TVSFPAG -Chapter 6 Cult Ritual

What Song Yunfei was thinking about now wasn’t how long she could keep working, but rather that, seeing the chosen prodigy and business elite in front of her being tricked into living such a life, she felt utterly chilled to the bone.

Especially after personally experiencing such a crowded bus ride, she thought about how Chu Jinhan had to commute like this every day, and still go deliver takeout at night.

And all the money he earned was given to her.

Song Yunfei could already imagine her own miserable ending.

She silently observed a three-second moment of mourning for herself in her heart.

Was it still too late to start improving his favorability now?

After what felt like a long and painful ride, Chu Jinhan spoke up to remind her, “This is your stop.”

Song Yunfei snapped back to reality, responded with an “oh,” and said, “Then I’ll get off first. I’ll buy groceries and cook dinner tonight—come back and eat first before you go deliver takeout.”

Without waiting for Chu Jinhan to respond, she got off the bus first.

After getting off, it still took about five minutes to walk to the sales office.

Arriving at the shop, she went to the front desk to complete her onboarding procedures.

The manager of this store was named Zhang Tao, a man in his forties who had also interviewed Song Yunfei yesterday.

Zhang Tao assigned her to a woman in her thirties to guide her. The woman was called Sister Li and was a veteran at the store.

The sales department had only seven or eight people; including her, there were nine.

However, everyone merely glanced at her—some gave her a brief once-over—before returning to their own work.

“You can sit here.” Sister Li pointed to a workstation by the window. “On the desk are materials about our property, as well as some company rules and procedures. Read them yourself. If you don’t understand something, then come ask me.”

After saying that, Sister Li left, looking rather impatient.

No one was willing to mentor a newcomer—this was true in any industry, especially in a competitive one.

Song Yunfei didn’t mind. She walked to her desk, sat down, and began flipping through the thick stack of materials on the table.

Besides property information, there were also stacks of customer phone lists and a full collection of sales scripts.

Just these alone would be enough to keep her busy for several days.

However, after she had only been reading for a few minutes, Zhang Tao called everyone to a meeting again.

Everyone stood in a row inside the office. As Song Yunfei listened to him summarize yesterday’s performance, she felt a bit nervous.

She focused with full concentration, listening carefully, afraid of missing any important information.

But the next second, Zhang Tao suddenly changed his tone: “This month, our target is three million. Can you achieve it?!”

“Yes!”

Song Yunfei froze for a moment. Before she could react, the voices of everyone around her erupted, shaking the windows with their loudness.

“Tell me, what is our goal—?!”

“Three million!”

Zhang Tao clenched his fist and raised it above his head, as if leading troops into battle, and shouted again, “Shout out our slogan!”

“Time waits for no one, work hard to achieve results, push forward in one go, challenge excellence!”

“No eating, no sleeping, stay energized and make money!”

“……”

Why does this feel like a pyramid scheme?

Song Yunfei felt like she was about to break down. She had only come to sell houses, yet it felt like she had been dragged into some kind of cult ritual.

Would they be doing this every morning?

After the slogans were shouted, Zhang Tao finally remembered something and turned his gaze toward Song Yunfei.

He clapped his hands, signaling everyone to quiet down. “Alright, let me make an announcement. This is Song Yunfei, a newcomer who just joined today. Everyone, please welcome her.”

Zhang Tao took the lead in applauding, and the others followed, turning their attention to Song Yunfei.

Song Yunfei forced out a smile and, bracing herself, said, “Hello everyone, I’m Song Yunfei. I’m new here and still have a lot to learn. I hope you can all guide me in the future.”

“Good!” Zhang Tao started applauding again.

The others also clapped, though each had a different expression.

Some scrutinized her from head to toe, others looked at her with caution and hostility. There were also those who seemed impatient, disdainful, or simply indifferent.

Unexpectedly, this small office was full of all kinds of personalities.

After Zhang Tao briefly addressed the group again and livened up the atmosphere, he waved his hand, signaling everyone to get back to work.

Then he called Song Yunfei into his office alone.

Once inside, Zhang Tao gestured for her to close the door.

“Have a seat, have a seat.” Zhang Tao said with a smile, sitting down and even personally pouring her a cup of tea.

“Xiao Song, how do you feel? Is the material too much?”

Song Yunfei smiled politely. “It is a bit much, but I’ll get familiar with it as soon as possible.”

“No need to rush, take your time.” Zhang Tao leaned back casually on the sofa, smiling as he said, “I called you in just to chat. No other reason.”

“To be honest, when I interviewed you yesterday, I already thought you were a good fit! Good appearance, good temperament, and you speak appropriately—you’re clearly made for sales.”

This sudden praise made Song Yunfei wary. She only smiled faintly without responding.

Zhang Tao didn’t seem to notice—or didn’t care—and continued speaking on his own: “In this line of work, ability is important, but sometimes innate advantages should also be used properly.”

“Take our former colleague Chen Lu for example—you probably haven’t met her yet. She’s like you—good looks, good figure. She was very adept at handling things, very socially savvy, and clients were willing to buy from her.”

“And what happened? In less than two years, she bought a car, bought a house, and just last month she was promoted to sales manager for a project in another district. Her future is bright.”

Song Yunfei immediately caught the implication in his words.

Was this suggesting that she should use her looks—or more bluntly, her body—to earn performance?

She had heard of such cases before, but she hadn’t expected a manager like Zhang Tao to hint at it personally.

This instantly made Song Yunfei lose any favorable impression of the sales office.

However, Zhang Tao seemed to notice her slight displeasure and chuckled, trying to smooth things over. “What I said just now is also because I could tell you weren’t quite used to things yet, so I wanted to encourage you.”

“Young people should have ambition, dreams, and drive.”

“What I’m telling you is that since you’re new and unfamiliar with the business, that’s fine—take your time. As long as you persist, you’ll have everything in the future.”

Song Yunfei smiled. “Yes, thank you for your encouragement, manager.”

The words sounded nice, but Song Yunfei knew that after three months of base salary, if she still hadn’t closed a deal, she would be dismissed.

That was something Zhang Tao had already made clear during the interview: the company didn’t care about education or experience, but it wouldn’t support idle workers.

After chatting for a while longer, Zhang Tao finally let her return to work.

He assigned her tasks: spend the first two days familiarizing herself with the materials, then start making calls and distributing flyers over the next week.

In short, no matter what she did, if she could close a deal within three months, she would stay; if not, she’d pack up and leave.

Once she closed a deal, she would receive an additional six months of base salary—1,500 yuan per month.

Although the pay wasn’t high, the schedule was very flexible. There was no clocking in, no need to sit in the office every day—you could do whatever you wanted. The company only cared about results.

In other words, once she sold just one unit, she could even go do other work for the next six months.

Soon, only she and two colleagues who were making phone calls remained in the office; everyone else had gone out.

She no longer kept an eye on Chu Jinhan’s movements. Hu Yao watched him every day—paying more attention to him than he did himself, even monitoring his phone.

Hu Yao said, “Your girlfriend didn’t check up on you today again. Did you two break up?”