I’d painstakingly cultivated in my team would be destroyed.
Spreading malicious rumours was Fatty Dong’s speciality. Our last General Manager had been forced out as a result of one of Fatty’s letters. The letter alleged that our former boss had committed several offenses such as sexual harassment, accepting bribes, and spending company money extravagantly. No way was I going to let Fatty get me as well.
I summoned the sales managers of the steam repair unit, the fittings unit and the oil materials unit to my office. I assigned the quota of names for the raise between them and I told each of them to submit me a list separately.
Zhao Yan said, ‘Big Brother, forget about a mistress. It seems there’s only enough cash for a one-night stand.’
Liu Three gave me a malicious wink. I didn’t respond, just smiled and watched Zhou Yan leave the room: large, ripe buttocks and two long and slender legs, with skin like snow.
When I got home, I told Zhao Yue that I needed 5000 yuan.
What do you need it for? she asked.
I said that I’d been careless and got a girl pregnant and she had to have an abortion. This was part of my skill in handling Zhao Yue: each time I told her the truth, she thought I was winding her up. The more I tried to cover things up, the more desperate she was to know what was really going on — many of the bowls in our house have got smashed that way.
Zhao Yue said ferociously, ‘If you ever dare to mess up like that, I’ll cut it off.’
When I held her tightly to my chest, she softened. I sighed and thought sadly that Zhao Yue really had no idea.
‘Why do you really need the money?’ she asked.
‘I have to go to Leshan on business this weekend.’
‘Why don’t you borrow from the company?’
‘I haven’t repaid the money I borrowed last time,’ I told her. ‘If you haven’t cleared the slate, then you can’t borrow any more.’
As I spoke I felt a twinge of anxiety, reflecting that, unknown to Zhao Yue, in the past few years I’d run up a debt to the company of something like 200,000 yuan. Somehow I had to think of a way to clear that. When that eunuch from head office had come to do the audit, he’d spent ages grilling me about the debt issue.
On top of that, Ye Mei’s pregnancy had me sweating like never before. In the past I’d got a few girls in the family way — for example, my breadstick lover, as well as a Sichuan University English department student. However, I just gave them a few thousand yuan and everything was sweet, they were content to take care of things themselves. They didn’tneed me to be there. But this time, unexpectedly, it was my best friend’s fiancé and so the situation was particularly delicate.
Saturday lunchtime I drove to meet Ye Mei at Jinxiu Gardens. Her cheeks were red with blusher and she wore a pink sleeveless tight-fitting top over her firm, high chest. I asked her what she’d told Li Liang and she told me angrily to mind my own business.
I stuck a Richard Clayderman CD in the player. All the way to Leshan we didn’t say a word to each other.
Whenever I go to Leshan I stay at the Jiuyuefeng Hotel. The hotel’s location is impressive; you only have to walk a few steps to come to local tourist highlight the Leshan Giant Buddha. The biggest attraction though is that many of Leshan’s most beautiful girls reside in this area. Five years ago, when the hotel sauna had just opened, a local client took me there whoring. More than one hundred professionals, with stunning figures lined up for us to choose from. The client said, ‘Young Chen, have you ever been an emperor?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, an emperor?’ He said, ‘Two girls.’ My mouth started to water. I said, ‘I want to be an emperor.’ That day we spent at least 5000 yuan. At the end of it I thought that being an emperor wasn’t a bad thing.
Ye Mei and I took separate rooms. I said, ‘Today you should rest; tomorrow I’ll go with you to the hospital for the