1538 Decisiveness
In just one morning, four of their corporate partners had already called to ask if the matter was true. They felt that this would in turn affect the reputation of their companies and urged Qiao Mei to give them an explanation.

Qian’e only wanted to help Qiao Mei manage the factory well. She did not expect to drag Qiao Mei into her problems instead.

“This is not your fault! I’ll go and look for Qiao Mei now! No… she’s pregnant now! I’ll go and look for Xia He! Wait for me! I’ll go and look for her! She’ll have a solution!” After saying that, Yang Mei ran out to look for Deng Fan and asked him to contact Xia He to come to the factory to help out.

When Xia He received the news, she got into the car and headed straight to the factory. She applied for one week’s leave from the art troupe to deal with the factory matters. Although it still looked like she could not get along well with Qian’e, she actually supported Qian’e inside her heart. They were both women, so she also knew how difficult everything was.

As soon as she entered the factory courtyard, Xia He could already hear a lot of loose chatter and gossip. There were even some male workers who made rude and lewd comments. Some female workers even spread rumors about the things which happened to Qian’e in the past. Xia He took note of what these people look like so that she could ask Qiao Mei to fire all of them later. No matter how much compensation they had to pay to fire these people, they must do it. There was no way they could keep such gossipy people in their factory.

She did not have an office at the factory, so she used Qiao Mei’s office and called the department heads over for a quick meeting.

“How did this matter start spreading?” Xia He asked as she looked at everyone sternly.

“The first person who spread the rumors was said to have picked up many fliers from the ground. The contents include not only photos of Qian’e, but also a lot of information about her past. The key thing is that most of the information is true,” Yang Mei said as she handed Xia He a copy of the flier.

Xia He took some time to read it and then asked, “Did it start only last night?”

“We’ve asked many people. They said that some people threw the fliers in from outside the wall, and it looked to be quite a lot. The wind was strong last night, so the fliers were scattered over the factory grounds,” Chi Ze said.

In this era, there were no surveillance cameras yet, so there was no way to identify the people who did this. They could only investigate slowly and search for the truth.

There were not many families in the capital who knew about what happened to Qian’e. In the Xia family, only the eldest son’s family knew about this, so Zhou Luo could not be the one making an issue out of it. The Qian family had long lost touch with Qian’e. Moreover, Qian’e being the factory manager was only known to their business partners and it was unlikely that they would deliberately frame her.

In that case… the only ones left were the Ma family, the He family and the Shen family.

“I’ll investigate the ins and outs of this matter, but the most important thing now is to get everyone to shut up. I’ll go and talk to our business partners. All of you must manage your subordinates well. If you find anyone who keeps gossiping, note down the person’s name. No one is allowed to go home this weekend. None of the workers are allowed to leave the factory and we will pay them for the overtime. If they need to leave because of urgent matters at home, they have to produce evidence,” Xia He instructed.

“I don’t think we have the right to control their personal freedom,” Deng Fan said cautiously.

“Just say that we suddenly have a huge new business deal and need everyone to work overtime. The overtime pay will be triple the usual pay,” Xia He said.

Money was not the issue at the moment. The main thing was to get through the current crisis. As long as everyone stayed around and remained united, it would make everything easier.

“Then what about Qian’e? She hasn’t eaten for a day and Auntie Li is with her now,” Wang Fang said worriedly.

Xia He had a strong temper and brash personality. She did not know how to say comforting words and would always settle everything in a direct manner. She was not the best person to talk to Qian’e now, but Qiao Mei had not been feeling well recently and it was too risky to ask her to come to the factory.

“Let’s do it this way for now. We have to force her to eat. If she really doesn’t want to eat, let’s get the doctor to put her on a drip. We have to ensure that she stays alive while we’re resolving the matter,” Xia He said sternly.

Deng Fan looked at Xia He in admiration. Xia He’s decisive manner was very suitable for leading troops into battle. She had the demeanor of a heroine.

After the meeting, Xia He began to learn about the work in the factory. Even when Deng Fan wanted to chat with her, she did not even raise her head and only said a few perfunctory words in reply.

Deng Fan simply returned to his desk to continue working. He would wait for Xia He to compensate him for being patient after everything was over.