Summer #22

Don't Turn from Summer (莫负寒夏) by Ding Mo (丁墨)

Chapter 22

Driving east out of the Beijing city, there are miles and miles of green farm fields and lush woods. The sky is very blue with clouds floating. Mu Hanxia hasn’t realized until now that the sky in Beijing is even bluer than in Jiang Cheng.

Lin Mochen is driving his Cayenne on the wide state road which has very light traffic. Besides Mu Hanxia, there are Chen Zhiduo from the designing department and Fang Kun from the operation department in the car. They are going to visit the factory today. The atmosphere is light while they chat casually with one another.

The car drives into the factory, and Mu Hanxia notices that the factory is not a small one at all. Looking into the distance, she sees rows and rows of white factory buildings neatly standing.

She stands there looking after getting out of the car. Lin Mochen walks over, “What are you looking at?”

She sighs, “It’s so big! Jason, are you planning on building your own apparel empire?”

“Your vision isn’t too bad indeed. Come in with me.”

The three of them all have their own tasks here in the factory, only Mu Hanxia is here mainly for visiting and learning. After walking through the whole factory in over an hour, especially after seeing all the finished products neatly stacked in the warehouse, she has a lot of thoughts on her mind.

She now has a basic understanding about what styles Lin Mochen wants to follow. First, the quality of the clothes are top level, especially the materials and techniques, totally free of the low quality which he despised earlier. Second, the styles are in line with those products he provided Yong Zheng with, fashionable, simple and decent. The prices are definitely higher than the regular casual wear commonly seen in the market, but not too much.

Intuitively, Mu Hanxia has a feeling that these products are very good. Besides, she can hardly think of any competing brands with similar brands.

When she comes back to the main workshop, Lin Mochen and the others are all there. Fang Kun sees her and asks with a smile, “What do you think? Aren’t our products quite good?”

“Very good.” Mu Hanxia answers, “I even wanted to buy a few when I saw them.”

Lin Mochen is speaking with the production director and looks up at her at the words.

“Didn't you know? Our own employees can buy at 60% off. You go pick some you like. When the store opens, they may sell out quickly and you won’t be able to buy even if you wanted to.” Says Fang Kun.

“Really?” Mu Hanxia becomes really interested, “Then I’m going to pick a few.”

Fang Kun then smiles at Lin Mochen, “Jason, you too. We’ve decided that we will all wear the clothes from our own company on the opening day of our store. You are the boss, so you got to be the role model.”

Lin Mochen replies, “Sure.” And he looks Mu Hanxia’s way, “Go pick a few for me.”

Mu Hanxia: “OK. What style do you want then?”

“You are the marketing manager. You decide.”

Fang Kun and Chen Zhiduo both chuckle. Mu Hanxia thinks to herself, “But I’ve never picked clothes for a man.” Then she tries to confirm with Lin Mochen, “You wear the 180 size, right?”

Lin Mochen smiles lightly, “Do I possibly wear 170?”

Fang Kun titters, but Chen Zhiduo covers his face with his hands: “Chief Lin, could you leave some space for us 170s to live? What a hard blow on us!”

Mu Hanxia can’t help but laugh too. Her glance meets Lin Monchen’s; there’s a hint of smile in his dark and deep eyes.

Mu Hanxia goes to the back of the warehouse to pick the clothes. Lin Mochen sauters over after he has finished up the work at hand. From the distance, he can see her standing in front of a box of products, choosing among them with her head bending over. In her arm is a man’s polo shirt. Lin Mochen glances at it and nods to himself, a fine choice.

Then he sees her take out a few pieces of lady’s under garment to study closely, probably hesitating on the shapes. With his good eyesight, and the short distance between them, Lin Mochen easily sees the size on the tag: 32B.

Huh...

Mu Hanxia has made her decision and put the pieces into a small plastic bag. Then she turns around and suddenly notices Lin Mochen. She pauses a little with a little embarrassment, but loosens up when she sees his calm expression, probably not seeing anything. She hands over the polo shirt to him, and they walk out of the warehouse together.

Mu Hanxia has been in the company for several days, but Lin Mochen hasn’t given her any serious job yet, at most taking her around different places while on errands. She wanted to ask long ago, and now she finally speaks up, “Jason, you see I’m the only one in the marketing department, and the HR doesn’t even have my job description. So what on earth am I supposed to do on this position?”

But Lin Mochen just responses by asking, “Haven’t you figured out yet?”

Mu Hanxia is stunned. This is the first time she feels his pressure as a boss.

“No.”

Luckily Lin Mochen seems to be in a good mood today and does not continue to taunt her. Instead, he says, “Before you came, the responsibilities of marketing department is actually taken by myself. Since you are doing marketing, if you don’t know where to start, then start from learning about the market.”

Mu Hanxia thinks for a moment and nods, “OK.”

They walk on a little in silence and she starts again, “I’m going out to learn about the market then. Do I get reimbursement on the transportation expenses?”

Lin Mochen gives her a glance: “Yes.”

“Lunch expense...”

“Yes, all.” Lin Mochen interrupts her.

“Oh.” Mu Hanxia beams.

--------

However, even Lin Mochen didn’t expect that in the following four days he doesn’t see Mu Hanxia at all. She just hasn’t shown up in the company.

On the fourth afternoon, he calls Fang Kun who sits beside her into his office and asks, “Where’s Mu Hanxia?” Fang Kun notices that his expression isn’t exactly good and answers cautiously, “I don’t know.... She did not tell me.”

On the same night, after getting home and finishing his work, Lin Mochen gazes at the sparkling lights outside the window and takes out his cellphone.

“Where are you?”

Mu Hanxia answers in the phone, “Why, I’m in the company.”

Lin Mochen is silent for a second and then speaks in a cold voice, “Mu Hanxia, I hire you to come work for me. As a department manager, shouldn’t you report your progress to your boss everyday? Do you possibly plan to be left alone and perish on your own in my company?”

Mu Hanxia is silent for a long while before she replies, “I see. I’m sorry Jason. I didn’t have any experience being the head of a department. I will make improvements in the future.”

“What are you doing in the company right now?” Lin Mochen asks again.

“I’m sorting out the field study results, hoping to put them together and report to you soon.”

Lin Mochen hangs up the phone.

The night is deep. A full moon adorns the sky. The dark clouds have retreated, lingering far away surrounding the moon. Lin Mochen pushes the company’s door open and sees the light on her desk in the darkness of the room, like a tiny island. She sits there with her back facing him, having not noticed him at all.

Lin Mochen looks down at his watch: 11:50.

He approaches her slowly.

She coughs lightly a little, maybe due to the coldness in the late night. But her eyes are glued to the screen, fingers dancing rapidly on the keyboard. She is loosely covered in a jacket. On the desk, apart from the stacks of documents and files, there’s an empty fast food lunchbox. She looks very concentrated and steady, engrossed in her work.

This scene looks familiar. Lin Mochen is reminded of himself in the past.

It was when he freshly graduated from college and was still in the U.S.. He tried his hand at challenging the fruit business leader in New York. When the fight was the most fierce, his company was cut off utility, his employees were injured and send to hospital, and they even got threat mails. Those who started up with him were more or less scared. After all, he was no more than a newly graduated Chinese young man with no roots or background at all.

At that time, there were countless nights when he worked alone in his office until late into the night. It was a light like this, it was also a suit jacket covering him like this, and nothing or nobody else could enter his mind.

He stops behind her. As if feeling something, she turns around slowly. Lin Mochen puts his hands on her shoulders, which scares her to a shudder. Lin Mochen chuckles: “What to be afraid of? Afraid of being checked on by the boss?”

Mu Hanxia realizes it’s him and heaves a sign of relief. The next moment she cries angrily: “Lin Mochen! You scared me to death!”

Lin Mochen chuckles again. His eye turns to the screen: “What precious ideas are you writing?”

His hands are still on her shoulders, neither too light nor too heavy, the fingers long and slender. Mu Hanxia sees them in the corner of her eye and feels like a bird fluttering its wings lightly in her heart. She turns her eye to the screen and says, “I have three conclusions. But they must all have been in your plan already.”

“Tell me.”

“First, I’ve investigated. Currently in Beijing’s market, including the surrounding regions and towns, even though there are a few brands that are similar in style with us, none of them have enough influence on the market. Some of them have less than satisfactory qualities, some others sell products of other styles and have a messy pricing system. That is to say, there hasn’t been anyone who precisely calibrates on the same style and price as ours and is influential enough to be a competitor. So, we are the first one.”

“Mmm, keep going.”

It is so quiet around and the light is hazy. Only their voices, one asking and the other answering, are heard in the deserted space. It feels kind of unreal.

Mu Hanxia points to the many diagrams and charts on the screen and says, “Second, these are the data of the styles, prices, and targeting customers of several big brands in the market. The sources are some industry analysis reports and the industry research data from our company. We can see that among the brands in the nation, the high-end brands are very high and their prices are also high. They are mostly business and professional styles. The middle ones are mostly casual wear, not very fashionable, nor very reliable in quality. But their prices are similar to ours or even higher than us. No need to mention the low-end ones. But the middle part is actually the biggest portion of our market, especially when we give more attention to the feel of fashion. The clothes with 100 to a few hundred yuan in price will sell among office employees as well as students. What we will have is the biggest space for profit.”

“Third, ” She glances at his silhouette on the desk, “I went to take a look at the store you are preparing. To tell the truth, I’m quite surprised, and amazed. I hadn’t thought you would make the store so big and rent in the most expensive department store, while the finish is so simple and neat. I can’t tell what’s so nice about it in my word, but when I stepped in, I just felt at home, and kind of novel. Also, this kind of finish must have saved quite some money. Kill two birds with one stone, right?”

Mu Hanxia turns to look at him.

Lin Mochen eyes her quietly.

He knows that she is smart and acute. But his plans are all clear to her after she only takes a few glances into the industry.

He smiles quietly, and then says, “You said so much. But to me, there’s only one strategy all through.”

Mu Hanxia is taken aback, “What?”

“Didn’t you already discover it when you were in Le Ya?”

Mu Hanxia feels lost in a fog. As they are very close to each other, and he is standing behind her, she almost feels the warmth in his arms. Her heart is beating fast, “I don’t understand...”

He replies, “For all businesses, in all pursuits for profit, there’s only one law for the winner: establishing the shortest and most accurate path from your products to your target customers. Haven’t you got it yet? I only produce the products my target customers are most interested in and are in most need of. I put the store where they can most possibly see, and use the warehouse layout to reduce the cost of middle steps... All that I’ve done is to send the right products to the customers in the shortest path. Thus I can have the biggest possible profit from it. It has no difference from the almost successful lychee business you had at Le Ya, or my selling fruits in the U.S. in the past.”

Mu Hanxia is stunned. And he gazes at her. After a moment, she suddenly smiles, and nods, “Now I understand. Wait, let me write it down.” With the words, she turns to grab the notebook and pen and scribbles quickly.

A light hint of smile appears in Lin Mochen’s eyes. He gazes at the sparkling colors in her eyes and the curve of her bending neck. The skin at the neck is fair and clean, with a little soft baby fat.

Lin Mochen raises his hand and gives her neck a light stroke with his finger.

Mu Hanxia freezes a little, feeling the numbness as the flowing water, generated from where his finger touched and spreads rapidly to the whole neck, even the whole body.

She is motionless.

Lin Mochen’s low and deep voice rings at her ear, “Any other questions?”

“Mmm... Let me see...”

The dark night and the dim light surround them. Everything feels somewhat unreal in this quietness. But in this deep night, at this little corner of this enormous city, there’s only them, so close to each other, talking on about profit-making and business-planning and sharing the ambitions in their heart. This feels so real and so close.