Chapter 52: Those Who Were Good to Her

Until the meal came to an end, Li Gang had barely found any room to interject.

He had been called there merely to play a few rounds of Guandan and handle the menial chores, and he had no idea what kind of background this Chen Xiao had.

Yet, from what he could glean during the chat, this man possessed formidable professional capabilities.

He had never imagined that a mere sales representative could receive such near-flattering praise from a general manager. Seeing Chen Xiao only strengthened his conviction that choosing a career in sales was the right path, and he believed that sooner or later, he too would enjoy the same treatment Chen Xiao received.

Chen Xiao was unaware that he had inadvertently become a role model in someone else's eyes.

He was entirely focused on savoring the authentic local cuisine, while thinking to himself: "The food here is indeed quite good. I should bring Zhao Xiangjun here to try it!"

Zhao Xiangjun felt utterly exhausted today, her entire body aching. In her eight years as a retail shopping guide, she had never felt this way before.

Noticing her pale and unusual complexion, the store manager kindly invited her to rest for a while in the small office behind the shop and asked if she needed to go to the hospital.

Go to the hospital for what? This was the result of being relentlessly tossed around by Chen Xiao like an ox; she had no idea where he got such boundless energy!

He showed absolutely no tenderness or怜香惜玉, going all out right from the very first time!

She shook her head to decline, told the store manager to go back to work, and decided to sit and rest for a bit.

She pondered the fact that Chen Xiao's parents would be arriving in a couple of days, and yesterday she had specially inquired about their heights and weights!

Just earlier at the "Yirui" store, she had picked out two sets of business attire for Chen's father, as schoolteachers needed to dress more formally.

For Chen's mother, she had bought two sets of casual fashion apparel, elegant and comfortable.

That was not all. Figuring she still had some spare money, she went to the Huawei phone store and bought a P70 for Chen's mother, and a Mate X5 for Chen's father.

With this flurry of activity, another 53,000 yuan was gone.

Despite having a fair amount of assets now, her liquid cash was scraped bare down to the savings she had accumulated previously.

This shopping spree had practically emptied her wallet.

Normally, she didn't have many personal expenses anyway; she had already given her parents their allowance for this month, and next month her salary along with the store dividends would be more than enough for daily living costs.

As she was mulling this over, her phone suddenly rang. Glancing at the caller ID, she saw it was her youngest uncle.

"Xiangjun, my girl, are you at Wansheng today? I've come into the city!"

Zhao Xiangjun felt a wave of helplessness. All these relatives in her family treated her like a money tree, and it was a good thing she had Chen Xiao; otherwise, sooner or later, people like them would have bled her dry in her current state.

"Uncle, I'm at the store. Come on over!"

Glancing at the time—1:30 PM—she figured her uncle probably hadn't eaten yet.

Sure enough, he arrived with an empty stomach, so Zhao Xiangjun asked the store manager for a short leave and took him out to grab a bite.

Nobody at the branch office knew she was a company shareholder; they treated her with courtesy solely because of the CEO's attitude toward her and her close ties with Wu Ting.

Even so, the branch had already rolled out the red carpet for her in all sorts of ways. If they knew she was a shareholder, they wouldn't dare let her work as a sales associate anymore.

That would strip away much of the fun, though; she disliked the feeling of being kept like a vase and pampered at home.

As her uncle chewed his food, he praised her: "Xiangjun, it's no wonder I've doted on you since you were a child. You're the only one who's truly good to your uncle! I never even bother asking your cousins."

Zhao Xiangjun urged, "Eat slower, don't choke!"

Inwardly, however, she thought to herself: *They are all deliberately hiding from you. If they all treated you the way I do, you'd be pestering them every single day to buy you clothes.*

After the meal, Zhao Xiangjun took her uncle to the men's clothing section on the upper floor to pick out some garments. Since her uncle idled at home without a job, she didn't bother taking him to any major luxury brands.

It wasn't that she begrudged the money; rather, on one hand, her pockets were practically empty, and on the other, she felt her uncle's lifestyle radius didn't call for high-end designer labels.

Just like herself—she usually bought all her clothes through online bargains.

After helping him select an outfit, Zhao Xiangjun experienced the awkward realization that her remaining balance was down to just a few hundred yuan......

Could you imagine? A person living in a multi-million-dollar luxury mansion, a person owning 10% of the Yino Group, was about to start worrying about grocery money.

Sigh, she would have to tighten her belt. Given her pride, expecting her to ask Chen Xiao for money was out of the question.

After buying the clothes, her uncle remarked, "Oh, Xiangjun, my phone screen is all cracked. Every time I text you, I can barely see the characters I'm typing!"

She didn't even dare to respond. If she had taken him to buy one this morning, she wouldn't have been broke now.

She led her uncle back to the store, had him rest in the small office, and planned to hail a taxi to send him home after she got off work.

With just over an hour left until the end of her shift—and coincidentally a heavy flow of customers in the store—Zhao Xiangjun busied herself on the sales floor.

Her uncle sat on the cylindrical sofa inside the office.

At that moment, the store manager and another clerk walked in to use the computer for processing spreadsheets. Her uncle shifted aside to make room and accidentally knocked over several shopping bags that had been resting on top!

He quickly apologized, and the store manager smiled and said, "It's fine, Uncle. Those are just Xiangjun's bags you bumped into!"

Her uncle paused, then subconsciously picked up the bags to take a look.

Two mobile phones, along with two sets of men's and women's clothing. Flipping through the purchase receipts, good grief—it totaled 53,000 yuan!

Was his niece really this lavish with her spending? He had never noticed it before. Usually, she seemed extremely frugal with her consumption; could it be that she was just putting on an act for the sake of us relatives?

With that thought in mind, he asked the store manager, "How is Xiangjun doing here? How much does she make in a month?"

The store manager found the question strange—who goes around asking about other people's salaries? Still, remembering that he was Zhao Xiangjun's uncle, she replied, "Xiangjun has the highest income in our store, because single-handedly she accounts for half of our entire store's sales every month!"

Her uncle thought to himself: *That must be over ten thousand yuan! Her salary is truly high.* To someone like him who was unemployed and had no income, ten thousand-plus yuan was an enormous sum!

The clerk nearby chimed in with a smile, "Xiangjun is even a shareholder of our store now, holding a 10% stake."

Her uncle grew even more astonished. A store like this had to be worth quite a bit of money; he never expected his niece to be a part-owner.

"Well, look at this child, even taking me out to buy clothes. Since this is her own store, couldn't I just pick out a few pieces for free?"

The store manager and the clerk exchanged glances and couldn't help letting out a giggle. The manager explained, "Uncle, that won't do. Public and private matters must be kept separate. Even when she takes clothes for herself, she has to pay for them at regular price."

Her uncle looked rather disappointed and muttered inwardly: *Such nice clothes, but you can't just wear them casually? What a waste. What kind of rigid rules has this store set? There's no flexibility at all.*

He kept quiet after that, holding the two Huawei phones in his hands, turning them over and over, examining them from every angle, unable to put them down.

Once Zhao Xiangjun finished assisting a customer and had the cashier process the transaction, she took a moment to check her phone notifications and instantly froze in shock!

She had received a bank transfer notification indicating an arrival of 8,500,000 yuan.

Checking the source, it was the second-quarter profit dividend from the Yino Group!

Only at that very moment did she truly grasp the weight of that 10% equity stake, and she thought of Chen Xiao—this recklessly generous fool.

Just days after meeting her, he had gifted her a house and corporate shares!

Chen Xiao was the best person to her in this entire world, one of the very few who genuinely and sincerely cared for her well-being.