The display picture for Yan Jin’s side account was a cat. Comparing that obnoxious-looking cat with Chairman Yan, Xiao Yu couldn’t hold back his laughter.
They surprising do look alike.
With regards to the design manuscript by the mysterious designer, Xiao Yu had analyzed it many times – the opponent did not completely copy his manuscript; instead, he made some changes to his original manuscript. And it was towards a good kind of change, an amazing change.
If the customer’s expectation was a hundred points, then Xiao Yu could score at least seventy to eighty points. However, after the change made by the opponent, it could at least reach ninety points. From an outsider’s point of view, that would mean that Xiao Yu’s design was not as good as the opponent’s.
But the problem was, regardless of the similarities between designers’ styles, the way that a designer understood and thought about the customer’s request would surely be different. For example, if Designer A’s score was seventy points, only with the addition of other aspects of the design then would it increase to ninety points; it was impossible for the designer alone to reach that high score. Yet for that mystery designer, his work could easily hit an unimaginable ninety points. And what’s scary above all, was that other than Xiao Yu himself, no one noticed this incident.
Xiao Yu was not that conceited to think that no one else in the industry could be on par with him. When he first realized this issue, although he had his doubts on why a designer who was a stranger would have the same line of thinking as him, the design styles were identical, even the small habits he had when making any designs were the same. However, he had not thought that it was a copied work but a mere coincidence. That was until the second, and the third work surfaced, that made him realize that every piece of work was winning him with absolute superiority, then Xiao Yu realized that something was not right.
In every competing order that YL and SI had within that period that was nearly a year long, all of his work was stolen by YL’s mystery designer. Xiao Yu dare not overpromise, but if there was no such person around, all those orders would surely be his. Such competing orders was not only limited to YL and SI to fight for, there was also other famous professional designers in the industry as well. That was what puzzled Xiao Yu the most. If it was for the sake of winning, then wasn’t the opponent too confident in his work? Just doing some changes to his work and it would bring victory? That was completely unconvincing.
Also, because of that doubt, was what delayed Xiao Yu’s thoughts on whether the opponent was indeed copying his work. In fact, it dragged till almost half a year before Xiao Yu dared to approach Yan Jin to confront him. Which, of course, ended up with him getting thoroughly ridiculed by Yan Jin.
Xiao Yu checked through Yan Jin’s conversation with his friends, but he did not find any related information about the mystery designer in his side account.
Just as despair slowly crept up, a miraculous column of light suddenly appeared.
Oh right, the mystery designer’s debut work was of a professional standard that made everyone acknowledge him as a top-class designer, which was why he became YL’s chief designer within a few months and shocked the entire fashion circle.
According to that time frame…
Xiao Yu looked at the calendar.
It was true that the time had been reversed eight months back. If that was the case, could it be… that mystery designer was not in touch with Yan Jin yet?
If they weren’t in contact yet, could it be that this designer was not a person from the community?
But if he wasn’t from the community, then how did he manage to get his design drafts?
Xiao Yu started to wonder.
His initial assumption was that YL’s mystery designer was one of SI’s in-house designers that worked with him and acted like a spy within SI. Hence, that person would have the opportunity to retrieve his design drafts.
Hold up, could it be that this spy had not contacted Yan Jin yet? Maybe the spy was indeed within SI and still by his side but had not turned against him yet?
Possible! Xiao Yu thought that this assumption was logical.
Then who could it be? Xiao Yu didn’t see himself as a careless person, especially if in a situation where he had his doubts, then he would be extra careful of his design drafts. For a person to retrieve his drafts under such circumstances, it must be someone really close to him.
Xiao Yu’s team consisted of twenty-odd members, and everyone in the team was suspicious of one another. But even after spending almost half a year there, he still couldn’t figure out who that person was. Exactly who was it that would betray SI and him?
Thinking of the information that he had obtained; Xiao Yu’s line of thought gradually widened.
The spy could not have had zero interaction with Yan Jin. If that was the case, then that spy must have planned to jump over to YL. Otherwise, he wouldn’t contact Yan Jin in the first instance when he betrayed SI. Under normal circumstances, one would have contacted the opponent’s human resource department instead. But looking at the result, that mystery designer must have chosen to directly contact Yan Jin to keep his identity a secret. If that person only knew Yan Jin’s official QQ account, Yan Jin probably wouldn’t have accepted such a friend request.
Which is to say, that person must have contacted Yan Jin since long ago. He also had to be a person who knew Yan Jin personally and could directly get in touch with him.
YL’s designers once told Xiao Yu that the mysterious chief designer was solely handled by their chairperson. And that there was no other person in the company that had seen that person.
That was the problem.
Xiao Yu felt that he had caught on to some important fact. If Yan Jin’s personal account had SI’s designers, then that person had the highest possibility to be that spy, or at the very least, he had some connections with that spy!
It’s just that Xiao Yu did not know what account that person was using. So, he had no choice but to search the names of his team members and colleagues, anticipating what kind of nickname Yan Jin had put them under.
But there was no result.
Then it must be in the conversation record.
Xiao Yu tilted his head as he wondered what kind of topic that spy would have discussed with Yan Jin. The content must be unique – just searching for ‘SI’, ‘YL’ etc. would end up with a lot of search results even though this was just Yan Jin’s side account.
Plus, the spy at this moment might not have really betrayed SI and move over to Yan Jin’s side. Searching for keywords such as ‘jump over’, ‘plagiarizing’ would probably end up as a futile effort.
In any case, Xiao Yu tried searching those keywords, but all ended up in nothing.
What would they talk about? What would SI’s spy and Yan Jin talk about?
Xiao Yu remain puzzled after pondering over it a hundred times.
He stretched out his little paws and pressed against his cheeks like he was in a thinking position. That posture gave Xiao Yu the ability to be more focus as he sorted out his mind. That was also a habit he had when he was still a human, but it was the first time he did that after he turned into a hamster.
His meaty, chubby little face poked by his little short hands, making some strands of his white fur perked up.
Suddenly, Xiao Yu’s gaze landed on the floor, or more accurately, it landed on that carpet the was on the floor.
Le Temps Des Cathedrales.
… it was an order that was sent to SI, but the final product ended up in Yan Jin’s hands.
Why?
Xiao Yu caught onto this keyword amidst the confusion. He immediately typed in the title of that work and found an answer.
Xiao Yu clicked to open that conversation and saw a name that he had never expected.
Lin Zhou.
Xiao Yu’s university senior. His senior in SI. The benefactor that had helped him in every way.
Senior? Why would Senior have any contact with Yan Jin?
The order for this carpet was indeed given to him by his senior, but that was because Senior was just a small-scale designer in SI, how could he directly get in touch with the client? Plus, Senior seemed to say back then that this was an order that SI didn’t really want; hence it was thrown out.
Did that mean… that Senior knew that it was Yan Jin’s order, and that was why he purposely threw out that order?
Linking all the clues from the start till now, everything led to a shocking answer.
Lin Zhou was the spy? He was the spy that he had been guarding against for half a year?
But, but…
That couldn’t be.
Lin Zhou had been with SI for a much longer time than him, plus he was a director of the design department – it wasn’t like his position was lower than Xiao Yu. As for the issue about every order during that half a year that was literally stolen by YL, the responsibility that Lin Zhou covered was even greater than his. Even if he was working against himself, there was no reason for him do such a thing that wouldn’t benefit himself either, right?
Puzzled in every possible way, Xiao Yu began to look through the conversation. That carpet order was indeed an event that had happened a very long time ago; it was long gone from Yan Jin’s conversation history. Le Temps Des Cathedrales was something they happened to mention while they were talking about something else.
As for the other orders – one included a pair of order-to-made earrings. The request was the same theme as that carpet. It was till this point that Yan Jin once again mentioned Le Temps Des Cathedrales.
Xiao Yu had a hunch about that pair of earrings. If he went by the current timeline, that was about a year ago, when Xiao Yu had just become a Chief Designer. Lin Zhou made Xiao Yu help him to design a pair of earrings for his grandparents which he happily agreed to.
However, the truth was, that pair of earrings was Yan Jin’s request for Lin Zhou.
Or more accurately, it was a request that Yan Jin asked SI to do.
Xiao Yu realized in the next moment that the reason why Yan Jin opened this side account was just to make his orders with SI. Regardless of why, there were suspicious motives behind it.
Putting all this aside, what was up with Lin Zhou?!
His senior, his most respected senior that he thought of as a benefactor; why was he contacting Yan Jin in secret?
Xiao Yu hoped that these were all misunderstandings. Yet the conversation record was right in front of his eyes. The more he read, the colder his heart became.
Right until the last conversation, Xiao Yu felt like he had sunk into an icehouse.
The chill went straight into his bones, it was colder than that icy lake that killed him — the chill went straight into his heart.
Five orders – Xiao Yu did not know if Lin Zhou knew that the person behind this account was, in fact, Yan Jin himself, SI’s archenemy. But within those six months, Lin Zhou accepted five orders from Yan Jin and every single one of them was of considerable value.
Putting it this way, those five orders would be about Xiao Yu’s two year’s worth of salary and year-end bonus.
What was laughable was, for those five orders, Lin Zhou took all the credit and claimed that the designer was himself.
Aside from the earrings, there was a ring, a watch, and a necklace.
All of those were designed using the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris as a model, and together it formed a set of work. That carpet was a work from five years ago, but it was under Yan Jin’s unexpected request that this set of work was eventually designed by a talented designer.
It was designed by him, Xiao Yu.
Every time Lin Zhou would use the excuse that his grandparents really liked his previous work and thus requested for an item from the same series. In fact, he had never doubted his senior and even got his credit stolen.
Xiao Yu absolutely did not expect that he would find out such a shocking secret. His main intention was to find out SI’s spy, but at this moment, he wasn’t sure if Lin Zhou was that spy. Instead, he discovered something that made him even more depressed.
Right until the day he was in that accident, he had no knowledge of such things. If he hadn’t been reborn into a hamster, or reborn to one year before the accident, perhaps he would have never known about this.
This was the first time Xiao Yu ever felt so angry ever since the day he was reborn. No, it should be ever since he had lived. This was the first time he had ever gotten this angry.
How long did Lin Zhou hide this from him? A year? Two years?
This carpet’s designer was also probably changed to Lin Zhou, even though Xiao Yu himself had designed that carpet piece five years ago.
They had known each other for seven years, seven whole years.
He wasn’t sure now about the conversations he had with Lin Zhou. Which sentence did the lies start from?
From what year did that person that had always been helping and promoting him, stop telling the truth…
