Early the next morning, Xie Chong went to Jingdezhen. He arrived at around one in the afternoon.
Someone told him that the businessman surnamed Chen was eating spicy chicken feet at a small shop beside the factory, so he went over to take a look.
The man surnamed Chen wore glasses. He looked decent enough on the outside, with a polished, almost Westernized air about him. He seemed to be about the same age as Xie Chong. Before coming, Xie Chong had done his research. Chen was from Northeast China and had later lived in the United States, where he was very close with the local Chinese community. He had some money behind him.
But who didn’t have a little money?
Xie Chong turned around and went to the factory.
His lawyer, Wang Xianhe, was already waiting at the factory entrance. She was around forty, with short hair, glasses, a shirt and trousers, and thin-heeled high heels. She looked extremely capable.
“You’re here early, Lawyer Wang,” Xie Chong said.
“I just saw you go into that little restaurant.”
Wang Xianhe knew Xie Chong well. He had a childish side to him, and his curiosity was stronger than anything else. Since that man surnamed Chen had provoked him, he naturally had to go see what the man looked like first. By now, he had probably already insulted him a dozen times in his head and felt much better.
“I won’t say anything later. Lawyer Wang, just negotiate the compensation directly.”
Xie Chong kept both hands in his trouser pockets. After preparing himself mentally the night before, he was already calm.
That young man surnamed Chen was certainly capable, but most of his business was conducted overseas. He was not as familiar with the domestic business environment as Xie Chong was.
Wang Xianhe was very polite at first. She spoke with the factory manager about compensation and laid out the contract and the basis for the compensation.
In the small-goods export business at the time, there was a common understanding: whoever produced the goods first and got them overseas first would have the advantage when it came to future orders.
That man surnamed Chen had probably calculated this carefully and deliberately tried to steal Xie Chong’s business.
The factory manager had a good attitude.
“We did delay the delivery, so we accept the compensation.”
“That’s good.” Wang Xianhe nodded. “Since you accept the compensation, we also need a clear production schedule for our goods. We should sign a supplementary agreement.”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
Xie Chong remained silent throughout.
He absolutely had to get this batch of goods out first. But he also intended to collect the compensation.
His mind was already working quickly. He planned to corner that businessman surnamed Chen from every direction.
After Wang Xianhe finished negotiating, Xie Chong suddenly gave the factory manager a sharp look.
“Do you still want to do business?” Xie Chong slapped the table. “Don’t think you’re the only one who can make this mold.”
“That’s not what I mean.” The factory manager looked apologetic. “Let me be honest with you, President Xie. This isn’t really about money. I owe that person a favor, and now I have no choice but to repay it.”
“That’s your problem!”
Xie Chong stood up and walked outside.
“You figure it out!”
As he stepped out, the man surnamed Chen had already finished eating his spicy chicken feet and was coming back. The two men came face-to-face.
Xie Chong acted as if he didn’t know him.
Inside, he was thinking, Look at you. What a mess.
The man surnamed Chen also pretended not to recognize him.
The two men simply walked past each other with their chins held high.
Wang Xianhe asked, “You really don’t want to talk to him about finding a way for both sides to win?”
“If I talk to him now, he’ll only get more arrogant. I’ll take control of the situation first and make him come to me.”
“All right.”
Wang Xianhe checked the time.
“I have to go somewhere else. How many days will you stay in Jingdezhen?”
“About three days.”
“Okay. Contact me anytime.”
After seeing Wang Xianhe off, Xie Chong wandered around Jingdezhen by himself.
Foreigners loved Jingdezhen’s products. A set of tableware that cost only two or three hundred yuan in China could sell for three to five times that amount overseas.
The products could be purchased in large quantities, transported overland and then by sea, and a month or so later they would appear on supermarket shelves overseas.
Xie Chong wandered around Jingdezhen alone, and his mood was excellent.
He hated business dinners. Everyone at those tables spoke falsely, and everyone tried to make themselves sound more impressive than they really were. Xie Chong hated that kind of thing.
When he was alone, he could do whatever he wanted, even sit by the roadside and enjoy the sunlight.
Across from him, an old man was selling bowls.
Xie Chong walked over and took a look.
What a find.
Every bowl was one of a kind, with hand-applied glaze and hand-painted designs.
The paintings were traditional Chinese-style fine-line paintings.
Two bowls were especially beautiful.
One showed a little girl with her hair tied up, sitting on the back of a cow and eating a slice of watermelon.
The other showed a child wearing summer clothes and cooling himself under a grapevine with a palm fan on a summer night.
The little cow in the painting even looked somewhat like that calf from his childhood memories.
Xie Chong asked the old man, “How much are these two bowls?”
“Five hundred each.”
“How about five hundred for both?”
The old man glared at him and turned away.
“Not selling!”
“Are you selling them or not?” Xie Chong asked again. “If not, I’ll leave.”
“Not selling!”
“Oh. Then pack them up for me.”
He had absolutely no principles when it came to bargaining. He didn’t dare bargain one more time in case the old man cursed at him.
The old man snorted and packed the bowls for him.
Although he looked bad-tempered, he packed them with great care.
He treated the two bowls like his own treasures. First, he wrapped each one in three layers of soft paper, inside and out. Then he put them into a box and added a layer of foam around them.
He shook the box.
Nothing moved.
Then he turned to the little table where he kept his teapot, brushes, and ink. He took out an aged name card and asked Xie Chong:
“Are these for someone else or for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“If they’re a gift, I’ll write the recipient’s name. If you’re keeping them, I’ll write your name.”
That question left Xie Chong speechless.
The bowls were certainly artistic, but as a grown man, using them himself seemed a little too delicate.
As for giving them away, he didn’t know whom he would give them to.
Qian Song didn’t even eat at his place.
Jiang Wu didn’t like little things like these.
“Forget it. Just write the names of the works.”
The old man shook his head and sighed.
Xie Chong asked, “Why are you sighing?”
“I’m sighing because you’re all alone, with no one to care about.”
That sounded terrible.
Xie Chong turned around and walked away.
“I don’t want them anymore!”
After walking several steps, he couldn’t bear to leave the two beautiful bowls behind.
He turned back, paid the money, picked them up, and left.
Jingdezhen really had too many good things.
He kept wandering around.
There were little plates with raised designs that changed color when water was poured onto them, making a lifelike little fish appear to swim inside.
There were slender blue-and-white porcelain vases. Put a single flower in one, and the whole thing looked elegant and quiet.
There were round-bellied piggy banks painted with colorful little mythical money-guarding creatures, cheerful and adorable.
The only problem was that Xie Chong had an expensive taste.
Everything he liked was expensive.
Handmade goods were already costly, and what he happened to like were the best handmade pieces.
In less than two hours, he had spent nearly ten thousand yuan.
He carried all those interesting things back to the hotel, dropped them off, and went out again.
That evening, while eating spicy snails, he ran into the old man again.
The old man was drinking by himself. He remembered Xie Chong and teased him.
“The lonely man is back!”
“I’m not lonely,” Xie Chong replied.
“You don’t even know who you’re going to give those things to.”
The old man looked at him.
“Even if just one name crossed your mind…”
“None of them deserve it,” Xie Chong said. “Why do I have to give such good things to someone else? I’ll keep them for myself!”
He couldn’t be bothered with the old man’s endless talking and walked away.
What a strange old man.
Xie Chong had very few friends.
Giving things to clients as gifts felt inappropriate because he thought most of them were just pretending to appreciate art. He didn’t think they deserved his good things.
Just then, his phone rang.
The caller ID read: “The Number One Hero of Yakeshi.”
He answered and asked directly, “What’s up?”
Mu Wen replied, “Our company will be holding a client appreciation dinner at the China World Hotel. We sincerely invite Mr. Xie to attend.”
“Your industry has appreciation dinners too?” Xie Chong asked. “Can you squeeze more business out of clients after that?”
“Of course!”
Mu Wen said, “My master just said that other companies may not be very good at it, but our clients all have strong purchasing power. Buying three or five houses isn’t a big deal for them.”
“For example, Mr. Xie, you probably have other properties too. What if you renovate one of them in the future? What if you get tired of living in Wanliu and want to live in a big villa?”
“Why don’t I just go to heaven while I’m at it?” Xie Chong snorted. “When is it?”
“The night after tomorrow.”
“I’m not in Beijing then. I can’t go.”
“Oh…”
Mu Wen sounded disappointed.
The company was comparing employees based on how many clients they invited, and there would also be a competition based on actual business generated at the event. The top three would receive bonuses.
She wanted that bonus.
Xie Chong heard the disappointment in her voice and deliberately asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just… we’re having a competition too. If you don’t come… do you have any friends who can come?”
“No.”
Xie Chong said, “These dinners are boring. None of us go to them. I can’t help you. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
After hanging up, Mu Wen continued looking through the list of clients.
Clearly, inviting people was not going smoothly.
The clients assigned to her weren’t very good. The better clients were all in the hands of the company’s famous designers.
Xie Chong and four other clients were people she had helped Lin Weisen handle during her internship. Since Lin Weisen knew she was familiar with them, he had suggested assigning those clients to her.
Of those five clients, two had clearly said they had no time, two were undecided, and Xie Chong had directly refused her.
Mu Wen refused to give up.
She decided to call every single one of the fifty people on the list.
When Lin Weisen was getting ready to leave work, she was still making calls.
“Go home,” Lin Weisen told her. “These appreciation dinners are really just an opportunity to build relationships. Don’t take the results too seriously.”
“I’ll try a little longer.”
Mu Wen lowered her voice.
“HR said this is related to the Outstanding New Employee Award. Master, I want to win it. If I get the award, the company will start assigning me large, high-budget clients.”
Mu Wen was full of ambition.
“I have to be first at everything.”
She had always been like this.
She never hid how competitive she was.
Because she wanted to win, she was willing to put in more effort than anyone else.
“Then keep calling,” Lin Weisen said. “I’m going home.”
He made a gesture as if holding a baby.
“I need to go home and put my little one to sleep.”
“Go, go,” Mu Wen said. “I’ll leave after I finish all the calls.”
Mu Wen believed in putting in real effort.
Other people might not care about the numbers, but she did.
If she worked hard and still lost, she could accept losing.
But if she lost because she hadn’t worked hard enough, she would regret it.
It was just like preparing for the college entrance exam in high school.
Mu Wen had always been smart and had good grades, but she never dared to relax.
She did every practice test she could find—national tests, local tests, specialized practice sets from Huanggang.
After finishing the first round, she picked out every wrong answer and practiced those questions again.
Then she did a second round.
At that time, she barely participated in any entertainment activities.
When she closed her eyes, she saw mathematical formulas, Chinese passages she had memorized, English vocabulary…
Her classmates often told her she didn’t need to work so hard.
Even her teachers worried that she would become too tense and eventually break under the pressure.
Mu Wen always said, “I won’t.”
As she kept practicing, her fear of exams gradually decreased, while her confidence increased.
Only after the college entrance exam was completely over did she ask Ge Yunqing if she could go to the pastoral area for a while.
She spent that entire summer there.
She fed horses, herded sheep, and milked cows. Every day was packed with things to do.
The grassland winds were strong and the sun was fierce.
When she returned to university after the holiday, she had become a dark-skinned girl whose smile revealed a row of bright white teeth.
It took a long time for her skin to return to normal.
But all that hard work in the pastoral area had given her a strong body.
Before her classmates had even opened their eyes, she was already awake.
She would go running on the track and memorize her lessons.
Every day was full and meaningful.
The department head once told her:
“Someone who is both intelligent and willing to put in the hard, ordinary work is truly rare.”
Her hard work continued until ten at night.
Any later would have been too much.
After that, she sat at her desk and “reviewed” the client information, determined to memorize every single client.
On the night of the dinner, she wore a white formal dress and a pair of thin-heeled high heels.
She had borrowed the outfit from Chu Ling.
Chu Ling often attended meetings for work, so she had prepared several formal outfits.
Mu Wen was slightly taller than Chu Ling. The long dress that reached Chu Ling’s ankles revealed Mu Wen’s slim ankles, while the heels made her look even taller.
She was afraid she would stumble, so she practiced walking around the house for a long time the day before.
No one was going to support her.
She had to hold her own.
She stood there like a young poplar tree, bright and eye-catching.
At the entrance, where she welcomed clients to the dinner, she recognized her own clients immediately and greeted them warmly by name.
She had also done her homework on possible topics of conversation.
From the entrance all the way to their seats, there was never an awkward silence.
Mu Wen had learned beforehand that a Mr. Liao had recently bought a luxury home.
When Mr. Liao arrived, she immediately went over to welcome him.
He felt as if a gentle breeze had blown toward him.
He hadn’t expected the woman who had called to invite him to be someone like this.
Mu Wen could tell that Mr. Liao didn’t dislike her, so she said, “If you find the dinner boring, I can sit outside with you for a while. The ice cream outside is really good.”
Mr. Liao agreed.
Near the end of the registration period, Mu Wen saw Xie Chong.
He pushed the door open and walked in, one hand in his trouser pocket, striding straight toward her.
Mu Wen froze.
She had never expected him to suddenly appear.
Seeing her standing there blankly, Xie Chong asked:
“Where do I sign in?”
Only then did Mu Wen come back to her senses.
Xie Chong had come!
That meant she had one more attending client.
She was now tied for first place!
Mu Wen’s face immediately lit up.
Her gratitude toward Xie Chong was impossible to contain. She almost wanted to kneel down and bow to him several times.
At that moment, she liked Xie Chong even more.
He seemed like some kind of heroic character from a movie.
She was so happy inside.
“You came back early?” Mu Wen asked with a bright smile, her voice gentler than usual.
“Yeah. I finished early.”
Xie Chong picked up the pen and signed his name.
His handwriting was strong and elegant, standing out among all the carefully practiced business signatures around him.
Even the coworker handling registration couldn’t help praising it.
“Beautiful handwriting.”
“Thank you. Where’s the welcome gift?” Xie Chong asked.
“We prepared extra!”
Mu Wen bent down to get one.
Only then did Xie Chong notice what she looked like that evening.
She seemed like a completely different person—elegant and confident.
Except for the bloody scrape on the back of her heel.
He quickly looked away and took the gift.
“Do you have another one? Give me another set. A friend is coming later.”
Mu Wen’s eyes widened.
Her smile practically flew out of her eyes and spread in every direction.
Xie Chong noticed that she was always like this.
Whenever something made her happy, she seemed to let that happiness burst out of her completely.
It was as if the whole world suddenly became filled with her joy.
“Thank you for signing in for your friend first, Mr. Xie.”
Mu Wen handed him the registration book.
Her manner was almost overly eager and flattering.
Xie Chong signed for Qian Song, glanced at Mu Wen once more, and turned away.
When Qian Song arrived, he quietly complained to Xie Chong:
“That awful China World traffic was terrible. I told you I didn’t want to come, but you insisted.”
“Have a drink with me later.”
Qian Song immediately stopped complaining.
President Xie was treating him to drinks in one of the most expensive parts of Beijing.
Mu Wen disappeared.
Xie Chong had something he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t see her anywhere.
His eyes searched the room, looking for that little poplar tree.
Qian Song asked, “Who are you looking for?”
“No one. I’m just seeing if there are any business opportunities here.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Qian Song snorted.
“If you really wanted business here, you’d have been going table to table drinking with people already. You wouldn’t be standing here looking around like that.”
Mu Wen’s boss brought several of the company’s famous designers around to toast the guests, so naturally, a newcomer like her had no place joining them.
Lin Weisen introduced the boss.
The boss raised his glass to Xie Chong and Qian Song, his tone full of polite humility.
“You two really have extraordinary presence. And you’re both so young.”
“And so eye-catching.”
The two men sitting there were practically living advertisements for the kind of well-brought-up young men from Beijing’s wealthy families.
The boss had met plenty of people.
Among Beijing’s wealthy second-generation families, some children were spoiled rotten, while others were raised properly.
Young men like these two, sitting there with such confidence and dignity, were not common.
Xie Chong said little and simply clinked glasses with the boss.
After the small talk ended, he wanted to leave.
But he felt that he should say goodbye to Mu Wen.
He called her, but she didn’t answer.
So he had no choice but to go looking for her.
Qian Song asked, “Where are you going?”
“I drank too much. I’m going to throw up. Wait here.”
Xie Chong searched through the hotel for a long time, all the way to the lobby on the first floor.
Then, in the hotel’s Western-style restaurant and bar, he saw Mu Wen from behind.
She was sitting across from a man, smiling as she talked to him.
She leaned slightly forward, as if she was particularly interested in the man.
The man was dressed simply, but his presence was extraordinary.
He wore glasses and looked to be around thirty, with a refined and scholarly appearance.
Mu Wen was saying something, gesturing animatedly with her hands, while the man nodded in agreement.
Xie Chong felt that Mu Wen’s manner looked somewhat too eager and flattering, as though she was desperate for success.
He didn’t think she needed to behave like that.
He walked behind a large potted plant nearby and listened for a while.
Mu Wen was asking:
“When are you planning to start the renovation, Mr. Liao? How about we sign an agreement of intent today?”
“Sure.”
Mr. Liao readily agreed.
“Can I specifically choose you as my designer?”
Mu Wen’s heart nearly burst with happiness.
She rubbed her palms together and nodded.
“Of course! This will be the first independent villa project I’ve ever designed!”
The first in her life.
An independent villa.
In Beijing, there was always someone better, and there was always a higher mountain.
Everyone understood that.
At that moment, Xie Chong realized that Mu Wen had only needed him to show up and increase her attendance count.
She had never expected him to bring her new business.
She had already set her sights on someone else.
She had done her homework in advance, and while everyone else was busy eating and drinking with the guests, she had seized the opportunity and brought this client outside.
Mu Wen never wasted effort.
She really was very smart.
She knew exactly what kind of effort was needed at exactly the right moment.
He was simply another piece of effort she had put in.
Xie Chong wasn’t surprised by this.
He turned and left.
By the time Mu Wen finished talking with Mr. Liao and returned to the dinner, Xie Chong was already gone.
She called him, but he rejected the call.
Then she sent him a message:
“Mr. Xie, I really didn’t expect you to come today, and you even brought a friend. I’m truly grateful to you. Really. There is a bonus for coming in first this time. May I be bold enough to invite you to dinner as a thank-you?”
Every sentence was polite and careful.
She didn’t cross any boundaries.
She had rewritten the message again and again before finally sending it.
Strangely, Xie Chong didn’t reply.
After returning home from the dinner, Mu Wen couldn’t shake the feeling that something was bothering her.
She kept checking her phone.
Even while washing her face, she placed her phone beside her.
When the screen lit up, she immediately picked it up.
It was Chu Ling asking whether everything had gone smoothly.
Mu Wen dried her hands and replied to Chu Ling before putting the phone down again.
While taking a shower, the hot water hit her ankles, making her flinch from the pain.
She lowered her head and saw how miserable her feet looked.
Her toes were covered in blisters, and the back of her heels was bloody.
“Ouch, ouch…”
She felt sorry for herself as she hopped back to the bed on one leg.
Then she checked her phone again and again.
But Xie Chong still hadn’t replied.