Chapter Twenty-Eight: Top of the City

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“We don’t have to go south anymore?”

Hearing this, Li Caiyu was stunned for a moment, unable to make sense of it.

Li Dongfeng, meanwhile, lit up whenever he mentioned Zhou Ziyang. He told his sister everything that had happened that day.

He told her that Zhou Ziyang truly had ability.

“The factory he took us to is supposedly owned by people from Taiwan! The wages are incredibly high—twenty yuan an hour! Sis, that’s even more than you make!”

Li Dongfeng spoke with great excitement.

Li Caiyu found it unbelievable as well. The factory where she worked was a local soy-sauce plant, and business there was poor. On average, she could not even be sure of earning thirteen yuan an hour. Yet Zhou Ziyang had somehow found her brother a job with such high pay.

She could not help turning to look at him.

Zhou Ziyang smiled at her and said to Li Dongfeng, “Now that you’re home, I won’t see you in. Don’t forget what I told you to do.”

“I know. Leave it to me!” Li Dongfeng promised repeatedly.

Zhou Ziyang nodded, greeted Li Caiyu once more, and prepared to leave.

In Li Caiyu’s eyes, Zhou Ziyang had done the family an enormous favor. He was practically their benefactor. Seeing that he was about to leave, she hurriedly said, “Why are you in such a rush? Come inside and have a cup of tea.”

“No need,” Zhou Ziyang replied. “I still have other things to take care of. Sis, Dongfeng has to report to the factory tomorrow, and you two siblings rarely get a chance to talk. Spend some time together.”

With that, he was already turning to go.

Li Dongfeng, however, continued singing Zhou Ziyang’s praises.

He said that he had only been granted the day off because of Zhou Ziyang’s influence.

“Zhou’s connections are incredible! Sis, you know that Mercedes? It costs more than five hundred thousand yuan! The factory manager is already in his thirties, but he still treats Zhou like a brother!”

From the housing compound all the way home, Li Dongfeng never stopped talking. Every other sentence was about Zhou Ziyang.

He went on about how remarkable Zhou was, how easily he chatted and laughed with the factory manager, and how much his friends respected him.

“They all call him Brother Zhou now!”

Walking behind him, Li Caiyu listened in silence before saying, “See? Even your friends have better manners than you.”

“I remember Ziyang is two months older than you. By rights, you should be calling him Brother Zhou too.”

“But aren’t we brothers?”

“Brothers are brothers, but you’ve left school and are now making a living under him. There still have to be rules. Think about it. Everyone else calls him Brother Zhou, while you shout his name all day long. After a while, he’s bound to feel uncomfortable.”

“Well…” Li Dongfeng hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

“Ziyang is a good person and broad-minded. He probably won’t take it to heart,” Li Caiyu said. “But you still need to correct your attitude.”

“You’ve tried looking for work before. Think about how difficult it is to find a job these days. Ziyang found you such a good position in an instant. Do you realize how great a favor that is?”

Li Caiyu continued patiently instructing her younger brother.

Li Dongfeng fell into thought. It seemed that she was right.

Their parents had died when they were young, so the two siblings had been forced to feel their way through society on their own.

Li Caiyu had never left the factory where she worked. All she knew was that finding a job was difficult. She earned only three or four thousand yuan a month, while Zhou Ziyang had found her brother a position paying five thousand. It was an opportunity that did not come easily.

She reminded her brother that he must remember this favor in his heart.

Li Dongfeng nodded vigorously.

“Of course I’ll remember! Old Zhou was good to me even back in middle school. I remember all of it! Sis, don’t laugh at me, but when Old Zhou came to pick me up today, I was genuinely moved. I thought that if he ever needed me in the future, I’d even kill for him without blinking.”

“What are you talking about?” Li Caiyu was startled and quickly smacked him.

Li Dongfeng, however, seemed unconcerned.

“I heard it on television before, didn’t I? A gentleman should die for the one who recognizes his worth.”

“Old Zhou has treated me so well, and I have no other way to repay him. If he ever needs me, I definitely won’t hesitate!”

“But you can’t go around talking about killing people!” Li Caiyu was alarmed by his thinking and hurriedly lectured him. “We can’t do anything illegal.”

“But we should all remember how good Brother Ziyang has been to you,” she continued. “If he ever runs into trouble, we have to help him, even if we have to sell everything we own.”

Li Dongfeng nodded, clearly agreeing with her.

Later, Li Caiyu said they should invite Zhou Ziyang over for a meal.

Li Dongfeng rejected the idea.

He thought it sounded too stingy. “Who still invites people home for dinner these days? We should at least take him to a restaurant!”

“How is that the same?” Li Caiyu argued. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“All right, all right, I get it. Don’t worry about this. Once I get paid, I’ll definitely treat Brother Zhou to a meal.”

There was no way Li Dongfeng would invite Zhou Ziyang to their shabby home for dinner. If he was going to treat him, he intended to take him to a proper restaurant.

Li Caiyu truly wanted to repay Zhou Ziyang. She said that if Li Dongfeng was unwilling, she could at least go to the market the next day, buy some pork, and make sausages for Zhou Ziyang to take with him.

“It would still show our sincerity.”

Li Dongfeng felt that would be even more embarrassing. He simply ignored his sister and walked toward his room, shouting, “Enough, Sis! Don’t meddle in this. This is men’s business, so stop sticking your nose into it!”

“I’m not meddling…”

Li Caiyu wanted to say that this was simply basic courtesy.

Before she could finish, however, Li Dongfeng shut the door in her face.

There was no way he would listen to his sister and do something so humiliating.

After taking Li Dongfeng home, Zhou Ziyang returned to his own place. By arranging work for this batch of temporary laborers, he had made another hundred thousand yuan.

Now all he had to do was wait for Storm Technology to begin trading, then put everything he had into it.

The next morning, the sun rose as usual.

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In front of the procuratorate, three different flags fluttered in the wind.

Zhou Guowei was in an excellent mood. When he arrived at work, he was still humming a little tune.

He was very satisfied with his life. Although his career had reached a point where he could advance no further, he had a beautiful and virtuous wife who was seven years younger than he was.

He also had a sensible daughter.

How many people could ask for more?

Although the girl was not his biological daughter, she was obedient and sensible, and her grades were excellent.

In this latest examination, she had scored 370 points, surpassing the cutoff for a top-tier university.

Even so, his wife and daughter were not satisfied. They had spent the entire night studying the test papers, insisting that there was always room for improvement.

“Prosecutor Zhou.”

“Prosecutor Zhou.”

As Zhou Guowei entered the building, his colleagues greeted him one after another.

“Mm.” Zhou Guowei smiled and nodded.

After he had passed, one of them asked curiously, “Why does Prosecutor Zhou look so happy today?”

“Obviously. His own son came first in the entire city. How could he not be happy?”

“If my son wrote an essay like that, I wouldn’t be able to feel happy at all.”

“Shh.”

The two men spoke in whispers, and Zhou Guowei did not hear them.

He continued happily toward his office.

“Hey, Old Zhou, you’re in a good mood! I can tell your child must have done well on the third mock exam.”

A man of roughly the same rank as Zhou Guowei spotted him and came forward with a smile.

“What are you talking about? When has my child ever done poorly?” Zhou Guowei said with evident disdain.

“That’s not what I mean. Doing well is one thing, but coming first in the entire city is another. And the essay received full marks too. I have to admit, I’m a little envious.”

The man was about the same rank as Zhou Guowei, but he did not wield nearly as much authority. Looking at Zhou Guowei’s smug expression, he could not help sneering inwardly.

Your son wrote an essay like that, and you can still smile?

“What?” Zhou Guowei looked puzzled. “What do you mean, first in the entire city?”

“What? You don’t know? Wait—I remember your daughter is also in her final year of high school, isn’t she? Didn’t she tell you about this?”

The man looked genuinely astonished.