Chapter 103: The Impersonation (Part Two)

"Hey, that Cheng Li in your team is quite something! You've struck gold."

As they walked downstairs, Cai Yuyao teased.

"Cheng Li? Why do you say that?" Tang Xiao was caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic.

"Oh, stop playing dumb with me. I’m not like Brother Yu, always trying to poach talent the moment he spots it."

Ding Tongyu’s penchant for scouting talent was legendary throughout the Data Analysis Department. To say nothing of others, even Tan Fang had once been high on his list of potential recruits.

It was a shame that while Tan Fang possessed exceptional logical reasoning, his programming skills were simply subpar, which eventually forced Ding Tongyu to shelve the idea.

Going further back, Cheng Yu was someone he had snatched away from the algorithms team by offering a hefty salary.

Because of this, the Vice President in charge of algorithms and development had joked during a quarterly meeting:

From now on, recruitment and employee information for these two departments must be kept strictly confidential, especially from Ding Tongyu. He might just swoop in and poach people before even our competitors' headhunters had a chance.

"We’ve almost never used 'favorites count' and 'favorites rate' as metrics in the past. The last time we did was when you introduced the 'add to favorites/cart' feature during the big promotion, so we pulled those stats out specifically. But using a combination of clicks, favorites, and conversions to gauge user expectations for products—we really hadn't thought of it in that direction."

Cai Yuyao, with her long legs, walked in front and naturally didn't notice the strange expression on Tang Xiao’s face. She continued:

"Cheng Li really gave us a new perspective. I heard she’s never worked in operations before? Well, that truly is a case of 'the onlooker sees most clearly.' Before, when your Daming suggested recruiting talent from diverse fields rather than limiting it to those with operational experience, I didn't quite get it. Now that I think about it, he really is a visionary."

"Are you saying... Cheng Li provided this idea to you?"

Tang Xiao finally found an opportunity to interject.

"Yeah, didn't you ask her to come see me?" Seeing Tang Xiao’s grim expression, Cai Yuyao guessed there might be something going on that she wasn't aware of. "What, is there a problem?"

"What exactly did she say to you this afternoon?"

Tang Xiao didn't answer, instead posing another question.

"What did she say? She just said you sent her to me to submit the request. Wait... don't tell me this plan wasn't her idea?"

"You actually guessed right."

"Whoa, she’s trying to steal credit?" Cai Yuyao’s voice rose an octave. "Then... then whose idea was it? Surely she wouldn't have the guts to steal a plan directly from you."

"It was Lin Luyou's." Tang Xiao kept her hands in her pockets, her face cold. "The young girl who was with me when I went to see you last time."

***

Lin Luyou had been racking her brain for ages, but she still couldn't make sense of it.

She shook her head, trying to cast these messy thoughts to the back of her mind.

"What’s wrong? Still haven't figured out what your colleague just said?"

"Was I that obvious?" Lin Luyou felt a bit embarrassed and reached up to tuck her bangs. "I was just carefully thinking over what I did today, and I couldn't find any reason for bad blood between Cheng Li and me."

"But from what I just heard your colleague imply... Cheng Li took credit for your work? Like, she put her name on your plan."

"That can't be, can it? She..." Lin Luyou wanted to defend her, but before the words could leave her lips, she also felt something was off.

As she carefully recalled Cheng Li’s strange behavior after lunch, the more she thought about it, the more indignant she felt:

"How could she do such a thing!"