Liu Jun was so shocked his eyes popped out. Even if he guessed a hundred times, he couldn’t have guessed Jiali was busy with these things. He had a birthday dinner at the Qian home, and immediately after leaving, he eagerly told Cui Bingbing everything that happened that evening. Of course, he didn’t forget to leave behind his prized piano solo CD at the Qian home.
“I no longer dare to stick to my own opinions. Based on my understanding of Hongming, I can tell he truly cares about Jiali—it doesn’t seem like acting. No, it should be that nothing has changed between the two of them; I’m just an outsider creating trouble where none exists.” After his narration, Liu Jun summarized thus.
“Yes, last month on my birthday, you happened to have something urgent and couldn’t spare time to come to Shanghai. But look at Qian Hongming—the market has reportedly been quite volatile these past few days, so he shouldn’t have left Shanghai to come home and celebrate Jiali’s birthday. This shows he’s a considerate person. It also shows that each family has its way of getting along that outsiders can’t understand. Don’t interfere anymore. Jiali herself also… wait, Jiali is studying Buddhist scriptures—escaping from the world? Retreating from the world in despair?”
“It doesn’t seem like it. Jiali baked her birthday cake and enthusiastically helped me. If she were retreating from the world, would she bother with such things?”
“I can’t understand it. I’ve been frequently discovering that I don’t understand women’s hearts lately. Don’t ask me anymore how women think.”
Liu Jun asked with cold sweat in his heart: “You… aren’t you a woman?”
“I must have something misaligned. Look at Jiali—very feminine, right? Not only can I not do what she does, but I can barely even understand it. Then there are my colleagues, two young ladies from key universities. I don’t understand why their work is always so disorganized. There’s no logical relationship between one task and the next, yet they can connect them. When I get angry and criticize them a few words, they tearfully say my attitude is fierce, and claim that programming tasks should naturally be done by men… Women!”
“Then what kind of relationship do we have?”
Cui Bingbing was startled and quickly said, “Of course, if it weren’t for you, I would have long ago published an announcement withdrawing from the women’s team.”
“Give me a break. You’re completely a woman. If you were a man, with two female colleagues looking at you tearfully, you’d long ago be feeling good about yourself and step in to help them finish their work. Physics calls it like charges repel, opposite charges attract.”
“Is this how you behave at your company?”
“My company is purely masculine.”
“Is your concern for Jiali’s rights because of Jiali’s tearful grievances?”
“You just angrily scolded two female colleagues for having no logical connection between consecutive matters. Tsk tsk, all the same type—women!”
“If it doesn’t matter, why are you biting back? Just say no directly—your jumping up shows there’s a problem.”
“Right, that’s exactly women’s logic. Whether I did it or not is secondary, but whether my attitude is good is the principal issue. Women! You also said you wanted to leave the women’s team—just stay put obediently.”
“Hey, damn Liu Jun! You’re twisting logic. Quickly request territorial concessions and reparations, or else… hmph!”
After bantering with Cui Bingbing, Liu Jun finally put the Qian family matters behind him, deciding not to meddle anymore—perhaps there were different modes of getting along for each family. He described Jiali’s modified R&D center landscape design to Cui Bingbing. Cui Bingbing had no talent for spatial imagination—if the person on the other end of the line weren’t her lover, she would have changed the subject long ago. Therefore, she somewhat admired Jiali for being able to convert the dry lines on architectural blueprints into garden spaces in her mind, and even draw effect diagrams. That these drawings could earn praise from someone as rigid as Liu Jun showed Jiali had done well—she couldn’t do it. Cui Bingbing’s impression of Jiali improved somewhat, but she felt even more sorry for her—such a good brain, yet willing to be like clinging vines.
Under Song Yunhui’s mediation, that large state enterprise in North China finally agreed to allow private enterprises to participate in bidding at the last minute. Many other private enterprises that learned the news could only helplessly face the deadline, such short notice made it impossible to prepare written materials for qualification pre-review. Tengfei happened to have similar bidding documents for that South Asian enterprise on hand. After translation and modifications, though they worked two all-nighters, they managed to personally fly over and submit materials before the deadline, stumblingly obtaining the tender documents. They also had good discussions with several responsible personnel, giving these officials a fresh perspective on new-type private enterprises.
However, the subsequent technical briefing time conflicted with the South Asian project. Due to visa restrictions, Liu Jun had to be the lead person for that South Asian project. Although he knew technical briefings were equivalent to job interview impressions, and sometimes impression scores at technical briefings could turn the tide, Liu Jun had no alternative but to let his father, Liu Shitang, lead the team, assigning his elite forces Engineer Sun and Engineer Liao to his father. Unfortunately, Liu Shitang’s image was exactly the type of private business owner the North China enterprise’s general manager most detested. Even though Liu Shitang, who spoke first, had fluent Mandarin and tried to be humorous, his humor was a different concept from intellectuals’ humor. Less than five minutes into the briefing, after Liu Shitang finished introducing Tengfei Company, the general manager left without a word, hands behind his back, face dark. Thus, personnel from both sides watched the general manager’s retreating figure with nearly identical interpretations in their hearts.
When Liu Jun returned victorious from winning the South Asian bid and heard his father recount the entire process, he couldn’t believe it had been such an uncontested defeat.
Seeing his son’s bewilderment, Liu Shitang said: “I inquired with their staff. Reportedly, both their general manager and chief engineer disliked me.”
Liu Jun slapped his forehead in sudden understanding. Manager Song had mentioned earlier the losses that the company’s general manager had suffered from private enterprises. Looking at his father’s typical private enterprise boss face, he could only smile helplessly: “Forget it. At least we won the South Asian project—that’s enough work for us.”
But Liu Shitang showed his son the speech script: “I still can’t figure out where I went wrong to make that general manager angry.”
“The script was fine. They probably had someone predetermined and were just going through the motions with us.” Liu Jun couldn’t bear to expose the truth and glossed over it. But he couldn’t help thinking that as Tengfei increasingly developed toward a high-tech elite company image, his father’s capability and image as head of the sales department responsible for external relations were becoming increasingly inadequate. Yet how could the sales department possibly lack his father’s role? He thought of Dong Qiyang, but involuntarily shook his head—though the talent was good, he couldn’t afford him.
As for affordable talent—those who came to apply—the administrative manager needed to carefully select them one by one. In the administrative manager’s words, he interviewed at least five people daily on average. All technical personnel needed to pass Liu Jun’s final interview. Liu Jun returned from his business trip in the morning, and the administrative manager didn’t let him catch his breath. In the afternoon, he arranged for Liu Jun to interview a young man named Xiao Ke who had graduated in mathematics and changed careers to IT. Liu Jun was so busy he was practically watching Xiao Ke’s resume with one eye and watching Xiao Ke enter with the other. But that eye reading the resume discovered a familiar place name—the address on Xiao Ke’s ID card was right near Aunt Fu’s area, which was where his mother had once been a substitute teacher.
Liu Jun suppressed his curiosity, completed the interview according to routine, felt Xiao Ke was a good person—honest and reliable, with a genuine mathematical mind—and decided to hire him. But he finally couldn’t help asking: “Xiao Ke, the elementary school you attended—was there once a Teacher Fu? Not tall, thin, with a very straight bearing?”
“Yes, our elementary school was very small. Teachers knew all students, students knew all teachers, hehe. Does Manager Liu also know Teacher Fu?”
“Teacher Fu once worked as a nanny in my home. For a teacher to work as a nanny, she said her heart was very unsettled about it. Did she have a bad temper when she was teaching?”
“Teacher Fu didn’t have a bad temper. She never hit students, but was very responsible, responsible to the point of stubbornness. Often, when any of us hadn’t finished homework, she wouldn’t leave work, watching us do it, then walking us home on mountain paths in the dark. That was dangerous back then—if you didn’t walk the mountain paths well, you could fall. Other teachers weren’t willing to do this. I used to be a little troublemaker who was taught well under Teacher Fu’s persistent supervision. But Teacher Fu was wronged. A few years after I graduated from elementary school, our school was merged into the town due to a few students. Regular teachers followed to town, but substitute teachers were all dismissed and sent home. Teacher Fu had been a teacher for so many years, and it was all written off. We all said it was unfair. How is Teacher Fu now? Could Manager Liu give me her address so I can find time to visit her?”
Liu Jun frowned as he listened. Why did the Teacher Fu that Xiao Ke described seem like a different person from the Aunt Fu he had contact with? But speaking of that persistent spirit unafraid of danger, they seemed like the same person. “Teacher Fu’s life isn’t very good now. Her husband died of illness, her son isn’t ambitious, and her life has been full of ups and downs.” Liu Jun didn’t want to speak ill of Aunt Fu, so he cut off this topic and handed Xiao Ke over to the administrative manager to handle specific hiring matters. After Xiao Ke left, Liu Jun reflected on Xiao Ke’s words—Aunt Fu had once been such a good teacher?
But being extremely busy after returning from his business trip, Liu Jun had no time to think carefully. He could only keep this matter in his heart and plan to discuss it further with Xiao Ke after he started work. He had a lot of work to do—the construction and installation of the new casting workshop needed supervision and review, and the construction and installation of the new R&D center equally required his daily inspection. Fortunately, summer sunsets late, so at seven o’clock, he caught the tail end of daylight to jump in his car and stretch his tired muscles. But it wasn’t over yet—he still had to return to the company to handle daily affairs that had accumulated during his few days away, without even time to eat a bite. He couldn’t help thinking that if Cui Bingbing stayed home like Jiali, he could go home for a bit, take a shower, eat a hot meal, and relax his muscles somewhat. So Qian Hongming’s family arrangement had Qian Hongming’s reasons, because Qian Hongming was also a very busy man. Of course, with Cui Bingbing’s personality, she couldn’t stay home. Even if she reluctantly stayed, with this person’s excessive energy, going home wouldn’t be relaxing, but enduring a mental storm.
Speak of the devil—Cui Bingbing’s call came in, asking if she could chat for a few minutes now. Cui Bingbing timed her calls to when Liu Jun returned, but Liu Jun was always busy, busy, busy. She didn’t get annoyed, though—every hour or two, when she thought of it, she’d call again. Even just hearing his voice was good; hearing his voice could make her smile for several minutes. This time, Liu Jun’s lazy, seemingly yawning “Bingbing, I miss you very much” made Cui Bingbing’s heart bloom with joy. She swore and vowed to add more fuel to the fire, definitely opening a branch office and returning to her hometown as soon as possible. Liu Jun laughed heartily—this was Cui Bingbing with her distinctive style.