But it didn’t last long.
Chen Guoqiao’s expression shifted, and he quickly plastered on a smile, hastily apologizing:
"Oh, look at me..."
"I was so happy to see you young people that I completely forgot I invited you here for a meal."
With that, he turned and led the way toward the massive, curved, floor-to-ceiling windows.
A table and chairs were set up there, where a waiter had already arranged the tableware and drinks.
He said he had invited them to apologize, but by the time the food arrived and they had been eating for a long while, Chen Guoqiao still hadn’t said a word about it.
Halfway through the meal, Lin Xiaoman pouted at Lin Feng.
’She really couldn’t get used to this poorly prepared Western food. When we get back,’ she thought, ’I have to buy a few skewers of grilled meat and eat my fill.’
Lin Feng gave her a look, telling her to bear with it. Seeing that Chen Guoqiao was nearly finished eating, he figured it was time to get to the point.
"President Chen, I recall the reason you asked us here today wasn’t just for a Western-style dinner, was it?"
Lin Feng calmly wiped his mouth and took a sip of red wine.
At that moment, he was thinking: ’So this is what a so-called thousand-yuan bottle of red wine tastes like. It’s nothing special. Not even as good as the cheap bottles of wine from the corner store.’
Chen Guoqiao slowly and deliberately wiped his mouth with a corner of his napkin, took a very pleased sniff of the red wine, and then drank a sip with great elegance.
"Mr. Lin, good food must be savored slowly to appreciate its flavor."
Chen Guoqiao glanced at Lin Xiaoman, his words carrying a hidden meaning.
"It’s like a beautiful woman. How can you know her charms with just a single glance?"
"You must savor her carefully to enjoy the lingering aftertaste."
Lin Feng’s eyes narrowed dangerously. If Chen Guoqiao dared to say one more thing that sounded like he was harassing her, he would personally beat the man so badly his own parents wouldn’t recognize him.
Fortunately, however, Chen Guoqiao changed the subject just in time:
"I’ve heard a little about the video on Little Broken Station."
"This whole affair is my fault. I was negligent when hiring my staff. I hope you can forgive me."
His staff?
Lin Feng sneered. He knew the man was going to pass the buck.
Whenever something disadvantageous to him eventually came to light,
Chen Guoqiao could immediately find a scapegoat to shift all the blame onto.
Just like this incident. He had clearly orchestrated it himself, but in just a few words, it became a matter of him being a poor judge of character and having a faulty employee screening process.
But were the moderation problems on Little Broken Station really a recent development?
As the company’s president, how could Chen Guoqiao possibly not know about the various problems, big and small, that plagued Little Broken Station time and time again?
He knew the problems existed, yet he turned a blind eye, exploiting these loopholes to drive traffic and make money. He allowed certain netizens to run rampant, attracting a large number of fans in the process.
Lin Feng had no doubt that when he eventually brought down Little Broken Station, a horde of its die-hard fans with their warped values would jump out and furiously denounce him for destroying their source of happiness and maliciously robbing them of their fun.
What a joke!
They were all grown-ups. Would they really not be able to live without Little Broken Station?
Faced with Chen Guoqiao’s blatant attempt to pass the buck, Lin Feng showed him no courtesy:
"So, President Chen, are you saying that in all this time, you never noticed there was a problem with the employees under you?"
"If that’s the case, you should be careful, President Chen."
"Even if you’re too high up to see such an obvious problem, are you saying your managers couldn’t see it either?"
"If they saw it and didn’t tell you, then congratulations, President Chen. You have disloyal people on your team."
"On the other hand, if not a single one of them noticed..."
"...then, President Chen, to put it bluntly, those people are probably all a bunch of good-for-nothings."
Either way, this company was doomed.
[DING...]
[Congratulations, Host. Your Logic attribute has increased. New honorific title unlocked: The Man with the God’s-Eye View.]
Lin Feng almost spat out his drink. ’What the hell is this?’
He would rather not have such a cringey title.
[Host has been detected to not want the honorific title. Host, please provide an explanation.]
For once, Lin Feng could hear a note of confusion in the system’s electronic, mechanical voice.
Perhaps in the system’s programming, if something was an "honorific title," then it was impossible for anyone to dislike it.
Lin Feng ignored the system’s question.
He took a deep breath and furiously screamed ’Shut up!’ in his mind.
This wasn’t the time to argue with the system; otherwise, everyone else would think he was a psycho.
The system detected that Lin Feng was currently very unhappy, so it followed its programming, ceased conversing with him, and went dormant again.
Lin Feng had, time and again, said things that Chen Guoqiao didn’t expect.
The speech he had so carefully prepared was now stuck in his throat, and he couldn’t utter a single word.
Chen Guoqiao knew that if he said just one more sentence, Lin Feng would casually pick out countless problems with it.
And those problems would only give Chen Guoqiao a headache.
No matter whether he answered or not, or how he answered, the result would be a problem.
So, flying into a rage out of humiliation, Chen Guoqiao dropped the act. The greasy, doughy smile on his face vanished, replaced by a stern expression as he stared coldly at Lin Feng:
"Mr. Lin, this is an internal matter for Little Broken Station. You don’t need to trouble yourself with it."
"A kid your age should be in school studying, not out here trying to make it in the real world."
In Chen’s view, Lin Feng would never understand how the world worked.
Chen Guoqiao had struggled and clawed his way up for so many years. He would do anything to achieve his goals, and he hadn’t shied away from a single unconscionable or heinous act.
That was how he had climbed to his current position.
That’s why he was so arrogant—because in his eyes, he had earned the right to be.
"Hm?"
Lin Feng had finally waited for the man to show his true colors. Suddenly, that face didn’t seem quite so greasy anymore.
"Didn’t you come here to apologize, President Chen?"
"Are the words you just said also part of your apology?"
"If I’m not mistaken, you’re just offending me all over again."
If Chen Guoqiao weren’t wary of Lin Feng, this meeting would never have happened today.
Ultimately, Chen Guoqiao was still afraid of him.
On the surface, he looked down on this obscure kid who came out of nowhere and hadn’t even graduated from college.
But in reality, everyone was terrified of the speed at which Lin Feng was rising.
Not to mention, Douhu was already closing in on Little Broken Station, and that was what worried Chen Guoqiao the most.
’How could the Little Broken Station that I built from the ground up end up following someone else’s lead?’
Chen Guoqiao took a deep breath. For some reason, a smirk suddenly appeared on his lips, and his greasy demeanor returned:
"Young man, it’s understandable to be proud and ambitious. After you’ve seen more of the world, you’ll realize how rare it is to find an elder like me who is willing to patiently talk sense into you."
Elder?
Lin Feng almost laughed in exasperation. Him, Lin Feng, having such a sleazy, greasy elder?
This Chen Guoqiao was truly shameless, trying to pull rank on him like that.
Narrowing his eyes, Lin Feng leaned back in his chair and said slowly,
"President Chen, I think your memory is failing you. Allow me to remind you again."
"Why was it, exactly, that you went out of your way to invite me here time and time again?"
He was supposed to be apologizing. Was this an apology?
If this was what an apology looked like, then no one in the world would know the difference between right and wrong.
Chen Guoqiao was stunned by his words. He couldn’t believe that even now, Lin Feng "still hadn’t" understood the meaning behind his words and was still stubbornly insisting on an apology.
Ridiculous!
’Apologize to him? That was wishful thinking!’
Saying it was his employees’ fault was already a concession he made for Lin Xiaoman’s sake.
This Lin Feng truly didn’t know what was good for him. He refused the easy way and insisted on the hard way.

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