Chapter 39: Those Who Labor with Their Minds Rise Above!

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In the instant the other person was distracted, the small hoist inside the warehouse began to creak, emitting a series of shrill noises. Lin Jingyi paid it no mind, stepping forward once more to help steady the goods. She then returned to the computer, opened her thermos, took a sip of water, and said, “To you, this may be nothing more than a part-time job.”

“But it isn’t to me.”

The sunlight suddenly pierced through the clouds, and dust motes danced among the shelves within the shafts of light.

Lin Jingyi took out her phone and sent a message to the WeChat contact saved as “Jiang the Skinflint”: “The payroll calculations are finished. Please take a look at the increased per-unit rates for the packing jobs. If everything is fine, I’ll send them out to everyone shortly.”

Jiang Ming replied, “Go ahead and sign and send them first. You can forward the financial statements to me afterward.”

“Oh, right. Have you thought over what I told you last night, my Manager Lin?”

Lin Jingyi’s beautiful eyes curved as she typed back: “I’m already this busy doing a little accounting work for you. If I became the manager of an esports club or something, wouldn’t you work me to death?”

“Heh heh, there’s nothing I can do. Right now, you’re the only senior student we can find who’s both capable and trustworthy.”

“We’re a ramshackle start-up, and there are far too many things that need attention. The more capable someone is, the more responsibility they have to shoulder.”

“You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”

“Not just saying it, not just saying it. Starting today, we’ll pay our beautiful Manager Lin separately for every task.”

“That sounds more like it.”

“By the way, I found the video editors you asked me to look for. Two pitiful unemployed fourth-year students. Their skills are excellent, so I suggest signing them to long-term contracts right away.”

“I’ve also found a detached house that could serve as the team’s base. It isn’t too far from Taicang. Go take a look when you have time.”

“Renovations and the like will probably take a while. Otherwise, we’ll be rushed later.”

“And then there are some support staff. I asked a junior student to find out where the labor market is for that kind of worker. If you don’t mind, we can hire two people there. If we provide food and lodging, their demands for compensation should be… very reasonable.”

Lin Jingyi slipped effortlessly into work mode and carefully listed, one by one, all the matters Jiang Ming needed to deal with in the near future.

“Oh, and one more thing. I suggest buying a car!”

Jiang Ming replied: “Hands clasped in thanks.”

“As for recruitment, you, as the manager of our NXG, can take full responsibility. I’m just an emotionless machine for transferring money.”

Seeing the playful sticker Jiang Ming had sent her, Lin Jingyi smiled brightly.

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His gaze once again swept over the junior student who had just offered him her advice.

Lin Jingyi sighed inwardly. Sometimes, the greatest taboo was mistaking the capabilities of the platform for one’s own abilities.

Had Jiang Ming’s online store grown to its present scale because of her, an assistant who wore several hats?

No!

Or had it achieved such success through the academy’s meager financial support and the small amount of space it had provided?

Not that either!

Certainly, it was not because of the junior students working part-time in the warehouse, even after their temporary pay had been raised to the lofty rate of thirty yuan an hour. Nor was it because of the junior student before her, who was working as a customer-service representative but could not even devote herself wholeheartedly to her own duties.

Then was it because of her?

Lin Jingyi recalled how the dean had recommended her at the time, in an office conversation that had sounded almost like a joke.

She knew perfectly well that if someone else had been in that office that day, Jiang Ming would have agreed all the same.

And so long as that person was competent and reasonably intelligent, they could not only handle the job but also learn countless things from Jiang Ming that they would never encounter in university.

Therefore, it was not because of her either.

…

One of Jiang Ming’s guiding principles was a profound maxim:

“One person cannot do everything well. Only those who know how to make use of people can accomplish great things!”

He had always been moved by the line from the Memorial on Sending Out the Troops: “I shall devote myself completely until my dying day.” At the same time, he remembered even more vividly the exhausted civil official’s statue in front of the Marquis Wu Shrine in Chengdu—the cold sweat of two thousand years, never quite dried, hidden within the folds of its garments carved from blue stone.

That was why Jiang Ming had never imagined that he could personally take on every single task. Finding talented people, cultivating them, and putting them to work for him—that was the true path to success.

Senior Lin had come from the accounting profession. She was meticulous and could arrange every matter, large or small, with care. She also possessed a certain degree of managerial ability.

As a fellow student of the same academic lineage, she had some understanding of the connection between esports and e-commerce as well.

With such an outstanding talent, of course he was unwilling to limit her to part-time work handling logistics and payroll. He only needed to spend a little time helping her grow, and she would become the perfect candidate for the club’s management.

During this period, while he was earning his first fortune, Jiang Ming was still in the early stage of capital accumulation and had no way to offer her particularly generous compensation.

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Fortunately, Senior Lin was both beautiful and intelligent, with broad horizons. She had never haggled with him over every little detail.

Now that he had fully capitalized on the wave of traffic brought by the S3 King update, the online store had made a killing, and the bonuses from the YY platform and the sponsorship money for the club had arrived, Jiang Ming immediately began setting every aspect of the club’s preparations into motion.

The first task was to promote Senior Lin and raise her salary in recognition of the immense contribution she had made to the online store.

“There are still two qualifying matches left. Even if they lose both, it won’t affect their eligibility to enter the LPL. But to maximize the traffic, a clean sweep would naturally be best.”

Once Lin Jingyi’s affairs had been settled, Jiang Ming began planning his next steps.

“There’s still some time before the LPL season begins. I’ll see whether the team can find someone with a solid understanding of the game to supervise the players’ daily training in my place.”

“A professional coach is out of the question for now. There are barely a handful of decent esports coaches in the entire league. I can train someone myself later.”

“We can’t abandon the instructional videos. But later on, I definitely won’t have much time to spend on them. We can establish a video production studio. I’ll provide the ideas, and we’ll begin mainly with game-related content, then slowly develop it and see how far we can go.”

“We’ll see how the two editors Senior Lin hired perform. We should quickly claim a share of the video market in both the humorous League of Legends jungle-exploration niche and the showcase videos featuring the strongest Challenger-tier players.”

“The good news is that the holidays are almost here. The livestreams on YY won’t be disrupted by classes, so there won’t be any problem consolidating our traffic.”

“The bonuses and sponsorship money from YY aren’t much. I’ll still have to cover most of the initial investment myself.”

“The base doesn’t need to be large, but if we want to develop professionally, there will still be plenty of places to spend money. During the holidays, I’ll have to increase the frequency of my livestreams again. If necessary, I can start promoting the goal of reaching Challenger on both servers.”

“We can add a few more types of products to the online store. In the end, it’s nothing more than finding suppliers and moving goods from one hand to another. Once the scale grows, we can deal directly with the manufacturers!”

“We already have pork-floss pastries. We can’t leave out fish tofu and the like.”

“Oh, right. Youchen is sending someone over to discuss wholesale prices. I can ask whether they’re interested in becoming NXG’s second sponsor.”

A sudden flash of inspiration crossed Jiang Ming’s mind, and the slight furrow between his brows eased considerably.

As far as he was concerned, Youchen had no reason to refuse. They had seen how popular his livestream had become in recent days, and the sales figures were right there in front of them. No sensible person would turn down traffic on such an astonishing scale.

“The team base, updated player contracts after promotion to the LPL, upgrades to all the hardware and software, the club’s essential staffing…”

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