The Young Lady is a Bit Unruly [Fragrant Harbor] - Chapter 43: Suppressing Breath and Sound

Chapter 43: Suppressing Breath and Sound

After listening to Ye Baoling describe the situation in the wine cellar, Ye Huaizhang slightly furrowed his brows.

Also 1946 vintage red wine?

Yes, from different wineries, Ye Baoling emphasized. Not a single bottle is missing.

The layout is exactly the same as the wine cellar beneath our building?

Exactly the same – three columns, four rows, twelve wine racks. But the switch is different. Ye Baoling spoke while brushing her teeth. Now this difficult problem is handed over to you. Could the switch password still be related to the Fu Xi Eight Trigrams diagram?

Ye Huaizhang wanted to visit the site that night, but if he sneaked over from the main garden in the middle of the night, he could easily be discovered by others, so he had to abandon the idea.

He said, Regarding the switch, I’ll find time to study it further.

Alright. I won’t talk to you anymore. Ye Baoling was in a hurry to use the restroom and directly hung up the phone.

Ye Huaizhang, who had always been the one to hang up on others first, was stunned for quite a while.

He was now being led around by her, and this completely passive relationship made him feel very insecure. He called back.

Although the sound wasn’t loud, Ye Baoling was still startled by the sudden ringing of the phone.

Besides Ye Huaizhang, no one else had her mobile phone number. She answered the call and said with some impatience, Didn’t we agree? Only I can call you. Why aren’t you following the rules?

Ye Huaizhang retorted, That arrangement was to avoid being discovered by others. Aren’t you alone brushing your teeth in the restroom right now?

Ye Baoling, who had finished brushing and was now using the toilet: …

After a moment, she asked, Why did you call me?

Ye Huaizhang: Didn’t you say before that if Dapeng Port was going to release news, I should remember to notify you in advance…

It was a call about making money!

Ye Baoling immediately changed her tone, Honey, are we going to announce the news to the public immediately?

Hearing his wife’s sweet, coquettish voice, Ye Huaizhang couldn’t help but comment, Ye Baoling, you really change your expression faster than flipping a book.

I just woke up, I’m just feeling a bit grumpy. Which day will the news be announced?

Ye Huaizhang snorted before saying, Friday afternoon at 2:30.

Received. Mwah. Ye Baoling blew a kiss through the air. She really couldn’t hold it anymore and didn’t want to use the toilet while talking on the phone, even if it was with her husband.

Without further ado, she quickly hung up.

Ye Huaizhang, who thought he would finally get to enjoy the privilege of hanging up first this time, listened to the busy signal from the receiver and sighed heavily in frustration.

*

The cardboard sales from last month brought in 7,752 yuan. Following her previous discussion with Qi Yuxiu, Ye Baoling took out 3,000 yuan to distribute among the cleaning department team members.

The cleaners, who each received approximately 150 yuan on average, all wore smiles on their faces.

The remaining members of this group had previously received less, but now the cardboard money they received had nearly doubled. They couldn’t help but discuss privately that the former team leader had indeed been embezzling funds.

People follow the money – whoever provides more money and is fairer becomes the boss.

Therefore, everyone now genuinely respected and obeyed Ye Baoling.

After Ye Baoling reported her recent work in Qi Yuxiu’s office, she didn’t feel it appropriate to ask too much about the unresolved matter of the marketing director accepting bribes and abusing power for personal gain.

Before leaving, Qi Yuxiu handed her an envelope containing 600 yuan—Ye Baoling’s share of the cardboard recycling money.

Ye Baoling had handed over 4700 yuan to Qi, yet only received 600 in return. This woman was truly greedy.

But Ye Baoling couldn’t show her displeasure. She smiled and expressed gratitude: Thank you, Sister Xiu.

After putting away the envelope, she asked, What about the two team leaders?

Qi Yuxiu was slightly taken aback. When you distributed the money, didn’t you give the team leaders a larger share?

No, it was divided equally among everyone.

That won’t do. Next time, the team leaders should get more, and the others less. The implication was clear—the deduction shouldn’t come from Qi’s share.

Heh.

Ye Baoling could only nod in understanding.

Later, during a meeting with the two team leaders, Ye Baoling took out the 600 yuan from the envelope and distributed it to them.

Knowing this money was Manager Qi’s allocation to Ye Baoling, both team leaders hesitated to accept it.

Ye Baoling insisted, I don’t need the money. Please take it.

Sister Tong, being straightforward, couldn’t help muttering, Manager Qi is really something.

Too greedy.

A Xia joined in the complaint, Who would ever think they have enough money? Once it’s in someone’s hands, how could you expect them to give it up?

Sister Tong added, We shouldn’t give her so much next time.

But if they didn’t report the full amount, Qi Yuxiu could estimate the approximate earnings through other channels. Besides, this was ultimately a small sum, and it wasn’t worth losing Qi Yuxiu’s trust over such petty cash.

Ye Baoling said, We still need to report the full amount. If we’re caught, we’ll all be held responsible. From now on, my share will go to you.

How can we accept that? A Xia suggested, How about the three of us split it?

Ye Baoling raised her wristwatch and asked, Do you know how much this watch costs?

How much?

The watch Ye Baoling wore was relatively affordable. 6000 yuan. My family bought it for me.

Both women widened their eyes simultaneously: That expensive? That’s two or three months of my salary.

I don’t need the money. You two split it.

It was clear that Miss Gu came from a well-off family, so they stopped refusing and accepted the money with smiles.

After the strike incident, most of the cleaning staff had been replaced, and work arrangements needed to be reorganized.

Ye Baoling said, The new employees are gradually familiarizing themselves with the company. We need to allocate cleaning duties for each floor more reasonably from now on.

Miss Gu, how would you like to arrange it?

These floors need smarter, more trustworthy staff assigned to them. Ye Baoling circled several floors for them.

The 10th floor housed Ye Qingtang Herbal Tea’s core departments, the 20th floor contained Su Man Jewelry’s general manager’s office, the 25th floor was home to key investment departments, and floors 28-30 comprised the group headquarters…

Both team leaders were clever; they understood these floors housed important figures. Excelling in cleaning these areas would yield greater results with less effort.

But Ye Baoling’s intentions went beyond just maintaining cleanliness.

This was only the beginning. She didn’t elaborate further, only instructing them to thoroughly train the cleaning aunties responsible for these floors.

They needed to be sharp. Literate. And tight-lipped.

From now on, the aunties assigned to these floors can receive appropriately larger shares of the cardboard money.

Let us think about who to assign.

After the meeting concluded around 10 o’clock, Ye Baoling returned to the product department.

The product department needed to investigate consumer satisfaction with Jasmine Herbal Tea.

Xu Chengping assigned four people to handle this task, and today’s meeting was to finalize the survey questionnaire questions.

The four consisted of two senior employees and two new employees.

The senior employees were Rong Jie and He Jiayi, while the new employees were Ye Baoling and Gao Lizhen.

Since her last mistake, Gao Lizhen had been idle in the office. She thought Xu Chengping would never assign her work again, but unexpectedly, he gave her another chance.

Clutching her notebook, she sat beside Ye Baoling, listening with full concentration.

Ye Baoling quickly skimmed through the questionnaire.

She hadn’t participated in designing the questionnaire since, as a new employee, her understanding of the product couldn’t compare to that of the senior staff.

These questionnaires were based on templates used in previous product surveys, with minor adjustments, so everyone quickly reached a consensus.

Previously, such surveys were handled by Lu Baohua, but now that he was busy with other matters, Xu Chengping had taken over.

Xu Chengping asked, What survey method should we use?

Rong Jie replied, Let’s just use the old method. It’s simpler.

Xu Chengping: What is the old method?

He Jiayi explained: We collaborate directly with convenience store owners. They use our questionnaire to ask customers who purchase the new herbal tea about their impressions of our new product and collect the responses. Afterwards, we simply retrieve the questionnaires. We pay 5 yuan for each returned questionnaire, and customers who complete the survey receive a free bottle of herbal tea.

Xu Chengping asked further, Is there anyone on-site to supervise?

He Jiayi: No. There are too many convenience stores, and most questionnaires take over two days to complete. We don’t have enough staff for supervision.

Xu Chengping: How do we ensure the authenticity of the questionnaires?

This was a valid concern.

He Jiayi said, We leave at most 20 questionnaires per store. Would store owners really fake them for just 100 yuan?

But the possibility of falsification still existed.

Clearly, Xu Chengping was stricter than Lu Baohua and couldn’t be easily brushed off.

Ye Baoling suggested: We could hire some university students for part-time work to conduct the surveys at the stores. Pay them by the day, and also offer incentives to the store owners—give both the owner and the customer a free bottle of herbal tea for each completed survey. This way, the part-time students and store owners can supervise each other. If things go smoothly, we could collect the required number of questionnaires in just one day.

Rong Jie found this troublesome but didn’t outright say it was cumbersome. She only commented, That would be quite wasteful of money.

Xu Chengping thought Ye Baoling’s suggestion made sense. Part-time university students aren’t expensive, and our budget is sufficient. Also, if we only give herbal tea to the store owners, we can save money.

They had plenty of herbal tea, which they didn’t consider a significant cost.

No one else objected, so the plan was confirmed.

Ye Baoling waited for others to propose additional survey methods, but it seemed the meeting was about to end.

She couldn’t help but ask, Are we only using one survey method?

Is one not enough? Rong Jie didn’t expect Miss Gu, who was usually well-liked, to be overly enthusiastic about work today.

Ye Baoling knew she might come across as annoying, but she couldn’t just go along to avoid displeasing others.

After all, she wasn’t here to slack off.

She needed to climb up.

Ye Baoling candidly expressed her thoughts: If we only use this survey method, we’re merely investigating the preferences of consumers who already enjoy the new Jasmine Herbal Tea. What about potential consumers who haven’t tried it or those who dislike this herbal tea? We haven’t surveyed their preferences and inclinations at all.In other words, the survey results only reflected favorable opinions about the new product, which was severely biased and not conducive to exploring new market demands.

It also failed to uncover why the Jasmine Herbal Tea wasn’t selling well.

Gao Lizhen, who had remained silent until now, unexpectedly commented, A-Lin makes a valid point.

Xu Chengping asked Ye Baoling, Do you have any other suggestions?

She did.

As a communications graduate, Ye Baoling excelled in product surveys, planning, and research.

Let’s directly station ourselves at convenience stores and survey customers purchasing other beverages. We’ll offer each participant one bottle of traditional herbal tea and one bottle of Jasmine Herbal Tea as incentives. Respondents can try the Jasmine Herbal Tea before completing the questionnaire. Of course, we’ll need to make some minor adjustments to the survey form.

He Jiayi asked in surprise, We’re going to do the fieldwork ourselves?

Ye Baoling replied, We can bring university students along to help with the survey. It’s not difficult.

He Jiayi and Rong Jie exchanged glances but remained silent.

Xu Chengping knew these two veterans were trying to avoid extra work. He said, Then let’s divide into groups – four people split into two teams. Two will continue with the original survey method, while two will implement Gu Baolin’s suggested approach. Each team will submit their own survey report.

He Jiayi and Rong Jie immediately teamed up to stick with the original survey method.

The two newcomers, Ye Baoling and Gao Lizhen, naturally took responsibility for the new survey approach.

Being action-oriented, Ye Baoling didn’t want to waste any time. She immediately called Gu Zhen’er and asked her to find nine university classmates for part-time survey work.

When Gu Zhen’er heard it was paid survey work that could also count as social practice for school, she became more enthusiastic than anyone.

I’ll find people right away. Is nine enough? I can find more if needed.

Ye Baoling said, We have limited funds, so nine is fine. With you, that makes ten. Come to the product department on the sixth floor of our company at noon.

No problem, sixth floor product department at Jade Dragon Mansion.

After arranging the part-time workers, Ye Baoling called logistics to request a vehicle. With just one word to Wang Simin, the security guards helped load half a truckload of beverages.

Meanwhile, Gao Lizhen shed her usual lethargy and quickly printed, copied, and bound the survey questionnaires, completing all preparations before the noon break.

Watching them work busily, Rong Jie and He Jiayi whispered among themselves, Making such a simple survey so complicated – who are they trying to impress?

No matter how they perform, they’re still like us, earning just a few thousand per month. How high can they fly?

Is her salary higher than ours?

I heard she’s already at level 6.

Promoted that fast? No wonder she’s so enthusiastic.

Coming from a moderately wealthy family, He Jiayi snorted coldly, Wearing a 6,000-yuan watch and thinking she’s rich. Whatever, let her show off.

Ye Baoling asked He Jiayi for addresses of cooperative convenience stores, as she needed to contact the shopkeepers in advance.

He Jiayi had the address but didn’t want to hand it over, merely smiling as she said, The one we collaborated with last year? I’m not sure where I put it, I’ll have to look for it. I’ll give it to you once I find it.

Ye Baoling, sharp-eyed, had already spotted it and directly pulled it out from He Jiayi’s folder. Isn’t this it?

He Jiayi: !!

She laughed awkwardly. You really have sharp eyes.

Ye Baoling completely ignored whether she was being sarcastic or not. Picking up a pen, she directly circled five large convenience stores. Jiayi, I’ll take these five.

Those were all stores with high customer traffic that He Jiayi had originally intended to reserve for her own team. She never expected the other party to act so quickly—she didn’t even get a chance to object before Ye Baoling circled them.

She could only fume in silent frustration.

During the noon break, Ye Baoling took a moment to call Liu Haonan, instructing him to buy high and sell Haihua Construction stocks after Hongtong Industrial released their information on Friday.

Liu Haonan asked if they should sell everything.

Ye Baoling replied with certainty, Sell it all. Clear the positions for now.

Okay.

Around one o’clock, Gu Zhen’er arrived at the product department with nine classmates. Ye Baoling brought them to the conference room, distributed questionnaires, and conducted a brief training session.

After the training, Xu Chengping came in and asked, Need any help?

Ye Baoling smiled. The training is already finished.

So fast?

That was just how Ye Baoling was—she could be lazy, but she could also act swiftly and decisively when needed.

Xu Chengping asked the university students a few questions and found they basically understood the survey content. He couldn’t help but praise, Very efficient, and the training was well done.

Meanwhile, he went to ask He Jiayi, How are you guys doing?

He Jiayi replied leisurely with a smile, Long-lasting work takes time, Manager Xu. Don’t worry, we won’t hold anyone back. Only clumsy birds need to fly early.

The clumsy birds soon flew out of Jade Dragon Mansion. Starting that afternoon, they stationed two people at each partnered convenience store to conduct consumer surveys, while Ye Baoling and Gao Lizhen rotated among the five stores to supervise and assist.

Although Gao Lizhen was somewhat clumsy in her work and not particularly bold, she proved surprisingly responsible.

By 8 PM, all surveys were completed, with 500 questionnaires collected in total.

Ye Baoling gave Gu Zhen’er an extra 300 dollars to treat her classmates to a good meal.

The next day, Ye Baoling and Gao Lizhen began reorganizing and analyzing the questionnaires. With completely manual tabulation, it would likely take at least two weeks to finish.

The company computers lacked statistical software. While genuine SPSS software was available on the market, it would cost over ten thousand Hong Kong dollars to install—something the department currently had no budget for.

Ye Baoling certainly wasn’t going to pay for it out of her own pocket either.

She turned to ask Rong Jie how such situations had been handled in previous years.

Rong Jie replied, Why would we need computer statistics? We always tally manually. Basically, for each question’s conclusion, we just write tally marks and calculate from there. Why make it so complicated? We’re not a formal research company—having a general conclusion is good enough.

That works?

Mentioning formal research companies reminded Ye Baoling that when Ye Qingtang wanted to enter the mainland market to build a factory, he had specifically hired a consulting firm to conduct a feasibility analysis report.

She had heard from Wang Simin that Qi Yuxiu was the one who recommended that consulting firm.

Ye Baoling went to seek Qi Yuxiu’s help. Qi Yuxiu made a phone call to inquire and found that the other party indeed had professional statistical software.

Ye Baoling and Gao Lizhen brought a large sack of survey questionnaires to the other company. Using their professional software, they spent a day and a half compiling the results and produced a 16-page survey report.

After finally completing the report, Ye Baoling printed a copy, made two duplicates back at the office, and submitted them to Xu Chengping just before the end of the workday.

An hour earlier, Xu Chengping had already received the 3-page reports handed in by Rong Jie and He Jiayi.

When He Jiayi submitted her report, she heard that Gu Baolin’s team had not yet completed their task, which confirmed her earlier prediction of the slow need to start early.

*

After work that day, Ye Baoling and Gu Man’er returned to the Gu Family first.

Half an hour earlier, Ye Huaizhang had sent her a pager message asking her to call back.

They spoke on the phone and arranged to meet in the parking lot near the Gu Family.

In the parking lot, Dong Jian opened the rear car door for Ye Baoling.

After getting in the car, Ye Baoling asked him, How did it go? Deciphered?

The young couple hadn’t seen each other for five days, yet upon meeting, she spoke to him like a business partner discussing a collaboration, first asking about his work progress.

Ye Huaizhang glanced at his wife. After five days apart, she looked well-rested and healthy—it seemed she had been eating and sleeping fine, perhaps even thriving without him.

The driver had already tactfully stepped out of the car. Ye Huaizhang opened his notebook and handed it to her.

Ye Baoling looked and saw it was ☰ and ☱.

Two new Trigrams?

Ye Huaizhang nodded: These are the Qian Trigram and Dui Trigram. In the Fu Xi Eight Trigrams, they are Qian One and Dui Two.

Ye Baoling immediately understood, Your third branch has Xun Six and Kan Seven, and so on. So One and Two belong to the eldest branch, Three and Four to the second branch…

Most likely.

But the Qian Trigram has no gaps.

The Qian Trigram looks like this ☰.

Ye Huaizhang: That’s what I’ve been studying for days. The Qian Trigram has no gaps—how do we crack it?

Ye Baoling repeated, How do we crack it?

I suspect there will be empty positions on-site, dividing the twelve points into Qian One and Dui Two. Ye Huaizhang flipped to the next page, If the Trigram has empty positions, then it corresponds to the Kun Trigram. The Kun Trigram looks like this ☷, with three gaps in the middle.

Ye Baoling understood, Replace Qian with Kun. The Kun Trigram has gaps in all three rows, and the Dui Trigram has one gap in the top row. That corresponds to four bricks—I just press them in order.

Ye Huaizhang wrote it down for her:

☰ and ☱, Kun top, Kun middle, Kun bottom, Dui top.

I’ve memorized it.

Ye Huaizhang took out a compass and taught her how to use it to avoid mistakes.

They agreed that at 1 a.m. that night, Ye Baoling would try to see if she could open the brick wall door of the eldest branch’s wine cellar, while Ye Huaizhang would wait outside the blue brick tunnel.

If anything happens, contact me by phone anytime.

Like spies rendezvousing, they quickly finished discussing their tasks.

Ye Baoling tucked the torn paper into her handbag: If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.

But as soon as she finished speaking, her foot caught on something in the car, and she stumbled into Ye Huaizhang’s arms.

She almost blurted out, Why did you trip me?!

His familiar scent enveloped her. Ye Huaizhang rubbed her arm, suppressing his breath and voice: Did you miss me?

She had been busy with market research these past few days, exhausted—how could she have had time to miss him?

I do. She was afraid that if she told the truth, he would lose face and might take her right there in the car. So she coaxed him, Come to my room tonight.

After tempting him, she couldn’t resist boasting: My room is bigger than yours. Much bigger.

She might not actually be able to decrypt and open the brick wall door tonight.

Moreover, thinking about going to bed immediately after solving the first puzzle seemed too irresponsible and didn’t match his steady character.

Although he was dying to do it in his heart, he wasn’t willing to admit it.

We’ll talk tonight.

After all, Dong Jian was waiting outside. Seeing him release her hand, Ye Baoling quickly opened the car door. Before leaving, she said See you tonight and departed.

Ye Baoling took a taxi back to the Old Long House.

Returning home just after six o’clock, Ye Baoling saw her second aunt, Liang Meiyun, having someone remove the old Amulet of safety hanging on the doorframe of the Hall of Flourishing Harmony.

Spotting Ye Baoling arriving by taxi, Liang Meiyun asked, Didn’t Grandpa buy you a car? Why didn’t you drive to work?

Ye Baoling smiled, I’m still not used to driving, so I didn’t dare to.

The main reason was that although her new V8 wasn’t top-tier in configuration, its price tag made it conspicuous. If parked in the underground garage of Jade Dragon Mansion, the entire Ye family would likely know she was working for Ye Qingtang within hours.

Meanwhile, Zheng Junni stood behind the curtains in the small side hall on the second floor of Abundant Moon Tower. Watching Liang Meiyun ordering the removal of the Amulet of safety from the Hall of Flourishing Harmony’s entrance, she grew increasingly furious.

A Jin entered quietly and whispered, Madam, I’ve contacted Yun Jie and A Feng. Moving the C-section to tonight won’t be a problem.

Perfect!

Though her due date was still a week away, Zheng Junni had been experiencing subtle abdominal discomfort lately. Since she wanted an early C-section anyway, why not seize this opportunity? After all these years of Liang Meiyun making her life difficult, today she’d return the favor tenfold!

Just as Ye Kaimin returned home, Zheng Junni immediately clutched her stomach, feigning pain with convincing moans.

A Jin supported her anxiously, Madam, are you alright?

Ye Kaimin rushed over, What’s wrong?

What’s wrong? That Liang Meiyun can’t stand seeing me well! How could she remove the Amulet of safety when there’s a pregnant woman in the house? Do you think she did it on purpose? Oh, my stomach hurts terribly!

Really hurting? For a moment, Ye Kaimin suspected his wife might be pretending.

It really hurts! Zheng Junni nearly burst into tears.

Ye Kaimin’s voice trembled with panic as he shouted outside, Quick, prepare the car! Take Madam to the hospital immediately!

Simultaneously, he stormed downstairs to the Hall of Flourishing Harmony entrance and berated Liang Meiyun, Liang Meiyun, how could you be so vicious?! You know your sister-in-law is about to give birth – why would you remove the Amulet of safety now?

Liang Meiyun looked utterly bewildered, I… I was replacing it with a new one! Is that not allowed? No one ever said we couldn’t!

Can you just tamper with these things randomly? The moment you touched it, Junni started having stomach pains! We’re heading to the hospital now, and if my son is born premature, I’ll never forgive you!

Liang Meiyun: !!

Their argument escalated until Xing Shen and housekeeper Yin Jie intervened to calm them.

Hearing the commotion from inside, Ye Baoling rushed out. Learning that Zheng Junni was being taken to the hospital to give birth, she felt surprised.

Zheng Junni was about to swap the babies. Ye Baoling’s current plan was to not expose her yet, as revealing the scheme now would only benefit Ye Baoshun the most. She needed to bring Ye Baoshun down first before dealing with Zheng Junni.

Still, that didn’t stop Ye Baoling from wanting to make the baby-swapping more difficult as an amused bystander.

Eager to stir the pot, Ye Baoling encouraged Liang Meiyun, Second Aunt, shall we go see what happens?

Huh? Me too?

Let’s go together.

Though reluctant, Liang Meiyun feared criticism if she didn’t go, so she arranged for a car to follow them to the hospital.

Author’s Note:

Ye Huaizhang: Wife, did you forget our evening plans?

Ye Baoling·Professional Trouble-Maker: So busy.