Chapter 15 Undeterred
The producer did not make Jian Zhen bow her head at the meeting, but afterwards she put pressure on all parties, forcing everyone to take turns to do ideological work on Jian Zhen. Among them, the most difficult one was director Yang Damei. Sister Damei was over forty years old, and in theory she should have been at the peak of her creative career, but she was pushed to the edge of the beautiful by an unseen hand and took on the old project "Mystery Valley" with an uncertain future.
When she finally found Jian Zhen that day, she had some free time. Jian Zhen was writing on a sticky note while chewing on a cookie.
Jian Zhen's paintings are exquisite, but her handwriting is bold and unrestrained. Sister Da Mei stood beside her and watched quietly for a moment. She found that she had written the piece "Heaven will entrust great responsibilities to this person". The sticky note was not big. She wrote two sentences and then tore off a piece and held it in her hand. Finally, when she finished writing the last sentence "Then we know that we are born in hardship and die in comfort", her hand could hardly hold any more.
Da Mei stepped back half a step, clearing the way for the trash can to be dropped. Sure enough, Jian Zhen raised her hand and threw the crumpled paper into the trash can, saying without even looking up, "Did you need something from me?"
"You know perfectly well why you're asking." Sister Da Mei smiled helplessly and pulled over an empty chair to sit down.
Jian Zhen wrote a few more words on the sticky note, but this time she tore it off and stuck it on the bottom edge of the computer screen instead of clutching it in her hand.
Following her movement, Da Mei looked at the paper and saw four large characters written with strong, powerful strokes, seemingly penetrating the paper and possessing a sharp, piercing quality: "Go forward without hesitation."
"Why is this posted?" Sister Da Mei's attention was diverted.
"Several years ago, I read a magazine interview with Lin Sheng. The editor-in-chief asked him, 'If you encounter many obstacles in the creative process, what will you do?' His answer was this—'Go forward without hesitation.'" Jian Zhen pointed to a sticky note with her pen, then turned her chair around to face Sister Da Mei and said, "Director, you don't need to say anything. I agree."
"You agree..." Just as Sister Da Mei was about to ask what you agreed to, she realized before she could finish her sentence that she meant you agreed to temporarily serve as Er Yuan.
Looking at the faint smile on her face, Yang Damei was so moved that she was momentarily confused, and tears welled up in her eyes as she said, "You, I, sigh... you've worked so hard."
"If I were afraid of hardship, I would have quit this industry long ago. I just want to be responsible for my work." Jian Zhen has grown a lot in her work, and she spoke these words calmly. She even had the mood to comfort the anxious Da Mei: "By the way, Director, I have some good news for you. Do you want to hear it?"
"What good news?" Yang Damei quickly wiped away her tears and leaned closer.
"Zixin has found a new job."
"So fast!"
"Yes, I work at a game company. I heard I earn much more a month now than before."
"I'm happy for her," Yang Damei said sincerely.
Jian Zhen smiled without saying anything. A job can't only have advantages. When Zi Xin was telling her about her new job, she also mentioned a problem: the biggest selling point of the game the company was making was the realistic art reproduction, but the scene materials that the team collected in the UK last year were lost, and they couldn't even find a backup. The world is really a huge makeshift operation.
"Then what should we do?" Jian Zhen asked at the time.
"We'll just have to go and pick them again."
Jian Zhen's eyes darted around, thinking to herself, "Isn't that great? A company-funded trip!" But Zi Xin saw through her thoughts and shook her head vigorously, saying, "Nobody wants to go because they have to accompany the boss, the new, parachuted-in boss."
The combination of "newcomer," "parachuted in," and "boss" made Jian Zhen gasp, almost triggering her PTSD.
However, if she could turn the globe and focus her gaze on Great Britain, ten thousand kilometers away, and see the boss himself, who had just gotten off the bus on the streets of London, through the thick fog, she might be able to overturn her current view.
Xu Weisheng wore a long cashmere coat, brown Chelsea boots, and silver frameless glasses. His hair had been styled with hairspray before he left, giving him a dashing and unruly slicked-back look.
He came to buy coffee, and it's unclear what the point of dressing up like that was. Anyway, as soon as he entered, he immediately attracted everyone's attention in the store with his dazzling appearance, even You Yu, who was munching on a croissant in the corner, looked up.
Hao Jiaren was speechless at the way this guy made his entrance, but he still folded up the newspaper in his hand and held it up to him from a distance.
Xu Weisheng curled the corners of her lips, took three steps in two, walked up to him, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
"You're even wearing perfume?" Hao Jiaren was considered quite refined among his peers, but compared to Xu Weisheng today, he paled in comparison. He took a deep sniff and said in a low voice, "Who are you trying to impress with all this ostentation?"
"Of course, it's for those who can't stand to see me doing well." Xu Weisheng was in high spirits, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, leaning back, staring intently at the person opposite him, his eyes smiling.
"Don't look at me like that, it's giving me goosebumps." Hao Jiaren curled his lip in disgust. "Didn't your old man decide to abandon the darkness and embrace the light a long time ago?"
“I didn’t say anything about him.” Xu Weisheng laughed and turned away to take a sip of coffee.
"Are you talking about your imposter brother?"
"This barista's skills are pretty good," Xu Weisheng said, glancing down at the cup and praising in a lighthearted tone.
Hao Jiaren rolled his eyes dismissively. In his opinion, Xu Weisheng's smug look was rather annoying. But then he thought about it again. Compared to the down-and-out guy he had met in Beijing half a year ago, when he had hosted a welcome dinner for Xu Weisheng, the two of them sat in a barbecue restaurant drinking beer. Even someone as EQ-wise as President Hao was curious about his old friend's experiences over the years, but dared not ask any questions.
It wasn't until the effects of the alcohol began to kick in that he cautiously asked Xu Weisheng what was wrong.
Xu Weisheng initially downplayed his failed entrepreneurial journey, introducing numerous anecdotes to make fun of himself. As he talked, he traced back to his passionate adolescence, with pride and self-satisfaction flashing in his eyes from time to time. Later, when he talked about his childhood, he started hugging a bottle of liquor, laughing and crying at the same time.
Even now, Hao Jiaren doesn't blame himself for being soft-hearted; anyone would feel sorry for Xu Weisheng because of that appearance.
He summarized Xu Weisheng's first half of life as: "A lone sail on a distant journey, a small boat capsizing."
Unexpectedly, this kid's life took a turn for the better in the second half of his life, and he started to have great luck. To be specific, when he was brought home from Yungang with his hands and feet tied up, he thought that his own father had taken him back to be a stepping stone for his younger brother. But when the old man was lying in bed and the door to the ward was closed, he suddenly sat up, stared at him with shining eyes and said, "The second son is not my biological child."
Xu Weisheng uttered the most bewildered question mark of his life: "Huh?"
After turning fifty, Xu Lijun's health had been poor. Having been ill for a long time and worn down by the hospital, even the most stubborn person had to soften. Even though admitting that both of his marriages ended in failure was a huge embarrassment for him, he honestly told the truth.
It turns out that when Aunt Liu was pregnant, she hadn't broken up with her boyfriend yet, and it was impossible to be sure which man was the father of the baby. But who the biological father was didn't matter. What mattered was that Aunt Liu hoped it was Xu Lijun's child and convinced Xu Lijun to believe it was his child.
After the child was born, his appearance and figure were exactly like Aunt Liu's, which relieved many people. At least for the time being, no one would doubt his kinship.
As his youngest son grew up, Xu Lijun poured a lot of resources into him, trying to cultivate him into an excellent, or at least qualified, successor. But he was just too disappointing. His grades were bad, and he spent his days teasing cats and dogs, bullying the weak, and flirting with female classmates, almost causing Xu Lijun several public relations incidents.
As he grew up and lost his childish appearance, this young master looked more and more like his mother before her plastic surgery. If those features were on the face of a young Aunt Liu, they would only be considered unattractive, but on his face, they looked like a weasel-faced monster and were quite sleazy.
Xu Lijun became increasingly dissatisfied, suspecting it was due to his environment. Coincidentally, the young master failed the high school entrance exam, so he immediately made the decision to send him abroad to study at an American high school. Ironically, no one knows how the young master managed to get into that school, but every year when he came home, he could only speak a few English phrases. Aside from everyday expressions like hello, goodbye, and how much money, if you asked him anything further, the young master would start displaying the uncivilized language he had learned.
What exactly happened? The Xu family has absolutely top-notch genes.
Unable to find the reason within himself, Xu Lijun turned his suspicious gaze to Aunt Liu, who was intently applying luxurious face cream in front of her dressing table. He was getting old, and as the saying goes, a fox grows more suspicious with age.
Was the woman who was willing to endure public condemnation to get into his bed truly conquered by his charm? Or was she inherently frivolous, promiscuous, and unscrupulous?
Xu Lijun harbored a seed of doubt and kept looking for opportunities to verify his thoughts. He called his second son back from the United States, threw him a game company business to keep him occupied, and hired a private investigator to collect materials for a paternity test. He even chose two completely unrelated private investigators to ensure that he was not deceived.
As a result, the two certificates were handed to his desk one after the other, and the conclusions were consistent: he was not his biological son.
The heavy stone in Xu Lijun's chest finally fell to the ground, followed by countless smaller stones. Like a torrent of stones rushing forth, Xu Weisheng and the game company that was about to go down the drain were two of them.
No one in the world can defy time, and as a patient, Xu Lijun especially understood this. He knew clearly that he was not far from passing away, so he became unusually tolerant of Xu Weisheng, this stubborn rock in the latrine.
Xu Lijun: "I will settle the accounts between him and your Aunt Liu one by one. I called you back because there are some things I need to tell you."
In that hospital room, Xu Weisheng secretly signed a number of agreements concerning inheritance. At first, he thought with emotion that everyone has to make choices. Xu Lijun had given up his deep-seated prejudice against him for the sake of the family line. This was truly a last resort.
Later, when Xu Weisheng signed autographs, his inner feelings were just as calm as his outward appearance.
Money is just numbers; when you're so rich, even keeping track of your finances becomes a huge undertaking.
At the end of this month, with the Lunar New Year approaching, Xu Lijun was having a heated debate with someone about whether or not to let Aunt Liu go home for the New Year. No one knows who started it, but their argument dragged in the second son standing nearby. When Xu Lijun saw the boy, he got even angrier and wanted to take him to the police station immediately and change the "Xu" character on his ID card.
With the Second World War about to break out in the Xu family, Xu Weisheng volunteered to stay away from the battlefield and participate in the data collection work of this small game company as a photography consultant. In fact, he also had his own selfish reasons. He had come all the way to London to find someone.
Hao Jiaren diagnosed his friend's adolescent delusions as incurable, and could only sigh heavily, pulling a brown paper bag from his backpack: "All the information you need is here."
Xu Weisheng had coffee foam still on his lips, and before he could lick it off, he reached out to take it.
Hao Jiaren didn't let go immediately, but looked at him and said, "Promise me you won't do anything bad."
"How could that be?" Xu Weisheng smiled mischievously and forcefully pulled the paper bag from his hand: "I just wanted to ask Daoke Tema how he turned the wildly popular billiards into a flop animation back then."
Hao Jiaren: "Hello—"
Although it's not illegal, it sounds incredibly immoral!
Xu Weisheng bent down to untie the drawstring of the brown paper bag and smiled, "Don't worry, we're both in the same boat, I won't laugh at him unilaterally."
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