The Stars In Your Eyes

Bai Yutang spent the rest of his first day working in C company familiarizing himself with his computer, and also the interface their company used. All the logs in their daily task needed to be submitted via the interface.

Submit your leave, submit your reimbursement cost, check your employee benefit, even there's online courses to improve employee's capability in their company interface program. 

The appraisal of their work will use their daily log beside monitoring the project's progress. This to ensure transparency and easier for the C company headquarter to manage their branches.

Bai Yutang admired the company policy stating they support diversities in their work, and even the C company had a LGBTQ employee forum. C companies around the world had more than 10.000 employees, some of the employees could be transferred overseas if needed.

Being racist, sexual harassment, or treat your colleague differently because of differences, could suffer harsh penalty from the management. C companies also held the law and highlighted in their policies about bribes carefully. There's a limit of how much you could treat your client in the restaurant, and also how much a gift could be received from the vendors..

These kinds of things never stated clearly on the F firm. Surely this company is not a pure architect firm. C company business is real estate. Apartments, houses, office buildings, warehouses, even lands. 

Bai Yutang really glad Zhen Guo introduced this kind of job to him. He felt he widened his horizon even with only one day working here.

Bai Yutang politely requests jobs from Xiang Cai, but Xiang Cai told him to familiarise himself first with his environment and start to do his job slowly this week.

When Jian Kang Lu reaches home that night, Bai Yutang is already at home and cooks his signature Lemon Chicken for their dinner. The luscious, tangy stir-fry chicken with carrot and broccoli was really tasty, no wonder those ladies loved to kidnap his kitten and asked for his lemon chicken.

Jian Kang Lu enjoyed his dinner with light heart, he was happy to see his kitten excitedly tell him about his first day at work. Jian Kang Lu felt if he had children, maybe this is the same feeling he would have to hear his children tell him about their first day at school.

Once they finished their dinner, took a bath, and got in bed prepared to sleep, his kitten snuggled in his embrace and hugged him tight.

"Gege.. I have something to tell you." His kitten looked at him with a mild frown.

"Mmm?" Jian Kang Lu stroked his kitten's back softly.

"I.. I told my colleague today that I have a boyfriend."

Jian Kang Lu's hand stopped for a few seconds, then he hugged his kitten back. "Are you okay? Does your colleague bully you?" Jian Kang Lu wanted to ask the reason why his kitten came out to his colleague on his first day. Is this related to his resignation from F firm? But Jian Kang Lu didn't have the heart to ask. He felt he only needed to show his support rather than drilling his kitten.

"No, they won't. The company stated they support diversities. They even have LGBTQ forum in our interface." His kitten's voice sounded excited.

Jian Kang Lu wants to tell his kitten that what they show in front of you might be different from what they say or do behind your back. At least, that is what he felt in the medical circle. 

Jian Kang Lu knows people talking behind his back about his sexuality. But since his position is not low, and his patients also don't need to know about their doctor's sexuality, there's not much they could do to disturb his work.

"That's good, baby. I think your new working place sounds really great." Jian Kang Lu uses his mildest tone, trying to support his kitten's mood.

"Yes! And.. If they ask about you, can I tell them?" His kitten sounds anxious.

Jian Kang Lu chuckled, "Why not? I told you that it doesn't matter to me. My mother already told all her friends about us, right? I think 10% of the B city population knows about us from her, and my father."

They talked again for a little bit before they finally went to sleep.

Bai Yutang spent the first week slowly understanding his job and integrating it into the E building project.

Xiang Cai and Huang Shi were really satisfied with Bai Yutang's progress, and told him that they will take him to see the clients and vendors next week. They predict Bai Yutang could really work by himself by the third week at this rate. Usually, the newcomer needs one month to settle, but Bai Yutang is really smart and knows how to work. He also didn't mind working late.

"Woah, T university graduates are really different from us mortals." Xiang Cai teased him with these statements when Bai Yutang finished his work earlier than Xiang Cai expected. At this company, only three architects graduate from T uni, and two of them work in the other team.

Bai Yutang just sent the parking lot layout to Xiang Cai. He made a lot of revisions. Bai Yutang was a little bit confused as to why he only needed to revise. Then Xiang Cai explained, "We hired two architecture firms to do this. We only need to give them the basic design, then supervise and revise it."

Bai Yutang then understood why these companies didn't have many architects. In this term, it felt like he had many underlings. He didn't need to render the 3D layout, he also didn't need to draw the draft layout, unless for the beginning of their project, when they need to win the tender.

It doesn't matter if they didn't have a brilliant architect, since they could always hire a good firm if needed. 

But the amount of work needed to revise and handle the client is also not easy. After all, half of these buildings did not belong to C company, but the third party who used C company services to rent out their land or buildings. That's why they have a lot of client managers to handle them.

At the end of the week, as usual Bai Yutang goes to Sunday lunch with his lover. Lin Caihong told Auntie Ming to cook the Osmanthus duck to celebrate his new job. Bai Yutang also cooks wonton soup for them.

"Ahh.. Now I can only take you out on weekends. But I'm happy you got a new job, TangTang." Lin Caihong gave him another piece of duck.

Bai Yutang slowly eats the duck or else his mother in law will give him another slice. "Thank you, Mother."

"C company is very near to my office. Let's have lunch together next Tuesday, TangTang." Jian Kang Se told him.

"Okay, I'll contact you if I don't need to go out on Tuesday, gege." Bai Yutang answered.

"That's not far from my office too! I also want to have lunch with TangTang." Fan Mingle said. Her office is only 5 km away from Bai Yutang's office.

"Then I also want to have lunch with TangTang. How about Friday?" Lin Caihong said.

Jian Kang Lu really soured. He also wants to have lunch with his kitten! But.. His hospital is far away from his office, and he can't leave the hospital to be there at lunch hour.

Because of that, the next day Bai Yutang asked Xiang Cai and Huang Shi whether they have a meeting with the vendor or client on Tuesday. 

"Yes." Xiang Cai told him. "I want to introduce you to Vendor A on Tuesday."

"What time, Xiang Cai?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Around 3 o'clock." Xiang Cai looked at Bai Yutang's relieved face. "Why?" he asked.

"My boyfriend's brother wants to have lunch with me. I guess we could have lunch near here. I'll make sure i'll be back before 1.30." Bai Yutang said.

"Does your boyfriend's brother know about you?"

This question actually might be rude, but Xiang Cai's expression and gesture is lively, shows no malice in his question. 

"Yes.. My boyfriend's family know about us." Bai Yutang answered. Both of them talking with their eyes glued to their own computers. Bai Yutang already got used to Xiang Cai's working style. He likes to converse when working in the morning and has a chronic dependence with his black coffee.

"You guys must be really close. Why does he want to have lunch with you on Tuesday? Have something to do around here?"

"He works at C bank, the next building." Bai Yutang answered while opening the email containing the finished layout draft of the parking lot. He makes sure the size of the column and the width of the ramp is just like he revised last week.

"Oh, no wonder. So close."

This is the daily conversation he had with Xiang Cai. More or less, Bai Yutang liked him. Xiang Cai is funny and patiently teaches him about his new job. He likes to talk about trivial things, just like Liu Xiang.

Bai Yutang also likes the other people from his team. They're so lively, a bit different from his previous team mate in F firm. Maybe because they come from various backgrounds, not only architects. And maybe because in this line of work, they need their tongue skills to smoothly communicate with other parties.

On Tuesday noon, 8 of his teammates went down together to have lunch in various places. They're not necessarily having lunch in the same places with the same person. It depends on what they want to eat that day. Xiang Cai and Huang Shi also went down together in the same lift. They want to have noodles in a restaurant at the back of their office.

At the lobby, Bai Yutang saw Jian Kang Se and Fan Mingle already standing there. To accommodate Bai Yutang's meeting at 3 o'clock, they agreed to have lunch in Italian restaurant at Bai Yutang's office lobby floor.

"Gege, JieJie.." Bai Yutang hurriedly ran to them. He thought they hadn't arrived and wanted to go to the restaurant first to order.

Huang Shi saw this skinny young man who just joined their company running to a pair of handsome and beautiful couples. Looking at their apparences, she guesses they're at the executive level. 

The beautiful lady was wearing black blazers with black pants and grey cashmere coat, while the tall handsome man was wearing dark grey suits and pants with black coats. They smiled to see Bai Yutang run to them, and the lady ruffled Bai Yutang's hair with affection.

Then the three of them walked towards the restaurant. All the way, the lady kept her hands on Bai Yutang's arms and talked to him. With her high heels, her height is almost the same as Bai Yutang.

Xiang Cai nudged Huang Shi's arms, "Why stop, Huang Jie? Looking at Bai Yutang? That's his brother in law, I guess."

Huang Shi looked at Xiang Cai and she walked again together with Xiang Cai and two other people who wanted to have lunch together at the noodle restaurant.

"His brother in law is much more handsome compared to my in-laws. That woman might be his sister in law, then? They look very close to each other." Huang Shi said.

"That makes me want to see his boyfriend. If Bai Yutang's boyfriend is also handsome, it is really too bad for us single ladies. All handsome men are snatched away from us." The other lady in their group said.

"Poor our Gu Jianyu, he really has no chance." The other said and they laughed together.

The poor Gu Jianyu didn't know until today that his subordinates kept lamenting about his single status on his back and how they felt sorry for him because Bai Yutang was not available in the market anymore.