Even Qian Hongming sighed for Liu Jun—trying to do scientific research and innovation in domestic manufacturing was truly extraordinarily difficult. The overall environment was too harsh.
Liu Jun felt extremely frustrated and couldn’t do anything about it. He could only go boxing again, sparring with his coach until he collapsed, then crawling home to sleep it off and return to normal. Who made him the boss? Since he was the boss, he naturally had to shoulder everything alone—he couldn’t complain to any of his subordinates.
But what about Engineer Liao and Sun Gong? Should he talk to Engineer Liao again and have him verbally guarantee that things weren’t as Sun Gong accused? Even using his experience as a middle school class monitor, Liu Jun could deduce this wouldn’t work—doing so would only create chaos. Liu Jun could only take a gamble. He bet on his consistent understanding of both engineers’ characters being correct. If he was truly wrong, he could only accept the loss—who made his judgment poor? He also bet that his unprecedented investment in R&D expenses at ten percent of sales revenue within the industrial zone could move even stubborn stones.
However, he couldn’t avoid making an example of someone—he couldn’t just sit and wait to mend the fold after losing sheep. Just then, the procuratorate came to investigate and gather evidence regarding the employee who had taken advantage of the previous accident’s chaos to steal blueprints. What the procuratorate needed to understand was the value of the theft, as sentencing would be determined by this value.
On one side was the blueprint-stealing employee’s household full of old, weak, sick, and disabled family members; on the other was the company’s suspicious hands seemingly ready to act. But yesterday’s conversation with Sun Gong made Liu Jun unhesitatingly choose to protect himself. He told the procuratorate comrades how many companies he had sold those blueprints to, how much money he had made in total, with invoices as proof—and this was only the partial value. Even the procuratorate comrades couldn’t help saying that the blueprint-stealing employee’s case was serious.
Liu Jun deliberately held the exchange with the procuratorate comrades in the company’s small conference room, with participants including the administrative manager, the office secretary taking meeting minutes, and the cashier who cooperated in checking accounts and providing firsthand evidence—quite a crowd with loose tongues. Therefore, news spread quickly. Following Liu Jun’s swift capture of the blueprint-stealing employee who had caused enormous shock among staff, this time Liu Jun’s merciless cooperation in heavy sentencing caused another huge shock among employees. Everyone saw that there was an untouchable high-voltage line before them—touch it, and even the scholarly Liu Jun would strike to kill. This was called the bottom line.
Shen Huadong finally contacted Liu Jun again. He invited Liu Jun to drink beer at Munich Bar that evening, but Liu Jun had an unsolved technical problem and declined to go. Shen Huadong hated most how Liu Jun always put on airs in front of him, seeming to want to announce that Liu Jun was the victor. In anger, he drove over to forcibly take Liu Jun. Arriving at Tengfei and seeing that Liu Jun was indeed busy in the laboratory wearing a white lab coat, he felt psychologically balanced and calmly waited for Liu Jun to finish his work. Without letting Liu Jun eat anything, he loaded him up and headed out.
Liu Jun looked at Shen Huadong’s suit and tie and laughed: “I can’t remember how many days it’s been since I wore clothes with buttons. Seeing someone dressed so formally still feels a bit strange.”
Shen Huadong leaned on the steering wheel, waiting for the electric gate to slowly open. “I want to discuss serious business with you.” Seeing the gate gap was sufficient, he shot out. Unexpectedly, a person suddenly darted out from the darkness, blocking Shen Huadong’s car. Shen Huadong quickly braked. Fortunately, the car hadn’t gained much speed yet, and the front bumper stopped just touching the person’s stomach. Both men in the car broke out in cold sweats. Still shaken, they saw the person retreat several steps and prostrate on the ground, bowing repeatedly. Shen Huadong’s windows were tightly closed. In the headlight illumination, they could see it was a woman who seemed to be shouting, but the two men in the car couldn’t make out what she was saying.
When the woman raised her head again, Liu Jun finally saw clearly—it was the wife of the employee who had stolen blueprints. Shen Huadong was so frightened his heart raced, and he couldn’t help cursing: “Damn it, I hate it most when some people constantly kneel and bow without any backbone. Liu Jun, what’s going on? Did you take advantage of someone and not acknowledge it, so they came to your door?”
Liu Jun pressed down Shen Huadong’s hand that was about to lower the window and said coldly: “Go around her, please.” He believed countless eyes were surely watching how he handled the woman.
Shen Huadong said nothing, looked back and forth, suddenly reversed, then in the screeching sound of brakes barely scraped past the woman and rushed onto the straight road. Hearing an appreciative “cool!” in his ear, Shen Huadong said proudly: “Could you do that?”
“By visual estimation, the passage is thirty centimeters wider than your car. Only a novice couldn’t get around.”
“The problem is that the woman would move. Fine, I’ll back up and you do it.”
“Come on, I can’t do it, okay? Let’s go eat quickly, I’m starving.”
“What’s going on with that woman? Was she fired from the factory?”
Liu Jun patiently explained, but after just three sentences, Shen Huadong interrupted: “Got it, stop there. This kind of thing is the same worldwide. They can make it seem like you’re committing a crime, that you stole their family happiness, that they’re the most innocent. They don’t think about who first reached out with dirty hands. Only when they’re in trouble do they hope to run into an idiot boss who’ll let them off. What were they thinking when committing crimes?”
“You encounter this often?”
“Every few days. Mine is a labor-intensive enterprise. Several factory areas combined have nearly ten thousand people. Every day it’s whack-a-mole—anything can happen. What you experienced is nothing. If you don’t believe me, let’s finish our business tonight and quietly go outside the dormitory walls to watch. There’ll be heavily made-up women climbing walls back to dormitories at midnight. They work during the day and escort at night—supposedly this is called developing a tertiary industry. Occasionally, during surprise dormitory inspections during the day, we can catch middle-shift workers prostituting in the bathrooms. Your eyes are like pigeon eggs, right? Buddy, I can casually show you a few tricks that’ll shock you to death. I originally wanted to change the company’s uncivilized situation, starting with toilet and bathroom improvements when I returned to China, installing partitions and doors in toilets and bathrooms to preserve workers’ privacy. In the end, I had to tear them all down, wasting effort and money. This incident has made me a laughingstock to this day.”
Liu Jun was not only surprised with eyes like pigeon eggs but also had his mouth as if stuffed with an invisible egg, forming an “O” shape. “Are there middle management stealing core technology?”
“Nonsense. Look around the city—all those companies similar to mine, who do you think started them? Design personnel, once experienced, go solo and open their design studios; sales staff, once they’ve established routes, go solo and open small factories. Whatever the company has, they take, as conveniently as their own home.”
“You’re so generous? You don’t pursue it?”
“Some can be pursued—either using law enforcement to arrest them for imprisonment and fines, or private punishment, pursuing them to the ends of the earth. It’s all about making an example. But many can’t be pursued, and some you develop feelings for over time, and can’t bring yourself to act against them. You’ll gradually understand later.”
Liu Jun was speechless for a long time. “I used to always criticize my father’s insufficient management. Only when doing it myself did I realize the insufficiency was in myself.”
Seeing Liu Jun’s arrogance subdued, Shen Huadong also became genuinely sincere. “About the same. When I returned with my MBA, I could use theories to argue my father speechless. But after just one month, when toilet and bathroom partitions were built and immediately torn down, I realized I was out of touch with practice. You haven’t realized this after more than a year back in the country?”
“I realized it, but there’s quite a distance between awareness and action. What do you want to discuss tonight? Shi Yiji? You want to follow Haoyuan Restaurant’s example?”
“Cooperating with a peasant, being constantly dragged down by a peasant—what do you think that feels like?”
“Yang Xun… you’re calling him a peasant?”
“Small peasant mentality.” Shen Huadong said disdainfully. “Only money, money, money in sight. As long as he can make money, he’d crawl on the ground and bark like a dog. How can you cooperate with such a person? I’ll be frank—you only see how degenerate Shi Yiji currently is; we’re also frustrated with our real estate cooperation project. Our philosophies don’t align. We want to create a model project, erect a monument in the local real estate industry, so when citizens mention quality real estate companies, they think of us first. He doesn’t consider the future and wants to set up shops under every building to make more money, regardless of whether it faces the street, regardless of whether the community can remain gated. Just over one proposal, we’ve been deadlocked for two months. We’re considering simply buying out his shares, but we’re afraid he’ll ask for an astronomical price. We wanted to ask you…”
“Ruin Shi Yiji so Yang Xun would eagerly want to sell? Easy. After you mentioned it last time, I’ve already thought of alternative plans. Bank interest—lend me ten million, and I guarantee that within a month I’ll take down all of Shi Yiji’s main profitable business, leaving Shi Yiji unable to eat a bite.”
“You’re taking advantage of the fire.”
“Not taking advantage of the fire—mutual benefit. Let me analyze it for you. You don’t know how tight my funding is right now. I can only fantasize daily about ten million falling from the sky, then I could deal with Shi Yiji this way and that.”
“Uh, what if after our cooperation ends, you become strong because of this and from then on constantly suppress Shi Yiji, leaving Shi Yiji no chance to rise again?”
“With Shi Yiji’s foundation, it’s impossible for me to constantly suppress them. But if Shi Yiji seeks death by making my products their main profit source, then as long as I have funding, I won’t let them survive. I only need to lower prices slightly, and customers will all come to me. After all, my products have better performance and superior quality—customers calculate comprehensive accounts.”
“But why should I trust you and allocate ten million yuan to you? What kind of actual guarantee can you provide?”
“Indeed, very… mystical.”
“I want to see your financial statements. The set of statements you keep for yourself.”
“My family only has one set of statements, the same for everyone. I won’t show them. I’m also worried that after the cooperation ends, you’ll turn around and start targeting me. Your family business is huge—how could I withstand it?”
“Have some courage, will you? I’ve told you such confidential matters, and you still don’t trust me?”
“There are plenty who burn bridges, not to mention we’re rivals in love. Mm, I’ll keep the secret.”
“Then consider it from another angle. For ten million in working capital, if you applied for a bank loan, whatever materials you’d give the bank, you should give me the same.”
“Don’t substitute concepts. I don’t compete with banks. You and I only stand on the same side regarding Yang Xun.”
“Deadlock! Fine, I’ll think of another way.”
Liu Jun didn’t expect Shen Huadong to quickly end the topic, giving him no room to bargain. He was so anxious he wanted to give up his pride and find an excuse to bring back the topic, but couldn’t speak up—they were still feuding, and he couldn’t let Shen Huadong get too smug. So the two found a place to eat dinner, Dutch treat, then went to the bar to buy their beers, just not discussing this matter anymore, only talking about car modifications.
Qian Hongming happened to come to Munich Bar with friends, so the two groups joined together. Shen Huadong had gone to Shanghai with Qian Hongming last time to buy cars, but didn’t much like this small businessman’s temperament and was too lazy to be accommodating. Taking advantage of Qian Hongming going to the restroom, he whispered to Liu Jun: “Wasn’t he your loyal follower when you were young?”
“How’s that possible? His grades were always top-notch.”
“Being a follower has nothing to do with grades. My followers often wrote homework for me. Are you interested in catching wall-climbing escorts with me? It’s so fun—I do this whenever I’m depressed.”
“Let’s go.” Liu Jun’s youthful nature hit it off immediately with Shen Huadong. He’d been doing contradictory and insincere things lately and was feeling frustrated. Qian Hongming couldn’t see what was fun about this and refused to go, but generously paid for both their drinks. Shen Huadong glanced sideways at Qian Hongming, thinking this person was utterly stupid—instead of fleecing the golden pig that was Shen Huadong, he was fleecing himself.