Liu Jun slept with complete resignation – whether he slept or not made no difference. When the sun rose tomorrow, all those anticipated trivial matters would arrive as scheduled.
However, Liu Jun was wrong. He thought seventeen or eighteen sneezes meant he was catching a cold, but he woke up refreshed, breathing smoothly, with a hearty appetite. He thought the family of the missing employee he caught last night would come to the company to plead or make a scene, but he waited by the time clock at the gate for a long time without seeing a single idle person. He even more expected the deceased worker’s family to return today, but even his father was surprised – there wasn’t a sound outside the main gate. Liu Jun asked his father whether they were lucky enough to encounter exceptionally good people. If so, they couldn’t shortchange them and should quickly have the cashier go to the bank to withdraw money and give them the compensation. Liu Shitang was skeptical, thinking it over, and pressed down his guilt-ridden son, telling him to wait another three days.
Liu Jun felt uneasy, afraid of wronging good people, but his father swore that people’s hearts were no longer pure, preferring to wrongly punish rather than let anyone off. With his seal confiscated by his father, he could only go to the workshop to arrange rush production. Later, going to the police station to respond to inquiries about the employee’s blueprint theft, Liu Jun met the family of that “missing” employee.
It should have been the “missing” employee’s wife – a woman of at most thirty who had aged prematurely. What was even more remarkable was that she was dragging two children by hand and carrying one on her back – the family had three children in total. However, Liu Jun noticed that the two being dragged by hand were both girls, while the one being carried was a boy, and he understood immediately. When the employee’s wife saw Liu Jun, her dull gaze seemed to brighten slightly. She pulled out a stack of papers and handed them to Liu Jun – hospital records, inpatient ward floor and room numbers, and outpatient records. From the wife’s halting, mixed account, Liu Jun learned that the husband was a technical school graduate with an active mind who could have lived quite comfortably in a small town. But the whole family was obsessed with having a son to carry on the family line. To evade family planning policies, the couple had taken a roundabout approach by going out to work, and after great hardship, finally had a son. With five people in the family, life was extremely stressful. The wife had to go back to work three months after giving birth, bringing in the mother-in-law to watch the three children. Unfortunately, misfortune struck – the mother-in-law slipped while washing diapers by the river, fractured her pelvis, and was hospitalized. The husband, with no other choice, resorted to this desperate measure. Now the mother-in-law had been carried home, the wife had quit her job to care for a houseful of old, weak, sick, and disabled family members, while the able-bodied husband sat in jail, beyond reach.
The police officer handling the case and Liu Jun looked at each other in dismay. Both big men, faced with tears from old and young, couldn’t harden their hearts. To investigate and verify, the officer went with the wife to check their rental housing, and Liu Jun impulsively followed along. The rental was a rural blue-brick tile house. In the dim interior lay an old woman with a sallow complexion, and the room reeked of sour stench and mold. Apart from the bed where the old woman lay, there was nothing else of value in the room. Liu Jun hadn’t imagined that his employees could be this poor – he thought his company’s wages were already well above average. When he and the officer came out of that house and stood in the sunlight, they felt like they had entered heaven. Both big men could only repeatedly say “sinful, sinful.”
The more Liu Jun thought about it, the softer his heart became. He pulled out all the cash he had – bills and coins totaling over five hundred yuan – and went back to give it to the family. He didn’t dare look at the old and young, just put the money on the makeshift dining table made of cardboard boxes and plywood, and quickly slipped away. As for how the police would handle it, that was beyond Liu Jun’s control. Back at the company, he kept thinking about how that family would survive and what to do about the mother-in-law’s bone injury. In his conflict, he called Yang Li to tell her about the unexpected outcome of last night’s assistance. He said he no longer planned to file a civil lawsuit, but the criminal prosecution was beyond his control.
Yang Li understood, “Are you thinking of financially supporting that family of old, weak, sick, and disabled?”
Liu Jun remained silent – he was reluctant, yet couldn’t bear not to help.
“I’ll only remind you of one thing – families like this are bottomless pits, and practice has proven they’re capable of any despicable act. Be careful not to invite trouble upon yourself, or they’ll cling to you for life. I have precedents here. If you need, I can help arrange for my friend to come out and give you a firsthand account.”
Liu Jun was speechless. He believed Yang Li was telling the truth. After a long while, he finally managed to say, “Management is truly a comprehensive field of study.”
“It’s more than just a field of study – even a life encyclopedia couldn’t match management’s complexity.”
Yang Li could be said to speak without reservation to Liu Jun, wishing she could show him all her brilliant sides. Though conflicted inside, she couldn’t resist her restless heart. After hanging up, she thought it over and found a new topic – an invitation to an international-level exhibition. She made a copy and faxed it to Liu Jun, hoping he’d be interested in going together. Sure enough, Liu Jun took the bait, calling again to arrange that they’d decide whether to go three days before the exhibition. Yang Li thus eagerly anticipated the arrival of that day next month, even beginning to plan what the temperature should be that day and what clothes to wear.
Liu Shitang was very disapproving of his son’s wishy-washy behavior. He simply wrote down an address and handed it to his son: “This is the Fu family’s address. After the wife and son went to prison, that man with severe diabetes, who relied on his wife working as a nanny to support him, knows how he’s surviving. Why don’t you go deliver some warmth there, too?”
Aunt Fu’s home? Liu Jun stared at the paper for a long while, picked it up, tore it to pieces, threw it in the wastebasket, sighed, and went down to the workshop. In comparison, though machines were complex, they were much more lovable, even that high-frequency welding machine that had just killed someone. Crouching by the welding machine to watch the operation even earlier than him was the newly hired engineer Sun Gong. Sun Gong was taciturn, and even when he spoke, listeners often couldn’t grasp his meaning. But anyone with an electrical engineering background could understand immediately and hear the essence. Liu Jun, however, hit it off with Sun Gong at first sight – regardless of what he had designed before, he’d hire him and keep him on.
Sun Gong wanted to modify that welding machine to prevent another tragedy of someone slipping and getting electrocuted. This idea hit it off perfectly with Liu Jun. The two stood on site watching the operation, conceiving several solutions – some barrier-type, others sensor-type. The former would block human bodies from approaching, while the latter would sense when a human body was within a certain range and automatically cut power. Both felt the latter was safer, and its applicability was broader, usable for other similar equipment. Even deciding on sensor type, there were various sensing methods. Sun Gong took up the research project. If Liu Shitang had been present, he would have pointed out that this was neglecting proper work, but Liu Jun didn’t think so. Sun Gong had observant eyes and a thinking mind – shouldn’t he encourage that properly?
In the evening, Liu Jun went into the city for dinner with Yu Shanshan. He didn’t bring up such complicated matters with Yu Shanshan to avoid troubling her mind. Such things had no solution anyway – better not to test Yu Shanshan’s attitude with them. Yu Shanshan thought Liu Jun was still worried about the work-related death. After dinner, she accompanied Liu Jun for a walk in the night, trying to get him to talk. But since neither was familiar with the other, when one person was too lazy to cooperate, conversation became labored. Liu Jun sent Yu Shanshan home early. This time, he didn’t return to the company – he was somewhat repelled by work from being overwhelmed by company trivialities. He wanted to relax properly at home, which had nothing to do with work. He hoped this would be a night without midnight crisis calls.
Liu Jun was heavy with worries, pacing around the house for a long time before finally sitting at the piano. He pulled out the sheet music for “Defend the Yellow River,” but after only a few notes, the sound became stuck on his left ring finger. Liu Jun frowned for a long while, then decided to ignore it. Regardless of whether this finger could produce sound, regardless of the pitch of the sound produced, regardless of how the melody became disconnected as a result, he ignored it all and just mechanically continued playing.
Gradually, Liu Jun felt gratitude toward his mother rising in his heart. If not for his mother’s almost neurotic insistence on repeatedly dragging him back from the sports field to force him to learn the boring piano, how could he today vent his emotions through overwhelming music? On the final round, he dialed Yu Shanshan’s number and placed the phone beside the piano. When the piece ended, he calmly told Yu Shanshan that everything was fine.
Meanwhile, Yang Li next door had been listening from the very first note, standing motionless with her hands behind her back in a place separated from Liu Jun by only a wall, listening for a long time. Several times, Yang Li wanted to knock on the neighboring door, but each time she retreated at the last moment. She could only silently sketch in her mind the image of Liu Jun sitting at the piano, imagining that person’s brows and eyes…
The next morning, when Liu Jun returned to the company for work, he and other Tengfei employees were blocked outside the gate by the deceased worker’s family members.
Inside the gate, Liu Shitang organized security guards and two lively Rottweilers to defend the entrance. Outside the gate were wreaths and wailing family members. Liu Shitang called his son to leave, fearing he’d be attacked by the family members. But it was too late – someone recognized Liu Jun, and the family members surged forward, especially the deceased worker’s mother and grandmother, hitting Liu Jun and demanding he pay with his life. At first, everyone showed some restraint, but as they discovered they couldn’t get the promises they wanted from Liu Jun’s mouth, the family members became more agitated and struck harder. Liu Shitang could only watch helplessly as his son’s two fists couldn’t match four hands, unable to open the gate to help because once opened, those people would likely rush in and smash equipment. He could only shout for his son to run quickly and call for employees to support Liu Jun.
When Liu Jun was finally rescued by workers and walked far away, he touched his hairline and indeed felt several streaks of blood. His face seemed to have been scratched by the dead man’s mother, and he could no longer count how many punches and kicks he’d taken. But when Liu Shitang called again, he still instructed his son to leave and not get entangled with those people. “They have emotions – you have to let them vent. Only after a few days of venting will they be willing to negotiate…”
“What about work during those days they’re venting? Stop production? What about contract delays?”
“Don’t worry, it won’t be too long. They don’t have that much energy either.”
“What if they work in shifts, too? They’re demanding one million in compensation – with money at stake, they have plenty of motivation.”
“But someone died…”
“The problem is we’re not at fault – the fault is his.”
“The dead are paramount – don’t argue. This is custom. Ah, run quickly…”
This time, it was the deceased’s father grabbing a wreath and charging desperately at Liu Jun, shouting that since his son was dead, he wouldn’t let Liu Shitang’s son have peace either – he’d beat Liu Jun to death and pay with his own life. Liu Jun was skilled at fighting and, in a flash, calculated that he could knock down the deceased’s father with such-and-such moves, but he ultimately didn’t do it. In his heart, too, the dead were paramount, and he quickly fled. But his car fell into the hands of the deceased’s family and was smashed beyond recognition. Liu Jun could only angrily tell the workers beside him, “Fine, originally I said when the bank loan came through, I’d give you this car to dismantle. Now it’s just ahead of schedule.”
One worker said, “How long will they keep surrounding us? We can’t work – what about our wages and bonuses?”
Another worker said, “Manager Liu, you’re seriously injured. Go to the hospital quickly for an X-ray.”
The business department statistics were even more worrisome: “Two shipments are due tomorrow. What do we do? They’ll call to scold us again.”
Liu Jun was ultimately a hot-blooded youth. He rubbed his sore arms from the beating and prepared to go back to negotiate – he didn’t want to remain deadlocked so clearly. But Liu Shitang called again, telling Liu Jun to be patient for three days and understand the deceased family’s pain. Liu Jun thought the same way – putting himself in their shoes, he could understand the deceased family’s agitation. But who would understand his losses as someone without fault? He ultimately endured it, telling the workers to go home. He circled outside the company and jumped over the wall. Several workers also followed him over the wall, sneaking into the workshop like thieves to maintain production.
But while people could climb walls, transport vehicles couldn’t get in or out. Production order was in chaos.
After two days and nights of such torment, the company gate was battered and swaying, with everyone inside and outside exhausted, but no one giving up. Outside seemed to have red eyes. Liu Jun asked his father, “Three days – will it work?”
Liu Shitang was silent. So Liu Jun broke free from his father’s obstruction, walked to the gate, and said to the deceased’s relative who rushed over ready to hit him with a bamboo pole: “Listen, I have blood test evidence proving the deceased was drunk on the job…” As soon as he said this, the other party immediately froze. According to work injury insurance fund compensation regulations, work injuries caused by drunkenness are not within the compensation scope. The company has been kind, keeping this secret from the Labor Bureau for you. If you keep forcing us, then sorry. If you need our cooperation, please withdraw today. Otherwise, you won’t get a penny from me, and you won’t get a penny of compensation from the work injury insurance fund either.”
The deceased’s relative shouted, “Who are you trying to scare? You…”
Liu Jun also raised his voice: “Go ahead and shout. Currently, only my father and I know about this – go ahead and shout it out, let the whole world know. It’s not my loss, it’s yours.”
The relative hesitated and went back to discuss with the others. They stopped their offensive, but still no one retreated.
Liu Shitang also got angry. He told his son to come back: “The police won’t come – I’ll call the underworld. Damn it, I won’t give them another penny – I’d rather give it all to the underworld. This precedent can’t be set. If anyone with any problems surrounding the company, how can we operate in the future? Damn it, treating me like a pushover.”
Liu Jun didn’t hesitate or stop him. He looked back once at the people outside the gate and returned to his office to work. Soon, he saw two vans arrive with over ten men carrying iron pipes, jumping out. Quickly, the male family members outside were beaten and fled in panic. The female family members who were spared saw that the situation was bad and could only abandon their tools and run away. Liu Jun watched all this with indifference – his sympathy had been worn to its limit. He had no thoughts.
The company returned to normal production. Though everyone told Liu Jun the company had done everything humanly possible, Liu Jun didn’t know what everyone thought about it all. The death of one person was a disaster for the deceased’s family, but wasn’t it also a disaster for the enterprise?
There were no more sieges, but the deceased’s mother came to the company gate every other day, making no violent moves, just sitting on the ground crying mournfully.
Liu Jun told the administrative manager that money was useless to a mother who had lost her son, but money could guarantee the rest of that mother’s life. He had the administrative manager actively cooperate in claiming compensation from the fund, and also find a way for the company to provide some compensation to that mother under what proper name. The administrative manager said Why compensate anything? The company’s losses from being attacked over the past days were already five figures. Liu Jun said the hidden losses approached six figures. The administrative manager said they had gone to extremes – several people in the company had been beaten, so what was there left to discuss? Nothing to discuss.
Liu Jun screamed inside: I not only want nothing to discuss, I not only want nothing to discuss… But he was now Tengfei’s bigger picture. He still had to gently persuade the administrative manager, who had also taken punches and kicks as a negotiation messenger. He was making himself completely bloodless.
Qian Hongming found Liu Jun by appointment at a taekwondo gym. He saw Liu Jun being beaten by a black belt instructor almost to the point of crawling on the ground, but he also saw Liu Jun standing up again and again, stubbornly fighting the instructor. Qian Hongming really couldn’t watch anymore and rushed into the arena to stop it.
“You’re seeking death!”
But Liu Jun smiled with his bruised and swollen face: “Finally feel good.”
“Why struggle with dead people? Seeing such things, there are only two words: accept defeat.”
“I’ve accepted defeat as much as I can, but you don’t know – people love to take advantage even more. Today, I finally understand that not only was my father’s method wrong, but my thinking was even more wrong. Now I know. Hit another wall – consider it learning from experience.”
“Know what?” Qian Hongming approved of Liu’s father’s approach in his heart, but could Liu Jun have an even better method?
“Can’t say – saying it would be politically incorrect.” Liu Jun could barely stand up with Qian Hongming’s support. After thanking the instructor, he slowly walked out. “False benevolence and righteousness won’t do, hehe.”