Liu Jun watched Jiali’s departing figure, so desolate that it clashed with the golden autumn weather, reminding him of his mother’s figure walking step by step toward the riverbank years ago. Liu Jun worried for Jiali in his heart, but as a friend, what he could do stopped at the threshold. Even though he knew Qian Hongming was now incredibly busy and couldn’t possibly attend to his mentally unstable wife here, he still had to contact the investigating officer based on the business card—he couldn’t take someone’s lenient treatment for granted. As for Jiali, she might never know that handling one incident would generate far more cleanup work than the incident itself, and these things—A’San understood them. Liu Jun now increasingly felt the preciousness of A’San, who lived so vividly and worldly.
Compared to Qian Hongming’s busyness, Liu Jun seemed somewhat idle recently. He admitted privately to A’San that his current work focus was letting go—letting capable people do suitable things while he, as the boss, should grasp macro management and grasp talent. But macro management wasn’t so easy to grasp. From the discussions about whether to proceed with the heat treatment branch factory, Liu Jun saw his shortcomings—he needed to recharge and catch up on his studies. Fortunately, lectures were constant now. In recent years, economics seemed to gradually become a prominent discipline, with economists appearing frequently at high-priced ticket lectures with hefty appearance fees. Liu Jun bought tickets to attend two lectures with Luo Qing, feeling quite strongly that those economists were too lofty and lacking in down-to-earth practicality. While those economists made predictions on the podium, Liu Jun and Luo Qing whispered below, saying they had already sensed certain things much earlier, and they had already happened. Therefore, after two lectures, they abandoned the idea and instead participated in various entrepreneur networking events organized by different levels and departments.
At a symposium organized by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Liu Jun, as a returned overseas Chinese, unexpectedly encountered Yang Xun, who was prominently seated as an overseas Chinese family member. Liu Jun wasn’t clear whether Yang Xun’s overseas Chinese family status came through his younger brother or his twin children. Anyway, with many people present, the two didn’t interact—they just made eye contact and nodded as a greeting. Then, during the meeting, Yang Xun very actively discussed his considerations for transitioning from coal mines to nickel mines. His attitude was so positive that Liu Jun felt Yang Xun seemed to want to use this occasion to make some kind of statement, declaring that he had actively withdrawn. The points Yang Li had revealed, Yang Xun naturally wouldn’t mention in such a public setting. He only said that entrepreneurs must constantly consider upgrading their current industries, continuously raising the barriers of the industries they enter, using proactive upgrades to ensure they won’t be surpassed, and to obtain profits beyond the conventional. This reasoning was quite unexpected for Liu Jun, not because the reasoning was brilliant in elevating a business decision to a theoretical level, but because it was unexpected that someone like Yang Xun could articulate such theoretically elevated words. It was truly impressive.
When the meeting ended, Yang Xun specifically called out to Liu Jun in the parking lot, asking Liu Jun to relay the content of his speech today to Liang Sishen for her comments. Liu Jun told Yang Xun that Liang Sishen was now wholeheartedly devoted to mathematical research. To avoid the various stock maniacs around her seeking discussions about stock trends with her as a former professional, she declared externally that she had completely abandoned economics. Later, she simply truly stopped talking about it, so he naturally couldn’t relay the message. Yang Xun was stunned and blurted out a “why?”
Liu Jun said, “I don’t know. Maybe that’s her level of enlightenment—she has confidence. Hey, why aren’t you driving the Hummer anymore?”
“You’re quite concerned about me, hehe.” The two smiled at each other, both with somewhat malicious intent. “But I’m also very concerned about you. I heard your research strength is formidable. Through what channels did you recruit those talents? Did you use headhunting companies? Which ones are good?”
“On one hand, good research personnel have relatively rigorous personalities and are also relatively conservative—they normally wouldn’t easily move. However, because of various conferences, they often communicate with each other. That kind of word-of-mouth reputation—personal technical reputation and the company’s reputation for treating R&D—becomes almost transparent in small circles over time. As long as the opportunity is right, one phone call can solve the talent problem. It could be me calling the talent, or the talent calling me. On the other hand, good talent requires nurturing. Companies need to continuously provide funds for them to access cutting-edge technology, even allocating budgets for them to explore things unrelated to the company’s current development, requiring huge investments to establish databases that can be accessed at any time. After saying so much, there’s only one essence: genuinely respecting science from the bottom of one’s heart, determining that research is the driving force of development, and recognizing the value of technology. I estimate Mr. Yang can’t do this, hehe.”
“Hehe, I indeed can’t nurture people, but as long as I want someone, offering a big price to negotiate, I’ve never failed to poach anyone. Speaking of which, I should thank companies like yours that nurture people. Usually, state-owned enterprises do this kind of thing—you’re special. Like a friend of mine who recently acquired a company, actually targeting the research institute attached to that company. In the end, he only had to pay the depreciated price of land and fixed assets to get it. Where was any technology value discount? None. Didn’t that bunch of research institute personnel immediately belong to him? That company wasted all those years nurturing the research institute. But your way of nurturing people is good for the research personnel individually—you’re accumulating virtue. Headhunters love poaching from companies like yours the most.”
Liu Jun watched Yang Xun get in his car, finding it both amusing and exasperating. But how could he refute? Because every word Yang Xun said was fact, every sentence hit the pain points of him as an enterprise owner who nurtured people. He could only comfort himself as usual—he had ideals, beliefs, and persisted in the path of research and development. But saying such things too often made them seem somewhat frivolously laughable. Yang Xun was still someone not to be provoked. But Liu Jun didn’t understand why Yang Xun wanted him to relay messages to Liang Sishen. After interacting with Liang Sishen, he learned that Liang wasn’t someone who abused power. Yang Xun seemed not to need to value Liang so much—could there be other reasons?
Just then, Qian Hongming called with a seemingly normal tone, but Liu Jun, having known him for many years, could hear the joy within. “Liu Jun, today, just now, successfully freed up the funds. Not bad speed, right?”
“What? I feel like I just opened the letter of credit for you yesterday. So fast.”
“Haha, for those of us in futures, time is everything. Tomorrow I’ll immediately send someone to bring you the money and related documents—all procedures are complete, you can confidently record them. Liu Jun, at the critical moment, your five million was the decisive kick.”
“Alright, since you’re liberated, let me tell you something. You need to rush home immediately. Jiali isn’t right—she’s trending toward mental illness. If convenient, take her to see a doctor in this area…”
“What’s wrong? What phenomena did you discover? Liu Jun, please speak directly.”
“Need I say more? She’s so withdrawn, she’s neither human nor ghost.” Liu Jun hesitated, then told Qian Hongming about Jiali’s incident with the supermarket.
Qian Hongming listened and couldn’t speak for a long time. “I’ll go home overnight immediately. Ah, I should call Jiali right now and tell her not to lock the door.”
“That’s right. I’ll warn you once more: if you have affairs again, you’re driving Jiali to death.”
“But now, no matter what I do, she’ll suspect. What should I do? I also know something’s wrong. Now, whenever I have time, I call her or chat online.”
“I also suspect—can you end your current affairs?”
“A deadlock. Now I have no way to defend myself.”
Liu Jun could only stop there again. The next call was from Yang Li, calling with a playful tone, asking if her big brother had run into a brick wall at Liu Jun’s place and was now asking her to help inquire how Liu Jun recruited suitable technical talent. Liu Jun was surprised—Yang Xun had given him a brick wall, yet Yang Xun was giving him face. He told Yang Li that everything he said to Yang Xun was true. Yang Li laughed again, saying this was a matter of different concepts—when concepts differ, communication gets stuck.
But sometimes people with similar concepts also couldn’t communicate. Liu Jun went straight from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office to a pre-arranged restaurant private room for dinner, but Shen Huadong and the group almost all came in staring at their phones. After sitting down, their only topic of discussion was how the stock index had broken through 6,000 points on October 15th, reached its peak within three days, then plummeted straight down, continuing to fall as if into a bottomless abyss with no return. Shen Huadong and others, like other stock gods, analyzed the situation word by word. Liu Jun understood everything but had never thought about the stock market. He boredly acted as an observer, silently matching things up in his mind. According to their discussion, A-shares began falling on dates almost back-to-back with when Qian Hongming mentioned Shanghai copper’s decline, but crude oil maintained an upward trend with only small fluctuations. But if it were simply China’s policies affecting the stock market, that wouldn’t be right either. Liu Jun asked a friend beside him who was opening a laptop to go online to borrow it, pulling up the London copper curve, which indeed fell together with Shanghai copper, showing that copper futures were affected internationally. Looking at other countries’ stock market curves, they confirmed with A-shares. He posed the question to everyone at the table, asking if it was related to the world economy. But everyone only discussed it briefly before returning to discussing A-shares. Shen Huadong’s attitude was very clear—besides his personal pocket money invested in stocks, he also had the company’s strategic investments in shares of several listed companies. Those stocks were called restricted shares that wouldn’t be tradable until next year or the year after, so every point the stock index dropped was like carving flesh from his heart. The most painful thing now was that the stock index kept falling without knowing where it would fall to—how could he not be consumed by it, unable to eat or sleep?
Liu Jun observed for a full three hours. In those three hours, he watched a table of people apply every policy’s slightest movement to the stock index. Listening, he instinctively felt it was absurd, just like how Qian Hongming applied every policy to housing prices. Just now, Qian Hongming had joyfully told him that with the stock index falling, funds withdrawing from the stock market would have to run to the real estate market, so the stock index decline was good news for real estate. Liu Jun had internally criticized this at the time—did money’s destinations have to be either-or, with only the stock market and real estate as options? Now watching this group’s discussion, it seemed that after they withdrew money, they really would run to the real estate market. Liu Jun thought to himself: Were they being blind, or was he being naive? Why did he feel something wasn’t quite right?