Chapter 060: Who? Who Did You Say?!

Chapter 060: Who? Who Did You Say?!

Receptionists generally started early.

Huancai Fashion’s front-desk girl had only just arrived herself. Seeing a visitor, she found the whole thing strange.

Not the visitor part. The strange part was the property manager personally walking someone up.

High-end office buildings ran tight security. Two ways up: swipe a card, or register on the first floor. Even food-delivery riders and couriers had to register downstairs before coming up.

Visitors without advance notice followed the same rule.

But even for an important guest, property staff at most helped with a card swipe—no one personally escorted anyone upstairs, and certainly not the property manager himself. A VIP to one company was, to the property side, simply a stranger.

So the receptionist was baffled.

“Miss Tao.” The manager gestured, leading the woman all the way to the desk.

“Ma’am, who are you here to see?” the receptionist asked, offering a practiced, polite smile.

“Your president. President Li. We have an appointment.” The mysterious woman hadn’t removed her mask, though her voice came through clearly enough.

She kept it on not out of rudeness, but to avoid drawing a crowd.

Downstairs, she’d assumed Huancai had already cleared her with the property office and that she could head straight up. Instead there’d been no record at all, forcing her to remove the mask and register—which had already caused a small stir and gotten the property manager personally involved.

She’d put the mask back on once inside the elevator, unwilling to be recognized by whoever else got on along the way. That kind of attention meant trouble, and wasted time.

“An appointment…” The receptionist began flipping through the logbook.

Any meeting arranged in advance with Li Ruobing would definitely show up there.

“My surname is Tao,” the woman added.

The receptionist already knew that—the property manager had said “Miss Tao” more than once on the way over. But after flipping through two pages, she straightened up, shook her head in confusion, and said politely, “I’m sorry, Miss Tao, I can’t find your appointment. Would you like to call our president to confirm?”

A completely standard answer.

The default line for any guest with no record on file. It offended no one, and if something had gone wrong, the blame wouldn’t land on the front desk.

“No record?” The woman looked puzzled.

Strange. Very strange.

She’d been called back on short notice, flown in from Thailand, landed in Donghai only nine hours ago. She’d assumed this was just another case of her godfather doing a favor for a friend, which was why he’d summoned her back to take the endorsement.

But since returning, he’d warned her, again and again.

Told her it was the company belonging to his good brother’s woman. Told her the woman was the Li family’s eldest granddaughter. Told her to be polite, to behave, to cooperate fully on the deal, and to accept whatever fee they offered without haggling.

She could sense exactly how serious this was: mess it up, and her godfather would end up offending someone he absolutely could not afford to offend.

So she’d come here careful, cautious, on edge.

And now this?

Not even an appointment?

Forget the property office downstairs not knowing—even the company’s own front desk had no idea she was coming?

“Miss Tao, why don’t you have a seat in the reception room?” The receptionist thought fast. Seeing the woman’s discomfort, she offered gently, “Our president is in a meeting right now and might not pick up. Just give me a moment—I’ll verify things and let you know right away.”

She had no intention of calling Li Ruobing directly. At most she’d try the president’s secretary.

She’d seen enough important people pass through to sense that this woman was no ordinary guest. Saying she’d verify wasn’t just a line—she really would ask around.

Just not this instant.

Every senior executive in the building was currently locked in that meeting. She wouldn’t dare interrupt.

“Then… all right.” The woman hesitated, following the gesture toward the reception room. She’d barely taken two steps before turning back.

“Please, check once more.” She pulled her mask down and slid off her sunglasses, giving the receptionist a warm smile. “You recognize me, don’t you? I really do have an appointment with your president.”

She was worried this was some kind of misunderstanding—that if she waited too long and it fell through, delaying whatever was already in motion, her godfather would call and it would look like she hadn’t handled things properly.

The receptionist froze.

It was the reigning superstar herself: Tao Manying.

The receptionist’s mind jumped immediately to the endorsement. A film star and a cosmetics company only meant one thing.

She remembered yesterday’s storm—Li Ruobing furious over the spokesperson’s car accident, holding meetings morning and afternoon, mobilizing every executive and every connection the company had to find a replacement.

Word had spread through the whole building.

So Tao Manying showing up like this probably meant some executive, somehow, had actually pulled it off.

Who could possibly have that kind of reach?

And more baffling still—why wasn’t there a single record of it?

“Ah—ah, Miss Tao, one moment, please, just a moment… there might’ve been a mix-up somewhere. Maybe something went wrong when the president’s secretary or assistant handed the appointment over to us… let me check right now.”

She reached for the front desk phone, then paused, glancing at the internal directory taped inside the desk partition. A few numbers were printed larger, bolded.

Those belonged to the company’s core executives. Right at the top: Li Ruobing’s own number.

The president was in a meeting. A crucial one.

The receptionist hesitated a moment, then gritted her teeth and dialed it directly.

Thirty-second floor. Huancai’s main conference room.

Over thirty people packed inside—marketing, PR, HR, finance, the business divisions, plus the heads of all three production bases, two small and one large.

“…Thirteen days left! Only thirteen days until launch! I don’t care what methods you use, what it takes! I’ll keep looking, and so will you!”

Li Ruobing’s face was ice, her hand striking the table. “Nearly two years of R&D, production, preparation—two years of our lives poured into this launch, and we were finally ready to go to market! If this falls apart, the IPO plan gets delayed, and every share I promised you gets voided along with it!”

“I pay you well above industry standard. I’m giving you equity. Not so you can sit around doing nothing! If you can’t even manage this much, what use are any of you to me?”

By this point, her fury had reached its peak.

Because every executive had reported the same thing: not one of them had found a spokesperson who met her standards. They’d only been asked to make contact—she’d handle the negotiations herself—and they couldn’t even manage that.

She understood, on some level, that this wasn’t really about incompetence. Ding Ruilong was working against her behind the scenes.

Still.

That was how running a company worked. If the boss had to solve every single problem herself, then even a competent staff would slowly turn useless. When something this big went wrong, everyone needed to pitch in and solve it together—and applying pressure, forcing out whatever potential they had left, was exactly the right call for someone in her position.

The room fell dead silent.

No one dared breathe too loudly.

“All gone mute? Speak up!” She slammed the table.

“Ahem. Boss, actually, I think if you lowered the standards for the spokesperson a bit…” A middle-aged man to her right cleared his throat and spoke carefully.

That he’d spoken up first was no small thing—he was one of the Li family’s own people, part of the first group sent to support her when she started the company. That history was the only reason he dared.

Ring, ring, ring!

Before he could finish, a phone went off.

Everyone in the room exchanged glances. Who would dare leave their phone on in a meeting like this?

Li Ruobing herself, apparently.

She glanced at the screen, brows drawing tight. Anyone else calling, she’d have hung up and dealt with it later. But… the front desk?

The front desk was calling her?

The front desk never called her directly—which meant this had to matter.

“Speak,” she said, answering without hesitation. She listened for a moment, then shot to her feet.

“Who? Who did you say?!”