Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 489: The Encouragement Master's Cat Butler and Imperial Secret Police Commander
Saturday, April 16
Tang Yishu carried several textbooks under her arm, swiped her key card, and entered the Tengda Group office area.
Although most of her salary was still being transferred back home to help support her family, her own financial situation was far more comfortable than before.
Perhaps because of long-standing habits, Tang Yishu still didn't use any cosmetics or skincare products. However, youth itself was her greatest asset, and now that her nutrition had improved, she radiated a healthy, youthful glow.
She placed her books on her desk and began cleaning litter boxes and feeding the Encouragement Masters.
"Yin Tang, eat a little less. You and Mian Zai both need to lose some weight."
"Hey, Yin Tang, stop bullying your little sister Fei Huang! Go eat your own food!"
With some helplessness, Tang Yishu grabbed the black cat by the scruff of its neck and turned its head toward a different food bowl. But Yin Tang ignored her. After taking a couple of bites from its own bowl, it squeezed right back beside the orange cat.
At this point, there were already three Encouragement Masters in the office.
The first was Yin Tang, a black cat with white paws. It had been the earliest arrival, and its name came from the Chinese expression "Yintang turning black"—a sign of impending bad luck.
The other two were also stray cats adopted from an animal hospital: one white cat and one orange cat.
The white cat was plump and adorable. Many people thought it resembled a lucky beckoning cat.
As a result, Pei Qian named it Mian Zai ("Avoid Disaster"). On the surface, the name carried a positive blessing, but his real intention was closer to the saying "lose money to avoid disaster." He hoped the cat wouldn't bring wealth, but rather financial losses.
As for the orange cat, it was given the same name as Feihuang Studio.
On the surface, the name suggested speed, agility, and graceful movement. In reality, Pei Qian intended it as a pun meaning "turn yellow quickly"—that is, fail as quickly as possible.
The three cats quickly polished off all the canned food.
Tang Yishu took out the trash, carefully brushed their fur, trimmed their claws, and finally petted them until they were purring and rolling around in the sunlight.
Today's cat-care duties were complete.
She returned to her workstation, opened her professional textbooks, and began studying.
Although she could study at the university library or in the study rooms, they were always a little noisy.
She preferred studying at the company on weekends.
The office was completely empty and exceptionally quiet.
Plus, there was coffee and plenty of snacks.
Suddenly, the office door opened.
Tang Yishu froze for a moment and immediately remembered that she had a special responsibility:
She was supposed to keep track of everyone who came in to work overtime and report their names to Pei Qian.
However, lately nobody had been working overtime at all, so she had almost forgotten about the task.
But now someone seemed to have come in on a weekend.
Tang Yishu quickly turned around to see who it was.
After working here for so long, she knew everyone on this floor by name. There would no longer be any awkward situations where she couldn't identify someone.
Yet when she looked, she discovered that the newcomer was Pei Qian.
In that case, there was no problem.
Tang Yishu stood up.
"Senior, what brings you here?"
Pei Qian's gaze swept across the entire office.
Seeing that nobody was secretly working overtime, he nodded with satisfaction.
"I happened to be passing by, so I thought I'd take a look around," Pei Qian said casually.
In reality, he had deliberately come for a surprise inspection.
It had been a long time since he'd received an overtime report from Tang Yishu.
He was curious whether everyone had truly stopped working overtime, or whether Little Tang had learned how to lie.
Now it appeared that people genuinely weren't working overtime anymore.
Thinking about it, that made sense.
First there had been the Zero Overtime Competition, and later the Tengda Group Cornerstone Award. Pei Qian had gone to extraordinary lengths to eliminate overtime culture from the company.
Surely all that effort had to produce some results.
And now, this completely empty office on a weekend was the best possible reward for all the hard work President Pei had invested.
'It seems that as long as you put in the effort, you'll eventually see results!'
"Come with me to the meeting room," Pei Qian said to Tang Yishu.
. . .
As for establishing the "Tengda Group Imperial Secret Police", Pei Qian had been thinking about it for two days.
The main reason was that he had realized Tengda Group now had far too many businesses under its umbrella. He simply couldn't keep track of everything anymore.
More importantly, his information network had become inadequate.
In reality, the founders of many large companies are much busier than Pei Qian. However, they appoint numerous executives to oversee various operations. Major issues are reported upward for approval, while ordinary matters are handled independently.
Under this model, even enormous business empires can continue operating efficiently and orderly.
Pei Qian was currently using a similar management structure.
The problem was that his objectives were the exact opposite of those of a normal company owner.
A typical boss would think:
Department heads should grow their divisions successfully.Major problems that cannot be resolved should be reported immediately.Strong business performance deserves rewards and recognition.
President Pei's requirements were the reverse:
Department heads must absolutely not let their divisions grow too successfully.The moment there are signs that a business might become profitable or successful, it should be reported immediately.If a department encounters a major problem that cannot be solved, it deserves praise and rewards.
His needs were completely inverted compared to those of ordinary executives.
Normal CEOs need information about the problems currently affecting the company, and they can require departments to report such issues at any time.
Pei Qian, on the other hand, needed information about potential sources of profit.
Unfortunately, from the perspective of most department heads, there was absolutely no reason to report that.
Especially because over the years Pei Qian had cultivated an image of someone who disliked employees taking credit for their achievements, making the problem even worse.
Therefore, Pei Qian felt he needed to establish an information-gathering department that would allow him to better monitor all divisions and identify problems as early as possible.
The members of this department would be called Management Trainees.
The full title was actually Management Training Program Trainees.
Originally, this concept came from foreign corporations as a special program designed to cultivate future company leaders. It could be viewed as a talent-reserve system for developing future middle and senior managers.
Management trainees typically rotate through different departments, learning how the entire company operates before being assigned roles that suit their strengths.
In general, multinational corporations apply strict selection standards to these positions. The trainees are usually highly capable and often grow into department managers or branch-office leaders.
Of course, the concept had gradually become overused.
Nowadays, every random company wanted to recruit management trainees.
As a result, many of these so-called trainees eventually became little more than emergency problem-solvers who were sent wherever manpower was needed, losing all the prestige the position once carried.
Putting all that aside, however, the management trainee system perfectly matched Pei Qian's current needs.
Through such a program, he could naturally place trainees into all of the company's different departments.
As long as he maintained control over the trainees, then whatever they knew about their departments would effectively become information available to President Pei as well.
Furthermore, Pei Qian especially liked the title "Management Trainee" itself.
In Chinese, guan pei sheng (management trainee) sounded very similar to guan pei sheng—which could be interpreted as "people who manage losses."
If recruiting these people could really help manage losses, that would be wonderful.
However, Pei Qian still had difficulty deciding how the trainees should be selected and who should oversee the program.
He spent quite a bit of time thinking about it.
Assistant Xin was highly capable, efficient, decisive, and never asked unnecessary questions.
On paper, she seemed like an excellent choice.
The problem was that she was too capable.
And everyone throughout the company already knew her well.
Pei Qian's purpose in creating this department was simply to establish his own network of informants. Assigning Assistant Xin to manage it would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Besides, Pei Qian already had plenty of other work for her.
Furthermore, every department head knew Assistant Xin personally. They might instinctively become cautious around her, making the operation less discreet.
After much consideration, Pei Qian concluded that Tang Yishu was the ideal candidate.
For one thing, on the surface she was just the office cat caretaker.
She appeared completely harmless—gentle, soft-spoken, and adorable. Her natural demeanor served as perfect camouflage. Nobody would be overly guarded around her.
For another, Tang Yishu's thought process was fairly straightforward—or perhaps "single-minded" was a better description.
Once she agreed to do something, she would do her utmost to complete it.
Previously, she had consistently reported overtime workers to Pei Qian, carrying out the assignment flawlessly.
The only potential issue was Tang Yishu's occasional "aura effect," which had a habit of causing hidden bugs and problems to surface.
But everyone seemed to have gotten used to that by now.
After all, who would ever guess that the girl who spent her days cleaning litter boxes was actually the hidden commander of Tengda Group's Imperial Secret Police?
The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more perfect the arrangement seemed.
Of course, having only Tang Yishu wasn't enough.
He would also need plenty of "management-loss trainees".
At ordinary companies, management trainees are usually recruited from outstanding graduating students or selected and trained from within the company itself.
But Pei Qian's management-loss trainees definitely couldn't be chosen from existing employees.
If those people started rotating through various departments, who knew what kind of chaos they might create?
What if he accidentally trained a group of employees who became experts in multiple areas of the business?
If that happened, he would probably end up with several more knives stuck in his back.
After careful consideration, Pei Qian decided that these trainees must have no previous work experience at Tengda Group whatsoever.
They would bypass Tengda's regular twice-yearly recruitment process and instead be selected directly by Tang Yishu.
Once chosen, these people would answer only to Pei Qian.
His orders would take priority over everything else.
. . .
In the meeting room, Pei Qian sipped his tea while explaining the portion of his plan that could safely be revealed.
"In short, I want you to go to the universities and recruit some first- and second-year students who have plenty of free time and relatively light course loads. Bring them here as interns and assign them to various departments."
"You'll be responsible for the management-loss trainee program. Report to me whenever there are any developments."
"The selection process must be strict. Make sure every trainee is honest, dependable, and trustworthy."
"After they're assigned to departments, they can adjust their internship schedules according to their class timetables."
"Their primary focus should remain their studies. They won't really participate in the departments' daily work, but they need to keep track of what's happening within those departments."
"Every so often, everyone will come to the company for a meeting and report directly to me about everything they've seen and heard."
"I'll also conduct random spot checks from time to time. When that happens, I don't want anyone failing to answer my questions."
"Also, keep this project confidential for now. Don't actively publicize it."
"That said, it's not exactly top secret either."
"Any problems with that?"
Tang Yishu looked somewhat overwhelmed.
She nervously squeezed her fingers together.
"Senior... I'm worried I won't be able to handle it. I've never even been a class representative before..."
Pei Qian smiled slightly.
"It's fine. This is actually a very simple job."
"I believe that with your patience and attention to detail, you'll do it well."
"Most of the time you'll still be here at the company taking care of the cats. You'll only need to step in and host meetings when necessary."
"At the same time, you'll keep track of all the trainees' activities. If any problems arise, report them to me immediately."
"That's all."
"Pretty simple, right?"
Tang Yishu pursed her lips.
"Okay, Senior..."
"I'll... I'll give it a try."
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Tn: I updated the story once a day, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 536: Still Going with the "Bare Walls" Style[1]
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