It took Liu Jun’s brain quite a while to catch up. He had to admit he was greatly inferior to Yang Xun in this regard. “I heard from Dongdong that he often goes to Macau to gamble, betting quite heavily, staying in hotels there without paying out of his pocket. Don’t you think speculating in coal mines and gambling are the same thing—essentially identical?”
“Anyway, in your eyes, anything that’s not properly running a factory to earn profits is bottom-tier, hehe. As for Yang Xun, he usually accompanies others to Macau. Since he’s there anyway, he has to get in on the action himself—can’t just be a wallet.”
“What are you talking about? He loves gambling himself. During the crackdowns, he was still gathering to gamble in the wilderness on cold days. Dongdong and I once stumbled upon them and nearly got into a fight.”
“Someone like him has strong gambling instincts. But I think the main reason is that he doesn’t have a wife at home keeping him in line. You don’t know how important it is for a man to have a wife managing him, haha. He’s dragging out this half-dead situation, refusing to divorce—both sides are uncomfortable, so why bother? Because he loves his wife? Or because he and his wife can’t agree on custody of the children? Or is he being stingy and unwilling to give up part of his assets to his wife?”
“According to his sister, he’s thinking about the children’s education and feels his wife should stay in America with them, but he’s unwilling to give up custody rights, so he’s stuck. For a local divorce, if he doesn’t agree, his wife can sue anywhere she wants, but she won’t get results no matter how capable she is. Being his wife is truly cursed luck.”
Cui Bingbing asked curiously, “Why would Yang Xun’s sister tell you about such family matters? When, where, and under what circumstances did you have this conversation?”
“Some day, on the phone discussing something else, I asked casually, and she said all that. Don’t be suspicious—I have no problem.”
“If you had a problem, you’d keep your mouth sealed tight, and I’d never know such a person existed. Hey, what about my classmate’s interview? She pestered me for half an hour on the phone at noon today, preventing me from taking a nap. Just agree to it—it’s the city’s proper daily newspaper. People have to pay to buy space if they want to be featured.”
“I’m already a father—why would they want me for a May Fourth special feature? It’s not like it’s June 6th, Taiwan Engineers’ Day. Just tell your classmate that having many provincially and municipally recognized new products doesn’t mean anything. Changing a toilet brush from a round head to a square head is also a new product. Tell him not to disturb your rest.”
Cui Bingbing said calmly, “My classmate is a guy. He’s sweet-talking me over the phone, doing PR work—how could I have the heart to hang up? Of course, his real purpose is indirect—he wants to interview you.”
Liu Jun had no choice but to say, “Have him find my dad instead—same thing. My dad is more talkative than me. With the stock market slump lately, he has nothing to do.”
“At the right time, with the right media, you should still try to get some exposure. Especially the daily newspaper—many government officials pay attention to it. You appearing in the newspaper a few times is better than my dad constantly going door-to-door to curry favor. I think you should talk to my classmate yourself. I’ll arrange it and be present.”
“It’s not that I’m unwilling to be interviewed, but our company’s achievements compared to the German company I worked for back then… In other words, if the me who just returned from abroad saw the achievements I’d list in today’s newspaper, I’d scoff at such arrogant self-importance. I’m too embarrassed to do that. An engineering technician must first and foremost be realistic. If East Sea No. 1 succeeds, then I’d be quite willing to boast.”
“You have so many principles. Fine, I’ll interview with your dad and let you stay out of it.”
Liu Jun smiled, then called Shen Huadong to ask about Yang Xun’s investment in coal mines in the northwest. He was very curious—Yang Xun knew nothing about coal mining operations, so where did he get the boldness to put down serious money to get a piece of the coal mine action? Shen Huadong said many people from their city were doing this, even organizing a chamber of commerce in someone else’s territory. Those with more money operated alone, those with less cooperated—who knows what they all smelled. However, Shen Huadong warned Liu Jun not to get ideas about that area. He had gone there to investigate and found the rule of man was terrible. The most frightening thing wasn’t even the arbitrary policy changes, but the arbitrary interpretation of policies. Investing there was purely investing in relationships, plus gambling. He believed people like him and Liu Jun couldn’t accomplish anything there, but Yang Xun might be able to carve out new territory and make massive profits. Before ending the call, Liu Jun casually asked if he had a girlfriend. Shen Huadong directly “scolded” Liu Jun for becoming an old man. Liu Jun laughed heartily—he hadn’t cared much about whether Shen Huadong had a girlfriend before. Previously, he’d asked how many girlfriends he had recently.
When Cui Bingbing returned home, she felt very tired and lay on the sofa for a nap. Liu Jun was also exhausted and lay down beside her to sleep. His body wasn’t working anymore—after staying up until dawn last night, by quitting time, he was completely drained. He had become an old man, as Shen Huadong said. Instead, it was Cui Bingbing who woke up to find Liu Jun still sprawled out sleeping. When the nanny came out of the kitchen and saw them, they looked exactly like a couple sharing hardships, a pair of unfortunate lovebirds.
Cui Bingbing woke from her brief nap but saw the person beside her still sleeping soundly. She didn’t wake him but called her father-in-law, Liu Shitang. When Liu Shitang heard about this good opportunity, he immediately said his son’s reason was bullshit and that he would find a way to drag his son into the interview together. Cui Bingbing looked at her deeply sleeping husband, then called her classmate to explain Liu Jun’s reasons for refusing the interview. Liu Jun’s reasons were so bizarre and incredible that Cui Bingbing’s classmate became even more determined, his interest piqued, and he actively requested to simply do a home visit. Cui Bingbing also thought Liu Jun’s reasons were complete bullshit. After pondering for a moment, she gave her classmate the address, then immediately called Liu Shitang to come over, letting her father-in-law take the risk for her.
Liu Jun was patted awake. Opening his eyes, he discovered he’d fallen into a trap. Two foxes beside him—one was his father, one was his wife—while Cui Bingbing’s classmate was already waiting nearby, recorder out and ready for action. With things having come to this point, Liu Jun couldn’t refuse, so he had to talk with Cui Bingbing’s classmate. Fortunately, Cui Bingbing’s classmate was an engineering student who’d changed careers midway, so he could relate to Liu Jun. Thus, Liu Jun talked from abroad to domestic, from domestic to Tengfei. His Tengfei hadn’t accomplished much, just slowly and somewhat laboriously trying to bridge the huge gap between advanced and backward. Compared to the shiny nanotechnology, ion membrane technology, software development, and other emerging projects among the neighboring companies in this technology park, everything Tengfei did was truly dim and not worth mentioning.
Cui Bingbing’s classmate listened with great interest but couldn’t figure out how to write about it. He requested that Liu Jun take him to see the research institute and factory. This classmate was a star reporter locally, at least having covered every corner of the city and seen much of the world. Originally, after hearing Liu Jun say so much, he thought Liu Jun ran a workshop-style factory, miserably leading a group of middle-aged and elderly technicians doing mostly manual sheet metal work. He imagined an environment where only people’s eye whites and teeth were white while everything else was pitch black, with the sound of hammering tin sheets in his ears. He never expected that the villa he was in was a research institute. Following Liu Jun outside, the environment was a villa district with underground garages, fully equipped gyms and audiovisual rooms, and a beautiful cafeteria. Through the windows, he saw people working in a villa, wearing white coats, clean and tidy. It was similar to his impression of a research institute, but the environment was more humane.
Cui Bingbing’s classmate thought the factory must be different—otherwise, there’d be no need to separate them. With this mindset, he rode to the industrial zone. He was very familiar with industrial zones—crows are black everywhere. But when he saw Tengfei’s walls covered with fish-scale-like ivy leaves under the streetlights, he knew there was probably another hidden paradise inside, because a person’s dedication shows in every detail they can control. Indeed, upon entering the workshop, he had the impulse to take off his shoes to avoid dirtying the gleaming floor. Yet overhead were running cranes, and on the ground were speeding hydraulic forklifts—what else could this be but a mechanical workshop? Liu Jun expertly explained to him the several reasons for the processing waste disposal station’s location here, how that worker’s operating posture conformed to several production regulations, and how much thought went into the entire workshop’s equipment arrangement. Liu Jun said it was simple, no gimmicks—this is how concrete a factory is. After all, this wasn’t a high-end mechanical product production base. There were no godlike veteran sheet metal workers who could glance with the naked eye and, like ghosts, take a file to a piece of metal and settle everything with one stroke. The work style here was just doing things methodically, the same as the R&D center’s style, so there was nothing to write about.
But Cui Bingbing’s classmate’s eyes sparkled under his safety helmet. He flatly denied Liu Jun’s assessment, believing this was called great wisdom, appearing foolish. When imagination collided with reality like this, Cui Bingbing’s classmate immediately felt inspiration flowing. He went back and wrote an article overnight, titled “The Solitary Walker.” But when he showed it to the editor-in-chief, the editor frowned—wasn’t this negating a whole bunch of people, even accusing wise leaders? The editor held it back without publishing. Cui Bingbing’s classmate got anxious and, leveraging his star status, went to debate with the editor. Finally forced to pinch his nose and modify several paragraphs to align with the main theme, it was finally published, but the title remained unchanged.
Good wine still needs frequent promotion. People above Liu Jun’s head began paying attention to such a company. Of course, the result of attention was inspection or investigation. Fortunately, there was now Liu Shitang. Liu Shitang was, after all, a professional, though not the best; he was better than many. Fooling laypeople was no problem, and he was even better at bragging. Besides accompanying leaders on proper tours, he also took the opportunity to build relationships with them. Add a few sips of revolutionary wine, and indeed, the effect of one article began exceeding Liu Shitang’s past running around. Besides trading stocks, Liu Shitang became Tengfei’s male public relations officer.
There’s a term nowadays called “eyeball economy.” For a company that doesn’t directly face mass consumers, if these eyeballs belong to leaders, then the economic effect is quite considerable. Liu Shitang began focusing on cultivating such eyeballs.
When Liu Jun saw the full-page interview published in the newspaper and received the original manuscript by email, he immediately called Cui Bingbing’s classmate to admit he was initially wrong and shouldn’t have refused the interview—he had been too presumptuous at first. Easily, the two became friends, leaving Cui Bingbing out of it. But Cui Bingbing was content with herself.
In summer, Cui Bingbing gave birth to a daughter nicknamed Dandan. Though Dandan’s mother had eaten so much and gotten so fat, Dandan was medium-sized, only with long hands and feet, taking after her father. Cui Bingbing finally patiently observed a full month of postpartum confinement, but when the month was up, she rented a small office in a building next to the bank office. After furnishing it, her retired mother led the nanny in caring for Dandan, staying in that office during the day, waiting for Cui Bingbing to come over every two hours during normal work hours to serve as a milk cow. Cui Bingbing rapidly lost weight while Dandan rapidly grew. Liu Jun was heartbroken and frustrated, but faced with Cui Bingbing’s persistence, he was helpless. He couldn’t argue with his wife, so he could only respect her choice. When Dandan cried at night, he took on more responsibility, handling diaper changes and feeding. But human energy is always limited, so among the family of three, except for Dandan, who was the only one getting fat, the other two lost weight quickly. Liu Jun respected Cui Bingbing but didn’t agree with her approach in his heart.