Online Love, Based on the Real Object - Chapter 27

“President Chu, do you really want to set the goal this high…?” He Hao held the document in his hand, momentarily speechless at the Double 11 sales target written on the page.

To this, Chu Yunjing didn’t even look up. She signed her name on the document with a sharp, decisive stroke, clicked her pen cap back on, and finally looked up at him.

“Is there a problem?” Her voice was perfectly calm, her expression unreadable.

“Well… our total online sales for the 618 festival were only thirty million…”

While skincare products are fast-moving consumer goods, a target of sixty million—effectively doubling their previous performance—felt like a long shot.

He Hao’s concern was reasonable. Chu Yunjing leaned back in her executive chair and simply stared at him. Being watched like that made He Hao’s scalp tingle; he wished he could take back what he had just said.

How could a goddess like her possibly fail!

After a long silence, Chu Yunjing finally spoke.

“For this Double 11 promotion, I plan to push fast-moving products like facial masks,” she said, tapping the desk lightly with her pen. “We will run online and offline promotions simultaneously, focusing on high volume with low margins. The discounts will be even better than 618.”

“Besides, we currently have nearly a hundred distributors of all sizes across the country. I actually think sixty million is a conservative estimate.”

He Hao nodded vigorously. “You’re absolutely right, President Chu!” He was terrified that if he said another word, she might bump the target to a hundred million—and he’d be the one suffering for it. After all, he was the one responsible for drafting the detailed sales plans.

He soon thought of another issue.

“However, there is one thing I need to report. Based on our factory’s daily output, our inventory might not be enough to handle the shipping. Last time during 618, the workers had to rush for over a week just to finish shipping everything.”

Before last year, VER products were manufactured by professional third-party factories to save on rent and labor costs. But as the saying goes, “the wool comes from the sheep’s back”—the processing fees were high, which meant high costs and lower profits.

To scale the company, they had to control their own production line. Thus, last year, Chu Yunjing invested heavily in building her own brand factory.

Currently, VER only has one factory with limited daily output. They could handle small events, but the 618 performance had exceeded expectations, resulting in stock shortages and the loss of a small portion of buyers who couldn’t wait and requested refunds.

“We still have two months,” Chu Yunjing said, clearly aware of the problem. “Have the factory hire more people. From this month until Double 11, daily output must be maintained at 1.5 times the original rate.”

“Understood.”

After their discussion, He Hao invited her to visit the factory. Since she had nothing scheduled for the afternoon, she went.

The factory spanned thousands of square meters, housing not only the production workshops but also the R&D laboratories. Upon hearing the boss was coming, the factory director had been waiting at the entrance for some time.

As Chu Yunjing stepped out of the car, she saw the director and several supervisors jogging toward her from under the eaves. “President Chu!”

After a brief handshake, the group headed into the plant. As they walked, the director said, “President Chu, the R&D lab just formulated a new product. You should take a look while you’re here.”

Chu Yunjing nodded. Walking under the sun, she felt the heat within seconds. She happened to be wearing dark clothing today, which only absorbed more heat.

I should have brought an umbrella, she thought. Xu Lu hadn’t come along this time.

Just as the thought surfaced, a patch of shade appeared over her head. He Hao was holding an umbrella, smiling cheerfully at his boss. He was quite attentive when it came to making sure she didn’t get sunburnt.

Chu Yunjing wanted to check the production status. Entering a cleanroom workshop was a hassle; one had to wear dust-free suits, masks, and gloves. Workers even had to wear head covers.

Once the workers were geared up, they could enter the workshop directly. Because the factory was heavily monitored by cameras and lacked frequent manual inspections, the management wasn’t as strict compared to other large skincare processing plants.

Dust-free suits are made of airtight nylon. Fearing the heat would be too much for the boss, the director didn’t insist she wear one. Besides, those suits were a bit ugly—everyone looked the same in them.

The group went in wearing only masks. They took a general look at each process on the assembly line, keeping a respectful distance as long as they didn’t touch anything.

Chu Yunjing stayed in the workshop for a while and began to feel the heat. She looked at the workers who were fully covered and knew they must be even hotter. Because the facility was so large and the weather so intense, the central air conditioning wasn’t very effective. Large fans whirred throughout the workshop, but they only blew hot air.

In such an environment, let alone working, even just standing there made one feel irritable. How could anyone focus? It would be a miracle if no mistakes were made.

“Director Liu.” Chu Yunjing glanced around, interrupting the director’s non-stop chatter. “Don’t you think it’s a bit hot in here?”

Director Liu blinked. “The temperature has been very high lately, so the workshop is quite hot. Let me take you to the office; the AC is on there, it’s nice and cool!”

Hearing this, He Hao’s heart skipped a beat. Oh no.

Chu Yunjing was highly dissatisfied with Director Liu’s dismissive attitude. Her beautiful brows furrowed slightly; even through her mask, one could tell her mood was turning sour.

“Didn’t the company allocate a fund two months ago specifically to improve the employees’ working environment?”

“Ah, yes.” Director Liu hadn’t quite caught on yet and replied blankly.

“And what did I say then?” Chu Yunjing asked, her patience wearing thin.

“You said the workshop was too hot and asked to install some air conditioners.” Director Liu scratched his head. “But President Chu, you know how big this factory is. One AC unit can only cover a limited area. To turn this whole workshop into an air-conditioned room… the cost is just too high. It’s not necessary. So, I installed more fans—every team has them now. It’s the same thing, and things have improved a lot compared to before.”

Director Liu’s bluntness made He Hao palm his forehead. Even he was speechless.

His boss had suffered through this herself. In the early days of the company, when there weren’t enough people to ship orders from the warehouse, Chu Yunjing would personally go and help. On sweltering days, the warehouse was stifling and hot. Everyone would be drenched in sweat, eventually sitting on the steps together to eat popsicles.

The first thing she did after they started making money was install AC in the warehouse. Because she had lived through it, she could empathize.

Except, of those few people from the early days, only He Hao remained.

Then, Chu Yunjing proceeded to scold the factory director in front of everyone in the workshop.

“You sit in your office comfortably with the AC on every day, so of course you think it’s ‘unnecessary.’ Have you never heard of ‘Let them eat cake’?”

“I didn’t hire you to sit around. I don’t need you to save money in places where it shouldn’t be saved. If you can’t handle a simple task like this, turn in your resignation and leave.”

Chu Yunjing’s usual composed demeanor was gone, replaced by a rare flash of anger. Not only Director Liu, but even He Hao had rarely seen her like this.

The low pressure radiating from the boss caused beads of sweat to form on Director Liu’s forehead. He immediately began nodding and admitting his mistake.

The workers cast secret glances in their direction. Chu Yunjing remained unmoved by the director’s apology, so He Hao stepped in to smooth things over. While Director Liu had his flaws, his work ability was decent. He Hao feared the boss might fire him in a fit of rage, leaving the factory leaderless and causing even more trouble.

“President Chu, please, calm down,” He Hao said with a placating smile. “Director Liu’s intentions were good, he’s just a layman who didn’t estimate the number of fans correctly. I think we should have professional technicians handle this—install some central AC units to ensure the workers have a comfortable environment.”

He then turned to Director Liu. “And you! Don’t you know President Chu cares about her subordinates the most?” He winked at him, and Director Liu, finally taking the hint, bowed and scraped before Chu Yunjing.

After a moment of tension, Chu Yunjing realized she might have been a bit harsh. Seeing the director’s sincere apology, her brows gradually relaxed, and she stopped pressuring him.

Her sudden flare-up wasn’t entirely because of Director Liu; she was already in a bad mood, and this situation had simply been the breaking point.

As for why she was in a bad mood… it was because of a certain “ostrich” who was hiding and refusing to come online.

That day, she had only wanted to test the other person’s reaction, but she hadn’t expected the reaction to be so extreme that it scared her offline.

The message hadn’t been replied to; in fact, it was still marked as unread.

Sigh.

After finishing the inspection, Chu Yunjing left He Hao to handle the follow-up and drove back to the city alone.

Upon arriving at the office building, she didn’t go straight to the company but instead turned into the coffee shop next door. It was still work hours, so the shop wasn’t crowded—only a few tables of people who looked like they were discussing business.

She ordered a latte and sat in a corner, enjoying the AC while watching the scorching sun outside. Lush branches cast shadows over the sidewalk. People working here were always busy, wishing they could stretch one hour into two.

Chu Yunjing watched the fifth passerby hurry past while talking on a phone in the heat, then withdrew her gaze. Her phone, sitting on the table, had timed out and the screen had gone dark.

When she unlocked it, the screen was still on her chat history with a certain someone.

A long time ago, Chu Yunjing had downloaded the app Zuire (The Hottest) on a whim, intending to kill time and perhaps make some new friends.

She could talk to Qi Ning about her worries and troubles—she could even tell her her payment passwords—but she avoided the topic of her sexual orientation. Even with her best friend, some topics were simply unspeakable.

However, she soon hit a wall. Her cold chatting style seemed to freeze out most people who took the initiative to message her, though many of them were just looking for a casual hookup anyway. She chatted with a few, but it rarely went beyond the greeting stage. They stayed in her contact list, and before long, she’d see them posting about their “couples” status in their updates, followed shortly by a breakup. She witnessed wave after wave of this.

She had once met someone she clicked with; they both liked being direct. After adding each other on WeChat and chatting for a few days, they met in person, but the result was disappointing.

Chu Yunjing was usually very busy. Before meeting “70,” her frequency on the app was about three times a week, or she’d just log in for a quick look when she was bored.

Sending a “wink” to “70” had actually been an accidental slip of the finger. She hadn’t expected a response. Her photo wall was empty—never a single picture of herself—and in such cases, the chance of getting a response was usually very low.

She didn’t mind getting to know 70 better, but because she had been harassed by so many unsavory characters and had a bad experience with her last real-life meeting, her threshold for “friends” had become quite high.

To her surprise, this person was quite interesting—even cute and innocent. 70 didn’t start with strange comments, ask for photos, or demand her phone number. To avoid making her uncomfortable, 70 would use memes to tease her and was very respectful of her moods. This was a pleasant surprise.

It was as if a desert traveler, after encountering a mirage, spent their last bit of strength digging into a damp patch of sand before they died of thirst.

And clear water actually gushed out of the hole.

When 70 had previously suggested adding each other on WeChat, she had intended to say yes. But then the other person changed their mind, saying they should just keep chatting on the app. Chu Yunjing thought it would be inconvenient, but for some reason, she had agreed.

It was actually nice to have someone waiting for her every time she logged on.

But this person hadn’t been online for several days.

They had been chatting for a while, and she could sense that the other person likely had feelings for her. She had been waiting for the other person to suggest WeChat or a meeting, but 70 was surprisingly good at holding back.

Chu Yunjing admitted she was a bit “black-bellied” (sly). She wanted the other person to make the first move. When the topic of “exes” came up last time, she had simply gone with the flow.

She just hadn’t expected this person’s tolerance level to be so low. But then again, didn’t that prove how much they cared?

Looking at her phone and the person she couldn’t quite grasp, she felt a slight twinge of regret for what she had done.

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