Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 139 - 136 Graduation Gift (@No.1 Mo Fan)

"So, you are using the office that Uncle originally used?" Yan Yan asked Yan Ling.

The "Chairman’s" office in the shoe factory, which Uncle used to use, couldn’t really be considered an office. It was more like a social venue.

Companies in Wenzhou are a bit odd. There wasn’t really a term for a chairman before. Generally speaking, the position of general manager was a combination of what other places would call a chairman and a general manager.

That is to say, both positions were held by the same person.

The office building of Yan Ling’s family’s shoe factory was newly built not long ago. During the design, the entire top floor was designated as the chairman’s "office," but Uncle actually stayed in the chairman’s "office" for a while and then moved down to the general manager’s office to work.

This unusually large chairman’s office was initially designed with very good access control, featuring an automatic glass door that required a fingerprint to open.

Later, for some unknown reason, the glass door was removed.

The office on the top floor had an area for tea ceremony and even a ping-pong table.

Yan Ling initially agreed to take the office because he planned to replace the ping-pong table with a pool table, allowing for both work and leisure, and he did exactly that as soon as he returned to China.

Yan Ling never really thought about why there was a tea table in the office, 10 meters long and over two meters wide, made by splitting a whole African oak tree in half. He didn’t know what it was typically used for.

Yan Ling only spent a few days upstairs before he discovered that his office was too large and had serious "security risks," necessitating a significant reduction in office space.

But when Uncle was there, the real general manager disagreed, and he, this nominal "chairman," couldn’t do anything about it.

Aunt, who usually supported Yan Ling, uncharacteristically frequented his office, sitting at the other end of the huge tea table, personally overseeing her son’s matchmaking matters.

Yan Ling’s marriage had caused both Uncle and Aunt to be extremely anxious, making Yan Ling the biggest victim in this situation.

Involuntarily, Yan Ling became someone "who had seen numerous girls."

Yan Ling wasn’t nursing a broken heart, nor was he unwilling to start a new relationship. He just didn’t want his romantic possibilities to be limited to such a small area as Wenzhou, nor did he want to casually start a new relationship.

Yan Ling had already made a fierce declaration that if he was forced to go on blind dates day in and day out, he would leave home and live in a country that had no diplomatic ties with China.

In this negotiation, Yan Ling painfully secured a final victory.

Only then did Uncle and Aunt stop preventing Yan Ling from remodeling his office when they came to Melbourne for Yan Yan’s graduation ceremony.

"Yes, that’s the top-floor office that nobody uses." When the new office building of the shoe factory was completed a few years ago, Yan Ling was at home.

"Why are you so silly? Uncle himself only stayed there for half a year because it was too bustling, and even he couldn’t bear to stay. Yet you still went in looking for suffering," Yan Yan thought Yan Ling was completely bringing misery upon himself.

"I was abroad at that time, how would I know why Dad changed offices?" Yan Ling asked Yan Yan.

"If you didn’t know, couldn’t you have asked me?" Yan Yan countered.

"And how would I know you knew if you didn’t tell me?" Yan Ling was troubled enough by his own office, which not only lacked privacy but also deprived him of personal freedom.

The clash of new and old ideas is never a brief pain.

Whether Yan Ling can withstand such pain and overcome the long-standing old ideas is still an unknown.

"Why don’t you just start a new company?" Yan Yan asked, voicing her own confusion.

"If you just focus on branding and not on production, you’ll end up contracting out manufacturing, which makes it difficult to control quality.

You want to create a truly high-end brand, you must keep production in your own hands.

Even Chanel, one of their most passionate pursuits is acquiring workshops with outstanding manufacturing crafts. Chanel never outsources manufacturing.

The only exception is the eyewear that Chanel licenses for production under their brand, and the quality is very unstable. Didn’t you buy sunglasses that broke after just a few days?

Think about it, with what we plan to do, don’t I need to manage the factory well?" Yan Ling explained his approach earnestly.

Yan Yan’s uncle, who is more than a decade older than her dad, is almost sixty-five years old and well past the age of retirement.

When the uncle was young, the family was too poor to make ends meet, and he had to take care of his younger brother, Yan Yan’s father, which meant he couldn’t afford to marry.

It wasn’t until he was nearly forty that he had Yan Ling, which at the time was certainly considered "late-born."

It was poverty that delayed his marriage and childbearing.

But times have changed. Now, girls eager to marry into the Yan family line up.

Yan Ling, being the only son, hasn’t shown any real commitment to getting married and having children yet, which understandably worries his aunt and uncle.

Yan Ling’s previous marriage is now jokingly referred to as a "joke" by his own parents.

"Alright, considering you were fighting alone for our brand, I’ll forgive you for missing my graduation. But even if you couldn’t be there, surely you couldn’t have forgotten a gift?" Yan Yan, feeling somewhat guilty by now.

Suddenly, Yan Yan felt as if she was enjoying her peaceful life in Melbourne alone while dumping a mess of things on Yan Ling.

But what could she do, since Yan Ling was her cousin? Yan Yan’s guilt didn’t last long.

"How could I not prepare a gift for you? Would you dare to lend me ten times the courage to try?" Yan Ling replied to Yan Yan.

"Really? Then why haven’t I received it? I just saw our uncle and aunt, and they didn’t mention anything about you sending me a gift." Without seeing Yan Ling, Yan Yan could only be curious about his gift.

"How could I carelessly entrust someone else to deliver my gift to you?" Yan Ling indeed hadn’t asked his parents to bring the gift.

"Don’t start with me, the aunt and uncle aren’t just anyone, I wouldn’t mind." Yan Yan thought Yan Ling might have been too busy to remember, or perhaps he planned to buy it after getting to Melbourne.

Yan Ling often let Yan Yan choose her own gift when he gave her one.

"I got one of my former MBA classmates to pick you up; he’s been in Florence for the last couple of years. Wait until you get to Europe, and I’ll have him meet you." Yan Ling explained why his gift couldn’t be delivered through his parents.

"Are you playing with me? Does Italy not have taxis or something? Even if Italians speak poor English, do you think I can’t find the school?" Yan Yan was angry, not in need of attractive men.

If Yan Yan were single, she might have asked Yan Ling curiously about who he had asked to pick her up and whether he had a photo.

But as someone who’s already committed, having Yan Ling’s MBA classmate as a "graduation gift" to pick her up felt absurdly laughable, typical of his bizarre ideas!

"I didn’t plan to have someone take you to school. Go take a taxi if you want," Yan Ling replied, inducing even more dumbfounded silence from Yan Yan than she had anticipated. He intended to have someone pick her up but not to take her to school.

"What kind of pickup is that?" If Yan Yan were with Yan Ling right now, she’d probably push him a little and roll her eyes dramatically.

"Are you going to Polimoda, and did the school arrange accommodation for you?" Yan Ling asked, unbothered by the significant disdain in Yan Yan’s tone.

"No, can we not change the subject?" Yan Yan felt that if Yan Ling couldn’t bother to come or even prepare a gift, he definitely deserved a scolding.