Chapter 97: The Importance of Academic Credentials

The blond-haired man lifted his head and glanced at him once before going back to idly toying with the fruit knife in his hand.

Liu Qingwen did not look the least bit embarrassed. The man had extraordinary talent when it came to smoothing things over; it was as if there was no one he could not handle.

And so, after a bit of back-and-forth, shameless and persistent as ever, the two of them were laughing uproariously within five minutes.

Watching from the side, Fang Yi felt his scalp go numb.

Just as Fang Yi was wondering why Liu Qingwen had gone to such lengths to curry favor with the blond-haired man, Liu Qingwen finally revealed his purpose. He leaned in with a sly grin. “Brother, where can I get a haircut around here?”

“A haircut?” The blond-haired man frowned at him, utterly baffled.

Fang Yi took a deep breath beside him and said loudly, “He’s asking where there’s a salon.”

The instant those words were out, the area nearby fell dead silent. Countless eyes turned toward Fang Yi.

He was left staring blankly, goose bumps rising all over his skin.

“Did I... say something wrong?”

The blond-haired man lazily lifted his eyelids and looked at him, then raised a hand toward the crowd, and only then did the murderous stares fade.

“The female barbers in this area are all Dragon Lord’s girlfriends. Don’t come here looking for a haircut.”

“The brother inside standing on his head is the example of what happens.”

Liu Qingwen winced in sympathy and said with a pained expression, “No way. Dragon Lord is that impressive?”

Just as he was about to ask more, Chai Jin came out from inside, followed by Dragon Lord.

The two of them were chatting and laughing as they walked.

The moment they appeared, the teahouse once again sank into utter silence.

Everyone stared at Chai Jin in disbelief.

Dragon Lord’s teahouse had been here for at least over a decade. In those years of wild profiteering and chaos, there were always red armbands chasing people outside.

But once anyone ran into Dragon Lord’s teahouse, no one dared come in to arrest them.

Because of that, Dragon Lord had protected many people with his influence and earned the reverence of countless locals in Shenzhen.

Over the past ten-odd years, tycoons worth tens of millions had come and gone through this tea house, and even powerful figures from the south’s political circles had passed through its doors.

And yet, when had anyone ever seen Dragon Lord personally stand up to escort someone out?

That was why the people in the teahouse were so stunned, frantically trying to figure out who this young man could possibly be.

Why would Dragon Lord show him so much respect?

Once they reached the door, the blond-haired man also stood up and looked at Chai Jin with equal curiosity.

What shocked everyone in the hall even more was that when Dragon Lord reached the blond-haired man’s table, he simply tore a sheet of paper off the table and scrawled a single large character on it.

Then he handed it to Chai Jin. “Take this to the Menglu Salon next door and spend it there.”

Chai Jin had not expected Zhang Yinglong to pull something like this. He took the slip in confusion. “What is this?”

“Dragon Lord, this... I don’t get it.”

“You don’t see that this is the character for ‘compare’?” Zhang Yinglong’s face was awkward to the extreme, but he immediately turned and barked, “Damn it, A Lang, you useless little bastard, this is the character for ‘compare’!”

In the crowd, a burly man suddenly looked as though he had urgently come down with the runs, his face twisted with misery.

The blond-haired man knew Dragon Lord best of all, so he took the pen and added a stroke to the side. “Dragon Lord, now this is the character for an approval slip.”

Only then did Chai Jin suddenly understand.

In this neighborhood, the only way anyone could dare go get a haircut at the nearest salon was with a permit slip from Dragon Lord.

Dragon Lord looked at Chai Jin. “Now the character’s correct, right?”

Chai Jin smiled. “Correct now, Dragon Lord. Then I’ll trouble you with the rest.”

Dragon Lord laughed heartily. “A trifle. Wait for my news. I’ll put this dinner together myself.”

Then he looked at the blond-haired man again. “Someone who made it through fourth grade really is different. A Hu, you’ve done well. Out of everyone here, you’re the most educated. Keep it up. Your future is limitless.”

The blond-haired man smiled. “Thank you, Dragon Lord.”

Zhang Yinglong walked to the center of the hall and roared at the group of rough, broad-shouldered men.

“Reform and opening up has been going on for more than a decade, and you still can’t even write a single character. Aren’t you dragging the country down?”

“Tomorrow I’ll hire a pinyin teacher. All of you are to study properly.”

“A bunch of illiterates.”

“Especially you, A Lang. You damned fool, didn’t you brag to my face that you’d finished second grade?”

“When did second grade get to be your level?”

...

After Chai Jin and the others came out, Liu Qingwen could not hold back his laughter. “What kind of people does Dragon Lord even keep around him?”

“How does having an elementary school diploma make someone a high-level talent?”

Chai Jin asked back, “Did you even finish elementary school?”

Liu Qingwen scratched his head, troubled. “If I hadn’t set off that firecracker under Old Jiang’s backside back then, I probably would’ve made it into middle school.”

“Spare me,” Chai Jin said, rolling his eyes at him.

Liu Qingwen had originally truly wanted to take Dragon Lord down to Menglu Salon, but Chai Jin dragged him straight onto the bus.

They did not go back to the company, but returned instead to the place they had rented.

Shenzhen in 1992 did not yet have so many skyscrapers, and many migrants were squeezed into all kinds of farmhouses.

When Liu Qingwen and the others had been looking for a place, they had deliberately thought about practicality.

So they rented a compound, somewhat like a small courtyard house in the capital.

The surroundings could hardly be called pleasant. Shenzhen was in the middle of a great development boom, and dust was everywhere.

Fortunately, there were mountains behind it, so it was considered one of the better houses in the area.

They knew Chai Jin would eventually come back, so they had even cleaned out a room for him in advance.

Once back in the courtyard, Chai Jin asked about the identity cards.

The thirty thousand identity cards were piled into several burlap sacks in a side room.

After coming in and thinking it over, Chai Jin said, “Don’t go to the company for the time being. Wait until Dragon Lord gets this dinner arranged.”

“Before this is settled, I’m afraid they might come and hurt people.”

“From today on, the two of you keep collecting identity cards in Shenzhen.”

“And Monkey, call back to Yuanli County and find the people you know. Keep collecting there too. For every identity card you bring in, we’ll give a ten-cent commission.”

“The more, the better.”

That was something Liu Qingwen had never figured out, and he could not help asking, “Brother Jin, what exactly are we collecting these for?”

This time Chai Jin did not hide it from them. He explained the Shenzhen subscription certificates.

It took the two of them quite a while before the words finally sank in.

While thinking it over, Chai Jin had another idea: since they were going to do this, they might as well do it big.

He then told Liu Qingwen to start recruiting people from the major construction sites in the cities around Shenzhen.

Two days in line, round-trip transportation, meals included, fifty yuan a day.

Bring in as many people as possible. First, get the queue assembled.

There would be plenty more work after that.

For example, the question of feeding so many people, and transporting them back and forth.

They would also need to arrange buses by negotiating with bus companies, and so on.

Only then did Fang Yi realize that Chai Jin’s mind contained such an enormous plan.

Still, he could not help asking with some unease, “Brother Jin, why are you so sure that Shenzhen’s subscription certificates will have to be bought with identity cards?”

Chai Jin did not explain too much. He only said, “I have inside connections.”

“We don’t have much time left. We need to make the arrangements as fast as possible.”