you is so handsome! Who is he? Your friend? Older brother? Relative?】

Yu Zhengdu:【……My boss.】

Classmate:【??????? You brought your boss to attend our graduation ceremony?】

Classmate:【What benefits did your boss give you? Is he sharing stock with you?】

Yu Zhengdu:【……Yeah 0.0】

The classmate was dazed by his response. He was just about to tease Yu Zhengdu a bit more, only to hear a classmate nearby explaining to someone else, “That’s him, fuck. Yu Zhengdu’s boss. To compete with landry for him, he just said that he was going to give Zhengdu shares when we were outside……”

Another person said, “I’m Buddhist, Yu Zhengdu is so badass. But his boss is so handsome. landry can’t compete in this regard. If it were me, I’d choose him!”

The classmate just about to tease Yu Zhengdu silently changed his message:【It is I who have lost.jpg】

Yu Zhengdu laughed and didn’t reply. He was just about to put his phone away when he received a notification from Jiao Shanlan.

lan:【Zhengdu, sorry. I don’t think I can do anything about your offer being rescinded】

lan:【Someone put a word in. This issue has been covered up by the superiors, I can’t continue looking into it】

lan:【I’m very apologetic about not being able to give you justice】

lan:【But I can still guarantee your acceptance into my laboratory. If you want it】

Yu Zhengdu thought about it, then replied with a dumb panda sticker:【You could, but there’s no need.jpg】

Shang Que noticed that he didn’t seem to be in a great mood, so leaned over to ask, “What’s wrong?”

Yu Zhengdu thought about it, then directly pulled up his chat history and handed his phone over for Shang Que to look at. He said, “Actually I don’t need lan to help me. I already made a program that can hack into Hou Guangzong’s laptop and computer. It’s collected more than enough evidence.”

According to Yu Zhengdu’s original plan, he didn’t need Jiao Shanlan to do anything. He had plenty of evidence in his possession. As long as he sent these to Jiao Shanlan, that would be enough for him to act on.

But now Jiao Shanlan had made himself known too soon. The person behind everything would have time to prepare a backup plan ahead of time.

If Yu Zhengdu sent the evidence to Nova’s administration now, they would definitely hide it. To take it a step further, this event might even be detrimental to Jiao Shanlan.

After hearing everything, Shang Que expressed his confusion. “Just because of something so trivial?”

Yu Zhengdu side-eyed him. “Us mortals are commonly bothered by these trivial daily things. You aren’t even human, how would you understand……”

Shang Que thought about it, then fished around in his pocket. He pulled out a small item and handed it to Yu Zhengdu. “Since you don’t want the company’s shares, I’ll give you this instead.”

Yu Zhengdu looked over, only to see an iron ball in Shang Que’s hand. It was around the size of a pigeon’s egg and black all over. There was a mysterious icy glint to it.

Several black lines suddenly appeared on Yu Zhengdu’s forehead. “Even though us programmers truly do need to train our fingers, you don’t need to give me a hand bead? Besides, this is a little small. How would I coil it?”

Shang Que was silent for a moment, before he slowly said, “This isn’t a hand bead……”

Yu Zhengdu thought of his previous actions and immediately gasped. “It’s not another antique, right? I’m not taking it!”

Shang Que: “……It’s not.”

Yu Zhengdu was thoroughly confused, but still held a hand out to receive it. “Then what is this?”

But Shang Que flipped his palm over and took the gift back. “Have you heard the story of how before Yama begins court, he first swallows an iron ball?”

Yu Zhengdu shook his head in confusion.

“Can you learn some more about things related to the company?” Shang Que was slightly exasperated. Then, he stuffed the bouquet of roses into his arms and said, “I’ll give it to you later. Be right back.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……??” Which good new socialist youth would spend their free time studying about Hell!

In just a moment, the announcement system inside the assembly hall turned on with a “weng”. The emcee walked onstage to the cheers of the audience. The graduation ceremony began.

According to schedule, the principal spoke first. He summarized the results they had achieved within the past four years and specially praised the exceptional students in this year. But those students paying extra attention noticed that Yu Zhengdu’s name wasn’t part of that list.

Technically, Yu Zhengdu should’ve been the most famous student in their college.

After the principal finished, the main event began. Jiao Shanlan arrived onstage and began talking. He had donated quite a sum of money returning to school this time, and was the idol of several students. Thus, the atmosphere immediately became more rowdy, filled with continuous cheers.

After Jiao Shanlan finished speaking too, over half an hour had already passed. But Shang Que still wasn’t back.

Yu Zhengdu held onto the roses and looked at the empty spot next to him. For some reason, he was a bit anxious.

Onstage, the emcee appeared once more and announced that they would be entering the next segment. The student representative would be bestowing the honorable alumni award to Jiao Shanlan, then would give a final speech.

Because Jiao Shanlan had already set the mood, when Hou Guangzong stepped onstage, his classmates gave him a lot of face by applauding loudly and enthusiastically.

Hou Guangzong wore an obviously expensive custom outfit and walked across stage with a blissful expression on his face. He politely saluted everyone, then picked up the medal from the tray held by the ceremony assistant and awarded it to Jiao Shanlan.

Another round of applause.

After completing this entire procedure, Hou Guangzong finally straightened his tie and steadily walked in front of the podium. He cleared his throat into the microphone. At this time, he suddenly felt something cold in his throat. Immediately after, his stomach dropped, as if something had fallen into it.

He was bewildered and looked around, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

That was probably an illusion? He thought.

At the same time, Shang Que finally came back, elegant as usual as he sat beside Yu Zhengdu. He very naturally fished the roses back to hold.

Yu Zhengdu asked, “Where did you go? What took so long?”

Shang Que didn’t say anything, only smiling and gesturing for him to look onstage. Yu Zhengdu was suspicious, but still turned his gaze in the direction of the stage.

Onstage, Hou Guangzong had already finished preparing for his speech. He scanned the audience confidently, his gaze finally lingering in the front row.

His parents and auntie were all sitting in the first few seats, looking up at him proudly.

Their child was finally on the path to success.

Only to hear Hou Guangzong excitedly speak into the microphone, “Leaders, classmates, everyone, greetings. Today, the first thing I want to say is——everybody seated here today is all trash!”

Everyone: “………………???”

Yu Zhengdu: “Pu——”

The author has something to say:

Shang Que: For you

Zhengdu: …………Pigeon egg????? (bushi)