Liu Jun shrugged, tacitly agreeing. Yu Shanshan was more direct: “Aren’t you? From my first day assigned to this city, I knew Director Song was Yang Xun’s backer. Of course, without official documents, you can deny it.” Liu Jun began laughing as soon as Yu Shanshan spoke, continuing to laugh as he listened to her finish, then added: “Whether you deny it or not, it’s a fact. Are you going to issue a written statement denying it?”
Song Yunhui was left speechless by these two straightforward young people. He turned to his wife and said, “It seems we have to take responsibility for this endorsement.”
“We don’t mean to denounce you. I’m still friends with Yang Xun’s sister, Yang Li—we talk on the phone regularly. Since Sister Liang asked, I’ve never liked lying, so I’ll speak freely. It’s not that shameful. Better than being misunderstood as having lost my finger from gambling.”
Faced with Liu Jun’s frankness, Song Yunhui instead put away his earlier suspicions and began to believe every word this big boy said—that Liu Jun wasn’t deliberately seeking him out to complain or embarrass him. Liang Sishen spoke bluntly: “I understand you. I’ve also suffered a major loss because of Yang Xun. Blame my husband—when he first met Yang Xun, Yang Xun had only graduated from junior high but was already shouldering the livelihood of five family members after losing his father. His hardworking endurance moved people, and my husband’s impression of him was fixed from then on. Sorry, Mr. Liu, my husband bears responsibility.”
Liu Jun was surprised. He wanted to say there was no need to apologize, but Yu Shanshan beat him to it: “I don’t think you need to apologize to Liu Jun. You’ve been unlucky enough—your reputation has been used by Yang Xun as a front. Someone like Yang Xun can do anything. He has no restraints in his heart and extremely low moral boundaries. With such a person, even the slightest association is problematic.”
Liu Jun hurriedly explained to Yu Shanshan: “Sorry, Shanshan is also a victim of Yang Xun. When she worked under Yang Xun, because she had just graduated from university with a one-year probation period restriction, quitting would mean having her residence registration and files sent back to school. Yang Xun coerced her into using honey trap tactics, which was extremely insulting to her dignity. She’s a girl who does technical work and couldn’t accept the ugliness. She quit immediately after the year was up.”
Song and Liang looked at each other, thinking, No wonder this girl spoke so harshly—she also harbored deep hatred for Yang Xun. They had thought that now that Yang Xun was married with a family and business, and had even started doing charity work, he would surely have restrained those despicable behaviors. But Liu Jun and Yu Shanshan were clear evidence to the contrary. Keke finished eating with the other children and came over proudly with his bowl for his parents to verify how well-behaved he had been while eating. Only then did the four adults temporarily drop this topic.
After the meal, Song Yunhui continued to cooperate with Liu Jun in their work. Neither brought up the matter again, but they chatted extensively about their respective work considerations. Liu Jun, newly in command, had many problems, but he didn’t think much of his father’s experience. He naturally seized the opportunity to question Song Yunhui endlessly. Management, unless personally experienced, couldn’t be thoroughly considered even if you racked your brains over regulations beforehand. What was needed was not only experience but also thinking. Song Yunhui’s concise and clear responses suited Liu Jun’s taste perfectly. Although eighty to ninety percent of Liu Jun’s words were questions, the experienced Song Yunhui could already see Liu Jun’s character from them.
After installing the railings, Song Yunhui suggested visiting Liu Jun’s factory, but Liu Jun stated that the company declined idle visitors, unwilling to disrupt the company’s work atmosphere. Song Yunhui understood this—he also disliked mixing business with personal matters. So Liang Sishen took Keke and sent Yu Shanshan back to the city, while Song Yunhui jumped into Liu Jun’s vehicle to go to Tengfei Company. At the company entrance, they inevitably saw the family members of the work-related death victim still stationed at the gate. Song Yunhui wasn’t surprised by this—any entrepreneur who hadn’t encountered such situations couldn’t be considered fully seasoned. Liu Jun explained the situation, but when Song Yunhui spoke about accidents in their industry, Liu Jun could only stare in amazement. He had thought his safety concepts were sufficient, but discovered there were even more meticulous approaches.
Song Yunhui was an expert. Although not in the mechanical industry, he was well-informed. From the moment he entered the workshop, he discovered traces of thoughtful design considerations in every corner, and that was just the hardware. He appreciated even more the orderly arrangement of various items in the workshop. Just by looking up at the overhead cranes and down at the equipment layout, he could infer that those placement positions were calculated based on pathways—this kind of attention to detail was already rare. Even rarer was the workers’ maintenance of this attention to detail during work, which showed the meticulous management within the workshop. This was the most difficult of difficulties. However, Song Yunhui thought to himself that small factories were relatively easier to manage.
Standing in the R&D center hall, Song Yunhui said, “Weren’t you just constantly explaining insufficient funding? The investment here is quite substantial.”
“Hardware investment has limits; software investment is bottomless. Although I’ve been overwhelmed by various issues recently, with tight cash flow, I still plan to charter a bus next month to organize all R&D personnel to attend the exhibition—to see, to learn, to broaden horizons, and expand thinking. I also plan to build a central computer room and establish a large database, including test databases, standard and non-standard parts libraries, etc. In the future, we can retrieve and use them directly, making work smoother, avoiding detours, and using clever approaches. All investments have returns.”
“My investments often encounter the problem of employees quitting after being trained. How do you solve this problem?”
“I once spent an entire day studying labor laws and various implementation regulations, and found there was no way to prevent personnel turnover, and almost no way to pursue compensation. I run a factory with physical assets that can’t be moved. Any disturbance brings fines and lawsuits—they can catch me red-handed every time. But pursuing individual compensation is very difficult. Lawsuits can be won, but execution is problematic. Without judicial system cooperation in debt collection, the cost of pursuing compensation might be higher than the compensation amount itself. Even if recovered…” Liu Jun couldn’t help but sigh, telling Song Yunhui about the recent case of a former employee stealing blueprints.
Song Yunhui shook his head: “I’ve become numb to it. Most of my people are poached by private enterprises.”
Coming out of the tour, the evening sky was already filled with sunset clouds. Song Yunhui thought for a moment and said to Liu Jun, “You’ve done so much for the welfare institute, and we didn’t treat you well at lunch. Let me host dinner at Haoyuan tonight. I’ll have my wife go first, and you can bring your girlfriend too.”
“Sorry, Director Song, I won’t collaborate with Yang Xun. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”
“Purely dinner and conversation.” Song Yunhui pushed Liu Jun into the car without taking no for an answer. But Liu Jun didn’t call Yu Shanshan. Haoyuan was Yang Xun’s den—before things were clear, he didn’t dare let Yu Shanshan wade into those muddy waters and attract Yang Xun’s attention. He was a man who could face whatever came—at worst, more broken ribs and fingers. But Yu Shanshan was different as a girl; there were some things girls couldn’t bear. So Song Yunhui also didn’t call his wife.
Like Yang Xun entering Haoyuan, Song Yunhui also received exceptional treatment at Haoyuan, but unlike Yang Xun’s lively treatment with everyone clustering around him, Song Yunhui’s entrance was extraordinarily low-key, with only a floor manager accompanying him. The manager informed Song Yunhui along the way about who was there and in which private rooms. When Song Yunhui heard Yang Xun was present, he simply instructed: “He doesn’t need to come over.”
Liu Jun watched all this, thinking it was purely dinner and conversation. The two sat down and discussed technical issues, specifically the localization problems that interested Song Yunhui most. But what Liu Jun didn’t know was that this was the first time Song Yunhui had explicitly said Yang Xun didn’t need to come over to toast and accompany them while dining at Haoyuan. Therefore, when Yang Xun received this message from the floor manager, his curiosity was piqued. He tried every means to find out who Song Yunhui was entertaining. The floor manager didn’t know, so he had the manager describe the guest’s appearance. The manager could only repeatedly borrow opportunities to serve dishes to describe Liu Jun’s appearance to Yang Xun. Unfortunately, Yang Xun searched through all the high officials and powerful people in his mind, but none matched the manager’s description. Therefore, Yang Xun strongly suspected the visitor might be from higher up.
Curiosity killed the cat. Yang Xun patiently waited for the dinner in Song Yunhui’s private room to end, then stood in a corner to secretly observe. He naturally saw Liu Jun. He saw that the person who had dined with the non-drinking Song Yunhui for over two hours was Liu Jun—the person he could never have imagined. Yang Xun’s face immediately changed color.