E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 105: Episode 105: Who Can’t Hurt Each Other?

Chapter 105: Episode 105: Who Can’t Hurt Each Other?

Zhou Xueyin returned home with the information Da Boyi gave her, and Kang Siyin, holding her phone, ran over with the receiver covered, laughing uncontrollably, "Yinyin, let me tell you, this is just a joke..."

Then she took a deep breath, "Sorry to keep you waiting... How much annual salary do you plan to offer me? Okay, I’ll think about it..."

After hanging up, Kang Siyin, supporting a bewildered Zhou Xueyin, laughed heartily.

"Jixiang, what’s wrong with her? Did she take laughing pills?" Zhou Xueyin asked, looking helplessly at Li Jiniang.

"Let me tell you... Hahahahaha..." Li Jiniang hadn’t finished speaking, but when she thought about the phone call she just had, she also started laughing out loud.

"Shanbao, did you put laughing pills in dinner tonight? Both Jixiang and KK are acting weird?" Zhou Xueyin looked at Yao Shanshan, puzzled.

"Yinyin, do you think Mi Lu is an idiot? Does she not know us? Why would she still call us?" Yao Shanshan was also holding back laughter as she spoke, "And the salary she proposed, oh my goodness... Hahahaha..."

"Alright, stop laughing! It can’t be that the idiot Mi Lu wants to poach you with a high salary, can it?" Thinking back to what Kang Siyin said earlier, ’how much annual salary do you plan to offer me,’ Zhou Xueyin’s first thought was of being poached with a high salary.

"Exactly, exactly! It’s this idiot trying to poach us!" Li Jiniang wiped the laughing tears from her eyes while nodding, "The key is, she first called Shanbao."

"Damn, this woman acts like she forgot who I am!" Yao Shanshan cleared her throat, ready to mimic Mi Lu, "Hello? This Yao Shanshan? This’s Mi Lu ah! May I ask, would you like to be the beauty director at our company? Monthly salary 8000 ah!"

"Hahahahaha, no kidding, that’s a great impression! She’s been in Beijing for so long, how come she still sounds like she’s from Guangdong?" Zhou Xueyin, hearing Yao Shanshan’s imitation, also burst out laughing.

"Only 8000! They’d have to offer me 80K a month for me to consider it! Doesn’t she know I’m also one of the founders?" Yao Shanshan was both amused and annoyed.

"Mi Lu offered Shanbao 8000, dared to offer me 15K. KK didn’t even get a chance to speak before you came back," Li Jiniang summarized.

"Do you know how much she offered me? Annual salary of 50K! I suspect she has no concept of what salaries should be..." Kang Siyin laughed helplessly.

"No wonder you all were laughing like this..." Just then, Zhou Xueyin’s phone also rang, "Check this number, is it this number?"

"Yes, yes! It is, pick it up, pick it up!" Li Jiniang urged.

"Hello? Mani linger... Yes, this’s Mi Lu. May I ask..."

Zhou Xueyin put on speakerphone and blurted out, "What position are you offering me? How much salary?"

"Manager position, as for the salary, you propose something."

"100K, does that work for you?" Zhou Xueyin teased Mi Lu.

"Annual salary of 100K, okay, okay!" Mi Lu sounded quite pleased.

"I’ll think about it... Bye!" Zhou Xueyin hung up, "Hahahaha, has her brain gone to water?"

"It has gone to water; she gives the most essential tech personnel only 50K annual, while others got higher offers? Definitely water in the brain," Kang Siyin shrugged.

Whether Mi Lu was really out of her mind, or just feigning it, she somehow ended up calling all four founders of 51buy; it was unclear whether it was intentional or she truly forgot their feud.

Zhou Xueyin opened her laptop, logged into QQ, and instantly saw a notification for 99+ unread messages.

On closer inspection, they were all from the work group.

Liu He: [I just received an incredible call, offering me an annual salary of 50K to join their company. However, I turned it down.]

Fang Jing: [Me! Me! I got one too, but I thought it was a scam call, so I just hung up.]

Wang Simo: [I got a call too, but I asked her, "Do you even know what my position is to be poaching me?" Then she hung up.]

Sun Miao: [I had no signal on my phone at home... did I miss such a fun thing?]

............

It seemed that apart from Zhao Caiyun and Zhang Jingwan, everyone else mentioned they had received a call from Mi Lu.

Zhou Xueyin sat in her chair, smiling helplessly.

Although she had only thought about poaching employees, she hadn’t actually started. Yet, Mi Lu had beaten her to it.

She really overestimated herself, wondering who gave her the courage to poach from Zhou Xueyin. She wished even Zhou Xueyin herself had received a call from this clueless girl.

Once again, she realized Ruan Ying was right; such people did not deserve to be called her competitors!

However, Zhou Xueyin had no intention of letting it go. First, they stole clients, and now, employees. Next, what, they would try to steal the website?

Wishful thinking!

"Let’s start on March 1st! How about we provide breakfast and afternoon tea for the staff, and a daily lunch subsidy of 15 yuan?" Zhou Xueyin thought about it, recalling her mother’s company that once had meal subsidies.

The company had had a good profit situation last year, indeed allowing for a raise and some additional company subsidies.

With these tangible benefits, it would be easy to poach Xiaolu Technology’s people, especially since Mi Lu was too stingy to provide them with insurance.

However, Zhou Xueyin was not in a hurry to do this but had Liu He post a forum activity showing off the company’s benefits. They also hired a batch of newcomers in the process.

"Meow Meow, call these people to come for an interview!" Zhou Xueyin mixed the phone numbers of Xiaolu Technology’s staff with those genuinely interested in applying, letting Sun Miao make the calls for interviews.

While Zhao Caiyun still helped Zhou Xueyin sort out trivial documents every day, Zhang Jingwan was taken by Li Jiniang to meet those stingy clients, but neither was allowed to touch the core material.

Over the next few days, the interviewees gradually arrived at the company. Among them, Zhao Caiyun surprisingly saw her colleagues from Xiaolu Technology.

She quickly called Mi Lu: "Mi Lu! Did you send Li Hua and Bai Ying to spy?"

When Mi Lu received Zhao Caiyun’s call, she was baffled: "No, they both called in sick today... What? They went to 51buy for an interview? What the heck!"

"Don’t panic, we may not hire them here... They might not even like the salary here..." Zhao Caiyun comforted Mi Lu.

But honestly, Zhou Xueyin was much more generous than Mi Lu. There were festival bonuses, shopping cards and such, a higher salary, and various rich benefits. If it weren’t for her drawing two salaries, she would really want to stay at 51buy...

Meanwhile, Mi Lu was nearly fuming. Before the Spring Festival, the clients Zhang Jingwan had brought wanted to back out of paying the remaining fees due to poor ad performance.

And now, her two most valued employees had gone to interview with the rival company, truly feeling like misfortunes never come singly.