How to retain clients, how to do it?
Rely on professional expertise, of course!
Wen Ying guessed these clients might have been referred by Li Zhentao. Her first instinct wasn’t to expose the matter and push away Li Zhentao’s kindness.
Li Zhentao was indirectly trying to thank Wen Ying. If Wen Ying bluntly refused, it would make Li Zhentao lose face.
However, if Wen Ying did nothing, pretending to be unaware and calmly accepting Li Zhentao’s kindness, it would feel like accepting his “charity,” which Wen Ying’s pride wouldn’t allow.
The best of both worlds was to accept Li Zhentao’s kindness and repay these clients with professional service, making them feel that entrusting their business to Chen Ru was worthwhile. This would shift the dynamic from Li Zhentao owing these clients a favour to the clients thanking Li Zhentao for his recommendation!
Even without the sudden arrival of big clients, Wen Ying would still find ways to encourage Chen Ru to upskill.
Banking is no longer just about deposits and loans. If Chen Ru stayed in a small city her whole career, her weaknesses wouldn’t be too obvious. But if she transferred to the provincial capital and continued to coast, not only would she fail to reach new career heights, she wouldn’t even maintain her current level.
People strive upwards, water flows downwards. When faced with great opportunities and a bigger platform, one’s abilities must be sufficient to seize them.
Others’ kindness is temporary, and leaving control to others isn’t Wen Ying’s style. She prefers to hold the reins herself!
When she was a lawyer in Shanghai, some of Wen Ying’s cases came through referrals from classmates and friends, even He Zhen had referred cases to her. Wen Ying’s task wasn’t to push away their kindness but to handle those cases competently, proving their trust in her wasn’t misplaced. It was this drive that helped her gradually establish herself in the law firm and gain the ability to repay their kindness… The “blessing” of programmers’ 996 work culture, Wen Ying experienced it too. During busy periods, she might work overtime for one or two months straight, staying at the office until 9 or 10 p.m. Even on the rare days she left at 6 or 7 p.m., she’d just continue working elsewhere.
Passing the bar exam and surviving the assistant period to become a practising lawyer was just the beginning.
Applying the legal provisions learned from textbooks to real cases was a long learning process. Even before her rebirth, Wen Ying felt she still had vast room for professional growth.
The knowledge in any field is as vast as the sea, and Wen Ying had only scratched the surface.
As for Ms Chen Ru, despite being a veteran bank employee, in the financial realm, she was probably still lingering outside the threshold.
Under the gaze of two pairs of eyes, Wen Ying seized the chance to bring up Chen Ru’s further education:
“I heard that good client managers don’t just handle deposits and loans, they also help clients with asset allocation, turning part of their savings into stocks, part into insurance, and some into real estate investments, with bank deposits as the last resort. If clients keep their money in the bank and only rely on that tiny deposit interest, their money won’t outpace inflation… If my mum could become such an impressive client manager, she wouldn’t have to worry about losing big clients, right?”
Chen Ru and Wen Dongrong were silent for a while.
When Chen Ru snapped out of it, her expression was a bit uneasy: “How do you know all this?”
“From the newspaper, obviously!”
Wen Ying reminded her, “Don’t I always read the newspaper during breakfast?”
Chen Ru knew this. Back home, only Wen Dongrong had this habit, but after coming to Chengdu, she noticed Wen Ying had picked it up too, though she didn’t know when.
However, Chen Ru always thought Wen Ying only read entertainment news, about which celebrity broke up with whom or got together with someone else, what a mess!
She never imagined Wen Ying also read the finance section.
Wen Dongrong asked Wen Ying what else she knew, and Wen Ying threw up her hands: “That’s it, the newspaper only said what makes a good client manager, not how they’re trained. Dad, you’re the adult, and even you don’t know?”
Wen Dongrong genuinely didn’t know!
That was rather awkward.
When parents’ knowledge falls short of their child’s, it’s hard to maintain absolute authority in front of them.
Though Wen Dongrong didn’t know, he could act calm, finishing breakfast and sending Wen Ying downstairs to take out the rubbish.
While Wen Ying was gone, Wen Dongrong quickly shared his suggestion.
Chengdu has the province’s best universities, so further education would be convenient for Chen Ru.
The bank offered internal training courses, and universities did too. Wen Dongrong asked Chen Ru if she wanted to pursue a master’s degree.
“How’s your English, have you forgotten it all?”
“…”
Chen Ru panicked.
For her generation, attending university in the 1980s, English education wasn’t as emphasised as it is now. Teachers didn’t know it, students didn’t either. Though Chen Ru got into a junior college, her English was weak.
If her English had been better, she’d have gone to a proper university!
Still, in the 1980s, a junior college graduate was quite sought-after in small cities. Chen Ru smoothly joined the bank, where many colleagues her age were only high school or vocational school graduates.
When Wen Dongrong suggested she pursue a master’s, Chen Ru’s first instinct was to refuse. At her age, why bother with a master’s? Colleagues seeking promotions often opted for correspondence courses, and Wen Dongrong clearly wasn’t talking about those.
Before she could voice her refusal, she heard Wen Ying’s footsteps coming upstairs. Wen Dongrong whispered, “If you don’t upskill, I’m afraid Wen Ying will look down on us even more soon!”
Chen Ru instantly caught a flaw in his words: “Only I need to study, not you? Aren’t you afraid she’ll look down on you? You’re questioning my English, but I bet you’ve forgotten everything too. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together!”
No one’s getting off easy!
Wen Dongrong nodded vaguely.
Wen Ying pushed the door open, pretending not to notice her parents’ silent exchange.
During the day, Wen Ying went to the night market street. In the evening, she opened the computer to write, only to find search records. While she was out, Chen Ru and Wen Dongrong had researched part-time master’s programmes, thinking they’d covered their tracks, but forgot to clear the search history.
Wen Ying didn’t call them out, acting as if she hadn’t noticed.
After all, her parents were proud. If they failed the entrance exams, how could they face her?
Without preparing in secret, they definitely wouldn’t tell her the truth.
Exposing their secret would only give Wen Ying a momentary upper hand, but it would soon lead to mutual harm: her first high school monthly exam was coming up, and tickets to Macau were already booked. If her results were poor, even with one foot on the plane, Ms Chen Ru would drag her back!
With this mindset, Wen Ying took her first high school monthly exam.
Well, she’d completely forgotten what questions she’d faced in her past life.
But the past three months of effort weren’t in vain. Whether she remembered a past exam didn’t matter. What mattered was that this past month since school started, Wen Ying had studied diligently. With summer tutoring in math, physics, and chemistry, in Class 16 of Grade 1, Wen Ying was definitely not at the bottom!
