Jiali smiled with pursed lips and stopped refusing. As night fell, Xiao Suihua was tired, lying drowsily in her mother’s arms, listening to her parents talk. She had lived comfortably from childhood – her father held up the sky for her, her mother arranged everything for her. She loved her parents, and her life was carefree and worry-free. She only hated the piano. She didn’t know why her good father always became serious when she didn’t want to play piano. She felt that such a big piano was so oppressive. She much preferred putting on a small apron and scribbling on drawing boards with her mother, drawing little flowers, little birds, and rabbits, getting paint all over herself – that was fun.
“That Aunt Fu is someone whose brain doesn’t know how to turn corners, just as you said.”
“Oh, why? Did you go there yourself?”
“No, didn’t we go there last week and bring back lots of vegetables? You went to Shanghai that very day. Big Sister and I picked string beans until we got headaches – so many bugs. You said the good thing was no chemical fertilizer or pesticides, and she doesn’t use any chemicals at all. Some string beans had two green worms inside one pod. But they taste good – who would have thought string beans could be so fragrant?”
“If she weren’t so single-minded, how could she have targeted the Liu family? Isn’t that obviously like an egg hitting a stone? In this society, having money means having power – can she afford to provoke them?” Qian Hongming drove leisurely in front, trying to go slowly to avoid jostling his precious daughter in the back seat. “From the looks of it, Aunt Fu’s mental state has somewhat recovered – now she’s willing to keep her door open during idle time. People – money gives courage, even the most high-minded person has to admit that.”
“But relying on us and your few friends to buy vegetables from her isn’t a solution. How many years can you all sustain this?”
“I just found out there’s an agricultural insurance scheme. It seems you pay thirty to thirty-something thousand yuan, depending on age, and starting next year, you get five to six hundred yuan monthly in labor insurance. The young people in their village have all moved to live on flat ground now, leaving dozens of old men and women. I estimate that not only has no one specifically gone to tell them about this, but they probably can’t come up with tens of thousands of yuan either. I plan to do this for her, but tell her it’s the country recognizing her previous qualifications as a substitute teacher. I think the main reason for her psychological imbalance is that she worked as a substitute teacher for so many years for nothing. Once this knot in her heart is untied, she’ll be normal.”
“Thirty-something thousand…”
“Thirty-something thousand can help a person regain dignity – very cost-effective.” Qian Hongming spoke matter-of-factly. Over these months, he had coldly observed Aunt Fu changing week by week, and the trajectory was so familiar. Each of Aunt Fu’s changes seemed like déjà vu, making him savor them for a long time. For so many years, he had suppressed the contradictions in his heart, never daring to mention them to anyone. Keeping them bottled up inside was ultimately uncomfortable. Now seeing changes in Aunt Fu, it was like completing a resonance – the accumulated unhappiness in his heart evaporated with the sunshine. It was as if he, too, had undergone a complete transformation.
Jiali watched Qian Hongming from behind. The flickering light and shadow of neon lights outside made Jiali’s eyes also seem strange and distant.
During his honeymoon, Liu Jun was constantly asked by Cui Bingbing whether he looked forward more to married life or to meeting with Mr. Song after the honeymoon. Liu Jun was embarrassed by the questioning and laughed – he indeed looked forward more to the latter, because the marriage certificate and wedding ceremony gave him a feeling that the overall situation was settled. Being a dutiful husband in the future wasn’t as stimulating as the latter.
Finally, the honeymoon ended. He made an appointment with Song Yunhui, but Song Yunhui gave him a meeting location in Beijing. Just an address overthrew all of Liu Jun’s speculation. He brought the company introduction Song Yunhui had requested, along with years of R&D achievements, and went to Beijing to find Song Yunhui, who was attending meetings there. Only then did he finally learn that he was about to meet one of the four companies he had written to Song Yunhui about as possibly being able to make Donghai No. 1 components – Mr. An, the head of a large mechanical group that had converted from military to civilian production.
According to Song Yunhui, Mr. An was among the first batch of university students after the Cultural Revolution, and they had common ground, so they hit it off immediately. Seeing that Mr. An also came from a technical background and expressed reservations about his R&D capabilities, Song Yunhui strongly recommended Tengfei. Song Yunhui told Liu Jun that Mr. An had the characteristic boldness of Northeastern people, and from current indications, Mr. An was interested in jointly developing robots with Tengfei. This partnership would manifest in Mr. An’s willingness to invest, with future technology sharing.
Mr. An was willing to invest! If negotiations succeeded, then Tengfei R&D center’s spring would arrive – he could finally get involved with Donghai No. 1. Liu Jun was almost restless on the plane. Usually, he always read books during journeys, but this time he couldn’t read a single word, repeatedly considering what to say to Mr. An and how to tell Mr. An about the research outline he had already decided upon.
Liu Jun firmly believed that although Song Yunhui spoke lightly, making things seem so simple that Mr. An’s favor appeared destined by heaven, he wasn’t a bookworm. Without Song Yunhui, he wouldn’t have tonight’s meeting with Mr. An. If tonight’s meeting truly led to Mr. An’s substantial investment, Liu Jun also believed it wouldn’t be because of him or the Tengfei he displayed, but purely because of Song Yunhui’s strong recommendation. Because he roughly understood Mr. An – that was a lofty deity who wouldn’t easily cast his gaze toward small enterprises like Tengfei, let alone collaborate.
After dinner, he finally waited at the door of Song Yunhui’s suite for Song Yunhui and Mr. An to arrive together. Such people often had a group of followers, and a whole crowd poured into Song Yunhui’s suite together.
Mr. An had been away from technical positions for years, but with his foundation, it was like a swimmer who hadn’t touched water for years – once in the water, after a few strokes, he could still swim. Besides, he brought along a chief engineer and two senior engineers. Everyone looked very qualified, with only Liu Jun being the youngest, naturally unable to grab a sofa seat and having to sit in a circular chair. When he introduced the company’s assets and output value, he could see everyone’s reaction was just so-so. But when he began introducing the equipment configuration on hand, Mr. An and his subordinates became serious. When he listed item by item the patents the company R&D center had obtained over the years and award-winning achievements, Mr. An’s gaze became focused, and several engineers occasionally interjected to ask about details.
After Liu Jun finished, Mr. An said to Song Yunhui, “I said long ago that your recommendations are never wrong. What kind of person values what kind of person? Your judgment is the standard.”
Song Yunhui only smiled and said: “Hearing is false, seeing is true. What I say doesn’t count – you’d better personally go see that R&D center. Including what Little Liu says doesn’t count either.”
Mr. An laughed: “If even what you, Mr. Song, say doesn’t count, whose words in the world can be trusted? Today’s meeting wasn’t even necessary – you insisted on this performance, it’s superfluous. One word from you is enough.”
Liu Jun thought: indeed, indeed, people were interested purely because of Song Yunhui’s recommendation. He was infinitely grateful for such recognition and guidance. In this materialistic world, besides donating some money to children’s welfare institutions, which could be considered indirect economic dealings with Song Yunhui personally, he had given Song Yunhui nothing else, yet Song Yunhui kept him in mind and vigorously supported him. He very much doubted whether, if he were in Song Yunhui’s position, he could be so thoughtful and considerate in his dealings with people.
This busy man, Mr. An, ultimately did take Song Yunhui’s suggestion to visit Tengfei with Liu Jun over the weekend, but still flew in the morning and flew out at night, not even giving Liu Jun a chance to properly host him, just that decisive. According to Mr. An, this trip was completely superfluous. But Liu Jun could see that Mr. An didn’t consider this trip superfluous. Mr. An brought several elite generals and lingered until the very last minute in his factory area and R&D center, especially the latter.