Before leaving the gaming giant’s offices, Zhao Buxi, Lu Fengtong, and the assistant spent half an hour sitting in the first-floor reception area.
Big companies like this paid special attention to the feng shui of their buildings. As the saying went, first came fate, second fortune, third feng shui, fourth accumulated virtue, and fifth education. The first two were fixed at birth and difficult to change, but the last three were things you could work on yourself.
And right now, they were happily enjoying the benefits for free.
“Big companies really are different,” Lu Fengtong said. “I feel like I can even breathe easier in here.”
The assistant remarked dryly, “Didn’t you have a cold before?”
Lu cleared his throat and lowered his head. “Coming here cured it.”
Zhao Buxi gazed up at the imposing building’s interior. Was it really that effective? Had someone sprinkled cold medicine into the air?
He had never visited a place like this. Everywhere was luxurious and bright. The difference between city and countryside was enormous, but to him each had its own merits.
He still preferred the countryside. In a prosperous big city, he often felt out of place, as if he had no roots or sense of belonging. And there were words everywhere, on snack shops, convenience stores, gas stations. Every place was covered with writing. Some signs even had English, Korean, and Japanese.
He barely recognized any Chinese characters, let alone foreign ones.
Where had all these words come from? Zhao Buxi thought. Trying to guess their meanings gave him a headache.
He had been away from home for a while and was starting to miss his cow, her two calves, and his fields.
It was better there. Not a single word to worry about guessing.
“Little Zhao? Little Zhao.”
Zhao Buxi returned to himself and looked at Lu Fengtong. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much. I just wanted to thank you for encouraging me earlier.”
He sounded rather embarrassed to say it. Zhao Buxi smiled. “What’s there to thank me for? The courage was yours all along.”
His father used to say that courage was something you had to give yourself. If you didn’t have any, it didn’t matter how many encouraging words other people said.
Little Zhao Buxi had thought this made perfect sense. The next day, he jumped off a roof he’d previously been afraid to leap from. His mother was so furious she took the little broom used to sweep the heated brick bed and whacked his backside with it.
His father changed sides with the wind. He had never expected his lesson to inspire the brat to jump from a roof, so he stood nearby angrily chiming in, “He deserves a beating!”
Seeing this happen for the first time, tiny Zhao Sheng burst into tears and begged their mother not to hit his big brother.
Both parents had been heavy-handed that day. Zhao Buxi was sturdy, but the beating still hurt enough that he didn’t go out to play for two days.
By the third day he was fine, as lively as ever. He went to the river with the village children to catch shrimp and brought home a snake instead.
Back then there were all sorts of beliefs about snakes in the countryside. His parents were so frightened that they took it away that very night. After returning home, they gave him another beating.
Zhao Buxi smiled to himself. His childhood escapades were funny to think about now.
Truthfully, he’d been afraid of the snake too. It was slippery. But he felt he had the nerve to do it, so he’d carried it home.
Ever since, he’d understood that to be brave, you had to summon some courage from within yourself first.
Beside him, the assistant propped his Apple laptop on his knees and began typing away.
Lu Fengtong asked curiously, “What are you doing?”
They had mainly come to follow up on the project today, and Lu hadn’t assigned him anything else.
The assistant pushed up his glasses with his middle finger. “Looking up some examples of business-war tactics our company has used before.”
Before the big gaming firm decided whom to partner with, it would surely demand several alternative proposals from each bidder. Beyond the basic proposals themselves, what Lu Fengtong and Liang Shujia would be tested on in the coming days was their business-war tactics and mental resilience.
In business warfare, tripping up competitors and getting inside their heads was commonplace.
The other side had called Zhao Buxi’s phone out of the blue precisely to pressure them and rattle Lu Fengtong.
In Liang Shujia’s eyes, Lu was a complete small fry. Judging by the sizes of their companies, he really was. So if they wanted to strike back, they would need to catch Liang by surprise.
“How do we catch him by surprise?” Lu Fengtong asked.
Sunlight flashed across the assistant’s glasses. “Haven’t figured that out yet.”
Over the next few days, Liang Shujia’s people repeatedly sent Lu Fengtong information about the losses in the company’s financial statements since he took over.
Lu was overwhelmed, but he couldn’t deny the figures were real. With Liang’s side maliciously monopolizing the market, his company was receiving fewer and fewer orders.
Liang Shujia had just had someone send Lu another financial statement when he personally called him again.
He said he wanted to invite Lu to dinner that evening to discuss developments in the industry and the latest project.
“I got hold of a fantastic fish and wanted to invite all of you to taste it,” Liang Shujia said. “It’s no ordinary fish. You lost quite a bit starting your business last year, didn’t you? This fish cost a fortune. If you don’t come, you’ll probably never have a chance to eat one like it in your life. Opportunities like this don’t come twice. You ought to seize it.”
Lu Fengtong knew perfectly well that the call and dinner invitation were meant to mess with his head. But the moment he heard that, if he missed this meal, he might never taste such a fish in his entire life, he was stunned.
Zhao Buxi had just returned to the office after getting a drink from the water dispenser when Lu sprang to his feet and told him, “Liang Shujia just called me.”
“What’d he say?” Zhao Buxi asked curiously. He’d hardly seen any business warfare before.
“He said he’d treat us to dinner tonight. There’s a fish that, if we don’t go eat it this time, we’ll never get to try again in our whole lives.”
“That fish is that amazing?!” Zhao Buxi could hardly sit still either. “Then we’ve got to go taste it!”
Lu Fengtong nodded. “We absolutely can’t miss this!”
They had to find out what made this fish so incredible.
“Let’s invite a few more people.” As he spoke, Lu took out his phone and called his girlfriend. When she answered, he said, “Hello, Stinky Darling? Are you free tonight?”
“There’s a fish we might never get to eat again if we don’t go tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s unbelievably amazing. We’ve hit the jackpot, Stinky Baby. Remember to come!”
While Lu Fengtong was calling his girlfriend, Zhao Buxi started making calls too.
He dialed a number from memory. He wasn’t entirely certain of the last two digits, but he went with his instincts.
The person he was calling was Fang Peizhi.
He had seen Fang’s number a few days earlier, when they were registering residents during the apartment fire alarm. As Zhao Buxi signed his name beneath his room number, he had glanced at it.
Each apartment had to leave one person’s number. Fang Peizhi’s name had been listed above his, with a string of digits beside it.
Zhao Buxi had taken one look and remembered most of it. His memory was fairly good. As a child, he’d worked in a stir-fry restaurant and memorized customers’ orders, including which dishes belonged to which table. He’d never served an order to the wrong one.
Tonight’s fish sounded so incredible that Zhao Buxi thought he’d do Fang a favor by inviting him along to someone else’s feast.
The phone rang twice. A familiar voice answered.
“Stinky Baby, come eat fish tonight,” Zhao Buxi said.
Fang Peizhi: ???
After the call, Zhao Buxi texted Fang the address and then hurriedly contacted Zhao Sheng.
In an office where the only sounds had been pages turning, Fang’s partner lifted his head from his documents after hearing the call. He said in a suggestive, thoroughly obnoxious tone, “Stinky Baby?”
Then he covered his nose and backed away. “Are you dating someone?”
Fang Peizhi gave him a look reserved for complete idiots. “Couldn’t you tell it was a man?”
The partner was bitterly disappointed. “Oh, a man. I thought you’d started dating.”
How boring.
But then again, the partner asked, “Why would a man call you Stinky Baby?”
“No idea.” Who knew where Zhao Buxi had learned that expression? Fang locked his phone. He had no idea how Zhao had gotten his number, and he had no intention of going to the address in the text.
At six that evening, outside Xianyun Pavilion, Fang Peizhi came face-to-face with a hastily arriving Zhao Sheng and Lu Fengtong’s girlfriend.
Fang Peizhi: …
Zhao Sheng looked surprised. He hadn’t expected this coincidence. “Professor Fang, you’re eating here too?”
Fang Peizhi was also visibly startled when he saw Zhao Sheng.
“You’re eating here?”
“Yes. My brother invited me to a banquet.”
Remembering the phone call that afternoon, Fang Peizhi took out his phone and checked the address Zhao Buxi had texted him.
The locations were identical.
Lu Fengtong’s girlfriend was named Chen Yuli. The moment she saw Fang Peizhi, she covered her mouth.
Good heavens, he’s handsome.
No wonder people said you had to come to a high-end place like this to see handsome men.
But Chen Yuli only dared steal a few glances. Fang Peizhi’s air of wealth and refinement was intimidating.
After greeting Zhao Sheng, Fang Peizhi went inside.
Not long after he left, Zhao Buxi and Lu Fengtong arrived too. As soon as they got out of their rideshare, they saw Zhao Sheng and Chen Yuli waiting at the entrance.
Zhao Buxi looked left and right but couldn’t see Fang Peizhi, so he asked Zhao Sheng whether he’d spotted him.
“Professor Fang said he was having dinner with someone else tonight, so he went inside first.”
Well, Zhao had invited him, but if their dinner engagements happened to clash, there was nothing he could do.
Inside the private dining room, Liang Shujia was chatting happily. He’d expected his taunting phone call to scare Lu Fengtong away. Instead, the door opened and Lu arrived with what looked like his entire extended family.
Not only Zhao Sheng and Chen Yuli, but the assistant’s second uncle too.
Liang Shujia: ???
Who the hell are all these people?!
Did they come for a free banquet?!
The meal was demolished at whirlwind speed. Liang Shujia had never expected Lu Fengtong to dare come at all, and now he’d lost an excellent fish into the bargain.
Zhao Sheng had homework to finish that evening and needed to leave early. Zhao Buxi told him to say a few words before going.
Holding water instead of wine, Zhao Sheng said with his usual expressionless solemnity, “Thank you, President Lu, for treating us tonight.”
Liang Shujia: … What’s that kid trying to say? I’m the one paying for this damn meal.
Not long after Zhao Sheng left, the others had eaten almost everything too. Their guiding principle was simple: eat and run.
Before Liang Shujia could apply any pressure, they’d already walked out of Xianyun Pavilion.
Beijing summer nights were muggy enough to feel as though someone had put the whole city inside a plastic bag. While waiting by the road for a rideshare, Zhao Buxi went to a convenience store to buy ice pops.
He reached into a freezer and picked out several at random. Only when he went to pay did he notice that some had rather strange names.
He took out one called a Big Snow Bar, frowned at its wrapper, and wondered: Why would anyone name an ice pop Big Chicken Stick?
Who came up with names like that for frozen treats?
As he walked back, he noticed someone else had appeared at the place where they’d been waiting for the rideshare. It was none other than Fang Peizhi, whose dinner engagement supposedly hadn’t coincided with theirs.
Zhao Buxi went over to greet him. “Professor Fang.”
Hearing his voice, Fang looked up and fell into a meaningful silence. They’d run into each other after all.
Zhao Buxi had bought an extra ice pop. When he handed them around, he naturally gave one to Fang too.
Good thing he’d bought an extra. If that hot-tempered man had seen everyone getting one but him, who knew what he would have thought?
It was sweltering. Fang Peizhi accepted the ice pop. “Thank you.”
Zhao Buxi unwrapped his own and put it in his mouth. “I just happened to buy an extra.”
But after his first bite, he almost spat it out.
Sometimes something went wrong during production and an ice pop came out with no sweetness at all, only a strange astringent taste. Zhao Buxi had run into this often as a child when he bought ice pops for half a yuan or one yuan. He hadn’t expected the same problem with one that cost four yuan.
He couldn’t stomach another bite. He shoved it back into the wrapper in a crumpled mess. What rotten luck.
Unfortunately, Zhao Buxi hated the heat. Other people bought ice pops to cool down, but his was inedible. Before long, half his body was sweating.
Their rideshare was only a few hundred meters away. There wasn’t time to go buy another.
Seeing that Fang Peizhi still had half of his ice pop, Zhao Buxi said,
“Professor Fang, let me have a bite of your Big Chicken Stick.”