Finally, Liang Sishen stopped when she was two car lengths behind. Liu Jun circled and stopped to Liang Sishen’s left. Before the car window was fully down, he heard profanity that he never expected to come from Liang Sishen’s mouth. Translated into Chinese, it was: “Holy shit, that was fucking amazing!” Liu Jun had returned to China for two years, suppressing his youthful exuberance, struggling through various indescribable unspoken rules. With a heart full of sprinting ability and desire, he was constrained by conventions and customs, bound hand and foot to the breaking point. Today, he finally vented all his restraints on the racetrack, unleashing his abilities to the limit – his spirit was set free. Hearing Liang Sishen’s profanity, he unhesitatingly gave a thumbs up and loudly shouted in German: “Holy shit, that was fucking amazing!” Saying it was like reciting a six-word mantra, his entire vital energy instantly flowed through his body, dispersing to all four limbs and hundreds of bones. This was the completion of the final catharsis.
Curse words may have a thousand twists and turns, but crude language is universal. When someone’s face turns red, neck thick, eyes bulging as they spit out forceful sounds, probably no one would misinterpret the general meaning as “Darling, today at the willow shore, morning breeze and waning moon.” Therefore, Liang Sishen also roughly understood Liu Jun’s profanity and lazily smiled while nestled in her car seat. Seeing this, Liu Jun guessed: “You lost on arm strength, I lost on horsepower.”
“You have modifications.” Liang Sishen said while raising both arms. “My arms are shaking. I’m done for – Ménière’s syndrome.”
Liu Jun’s eyes immediately lit up with stars: “Let me help you drive and take you back.”
“Do engineers always speak so precisely?” Liang Sishen answered irrelevantly.
At this moment, Shen Huadong came over and loudly asked: “Sister Liang, shall we find a place for lunch? Haoyuan?”
“Don’t eat the grass beside the nest. Find a place that serves wild game – is there one?”
“Only Haoyuan has that. Sister Liang, don’t worry, I’ll pay the bill, okay?” Shen Huadong felt that Liang Sishen today was very different from her usual reserved elegance, so he dared not take her elsewhere. At least eating at Haoyuan, if anything happened, others would handle it.
As soon as Shen Huadong left, Liang Sishen asked Liu Jun to come open the Porsche’s convertible top. Too lazy to get out of the car, she gracefully stepped over to the passenger seat in one stride. Liu Jun wasn’t about to honestly rush to Haoyuan – he stubbornly took a few more turns on the closed road section before being willing to get on the main road. Qian Hongming found no common ground with the group of second-generation rich kids, greeted Liu Jun, and went home for lunch. By the time Liu Jun left the closed road section, Shen Huadong and the others had long disappeared. Liu Jun drove the extremely flashy car, exchanging driving experiences with Liang Sishen. Just as they entered the city center, Liang Sishen said: “To the right, 45-degree angle, your girlfriend. Want to call out to her?”
Liu Jun looked, and indeed, it was Yu Shanshan shopping with a colleague. Liang Sishen had such a good memory. Yu Shanshan and her colleague obviously couldn’t help but notice this flashy car, but Liu Jun saw her pull her colleague and the two ducked into a small clothing store. Only then did Liu Jun say, “We broke up.”
Liang Sishen glanced at Liu Jun’s expression. Seeing his composed demeanor, she felt sorry for the girl. That day, she saw how well that girl treated Liu Jun, truly with the spirit of going through fire and water for him. Perhaps that’s why she avoided Liu Jun when she saw him. “Did Yang Xun look for you later?”
“No, please thank Mr. Song for me.” Liu Jun looked in the rearview mirror while speaking. He didn’t see Yu Shanshan come out of the store, feeling somewhat lost. “Also, please tell Mr. Song that I got a loan from the bank after Spring Festival, and last Friday, I got a six-month acceptance bill from the bank. Funds suddenly became abundant. That imported piston Mr. Song mentioned last time – we’ve already trial-produced it. When the new equipment arrives, we can make a small batch of samples.”
“May I ask, what’s the difference between trial-producing and making samples?” Liang Sishen didn’t explain that removing Yang Xun from Haoyuan was her handiwork.
“In my industry, considering costs, some trial production is done entirely by hand. After hand trial production and testing the market response, we can establish processes, make molds, etc. Then we can do batch production – small batch.”
“Right, I once visited an automobile factory. Their trial cars were made entirely by sheet metal workers.”
“Yes, a sheet metal worker who can read complex blueprints, form spatial imagination in their mind from general drawings and countless sectional views and detail views, and machine blueprints with high precision – such a person is a treasure anywhere. My company still hasn’t found a good sheet metal worker who’s both mentally and physically capable. But those cobblers in the company have enough collective wisdom. They stubbornly spent a year turning my flattened Jetta into something with curves like a sports car. Using air compressors to blow high-pressure dense smoke to simulate wind tunnel tests, indeed, following their sheet metal car shell, high-speed smoke flows to the rear wing separation without forming turbulence, meaning air resistance per hundred kilometers is quite small. This technology is quite remarkable. It’s just that every time I drive out, I get caught by police once, saying it’s an illegal modification.”
Liang Sishen listened with great interest: “Is it that people like you, when seeing a car, first check whether the whole car conforms to structural mechanics, whether the shell conforms to fluid dynamics, then open the hood and must thoroughly understand every component before buying?”
“To be precise, it should be finding the most design-conscious car within budget.”
“Then, when you’re driving, does your brain rapidly calculate optimal output power and optimal torque?”
“So after all this questioning, you’re finding excuses for losing the race, haha.” Liu Jun saw no one around in the parking lot and parked the car almost like drifting. Shen Huadong saw this and whistled from afar. When Liu Jun was putting up the car top, Shen Huadong came over to whisper to Liang Sishen.
“We went to the private room and naturally gave your full name, but waited a long time – asked for tea, none available; asked for small towels, also none. I thought something was strange, so I’m telling you first.”
Liang Sishen said helplessly, “I said not to come, but you insisted. How about this – I’ll go home to eat. Tell the manager I left.”
“Yang… should I tell Yang Xun?”
“It’s not him. Forget it, I don’t want to anger his big brother. Better to consciously leave.”
“Let’s leave together.” Shen Huadong made a phone call to people inside. People immediately came out with bags, got in cars, and left. Instantly, the parking lot was half empty.
Liu Jun inexplicably carried Liang Sishen and slowly started up, sliding out of the parking lot. “Looks like the proprietress is chasing after us.”
Liang Sishen looked back and immediately called proprietress Wei Chunhong’s mobile: “Sister Wei, it’s okay, I went to another place…” But there was a commotion on the other end, and then the line disconnected. Only then did Liang Sishen roll her eyes and throw the phone into her bag.
“Yang Xun?” Liu Jun finally couldn’t help asking.
“Yang Xun is pitiful. Do one bad thing and people remember forever, haha. It’s not Yang Xun. When people are proud, they act like hooligans; when they’re frustrated, they act like scoundrels.”
Liu Jun immediately thought of his father’s car. A while ago, the tires were punctured again, just like during Spring Festival – a steel needle was left at the scene, and all four tires were ruined. He didn’t suspect Yang Xun at the time either, because he felt that if Yang Xun wanted to give him trouble, he would let him know it was Yang Xun’s doing. This time, his father made a fuss to the property management, demanding compensation. Property management only agreed that in the future, when their cars were parked in the community, they would report it, with security keeping watch at all times. His father then hired someone to guard the car for three nights, but during those three days the tires were safe. So, father and son suspected that the tire-puncturer lived in the community and could closely monitor the car’s movements. Who could it be?
Liang Sishen was also glumly thinking back and forth. Suddenly, she remembered that when she looked back just now, she saw a head protruding from a window on Haoyuan’s second floor – it seemed to be Yang Xun. Thinking of this, her brain suddenly surged with blood, and she could no longer maintain her previous nonchalant attitude. “Xiao Liu, please stop by the roadside. You go to Dongdong’s side yourself. Tell Dongdong I’m not eating – I’m going back to Haoyuan.”
“Your arm strength… I suspect you can’t drive safely for a while. I’ll be your chauffeur to the end. Don’t worry, I know some martial arts and can be your bodyguard when we get there.”
Liang Sishen was startled: “I’m not going to fight.”
“But I can see you’ve already virtually tied up your hair, rolled up your sleeves, and sharpened your knife to a ‘whoosh whoosh’ sound.”
Liang Sishen repeatedly denied: “No, no, I’m calm and peaceful.”
“Then… we’re not turning in?” Liu Jun ignored Liang Sishen’s request and slowly drove the car past Haoyuan’s main gate. After leaving some distance, he said: “Arguing with relatives and friends is the most meaningless thing. I have bitter experience. My father and I argued about my mother’s death for seven years. Finally, when I heard my father’s health wasn’t good, I immediately came back to China like an eager puppy. Emotion and reason oppose each other – being very emotional means not being rational; being very rational means having no emotion. Reasoning with people bound together by emotion is what physics calls useless work.”
Liang Sishen kept looking at Haoyuan outside the car window – clearly her property but she couldn’t enter. Gloomily she said: “I’m unhappy. What should I do? I can’t always be the only one who’s unhappy, right?”
Liu Jun was startled to hear this – were these words coming from the noble Liang Sishen? He couldn’t help turning to carefully look at Liang Sishen, as if only now seeing clearly that she was just a girl who might not even be older than him. “Brother is willing to contribute modest efforts, serving as a punching bag for one hour.”
“Bah, taking advantage of my lack of hand strength to offer cheap kindness.”
“The punching bag didn’t say you can’t kick the punching bag with your feet.”
Liang Sishen finally laughed and agreed to get off at a hotel for lunch. Liu Jun thought, this person isn’t difficult to serve. The one who seems difficult to serve and makes people look up should be her husband, Mr. Song. Getting the menu, Liu Jun was too lazy to worry about it and let Liang Sishen order. Liang Sishen ordered Chinese toon tofu, Malan bamboo shoot cubes, oil-fried river shrimp, and cilantro fish slice soup, then stopped. Liu Jun thought, no wonder her hands had no strength. He quickly grabbed the waiter and added half a crispy eight-treasure duck and a plate of spicy diced rabbit. Liang Sishen just watched. After the waiter left, she said: “May I tell a story to accompany the meal?”
Liu Jun thought she wanted to vent through the story: “As long as you’re not using me as a punching bag, I wholeheartedly support it.”
Liang Sishen smiled: “There was a thinker in the Ming Dynasty – what was his name, I forgot, sorry.” Liu Jun wanted to be serious because he felt Liang Sishen wanted to vent through the story, but hearing the first sentence, he couldn’t help laughing. What kind of confused storyteller was this? But this was a beautiful woman’s privilege – beautiful women now all seemed to like asserting their rights in front of him. Liang Sishen also couldn’t help mocking herself a few times before continuing: “When that thinker resigned from office, he did something unexpected. He didn’t return home in glory but took his wife and children to retreat and teach in a foreign place. Clansmen went and wrote letters earnestly trying to persuade him, but he firmly declined to return. Fortunately, the thinker was a scholar, and scholars always have some privileges – he used writing to explain himself. It turned out his hometown valued education. The clan pooled money year-round to hire teachers for all children – those with more money contributed more, those with less contributed less. The thinker was one of the beneficiaries.”
Liu Jun said, “Basically, there’s no such thing as utopia. This form should be mutual help and watching over each other, casting a wide net for a small catch. In case someone luckily passed the imperial examinations, the whole clan would depend on him for advancement.”
“You’re right, that’s exactly it. The thinker wrote that from when he obtained an official position, clansmen either wrote asking him to handle affairs or simply used his name to act tyrannically in the village. He believed that when he returned home, he would have no peace, daily seeking benefits for clansmen. And he dared not refuse – he had to repay their kindness.”
“Hmm, once the pig is fattened, how could the clansmen easily let him go? He could only flee far away to avoid the clansmen.”
“But most people value emotion, thinking of the kindness of a single meal, thinking of years of brotherly friendship. But the result is that those who gave a bowl of rice back then now demand endlessly. What should be done?”
“This… one should cut when it’s time to cut.”
“But the problem is…” Liang Sishen felt that hemming and hawing wasn’t satisfying enough. She couldn’t hold back and spoke in a rapid burst: “Lei Dongbao couldn’t keep up with the times and fell from his position as local tyrant, his psychology has been unbalanced ever since. There happened to be someone willing to flatter him, so Lei Dongbao treated this person as family. Lei Dongbao’s real family funded him to establish a new kingdom, but he felt he had lost face in front of his real family. Real families are intellectuals who won’t flatter, so they’re disliked by Lei Dongbao, who suppresses them at every meeting. Fake family uses Lei Dongbao’s power to intimidate others. The real family wants to isolate the fake family, but Lei Dongbao objects completely. Real family has to strike first. Lei Dongbao believes this is a real family, ignoring his local tyrannical authority. His self-esteem is hurt, so he sees real family as enemies. I completely despise him. Okay, I feel better now, I can eat.”
Liang Sishen spoke too quickly, couldn’t catch her breath, just panting. But Liu Jun was stunned, listening. Not to mention Liang Sishen’s words firing like a machine gun – he couldn’t make out seven words out of ten. He half-understood what Liang Sishen was talking about. Watching Liang Sishen vent, he was like in a fog, staring for a long time. Once Liang Sishen finished, he simply cleared everything he had just heard from his head. “Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying. But since you said you feel better, it seems my not understanding doesn’t matter. The spicy diced rabbit is delicious – please definitely eat enough before my big appetite.”
Instead, Liang Sishen looked at Liu Jun puzzledly. Liu Jun had suffered greatly from Yang Xun and insisted that Yang Xun’s backing was Song Yunhui. Logically, he should have figured out the relationships between several people long ago. “You don’t know who Lei Dongbao is?”
“Haoyuan’s boss?”
“Haoyuan’s boss should be me – I invested ninety percent.” Liang Sishen saw that Liu Jun truly didn’t know what she had been talking about for so long. She felt somewhat between tears and laughter – both relieved and disappointed.
“If you don’t assert your rights yourself, do you expect others to consciously recognize you as the boss? Rights and obligations – grasp both firmly.”
“You think I don’t know? But I’m bound hand and foot by others. Thinking it over, I admire that Ming Dynasty thinker, but also find him frightening – extremely cold-blooded.”
Liu Jun finally understood a bit at this point. Holding a duck wing he’d gnawed halfway, he said: “You’re angry at Mr. Song, but also making excuses for Mr. Song.”