Soul Returns to Hong Kong: From Tailor Shop to Richest Woman

Three days after He Fangqin submitted her salary proposal, Lin Ying called Chen Guodong, He Fangqin, and Xu Jianlan, the sales manager, to her office.

After the three of them sat down, Lin Ying said, "I have something to tell you today. I will no longer interfere too much in the company's management. Daily operations, human resources, salary system, recruitment, and sales channels will all be handled and managed by the three of you."

He Fangqin asked first, "Boss, are you planning to give up?"

"It's not about letting go, it's about dividing the work." Lin Ying pushed a planning sheet to the center of the table. "Now that the company has developed to this point, the management can no longer be decided by me alone. General Manager Chen will be in charge of operations and liaising with the finance firm, Manager He will be in charge of human resources and administration, and Manager Xu will be in charge of sales and channels. You will each be in charge of your own areas. I will approve major decisions, and please stop piling up daily operations on my desk."

Xu Jianlan asked, "So what do you mainly manage?"

"Research direction," Lin Ying said. "I'll take care of when the first-generation product will be released, when the second generation will be launched, how to break through the technology, and how to iterate the materials."

The three of them exchanged glances, and He Fangqin spoke first: "Okay."

Chen Guodong nodded in agreement: "That's more efficient."

Xu Jianlan then asked, "So, in the future, can I make my own decisions regarding adjustments to channel prices?"

Lin Ying: "You can set the range yourself, up to five percent; anything exceeding that should be reported to Chief Reviewer Chen."

Xu Jianlan smiled: "No problem."

As the three of them left the office and reached the stairwell, He Fangqin glanced back at the closed door and asked, "Don't you think it's a good thing that the boss is suddenly giving us more power?"

Chen Guodong breathed a sigh of relief: "How can it not be a good thing? If she continues to manage things, and next time someone asks for 100,000 or 200,000 yuan... how high would the labor cost be? I, as a professional manager, am just a machine for her to sign documents."

He Fangqin wholeheartedly agreed: "That's right! She spoke too quickly, and I was working on supplementing the regulations until I was bald."

Xu Jianlan, however, took it in stride: "A boss who is willing to spend money on his employees is better than a boss who is stingy to the bone."

He Fangqin rolled her eyes at her: "Of course you say that, you don't manage salaries, performance evaluations, or personnel."

The three of them went downstairs and went about their own business.

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Two days later, Sun Miaoshu and Chen Jian arrived in Shenzhen.

The two arrived one after the other. Sun Miaoshu had taken an overnight hard-seat train from Haizhou, and her hair was a mess when she got off the train; Chen Jian, on the other hand, had taken a leisurely train ride from Guangzhou and looked much more energetic than her.

He Fangqin did not let them meet Lin Ying directly, but arranged for them to have one-on-one interviews in the personnel office first.

As soon as Sun Miaoshu came in and sat down, He Fangqin immediately poured her a glass of water: "Engineer Sun, have some water first, I want to chat with you for a bit."

Sun Miaoshu took the cup: "Manager He, you can just call me Miaoshu."

He Fangqin smiled and said, "Then let me first introduce the situation of Yingchuang."

She explained the company's structure, product lines, technical team, current production capacity, and order status in a clear and concise manner, with accurate data. Sun Miaoshu was increasingly surprised as she listened; this HR manager's understanding of television production was far deeper than she had imagined.

Sun Miaoshu asked curiously, "Manager He, did you used to work in technology?"

He Fangqin: "No, I work in HR; but these past few months I've been with Engineer Liu and Engineer Li every day, and all I hear about is phosphors, driver boards, yield rates... It's hard not to understand."

Sun Miaoshu laughed: "Then you're much better than my current boss. My boss doesn't even know what our department does."

He Fangqin steered the conversation back on track: "Miaoshu, your current focus is on hardware verification and board packaging, right?"

"Yes, it also involves some supplier liaison."

"That's perfect, that's exactly what we need." He Fangqin opened the job description. "We need people for building hardware verification systems, standardizing R&D processes, and setting supplier incoming material inspection standards."

Sun Miaoshu confidently stated, "I've done all of these before."

He Fangqin nodded: "Regarding the salary, let me make it clear to you, the minimum annual salary is 100,000."

Sun Miaoshu nearly dropped her cup: "Really 100,000?"

"Before tax," He Fangqin immediately added.

"100,000 before tax is not a small amount! I now take less than 30,000 a year after tax."

He Fangqin continued to emphasize with concern: "The guaranteed minimum of 100,000 is the pre-tax salary; project bonuses are calculated separately, and performance will be assessed at the end of the year."

She turned to another page of the document: "There are a few more conditions; a three-month probationary period with 20% of the salary; if you fail the assessment, the probationary period can be extended or you can be reassigned; once you are on site, all technical documents you come into contact with cannot be taken out, and a confidentiality agreement must be signed."

Sun Miaoshu nodded repeatedly: "These are all fine."

He Fangqin looked at her and said, "The last point is that this salary isn't given casually; it corresponds to the responsibilities of the position. After you arrive, you'll be in charge of the hardware verification line, and you'll be held responsible if any problems arise."

Sun Miaoshu readily agreed: "Of course."

He Fangqin was satisfied and stood up: "That's all for today. You can come back to start work after you've finished handing over your work there; you can decide the time yourself, but don't exceed one month."

Sun Miaoshu: "Half a month is enough. I don't have much to submit on my end."

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Chen Jian's interview was longer than Sun Miaoshu's.

He asked more detailed questions: the level of automation of the production line, the PLC model, the brand of existing equipment, the production line cycle time, and where the yield bottleneck is.

He Fangqin answered half of the question, telling him to talk to Liu Yang about the other half after he started working.

Chen Jian also asked about the salary.

He Fangqin: "Guaranteed annual salary of 100,000 yuan, before tax."

Chen Jian paused for two seconds: "Manager He, my annual salary in Guangzhou is 48,000, plus the year-end bonus, it's about 55,000."

He Fangqin: "So this is doubled."

Chen Jian smiled: "Then I'll definitely come."

He Fangqin: "But..."

Chen Jian's smile faded.

He Fangqin said seriously, "The 100,000 yuan isn't for nothing; the first thing you need to do after you arrive is to come up with an automation upgrade plan for the second production line and work with Engineer Liu to debug the equipment. The production line's cycle time needs to be increased, and the yield rate cannot be dropped."

Chen Jian nodded: "I have experience with this."

"Experience is experience, and results are results." He Fangqin handed him the draft contract. "Take a look at the terms first, and ask me any questions now."

Chen Jian took it and carefully read through it, then asked two small questions, to which He Fangqin gave clear answers.

Finally, He Fangqin stood up: "Engineer Chen, contact me anytime once you've settled things over there. Prepare the onboarding procedures in advance."

Chen Jian: "I have a project to finish, which will take about three weeks."

He Fangqin: "Three weeks is fine."

After the two left the HR office, He Fangqin sat back down in her chair, organized the interview notes, and put them into a file folder. She made up her mind that if her boss ever said "at least 100,000" again, she would cover her mouth on the spot.

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Sun Miaoshu officially joined the company half a month later, and Chen Jian arrived three weeks later. After the two arrived, Liu Yang no longer had to shoulder the burden of R&D, debugging, after-sales backup machines, and technical Q&A for the sales department all by himself.

Chen Jian took over the automation upgrade of the production line, and the equipment debugging progress of the second line was significantly accelerated.

Sun Miaoshu started by inspecting incoming materials from suppliers. When Li Jia saw her inspection report, she remarked, "If I had come two months earlier, I would have had far fewer worries."

Liu Ya also said, "Once the data source for reliability testing is under control, we won't have to rework it every day."

As the days went by, the pace of life in the factory stabilized.

Xu Jianlan led her sales team to expand into new channels, and order volume steadily increased; He Fangqin implemented the salary system thoroughly, and the workers did not complain. Chen Guodong monitored production and finance every day, signing and stamping documents, and submitting weekly reports to Lin Ying's desk on time.

Lin Ying really did shift her focus away from management, spending most of her time in the R&D center every day looking at data, running tests, and discussing the direction of the second-generation product with Liu Yang.

November arrived in the blink of an eye.

That afternoon, Lin Ying was looking through documents in the research and development center when her phone rang.

"I've arrived," came a gentle voice.

Lin Ying glanced at the time; it was 2:30 PM. "Where are you?"

"Outside the airport, just came out."

"I'll pick you up." Lin Ying handed the documents to Liu Yang, grabbed her car keys, and went downstairs. Liu Yang called out from behind, "Boss, where are you going?"

Lin Ying didn't even turn her head: "Pick someone up."

Liu Yang turned to look at Sun Miaoshu: "Her boyfriend is here."

Sun Miaoshu exclaimed in surprise, "Wait a minute, the boss has a boyfriend?"

Liu Yang said in a tone of someone who had been there before, "Miao Shu, you haven't been here long enough. There's still a lot of corporate culture you need to learn."

Sun Miaoshu: "Then say it!"

Liu Yang laughed: "I'll tell you about it slowly when I have time later."