Chapter 12
New Beginnings
"This was the previous photographer"s office. Previously when he resigned he left rather hurriedly, so the office supplies are all inside. You can basically just use the office directly.”
Xu Yan pulled out a key and opened the door, pushing the door forward to enter the room. He introduced: "The table, chair, computer, and other such office supplies are provided by the company, some of the photography equipment was brought by the previous photographer himself. The company also bought some other photography equipment, they"re all in the cupboard in the corner.”
"In addition, previously the photographer had taken many photos of Xing Yuan, but since the resignation terms stipulate that you cannot bring them out, right now they are still in the darkroom. If not needed, please do not randomly take and use them.”
There had been no one in the office for over two weeks. Ye Wenxuan wiped the table with a hand and found that there was actually no dust. Xu Yan saw his actions and explained: "Before you came I asked the janitor to come and clean it up.”
Ye Wenxuan thanked him and then looked around the room.
Even though this place was much smaller than the a.s.sistants" office, and was even more unable to compare with Xing Yuan"s exceedingly luxurious office, this place was still much better than the public office area shared by many people.
After all, it"s at least a private office.
The things in the room were quite simple, there was an information cabinet and equipment cabinet in a corner and an office desk and chair by the window. Opening the door on the left, there was a small meeting area, and walking further inside, there were two more rooms, a restroom and a darkroom.
Ye Wenxuan pushed the door and entered the darkroom. First he was blinded a bit by the dimness, and then he was again frozen by the photos that filled the room.
Under the dark red light, Xing Yuan conspicuously occupied the entire room.
Sitting behind a table, standing in the meeting hall to speak, wearing a suit at a dinner, standing with some well-known musicians for a photo, and even sitting in more casual wear on a sofa at home, holding a cat.
Reading books, holding meetings, eating meals, sitting on a car, standing on the balcony looking at the scenery……
Ye Wenxuan retreated from the room dizzily, in his heart he secretly suspected that the previous colleague seemed to have some kind of dubious inclination.
Because of their angle, in the photos even though Xing Yuan always looked indifferent, in every single photo he seemed to be like a high superior deity. As a bystander, Ye Wenxuan could tell from a single glance what kind of mentality the photographer had when he was taking these photos.
"a.s.sistant Xu…" He withdrew from the room and glanced at Xu Yan beside him: "Can I take the liberty of asking…why did the previous photographer quit?”
Xu Yan smiled slightly: "His family had some matters, he could no longer stay for a prolonged period of time in B city. When he resigned we were all very sad, but we also look forward to our new colleague.”
Ye Wenxuan silently muttered in his heart: Was it really not because his predecessor had certain "improper ideas" for someone……
Xu Yan didn"t know what he was thinking in his mind, simply leading him through his office and turning on the computer on the table: "The internal company chat client is on the desktop of the computer. Your job is to shoot enough photos during the times when Chief Xing allows, and they also have to be of high enough quality.”
Ye Wenxuan listened respectfully.
"Recently the Xing group has launched marketing campaigns targeting 15 to 28 year olds, the official company and Xing Yuan will often release some personal content on their Weibo accounts. One of these kinds of content is that every few days we will publish a set of photos of Xing Yuan"s daily work and rest lifestyle on the platform." Xu Yan explained to him: "In fact, because of this welfare, the number of our target young audience following us has already exceeded 90 million, and the number of fans is still steadily increasing.”
Ye Wenxuan pulled the corners of his mouth, and offered a heavy tribute to the chairman who was willing to dedicate his beauty appeal for his career.
Instead he asked: "May I ask, I am only responsible for taking pictures right? Is screening and posting photos also within the scope of my work?”
Xu Yan: "After you"re done taking pictures please upload them to the computer and send them to me by email. The rest will be handled by other people." After he said this, he added: "For the time being, you do not need to help make the company brochure or Chief Xing"s photo collection. Please do not use the darkroom that is meant for washing the company photos, and also do not take the photos inside out of the company without permission. You should know everything else.”
Ye Wenxuan understood and immediately said cleverly: "a.s.sistant Xu you can rest a.s.sured that I will only do my job and definitely not touch the things that should not be touched.”
Xu Yan seemed to be very satisfied with his work att.i.tude, casually saying: "You being able to come to our company could also be considered fate, originally we were not that anxious to find a photographer, if it was only to take lifestyle photos I could have done it myself.”
Ye Wenxuan seized the opportunity to ask: "Oh, then what was the reason?”
Xu Yan: "It"s like this, in early March, the British royal family will be holding a party for Princess Emma"s fifth birthday. The royal family over there has sent invitation letters to a large number of prominent figures around the world. Previously it was reported in the news, I don"t know if you had noticed.”
"I have heard about this." Ye Wenxuan pretended to have suddenly realized something: "Could it be…Chief Xing was also invited?”
"Of course." Xu Yan smiled: "Because of the business needs, during this trip he must have a photographer following the entire time, taking photos of all of the key figures of the Xing group——particularly Chief Xing——and doc.u.menting their work and experiences during their week in London. Mr. Ye, if you succeed in getting the approval of Chief Xing this time, you will definitely get your name in the entourage for this trip to London.”
Ye Wenxuan opened his mouth wide, showing an expression of excitement at this honor.
Xu Yan patted his shoulder: "Young man, do well.”
Ye Wenxuan came out of his daze: "Ah, yes…good!”
"Your work hours every day will be from 8 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon, if Chief Xing doesn"t have some special arrangements, you can follow him around to take pictures of his work." When Xu Yan was leaving he upheld the colleague love of an old employee, and even deliberately instructed him: "During the rest of the time do not get close to Chief Xing, and don"t think about doing some petty tricks to reach heaven in a single leap, Chief Xing hates that kind of person the most. If you don"t want to be fired on the first day of work, I hope that you can remember what I said.”
Ye Wenxuan sincerely responded: "Thank you very much, I will definitely bear that in mind.”
Sending Xu Yan away, Ye Wenxuan turned around to look at the office.
In the equipment cabinet there were a lot of expensive camera accessories, and the information cabinet was full of photography works. He didn"t know whether or not those design magazines and weeklies were left behind by the previous employee. Ye Wenxuan casually flipped through them and discovered that every single one would more or less have photos of Xing Yuan.
Then he a.s.sociated it with the darkroom filled with personal photos.
Ye Wenxuan: "…" He always feels like he seemed to have discovered something terrible.
Hopefully he was just being overly sensitive.
He didn"t have to worry about the cleanliness of the office, so Ye Wenxuan sat down at the desk and used the account number that Xu Yan left for him to log in to the office software. He opened the Xing group"s official Weibo and Xing Yuan"s personal Weibo, rapidly skimming through the general content.
Sure enough, as Xu Yan said earlier, the two Weibo basically kept to a schedule of updating once every three days, alternating the release of the Xing group"s work photos or lifestyle photos.
In the photos, sometimes it would be Xing Yuan, sometimes it would be his younger brother Xing Yi, or his father Xing Jianming, as well as some members of the group who were more active in the public eye.
In short they all shared a feature, which was that their appearance must be good. The background didn"t need to be that high-end of an atmosphere, but at least the effect created by the photographer must be outstanding, the photo needed to catch people"s eyes, and grasp the key characteristics of the protagonist.
Looking through, Ye Wenxuan found that the campaign to publish these photos had only started last summer. Previously it was only once a month, and then by the end of the year it turned into once a week, and so on until now, posting every three days. The time intervals were getting shorter.
Ye Wenxuan mused to himself: "From this it seems like the promotion for the Xing group"s next project will begin soon.”
He raised his hand to look at his watch, it was already almost 9.
Before leaving Xu Yan had said that he would be officially starting work today, and told him to go on standby next to Chief Xing after cleaning up.
Ye Wenxuan did not dare to delay any longer, he casually placed his overcoat and scarf on the sofa and turned his cell phone to vibrate mode and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he picked up the camera on the table and his key, and left the office.
Turning right, he walked straight to the end of the corridor. This was Xing Yuan"s office.
Ye Wenxuan hesitated for a few minutes at the door. He looked around, his eyes aiming toward the two camera monitors installed to the left and right of the door.
Don"t know whether the surveillance footage was connected to the building"s control room or to the computer in Xing Yuan"s office?
Thinking like this, he pressed down on the doorbell next to him with a finger.
A few seconds later, the intercom above the doorbell sounded: "Who.”
"Chief Xing, it"s me, the new photographer." Ye Wenxuan said: "Can I…come in to work now?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end, then Xing Yuan said: "Come in.”
As he said this, the big door that was closed tightly suddenly let out a "kacha", moving outward a slight bit.
Oh, it"s still a remote controlled door.
Ye Wenxuan opened the door, in his heart he spit at these smelly shameless rich people, while he stepped back into the huge office.
Xing Yuan was already no longer at the earlier table. Ye Wenxuan looked around and did not see any sign of this boss.
He walked forward a few steps, his Doc Martens in the shoe covers stepped on the soft carpet, making slight sounds of friction.
Besides that, you could faintly hear someone pa.s.sionately talking about something.
Ye Wenxuan listened for a few seconds and then walked decisively towards the northwest corner of the office.
This office was really too big, if you really needed to describe it, it was probably around the size of three basketball courts.
Just walking from the main entrance to the northwest corner took him three minutes. Ye Wenxuan rested a hand on the wall, slowly feeling the wood grains under his fingers, while walking forward.
Very quickly, he found a less noticeable side door.
The sound was coming from in there.
"Chief Xing, I guarantee that after this project is implemented, it will definitely attract limitless business opportunities, as long as you look at my plan, you will definitely…”
The door was not closed, Ye Wenxuan stretched his head in and found Xing Yuan sitting under a dim light.
This chairman was sitting in a rotating boss chair.
He was facing the door, surrounded by a silvery gray round desk. The desk was filled with flat LCD screens of all sizes, right now all of them were on standby. Only the one in front of Xing Yuan was turned on, presumably right now he was calling the person on the screen.
The faint cold light fell on his face, making the person appear even more indifferent.
The author has something to say: The progress is a little slow, my usual bad habit of dragging my writing has appeared _(:з」∠)_ Even though I know that I still can"t help dragging.
Do you all think the little gong is a serious, unfeeling iceberg? Hehehehe……
Also, little princess Emma (ai ma) = ai ya ma ya this is a little princess ah~ abbreviated.
Well. Perfect.
## On Chief Xing"s personal charm ##
Xu Yan: "Every person who works for Xing cannot help but produce improper ideas in the end.”
Ye Wenxuan: "What about you?”
Xu Yan, very quickly: "I am not a person!”
Ye Wenxuan: "……”
Xu Yan: "……”
Ye Wenxuan patted his shoulder, comfortingly: "Rest a.s.sured, I will not go around speaking randomly.”
Xu Yan: "……Wait wait, it"s not what you think!”
Translator Notes:
[1] listened respectfully – 洗耳恭听, this is a little iffy, can also be a polite request for someone to continue speaking
[2] reach heaven in a single leap – 一步登天, idiom, means instant success
[3] rapidly – 一目十行, idiom, literally means reading ten lines at a glance
Random Notes:
Almost 1.5 hours: 5 pm – 6:20 pm, for 4.1k characters to 2.3k words. Not going to lie, while translating I almost wrote Jing Yang instead of Ye Wenxuan. The stories are fusing together, guys. Also, I found that the short author notes after the text and before the end-of-chapter skits are quite amusing, so I"ll probably start to translate them if they"re more interesting.