Yang Li genuinely gave Liu Jun a substantial opportunity. Yang Li hadn’t expected Liu Jun to call her directly with his request. Of course, she wouldn’t take Liu Jun’s fifty thousand yuan fee, but she had her conditions: “I hope General Liu will keep this confidential for me. My elder brother obviously wouldn’t be pleased to see me doing this for General Liu. And I won’t take any blueprints leaked from your company.”

“Of course.” Liu Jun was surprised. What flashed through his mind was the image of Yang Li desperately trying to peek at secrets during the testing at Shi Yiji back then. Had Yang Li become so moral now? Liu Jun found it quite difficult to adapt and couldn’t help but feel suspicious. He couldn’t help but ask one more question: “May I ask if there’s any way to contact my missing employee?”

“Hehe, however, you poached my employees, is how I’ll contact your missing employee.”

Liu Jun’s face burned with embarrassment at Yang Li’s words, but deep down, he believed her somewhat. Back when he poached people from Shi Yiji, aside from a few he had already identified, the rest relied on him, seemingly aimlessly spreading messages to Shi Yiji’s people. A boss can buy eight hours of an employee’s work, but cannot buy an employee’s heart. Often, factories have two parallel information channels – one led by the company, and one spontaneous among workers. Sometimes the latter is even more efficient than the former. Just as he, Liu Jun, could send messages to Shi Yiji workers, presumably, Shi Yiji had also planted informants in Tengfei. With Yang Li’s message spreading from one to ten, from ten to a hundred, Liu Jun didn’t doubt that it would soon reach the missing employee’s ears. That employee’s disappearance was merely disappearing from under Liu Jun’s nose.

“Miss Yang, let me ask you another question – how do you handle the unfortunate relatives seeking compensation for work-related deaths?”

“Are you being harassed by them?”

“I’m just starting. Today, we were almost shut down for the entire day. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

“I don’t know whether to call it luck or bad luck – lucky that you hadn’t encountered work injuries in a year of operation, unlucky that when you finally did, it was the extreme case of a work-related death. You have no experience handling this at all. Our company is so large that work injuries are constant. When I first took over…”

Liu Jun was listening intently to this point when suddenly the phone cut off. He looked at his mobile phone and indeed it was out of battery. Liu Jun threw down his rice bowl and ran back to his office, using the landline to call Yang Li. Without any pleasantries, he went straight to the point: “Sorry, my phone died just now. When you first took over, did you first think of saving the employee at any cost and compensating for their losses when you saw the workers’ blood?”

Back then, Yang Li had been terrified at the scene, her face pale as earth. Her first thought was what to do and how to avoid being held responsible. But hearing Liu Jun ask this way, she immediately put away the experience she had originally intended to share: “Yes, probably everyone would have that first reaction. But during the accident handling process, all parties entangle over the same issue from different standpoints, which can drag on for a year and a half, exhausting everyone involved until whoever can’t hold out first has to compromise. So I came to understand one thing – don’t bring emotional factors into work. Since you’re on the capital side, be a qualified capitalist. Never be wishy-washy. After you’ve been through this once, you can look back at our conversation today.”

“Won’t being an emotionless capitalist make other employees feel like ‘the rabbit grieves when the fox dies,’ causing them to lose their sense of belonging to the company?”

“I believe that in today’s social context, the relationship between employees and enterprises is too fragile. You can’t build your company into a small utopia.”

From Yang Li’s expression, Liu Jun thought of Yang Xun’s attitude, then of how Shi Yiji workers refused to work diligently, saying they didn’t want to earn money for their boss to live lavishly. This was the result of extremely antagonistic labor-capital relations. But how much better was his situation? Wasn’t someone taking advantage of the crisis right now, stealing his blueprints and disappearing? Thinking about it made one lose heart regarding labor-capital relations. So Yang Li’s words were based on experience and fact. “You’re right. Let’s get back to the topic. In your experience, what demands will the family of the deceased worker in my company’s work-related death make? What are the general upper and lower limits for your compensation to workers?”

“General Liu, I’ve already told you – I only act as a qualified capitalist, absolutely standing on the capital side. Since we’ve paid all the work injury insurance according to regulations, however, the insurance compensates, we transfer it entirely to the injured worker. We only guarantee never to extract a cent of benefit from it, and we don’t haggle with injured employees over losses the company incurs from accidents.”

Liu Jun said matter-of-factly: “I can’t manage that right now.”

Yang Li couldn’t help but smile: “How is General Liu’s company doing? I heard the business is quite busy.”

“Not yet saturated. Manpower can’t keep up, working capital can’t keep up, and everything is stretched thin. Gross profits all go to high-interest loan payments – it’s a mess.”

“Hehe, what are you saying? Director Dong has always praised you, saying it’s remarkable to generate profit in half a year. I didn’t see the trick originally, but Director Dong drew me a chart of your company’s capital flow. He said your brain must be equivalent to multiple computers working together to operate such tight funds while maintaining production. Director Dong said If you can hold out for a year, you’ll have won.”

“Director Dong said that? His brain is truly sharp – he’s right. But please tell Director Dong that I’ve already pawned and redeemed my father’s car countless times while he’s away on business. The image isn’t as good as Director Dong imagines.”

Yang Li burst into laughter: “When you have time, come to the city to visit. I’ll help you meet Director Dong again. I’ve learned a lot following Director Dong, too.”

“Then I’ll learn from you, haha.”

This time, it was Liu Jun drawing a big pie, and Yang Li smiled all night. The smiling Yang Li acted swiftly and decisively, betraying her elder brother Yang Xun to help Liu Jun. Soon, a phone call came to Yang Li’s mobile. Yang Li arranged to meet that evening and then called Liu Jun. But his mobile rang twice with no answer. On the third try, someone finally picked up, and a drowsy voice came from the other end.

“Miss Yang, still not resting so late?”

“Late? It’s only nine o’clock. Uh, are you already resting? I’ve arranged to meet your missing employee at ten at Champs Café – money for goods, one-hand exchange. Can you make it?”

Liu Jun became excited and jumped out of bed upon hearing this: “Yes, no problem. Ah, where is Champs Café?”

After getting the address, Liu Jun immediately jumped into the bathroom for a cold shower before his muddled sleeping brain could clear up a bit. He drove into the city and headed to the scene, parking his car far away and walking a long distance to quietly slip into Champs Café alone. It was already past ten o’clock. Sure enough, in a corner of the café – the kind of place most suitable for conducting improper transactions – he saw the “missing” employee. Liu Jun pounced on him, using all his strength to subdue the missing employee. In the chaos, he pretended not to recognize Yang Li and had the café waiter take his phone from his pocket to call the police.

The 110 police officers quickly arrived to arrest the person. After hearing Liu Jun explain the situation on the scene and confirming with the industrial zone police station, they took the person away for transfer. Therefore, Liu Jun didn’t need to go along to cooperate, staying behind to face Yang Li. After the tense emotions passed, drowsiness immediately attacked Liu Jun’s head. He couldn’t help but yawn, but halfway through the yawn changed course, transforming seamlessly into a sneeze.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep last night, dealing with the accident. When you called just now, I was dreaming, and it took half a cold shower to wake me up…”

Yang Li immediately waved to the waiter, asking for ginger soup, or just ginger water if there was no soup. Liu Jun looked at all this in amazement and laughed: “You’re really considerate.”

Yang Li’s face reddened: “Not a bit serious, and you call yourself General Liu. Alright, go back to your company and rest early.”

“Wait, how should I thank you? I never imagined we could catch this person so smoothly. You’ve solved a big problem for me. You don’t know how excited I am…”

“Then drive me home. Every time I come home late, the distance from the car door to the basement elevator always makes me terrified.”

Liu Jun couldn’t help but think of the first time he met Yang Li – it was exactly when going down from the elevator to the garage that Yang Li was full of wariness toward him. He couldn’t help but laugh. But Yang Li misunderstood Liu Jun’s laughter. What she thought of was that night when she was drunk and Liu Jun had driven her home from the garage – the memory fragments were as ambiguous as could be. Yang Li’s face turned bright red, which even the café’s lighting couldn’t hide her shyness. She stamped her foot, turned around, and left. Liu Jun hurriedly paid the bill and came out, seeing Yang Li sitting in the already-started car waiting for him. Liu Jun didn’t understand why Yang Li was acting this way and was very puzzled, until he got close enough to see Yang Li’s eyes brimming with emotion, half-smiling, that he suddenly remembered that ambiguous encounter. He couldn’t help but burst into loud laughter.

With Liu Jun’s loud laughter, Yang Li panicked and directly crashed the car into a tree by the roadside. Fortunately, Liu Jun was quick-eyed and fast-handed, grabbing the steering wheel. The car scraped past the tree trunk and stopped precariously on the sidewalk. Yang Li was frightened pale.

Liu Jun walked around the front of the car, opened the driver’s door, patted Yang Li’s face, and laughed: “Don’t be afraid, I’m here. Let’s switch positions.”

“You’re not allowed to laugh anymore. I’m not joking with you. It’s too dangerous.”

Yang Li’s brain was starved of blood from Liu Jun’s face-patting gesture. She didn’t want to crawl over to the passenger seat and wanted to walk around gracefully, but her high heels wouldn’t cooperate. Also frightened by the near-accident, her legs were weak, and she tottered as soon as she stepped out. Liu Jun quickly supported her waist with one hand, but Liu Jun ruined the romantic moment with another sneeze. Yang Li took the opportunity to break free and walk away.

But when Yang Li got in the car and saw Liu Jun’s unnaturally slightly raised ring finger resting on the steering wheel, her heart immediately turned cold. This was called deep hatred – how did Juliet die?

So it became Liu Jun performing a one-man show, listing what needed to be replaced and repaired in the car. Yang Li responded half-heartedly, listlessly. Liu Jun could only sneeze boringly. After sending Yang Li home, he looked at his door so close by and wanted to rush in and collapse into sleep. But he still had tasks. He forced himself to stay alert, yawning and sneezing as he returned to the company to hold a brief after-shift meeting with the night shift workers preparing to leave. He first briefed everyone on the phased results of the accident handling, then told everyone that the employee who had disappeared with blueprints had just been captured and would face a court trial.

From the employees’ gazes, Liu Jun saw shock. Good, this was exactly why he had forced himself to stay alert and rush back to hold this brief after-shift meeting. He wanted exactly this kind of deterrent effect of making an example. Indeed, Tengfei was not a utopia, so he had to use both kindness and authority, being firm with both approaches.

If purely from a personal perspective, Liu Jun wouldn’t want to engage in such bluffing and threatening tactics. He’d rather see everyone being conscientious in life, and when encountering unconscientious people, he’d take a wide detour. But his position was different now – he was now a capitalist. So he could only put away his values and be a qualified capitalist. Whatever capitalists should do, he had to do. Just as Yang Li had said. Although he didn’t agree with Yang Li’s definition of capitalists.