Liu Jun didn’t reluctantly leave until the third morning. When alone, he examined his heart and asked himself whether he truly loved Cui Bingbing. He found this question very difficult to answer. The soul-deep passion of his youth seemed never to return; he only knew that he was currently infatuated. Whether in appearance or manner of speech, Cui Bingbing completely failed to match the image of women he had been fascinated with since childhood, and was entirely different from all the girlfriends he had dated before. For now, she was full of novelty. But Liu Jun was also clear that if he dared to follow Qian Hongming’s example, there would only be four words fitting Cui Bingbing’s style: “watch your dog life.”
Soon, Cui Bingbing called to inform him of her plan. According to Tengfei’s current cash flow, plus Tengfei’s currently very stupid, very foolish, very primitive loan methods, they could take down two plots of land. Then in the next year, all self-owned funds would be invested in buying land and civil construction, while production funds would be satisfied through mortgage loans. Unless some extraordinary natural disaster or man-made calamity occurred next year, there would be no problem with normal operations. If they still wanted to take the third plot of land, Cui Bingbing’s idea was to wait for her to return home during Spring Festival to coordinate with old friends in banking who handled credit, to see if they could help Liu Jun obtain bankers’ acceptances. As long as they could get a suitable amount, even three-month acceptances would work. Only with this prerequisite established could Liu Jun confidently take the third plot of land. However, this also meant Liu Jun would walk a tightrope for the next three years—any slight disturbance would bring the danger of falling off the wire. But Cui Bingbing encouraged Liu Jun that since there was a good opportunity before him, he should swallow all three plots in one go. For instance, if those three plots in the industrial zone were owned by one company, then Tengfei Company would at least appear to have scale.
Liu Jun followed her advice and first took down the land in the technology park, paying the full amount according to regulations. He then negotiated simultaneously with both companies in the industrial zone, using one to pressure the other and the other to pressure the first. In the end, he surprisingly acquired the micro-bearing factory rather than the textile factory that had become scorched earth. It turned out that the textile factory owner calculated over and over that, based on Liu Jun’s offer, even if he sold the entire factory, it wouldn’t be enough to pay his debts—he would still need to sell his family home. The textile factory owner thought to himself that even if his company went through a bankruptcy auction, according to company law, his company was a limited liability company, so he wouldn’t need to use personal family assets to pay debts. In that case, he might as well save himself one worry and wait for the government to fail to settle the creditors who would come knocking, let them take away the burned company—why should he work hard to raise money to pay debts? Moreover, it was year-end now, when every household was frowning while looking for money. Very few enterprises were like individuals who had received year-end bonuses, taking money at this time to acquire fixed assets. Therefore, the textile factory owner decided not to rush. After all, he was already burned; a dead pig doesn’t fear boiling water—he’d wait until spring to discuss it.
As usual, he was incredibly busy before Spring Festival, but if you squeezed out the padding, this kind of busyness appeared to outsiders to be nothing but entertaining guests, dining, welcoming, and sending off. But when Liu Jun apologetically told Cui Bingbing that he couldn’t go to Shanghai to pick her up and bring her home for the New Year, Cui Bingbing was very understanding. She had also been trapped in enthusiastic socializing these past few days and couldn’t extricate herself. Everyone was mixing in society’s waters—Cui Bingbing understood these routines very well. During holidays and festivals, who dared forget to pay respects and give thanks to all the various deities? If private enterprise owners wanted to conduct themselves properly next year, they had better not forget. Moreover, returning home from Shanghai now took almost entirely highway, reachable in half a day plus a bit. Even if Liu Jun had time to pick her up, Cui Bingbing would say it wasn’t necessary.
Even though it was already the day before New Year’s Eve, Liu Jun was still fighting on the front lines of social obligations. However, he maintained constant phone contact with Cui Bingbing, staying informed of first-hand developments. Therefore, when it was about time, he settled the private room fees and tea charges, left early, and took a taxi to wait at the highway exit. In the middle of the night, with bitter cold wind—there was indeed wind and snow, along with roses in his hand and the crescent moon above—his design to surprise his girlfriend was not at all romantic but extremely arduous.
Cui Bingbing was naturally surprised, but Liu Jun didn’t expect he would also receive a surprise. The bandit A’San emanated the scent of perfume, and it was a sweet style; Cui Bingbing, who always dressed simply in straight lines, was today also wearing a silk scarf of excellent texture, appearing very alluring; moreover, under the lights you could see that Cui Bingbing had also redone her hair, changing from her usual simple straight short hair—Liu Jun didn’t know what this slightly curled hairstyle was called, but in any case it looked much more charming. Where could you still see any trace of bandit appearance? Liu Jun was not polite—he took Cui Bingbing’s phone, found her home number, and handed it over, saying: “Call your mother and say you’re tired, getting off the highway midway to stay overnight, and will return home tomorrow morning.”
“No, I miss my parents, I’m dying of missing them.” Cui Bingbing laughed and joked, just refusing to take the phone. Liu Jun ignored her and drove directly toward his home. “Where are you driving? My parents are still waiting for me.”
Liu Jun saw that Cui Bingbing’s thunder was loud, but the rain was light, estimating that she probably hadn’t notified her parents that she would rush home overnight as soon as the bank closed today. He suspected that even if he hadn’t actively staged this midway hijacking today, Cui Bingbing would have found ways to entice him to hijack her after exiting the highway. Their recent unexpected passion in Shanghai—the more he reflected on it afterward, the more he detected Cui Bingbing’s schemes hidden in every line of dialogue; she had been using provocation all along. Tonight, he was confident of victory. Sure enough, Cui Bingbing didn’t call home, but she also didn’t refuse to go upstairs. The two of them had their reunion in advance, in the early morning of New Year’s Eve. And on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Liu Jun used all his skills to finally “drive” Cui Bingbing back to the Cui family home. He not only was confident of victory in last night’s hijacking performance, but he was confident of victory over Cui Bingbing as a whole person.
But Liu Jun was also puzzled that Cui Bingbing refused to let him escort her back to the Cui family, saying it wasn’t yet time for him to meet her parents.
In the evening, the city restricted fireworks and firecrackers. Liu Jun and his father took the lead, standing guard at the company and buying fireworks and firecrackers to set off to their hearts’ content. Several companies in the industrial zone set off fireworks at midnight, each more beautiful than the last. By the end, Liu Jun looked up at the sky full of fireworks, grinning as he estimated: “Oh yeah, there’s another three-thousand-yuan one, plus five thousand more, that one must be over ten thousand…” It appeared that most people’s lives were going quite well. When life is good, spending becomes generous. His own, the most expensive, was no more than a hundred yuan—he was becoming more and more stingy.
Starting from the third day of the new year, Cui Bingbing brought Liu Jun to seek out old friends from the credit industry. However, the situation wasn’t ideal—when people leave, tea grows cold, and useful friends didn’t immediately promise with chest-thumping. In a fit of anger, Cui Bingbing decided to go back and fight with her superiors to develop business across sectors in her hometown. She absolutely could not abandon the personal relationships she had painstakingly cultivated over many years.
Liu Jun brought Cui Bingbing to visit friends like Qian Hongming and Shen Huadong. Cui Bingbing wasn’t cut out to be a gentle girlfriend—in less than an hour, she had negotiated cooperative intentions with Shen Huadong. Liu Jun could barely get a word in, but Shen Huadong privately informed him that his new girlfriend was a well-known lawyer, a partner at the city’s top law firm. If his girlfriend were present, even Shen Huadong himself would have nothing to do—just let the two women have their excitement. The two men privately sighed that nowadays women were extremely fierce.
At Qian Hongming’s home, although Cui Bingbing had met Jiali once before, her aura clashed with Jiali’s. After just a few words, there was no follow-up. She just looked at the reticent Jiali and thought to herself: a woman who appears shy, in her early thirties, with a child who could have problems at any time and hasn’t even started kindergarten yet, with a full three years of no work record—thrown into today’s job market where there are more monks than porridge, how would she attract HR attention? Wasn’t Qian Hongming precisely seeing that his wife had already had her wings clipped and would find it very difficult to independently seek another livelihood and obtain a good life comparable to their current comfortable existence, which was why he acted so unbridled?
Qian Hongming had always wanted to catch Cui Bingbing and ask about the bank’s core credit policies. Since Cui Bingbing was now Liu Jun’s person, naturally, there was no need to beat around the bush—he knew Cui Bingbing’s current position wasn’t low. But Cui Bingbing was too lazy to answer. When pressed urgently, she would righteously say she had been overindulging in wine and sex during her days home, making her big-breasted and brainless. But when it came to other aspects, Cui Bingbing could accurately state which bank’s deposits, wire transfers, and other services took how long, which was shortest and which longest, with timing precise to minutes and seconds. Qian Hongming had no way to deal with this woman who didn’t seem serious at all.
Liu Jun didn’t force Cui Bingbing to answer questions in front of everyone. He understood that Cui Bingbing’s disgust toward Qian Hongming was purely from a woman’s perspective, not standing up for Jiali. After the two left the Qian home, Liu Jun originally wanted to privately help Qian Hongming ask questions, but Cui Bingbing still refused, reasoning that if core operations like these were known by someone like Qian Hongming, who seized every opportunity without a bottom line, it would harm others and oneself. Liu Jun didn’t know why Cui Bingbing looked down on Qian Hongming so much. He specifically told Cui Bingbing the details of their friendship, only omitting that period of resentment. So Cui Bingbing was very puzzled about how these two people could have continued their relationship until today. When Liu Jun mentioned that during their startup days when they couldn’t borrow money and even loan sharks wouldn’t come to their door, Qian Hongming had risked cashing out letters of credit to raise funds for his company with such uncertain prospects, Cui Bingbing was knowledgeable in the field and deeply understood the enormous burden Qian Hongming had shouldered behind such righteousness—only then was she moved. Seeing this, Liu Jun brought Cui Bingbing to visit again. This time, Qian Hongming not only got through the most crucial issues, but Cui Bingbing also thoughtfully helped Qian Hongming design the fastest and lowest-cost methods for fund circulation.
But just before saying goodbye, Cui Bingbing really couldn’t help herself and said to Jiali: “You spent a full four hours smiling and accompanying us, listening to us discuss topics completely unrelated to you. Don’t you feel it’s a waste of life?”
This was also what Liu Jun was thinking. Liu Jun liked to relate everything to creating value, but this time Liu Jun pulled at Cui Bingbing and laughed: “She’s accompanying her husband, not you—why are you being so presumptuous?”
“Ah, right, I was also accompanying you on visits, which makes even less sense.” Cui Bingbing laughed and joked her way through it. But Liu Jun saw that Jiali’s face looked very unnatural, her expression somewhat stiff.