CHAPTER 703: LATE BIRTHDAYS AND BALANCE WORKLOAD

"Leyan’s birthday? Wait, when was that?"

"A month ago. Exactly four days after Lily’s birthday... You were too busy with that whole fuel deal that you completely forgot about it."

"Why didn’t anyone say something then? You didn’t celebrate her birthday either, did you?" Xiaoyun immediately questioned back.

"Who said that? I gifted her the clothes she wore a few weeks ago. You remember the one she wore in the classroom?"

The moment Yuqi mentioned the clothes, Xiaoyun fell back into his chair in complete silence.

"No one told me about her birthday?"

You’re supposed to remember that yourself. Anyway, no one else gave her any gift either. I’m sure it’s fine."

"It’s not fine thought. Just because I was busy doesn’t mean I’m allowed to forget her birthday like this."

Xiaoyun’s brain already started kicking into gear, thinking of things that Leyan had wanted for a very long time.

However, everything came up blank.

It was even worse than Yueyue’s birthday situation, as he couldn’t think of the last time she asked for something or something that would be important to her.

"If you help me come up with a gift for Yueyue, I can help you come up with a gift for Mom." Yuqi offered again.

"Really?"

"I know exactly what she wanted. But you have to help me first." Yuqi demanded as she refused to budge.

"Fine... Have you thought of gifting Yueyue a plushie?"

"Plushies? Come on, don’t be joking with me. Yueyue is way too old for plushies. That sounds more like a gift for Nami."

"Um, how about a dress?"

"What kind of dress would she even like?"

"Anything that’s on her bookshelf. You’ve seen how much she likes to cosplay things she had read before, right?"

Xiaoyun suggested, as his mind quickly thought back to the number of manga hidden away in her normal clothes ’closet.’

"Where would I even buy those kinds of clothes? And what if she already owns a replica of the things I brought?"

"Just buy a collection of them. I’m sure there’s a clothing store that has a whole warehouse of those kinds of clothes."

"That’s.... That’s such a good idea. You’re a genius, Xiaoyun. Wait, you sit here, I’m going to go look for it right now——"

"Wait, wait, wait, you haven’t told me what kind of gift I should give to Leyan."

"Are you dumb? You’re the best gift to Xiaoyun. Now let me go before those stores go into a lunch break."

As Yuqi ran out of Xiaoyun’s hand, he was a little stunned by what she had said. He didn’t expect the answer to be so simple.

"Me? Really?"

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. All those years in the past, he had never really brought her actual gifts.

She never asked him for any gifts or reminded him of her birthday. Yuqi didn’t even like him to celebrate her birthday at all.

It was one of those things where she even stated in the past ’Why should I remind myself that I’m losing my youth?"

"What can I do as a husband? Cook food for her? Take care of the babies? Let her have a day off?"

None of them made sense to Xiaoyun, as they felt more like things he should already be doing rather than a ’makeup’ for a late birthday.

"What did I do last time? Was it really just flowers and that’s it?"

After doing several more digs in his memory, he finally stumbled onto something that made his face blush a little for a second.

Something that almost repeated every single year when Yuqi had her birthday. Something lewd that would make her extremely pleased.

"Come on, I have to come up with something better... This is just going to be another day for her rather than an actual, genuine birthday gift.

As Xiaoyun resumed looking through his memory, he was quickly interrupted as the office door opened.

"Hey, Governor, the deputy governor?" Jianlin curiously asked.

"She went outside to deal with something. Just put it on the table, I’ll handle her workload for now."

"Oh, okay... This is the quarterly food report for spring and the upcoming summer prediction for the amount of food needed."

"Thank you."

Jianlin quickly puts the papers down before speed-walking out of the room, not even making eye contact with Xiaoyun as if he were some scary monster.

"Weird..."

---

After three hours had gone by, Yuqi finally came back to the office empty-handed. Her forehead was sweating like crazy as she threw her jacket aside.

"You found something?"

"Yeah. It’s in the back of my car... Holy shit, it’s hot outside today. I should have never gone out with a jacket on."

"Well, you went out right around peak hour of the sun... Anyway, I already went through all of the work that came to the office."

"Thank you so much... Where did you put all the paper?" Yuqi curiously asked, noticing her desk was much emptier than before.

"I sent them back to the department. Half of these papers you shouldn’t even be the one deciding or reading over them."

"You what?"

Yuqi’s face immediately turned more and more red, seemingly about to kick him out of the office if it wasn’t for Xiaoyun getting up from her seat first.

"Relax. Don’t get so angry. I actually read through every single one of them and found your workflow has some serious flaws."

"Xiaoyun, I don’t need someone else to tell me how to do my work. I had done this way longer than you had sat in this office now."

"Take a seat first."

Seeing Xiaoyun constantly trying to get her to sit down first, she finally budged as she sat back in her own office chair.

"You’d better give a good reason, or else I’m never letting you go inside my office again."

"Just wait a second. I’ll give you an explanation that would make all of your anger go away."

As he turned around to look away from her for a second, Yuqi was a little confused until he turned back around to face her again.

"Why did you make yourself look mature all of a sudden?"

Yuqi curiously asked, her face looking uncomfortable with his ’new’ look that was more of a replica of Songming.

"Maybe you’ll calm down and listen to me. Yuqi, do you remember what I told you in the past?"

"In the past?"

"Remember what I talked about you overworking yourself?"

"I’m not overworking myself. I still go home at a usual time and leave them here in the office."

"Leave them in the office. And the next day you’ll be working on the same pile while new piles come in for you to decide on."

Yuqi didn’t argue back directly this time, as what Xiaoyun said was true. But the reasoning still didn’t satisfy any of her anger.

"I need information to make a decision. Or else I’ll be making a blind decision without those reports to read."

"And that’s the key issue. Making a decision. Don’t you think you have overloaded yourself with information to make every single decision?"

"If I don’t make it, who makes it?" Yuqi questioned.

"The people below you. Don’t tell me this is how you worked when you were running my business while I was gone."

"I’m perfectly fine with it. I can handle more information and make good decisions. It has always worked out for me."

"Do you remember the debate about the village leaders? Those people who are scared of responsibility and push it to the higher-ups?"

"I already let my workers give themsleve some discretion on certain issues. I already implemented what you had told me in the past long time ago."

Hearing her stubborn answer, Xiaoyun shook his head.

"You’re still not understanding me. Yuqi, let me ask you a question. Do you think you’re smarter than a hundred people?"

"Yeah, I think I’m smarter than those hundred people," Yuqi answered, her face full of confidence as she crossed her arms.

"Okay, maybe I phrased the question wrong. Do you think you’re smarter than every single office worker in the adminstrative building combined?"

"Why does that matter?"

Yuqi questioned back, her voice starting to get a little irritated. She was unwilling to get lectured by Xiaoyun again.

"Okay, you might be smarter than everyone else. And you probably do have a higher chance of getting things solved than letting someone else decide.

But let me ask you this. What do you think is going to happen when something goes wrong, and everyone turns their attention to you?"

"I admit I did something wrong and I’ll fix it."

"To what point do you think people will be frustrated when the track record starts to build up? Not just the outside, but people internally."

"People internally? Can you stop beating around the bush and say who they are?"

"All of the office workers under you. The more control you give yourself, the more blame you get when a mistake happens.

And before you say anything. Sometimes it doesn’t even need to be your mistake. But someone else at the lower entry position."

"What does that have to do with me?" Yuqi questioned again as her voice got more and more impatient.