Chapter 1647 Did they try to scam me?
"Hey, the food's here! I haven't cooked in a while, so I'm a bit rusty. Please forgive me if the taste is a little off."
Li Ye and his senior female classmates were quite efficient, cooking two dishes in one pot. With only twenty-odd people and twenty dishes, everything was arranged before noon.
After the dishes were served, Li Ye prepared to join Cai Minying, Yu Xiufen and others at a table. He was the youngest there, so he belonged to the "children and women" table.
But Zhang Qiyan yelled at Li Ye, "Li Ye, you've finished cooking, why aren't you here keeping your fellow disciples company? What are you doing hanging out with your fellow disciples? Are you Jia Baoyu?"
Li Ye chuckled sheepishly, "Teacher, I was thinking that according to my age, I should be sitting here!"
At dinner tables in mainland China, seating arrangements based on age are a relatively "harmonious" method, because unless the general public is so virtuous that they "don't care," you always need a rule that is accepted by everyone.
The later saying that "if you pass the civil service exam and don't sit down to eat, you're not allowed to sit down" is pure nonsense. If seating were actually arranged according to job position and wealth, that would be a foolish act that would exacerbate the conflict.
Arranging brothers by age is much more amicable. You call me "brother," and I call you "younger brother." At least people are concerned with family ties rather than interests, making it much easier to accept.
Since Li Ye is the youngest, it's perfectly reasonable for him not to go to Zhang Qiyan's table.
But Zhang Qiyan said, "Come here! Everyone's here today, and there are many of you you don't even know. We're giving you a chance to introduce you, so don't always hide in the back."
"I didn't dodge!"
Li Ye could no longer refuse, so he quickly left the group of women and went to Zhang Qiyan's table.
A group of big shots, or future big shots, all smiled and pulled out chairs and brought bowls and chopsticks for Li Ye, taking gentle care of this little brother.
Zhang Qiyan introduced Li Ye to everyone, saying, "This is Li Ye, whom I've told you about before. You've all seen him today, right? He's observant, skilled, and most importantly, he knows how to be humble."
"Yes, I've heard a lot about this junior brother before. Our teacher used to praise him to the skies, and I was a little unconvinced. But meeting him today, he's even better than I imagined."
"Indeed, I've paid a lot of attention to Li Ye over the past few years. To be honest, it's truly remarkable, very remarkable."
“.”
Perhaps out of respect for the teacher, or perhaps because they genuinely had a good impression of Li Ye, several senior students praised him, making Li Ye feel quite ashamed.
But there are exceptions.
Zhang Chaoxian was one of the oldest among his fellow apprentices, but sitting at the table, he was not as popular as Li Ye, who was at the bottom of the table, so he naturally felt bad.
So he also praised Li Ye: "Li Ye's skills are really good. This hot and sour shredded potatoes is absolutely delicious. With this kind of skill, if he could open a restaurant in Lighthouse, he'd be making a fortune every day."
Everyone turned to look, finding the situation both amusing and absurd.
Are we talking about the same thing?
Zhang Qiyan glanced at Zhang Chaoxian, then calmly said, "Li Ye's skills are not limited to cooking."
In less than eight years of working, he transformed a near-bankrupt company into a leader in the mainland light truck and light passenger vehicle industry, and its growth momentum is only getting stronger. He has already been internally selected as an outstanding reserve talent by higher authorities.
"Oh~"
Even though Shang Ruilin, Diao Wenyao, and others already had a high opinion of Li Ye, they couldn't help but exclaim in surprise at this moment.
What did Zhang Qiyan mean by that?
A designated reserve talent? Whose superior? Zhang Qiyan's superior. That would be dozens of stories high!
Zhang Chaoxian was even more puzzled, because if Li Ye was so capable, why would he work as a cook in the kitchen serving more than twenty people?
Unable to understand, Zhang Chaoxian asked Li Ye directly, "Li Ye, how did you manage to catch the eye of the higher-ups in just eight years?"
How did I do that? You're asking me what secret I'm hiding, aren't you?
"Don't listen to the teacher's boasting about me. I'm just a deputy factory manager. The factory's success is all thanks to everyone's help, unlike you who's working hard overseas all by yourself."
Li Ye had long understood a principle: when you talk to someone, say what they like to hear most, and you can interrupt their questioning and hostility.
Upon hearing Li Ye's words, Zhang Chaoxian smiled and said, "You've spoken the truth. In all my years at Lighthouse, I've never stopped learning. I've devoured two large boxes of these thick professional books."
Zhang Chaoxian gestured with his hand to indicate the thickness of the large book, then exclaimed, "English is the most precise language in the world. You have no idea how professional its applications are."
Being able to converse with people is only the mark of a primary school student; to excel in a professional field requires unimaginable effort.
Li Ye said with a smile, "Yes, yes, I've heard that there are three or four hundred thousand words in English, and ordinary people can't understand the professional terms at all. It's the same in your financial industry, right?"
"Ordinary investors are right in front of you, so whatever you say goes, since they can't understand it anyway, right?"
"Hey, it's good that they don't understand. If they did, what would be the point of having us professional traders? Do you know how much I suffered to get my trading license? How can I be treated like an ordinary person?"
Zhang Chaoxian didn't catch the sarcasm in Li Ye's words. On the contrary, he felt quite proud. After all, swindling investors' money into their own pockets was their proudest achievement and their most basic job requirement.
Professional English is one of the powerful tools that guide ordinary investors. In 1989, the Oxford English Dictionary contained 300,000 main words, and by 2009, the number of words included had reached more than 610,000.
Anything that develops rapidly in the world is driven by profit. In twenty years, the English vocabulary has increased by 300,000 words. Why do you think that is?
Are they bored?
No, they do this so that you can't understand tax returns, legal documents, insurance documents, or the reasons they give for refusing coverage after an incident.
The Chinese characters, including rare characters, number only about 20,000. A junior high school student can read most professional materials without difficulty with the help of a dictionary and Baidu, and then file complaints and appeals as appropriate.
On the other side of the lighthouse, many people who have been making money for decades need to seek help from professionals, otherwise they themselves will not know how much tax they need to pay, what laws they have broken, or whether their interests have been protected.
Just last year, Sister Zhen from San Francisco told Li Ye about something: her child was sick and spent a week in the hospital, and the medical bills were terrifying. Then the insurance company refused to cover this or that.
Fortunately, Sister Zhen's company had a professional lawyer, and because Li Ye was a hidden shareholder, the lawyer's attitude towards Chinese people was always good. After several rounds of negotiation, the matter was resolved by paying only one-seventh of the money.
And that six-sevenths of the money is the lawyer's hidden value.
How much do you have to pay to get into this kind of "high-powered" industry? Can you get your professional qualifications without spending a six-figure sum in US dollars?
Just like what Dong Ge said—"When I was in college, there were still many students from impoverished families who got into Renmin University, but now there are fewer and fewer."
The version on the other side of the Great Firewall is already way ahead of the mainland version. At least the mainland version leaves a loophole for ordinary families, so that geniuses like Pang Zhongwang are not buried because of poverty.
Of course, those who survive the difficult growth period will reap rich rewards.
Putting aside other things, just look at the family soap operas on the other side of the world. Many of the main characters are lawyers or doctors, while the main characters in mainland Chinese dramas are domineering CEOs and wealthy heiresses.
So the lawyers and doctors there are not on the same level as their counterparts in China.
Where does the wealth needed to maintain that level of wealth come from? It can't just fall from the sky, can it?
But Zhang Chaoxian, a high-level financial trader, devoured the food like a starving ghost who hadn't eaten for three days at an ordinary family dinner table in China.
"Old Zhang, how long has it been since you've had cauliflower?"
"Hey, after eating steak and drinking so much liquor all the time, it's quite a novel experience to try something different, smack smack!"
"Aren't there Chinese restaurants in Lighthouse? If you miss home, just go and have a meal there!"
"Those Chinese restaurants are all liars; not only is the food inauthentic, but they're also ridiculously expensive."
"Then cook it yourself! You've already earned a master's degree in finance, learning to cook is a piece of cake."
"Where would I find the time? Besides, cooking ingredients are hard to come by."
“.”
While chatting idly with his old classmates, Zhang Chaoxian kept eating, but suddenly he frowned and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
"Hiss~, Li Ye, you put too much chili in this dish you made today."
"Too much chili? No, right? Only these two dishes have chili."
Li Ye was very puzzled, thinking, "You were eating so happily just now, why are you going to scold the cook after you've finished eating?"
But soon, Zhang Chaoxian clutched his stomach and started groaning.
Li Ye was so shocked he almost stood up.
He knew about the old lady from Lighthouse who received hundreds of thousands in compensation after burning her lip at McDonald's.
"One who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black." After living in the lighthouse for so many years, has Zhang Chaoxian's behavior and habits unconsciously become Westernized?
"But I just made this food, and you already have a stomachache after eating it? You can't fake an accident this quickly, can you?"
(End of this chapter)
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