Old Feng told me that class is a high tower, and those who want to climb up have all prepared themselves to be shattered to pieces.

He said this right after we had been robbed.

There was a problem with the project, and Old Feng urgently rushed me to the scene. Halfway there, several cars suddenly darted out and forced us to stop. I was still in a daze when a tremendous booming sound rang out.

It was gunfire.

I had always thought gunfire was like that crisp sound in movies, but real gunfire was incomparably loud, as if it rang inside my brain.

After those two young robbers fired into the air, they yanked us out of the car. The slightly warm gun muzzle pressed against my temple. I wanted to beg for mercy but discovered my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

Old Feng was relatively calm, saying in English that we would give them all our money if they let us go.

That robber looked even more nervous than us, constantly screaming and yelling. But the problem was that we had left in such a hurry that day, we didn’t have much cash on us.

He went to grab Old Feng’s bag.

This time, Old Feng didn’t let go.

There was a computer in the bag. All the classified materials and data were inside. The loss would be immeasurable.

But at a time like this, who could compete with desperados?

The robber was enraged. He loudly ordered Old Feng to let go immediately, or he would blow his head off with one shot.

“Mr. Feng! They have guns! They really dare to shoot!” the driver called out tremblingly.

Old Feng finally let go.

The robber got the bag and started rummaging through it wildly. Old Feng suddenly looked up and glanced at me.

…No way, right?

In the blink of an eye! Old Feng suddenly lunged to grab the gun. That robber wasn’t prepared for a moment and was knocked down. The gun was knocked from his hand!

His accomplice let out an angry roar and immediately raised his gun to aim at the two of them.

“STOP!” I screamed, raising the gun to aim at that accomplice.

With the understanding between Old Feng and me, the moment the gun was knocked loose, I had already grabbed it in my hands.

He only hesitated for an instant, and in just that instant, Old Feng had already pressed that robber beneath him, but his back was also exposed in the accomplice’s line of sight.

Gunfire rang out.

In the buzzing of tinnitus, I sat down on the ground in a daze.

Old Feng tied up that desperately struggling robber, then staggered over to my side and pressed my head into his embrace. “It’s okay now, it’s okay, Dongxue.”

I looked up at him trembling, then looked toward the Black man lying not far away. He moaned in pain as blood so red it was almost black gushed from his shoulder.

I had fired first.

The investigation later revealed that it was that driver who betrayed us. He knew Old Feng had money and deliberately took us on a small road, arranging two novice robbers to split the take fifty-fifty with him.

He just hadn’t expected that Old Feng had been a soldier and received professional close combat training.

Nor had he expected that I really dared to pull the trigger.

But that was later.

While we were waiting at the police station, I asked Old Feng, “Mr. Feng, haven’t you always taught us that when we encounter robbers, we should quickly give them money?”

Old Feng glared at me. “Money can be given. Who will bear the consequences if classified materials are leaked? You?”

Having been with him for a long time, I knew he just had a bad temper, so I was bolder. “I still think life is more important.”

Old Feng then said that sentence: “Class is a high tower. Those who want to climb up have all prepared themselves to be shattered to pieces.”

He came from the countryside, came out of the mountain valleys as a soldier, then started crawling and rolling on construction sites. With no education and no background, he could have what he had today by risking his life.

That day after he said this, seeing that I was shaking badly, he lit me a cigarette.

“Don’t inhale it yet, just puff, slowly… That’s right.”

That was the first cigarette of my life, and he taught me to smoke it.

The tobacco strangely soothed my tense nerves. I actually wasn’t choked at all.

Old Feng looked at me and smiled, saying in Sichuan dialect, “I knew I didn’t pick the wrong person.”

At that moment, his eyes were full of proud laughter.

Although so many messy things happened later, I know that at least for that moment, Old Feng truly treated me as his most accomplished disciple.

I also once sincerely… Forget it, I’m not someone with any sincerity in the workplace anyway.

I stayed in Africa for six years. After six years, the project was successfully completed and we returned home.

Old Feng was transferred back to the head office and promoted, while I became a project manager at the original company. The people under me all had deeper qualifications and better education than me.

The domestic environment was much more complex than Africa. The first issue was that in Africa, Old Feng covered the sky with one hand and no one dared say half a word of gossip. Of course, even if those African guys said something, we couldn’t understand it anyway.

But now, Old Feng was equivalent to an imperial sword. Everyone knew I had it. But I couldn’t just draw the sword and kill someone because they rolled their eyes at me!

So every day I harvested various forms of eye-rolling.

I had to produce results on projects as quickly as possible to truly establish a firm footing.

During that period, I was either fawning over the client’s ass every day or flattering every person in the company, living like I was performing a song and dance, until finally I got a project in hand.

I drank three bottles of beer at home to celebrate, and my grandma shakily drank Sprite to accompany me.

It was a particularly small project with a low budget and clients whose ideas were wild and fanciful. The commercial calculation showed a potential loss of six million. No one wanted to take it.

I didn’t want to either, but I had no choice. I had no options.

To avoid losing money, I had to complete everything precisely at each time node on schedule, and couldn’t spend even a penny more.

Success or failure depended on this one move.

During that time I was busy with meetings, busy pressuring material suppliers on prices, busy matching wits and courage with subcontract project managers. When I got home I would black out before even taking off my shoes, and when I opened my eyes again it would be daylight.

But problems still arose.

The foreman and our chief engineer got into an argument. By the time I arrived, it had already become a complete mess.

Because we had no money, the small subcontract bosses we chose all offered the lowest prices, but if the quality didn’t pass standards, the first to die would be me.

So I asked the company’s most meticulous Li Gong to be the gatekeeper.

How meticulous was this person? If he washed his hands in the wrong order, he would turn back and wash them again. Previously, because he was too meticulous, he dragged down a project and was basically marginalized in the company.

I needed a serious person to guarantee the lower limit of this project.

But the problem was, every time he went to the site he could check out a pile of problems. Nothing met standards anywhere, and everything had to be sent back to redo. But redoing meant rushing the construction period, and over time the construction teams complained bitterly.

This time again they hadn’t strictly followed the construction plan. The conversation didn’t go well, and the foreman started cursing while pointing at his nose.

The workers were hot-blooded and surrounded the two of them so tightly not even water could trickle through.

“The construction plan was already set. Look, this simply doesn’t meet standards…” Li Gong’s face turned red as he stammered to argue based on reason.

“I think you’re what doesn’t meet standards! Just the construction plan alone, we’ve revised it four times! If your requirements are high, then give us time! But you’re also urging us on the construction period like the grim reaper! What! Aren’t our brothers’ lives worth anything!” The foreman was from Shaanxi and was so angry he jumped high.

Just then someone discovered me and immediately spread the word: “The manager is here! The manager is here!”

The crowd immediately parted automatically like Moses splitting the sea to make way for me.

Everyone’s eyes looking at me were very subtle, that kind of, a bit worried that this project would fall through, but sincerely hoping I would have bad luck…

I didn’t look at that foreman but directly ordered, “Call the person in charge over. Stop fucking inciting workers to make trouble while watching the show yourself!”

This was an old construction site trick. When opinions disagreed, there were cases where they incited workers to beat people up.

Their boss quickly came over. He had a bandit-like face and came in pointing at the workers and cursing, “I just went out for a while and you’re fucking causing trouble for me again! Looking for death, is that it!”

I interrupted him. “Boss Chen, three quality defects and I can make you all get lost. You know this, right?”

Boss Chen froze for a moment, then sneered, “This is the first time I’ve heard this. Manager Ren, say it again, I didn’t hear clearly!”

I walked forward one step, standing openly beneath his fist.

“If you want to leave, then leave. If I try to stop you, I’m your dog.” I said, “You dare to make trouble because you’re sure we’re rushing the schedule, right? But I’ll really tell you, even if the whole plate is smashed, I have plenty of projects to do.”

This was of course bragging. What was I worth?

But their expressions all changed. Clearly, those ambiguous rumors between Old Feng and me were playing a role at this moment.

I slapped the table and said word by word, “And I’ll put it here—if things come to that, none of you will be able to get on a single project in the future! I guarantee it!”

On construction sites like this, being reasonable would only make them think you were weak.

You had to act like you had backing, and only then would they be afraid.

Boss Chen’s face changed like a Sichuan opera mask change, grinning cheekily. “How did we get to talking to this point! Our company is still counting on Manager Ren to make us rich!” Then he immediately turned back and yelled at the workers, “Go back to work! With this time for watching the excitement, do the work more carefully! Save Li Gong some worry!”

The workers who were just at drawn swords immediately dispersed.

Only our company’s people remained. I said to Li Gong, “Brother Li, you didn’t do anything wrong at all. You’re the one who suffered injustice in this matter.”

His eyes immediately reddened, and he hurriedly took off his glasses to wipe them. “Ah, I’m fine, I’m fine…”

I looked around at the other people and said, “I know you don’t like me, but everyone who came here has some difficulties in the company, more or less. One thing—if we can’t finish this job, everyone either packs up and leaves or has no hope of promotion in the company for the rest of their lives. If we succeed, every single person will get money, and I guarantee this will be the starting point for you all to take big steps upward.”

This was obviously also bragging and drawing pie in the sky.

But clearly these marginalized people in the company were all encouraged. This time, the people I chose were all like me—they needed an opportunity too desperately.

After ending the fight, I started a meeting, calculating clearly the engineering quantity of every public area and every part. After calculating the engineering quantity I calculated labor, after calculating labor I calculated machinery, detailed to every area, so that the work on every single person was crystal clear.

To spend little money and still do good work, I could only calculate so painstakingly.

When I could finally get off work, I only felt dizzy and lightheaded, able to collapse on the bed at any moment.

Walking down, I discovered it was actually snowing.

Fine, scattered snowflakes drifted down from the deep blue sky.

As I watched, I thought, only cities in the south would have such romantic snow.

In the city where I grew up, heavy snow would be like thick cotton wadding, wrapping the entire city.

Just then, I saw that person standing at the entrance.

Tall, gray-blue coat, white scarf, standing under the warm yellow streetlight waving at me.

He looked clean and cool, but his smile was very warm. “Ren Dongxue! I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”

It was Cheng Xia.