Seizing Dreams

It was the fourth month of his internship at the newspaper office. His salary for the first three months had been paid, and the reimbursement for the previous months were settled as well. In addition to the fee for his manuscripts, he had received 3,000 more than he had expected. This was the good thing about working in public institutions. They would pay however much they said they would and wouldn’t deduct anything even if you were a contract worker. It wasn’t like private enterprises where it depended on what the boss said.

Zhou Sheng’s salary wasn’t paid yet. The two of them saved up the money. From now on, they had to be careful with their expenditure; they still had to pay a few tens of thousands for rent before the New Year in February.

Fortunately, Cen Shan remembered to transfer them the ticket money. Otherwise, Yu Hao’s heart would have ached for a long time. Today, he decided to go to the Forbidden City to interview people about a museum event and report on the special exhibition of the Forbidden City in January. These days, he wrote two 400-word manuscripts every day, and he had to sort out Jin Weicheng’s manuscripts for him and then conduct interviews either in the morning or afternoon while he spent the remaining time writing manuscripts. After mastering the literary style of the media, minor interviews barely required any major changes before they were approved. Lin Ze would choose one from Yu Hao’s two manuscripts every day to hand in.

As for the major investigation features, theoretically, it should be a monthly issue. Lin Ze hoped for stability, and after they were stable, they would begin publishing two issues per month. Jin Weicheng chose three topics this month, but they were all rejected by Lin Ze too.

Now, the two investigative reporters were both brainstorming for future directions.

Zhou Sheng said, “Why don’t I stir up some trouble for you, then you can interview me?”

Yu Hao, “Knock it off.”

Beijing entered its coldest season, and the deadline kept approaching. If Yu Hao couldn’t come up with a suitable topic before the 15th, Lin Ze would choose one from the previous 70 over topics and handle it personally as he took Situ Ye out for the interview.

“I would like to see what your boss is capable of though.” Zhou Sheng said.

Yu Hao was preparing for the opening report of his graduation thesis at home. He said, “His professional competence can obviously crush Jin Laoshi. He just wants to leave me the opportunity. I feel like even if I can’t come up with a topic, he’d still give me a full-time position anyway, but I don’t want it to be like that.”

“Oh right.” Yu Hao remembered and said, “Gege didn’t contact you? I thought he’d come see us, I already bought him all four setsonline.”

Zhou Sheng said, “I don’t know about him, he didn’t call me either.”

The next day, when Yu Hao went to conduct an interview for the launch of new property, he bumped into Xia Lei unexpectedly. At that time, he was in a forward lunge position as he took pictures of the city residents sleeping in tents as they waited in line outside the property, while chanting, “CCTV, CCTV, intern reporter Yu Hao is reporting for you. North wind blows, snowflakes drift. Our city’s real estate sales performance is seriously good. The general public was here since yesterday night at -12 degrees in the northern winds, with their own sleeping bags……”

“Young Madam?” A voice rang out from behind Yu Hao.

Yu Hao was a little baffled. He asked, astonished, “Who?”

The guy behind him was both tall and skinny, and wore a suit. Yu Hao thought, Why do you all seem to change so much after entering society?! He said, “Xia Lei?!”

Xia Lei gave him a cup of ginger soup provided by the sales department and said, “I heard from Gege that you’re a reporter now; I can’t believe I’d bump into you here!”

Yu Hao laughed, “You’re here to buy a house?”

Xia Lei, “My uncle’s friend is the developer for this real estate. I’m here to help out. What are you writing? There’s no dirt ba?”

Yu Hao said, “Don’t worry, it’s all good.”

Xia Lei handed Yu Hao a red envelope. Yu Hao didn’t bother being formal with him and accepted it; he would be passing it to Lin Ze when he returned anyway. The red envelopes of the whole office were like waiter’s tips, and they were up to the leader to distribute. Yu Hao had bumped into a few people who gave him red envelopes. After he rejected them and went back to the office to talk about it, Lin Ze said, “Are you dumb? If they give it to you just accept it. Come back and I’ll buy snacks for you guys.”

Yu Hao’s outlook on the world broke. How could they accept red envelopes? But Lin Ze said, “If you don’t accept it, they won’t allow you to come back to write a piece, and would just exert all their strength to bother you; they’d ask you to leave your contact information, then keep calling you like their lives depended on it. Of course, you’ll have to judge for yourself whether the red envelope can be accepted or not.”

Yu Hao, “Jin Laoshi has never accepted red envelopes before okay!”

Situ Ye, “Oh is that so? Then sorry, sorry.”

Yu Hao, “……”

Yu Hao suddenly remembered that when Jin Weicheng went out for normal interviews, he never took him along and had never handed any red envelopes to Lin Ze.

Thus, whenever Yu Hao saw a red envelope for an incident that wasn’t too serious, he would accept it. When he handed it to Lin Ze, Situ Ye said, “Are you dumb? He asked you to give it to him, and you really gave it to him?”

Yu Hao, “……”

Lin Ze said, “Ignore him, good job. Let lady boss will help you open an account in the bank and save your New Year’s money for you. When you need to use it, you can go ask him for it.”

Yu Hao, “…………”

Sure enough, after Xia Lei saw Yu Hao accept the red envelope, he felt a lot more at ease.

“I’ll talk with the reporter Laoshi.” Xia Lei said to the manager of the sales department.

The sales department prepared some refreshments for Yu Hao and poured tea for him. Yu Hao was a little terrified, but he suddenly sensed that something was weird —— after conducting enough interviews, he had honed his intuition.

“Have you settled payment for the construction and the wages of the workers yet?” Yu Hao asked pensively.

Xia Lei laughed, “You’re really well informed, Young Madam. Help your brother this once ba. It really has nothing to do with us. The construction side is the one delaying the payment.”

Yu Hao had just casually guessed, yet he accurately struck Xia Lei’s Achilles’ heel. He thought about it, then said, “Don’t delay it for too long. If it gets out of hand, even if we don’t come, others will.”

Xia Lei nodded and heaved a sigh of relief, “We have a competitor, it has been dragging on for a year, and we’re currently in a tussle. Go and interview them?”

Yu Hao thought, you guys are really……so he recorded down the situation and was ready to hand it to Lin Ze, who could just transfer it to the general office.

Xia Lei asked again, “The construction funds…No, the investment for the gym, did Gege hand you guys the remainder?”

Yu Hao said, “You guys transferred ownership? What’s the balance?”

Yu Hao wanted to get some information out of him. He had always suspected that Fu Liqun was taking money out of his pockets to cushion the fall, but he realised a problem —— he really shouldn’t have asked this. If the amount after Fu Liqun’s liquidation was more than what he had returned to Zhou Sheng, then wouldn’t that……

Fortunately, their friendship withstood the test.

Xia Lei said, “I remember it wasn’t more than 300,000. The one who took over didn’t give us much.”

Yu Hao nodded, somewhat helpless, “I asked Gege to come to Beijing to relax and find some work to do.”

“You reporters have a wide network of connections.” Xia Lei said, “What I’m saying is, wouldn’t it be easy to help him find a job?”

Yu Hao did find out that yes, after entering this field, when he had just started conducting interviews, even though he was just an intern reporter, everyone would treat him politely everywhere he went. Even if they had a guilty conscience, they would offer diplomacy before violence. The more people he came into contact with, the more competent he felt. However, Lin Ze repeatedly knocked Yu Hao down, telling him to not think that he’s super amazing and how everyone’s really courteous to him because of the two words ‘Qinghua Times’, so they didn’t dare offend him at random.

Yu Hao often reminded himself as well, that he needed to keep a low profile.

Yu Hao said, “Yeah, he’s not coming, I’ll call him again at night.”

Xia Lei was surprised, “You don’t know? He went to the South, he’s seeking asylum at Yangming’s place.”

Yu Hao was utterly baffled, “Isn’t Yangming working as a HR personnel in that something company in Ying City?”

“That was a long time ago.” Xia Lei said, “Li Yangming job hopped last December, and he found a friend’s biotechnological company that makes health products. Gege went over as well after the New Year.”

Yu Hao thought, that should be a good fit for him? Fu Liqun’s father works as a consultant in this type of company, so maybe he could find a slightly stable job there. After the gym transferred ownership, Xia Lei relied on his family’s connections and came to Beijing to work in real estate. Meanwhile, Bian Qiang returned to his home village in the city and followed his uncle who worked in demolition for the folks, running around everywhere in a Land Rover. He didn’t know what he was so busy with either.

The guys in the sports class were practically like the Eight Immortals that crossed the sea, each showing his own  special talent.

Yu Hao talked about it after going home. Zhou Sheng said, “Is it weird? It’s not ah, we sound quite weird too, right? One of us is an investigative reporter, while the other is a private detective.”

Yu Hao thought that was true. Zhou Sheng continued, “You shouldn’t have asked Xia Lei that.”

Yu Hao said, “I was being dumb, I won’t ask that next time. I was afraid that Gege lost too much and went out to borrow money to fill in our pit.”

Zhou Sheng, “How much was the red packet?”

Yu Hao, “2,000……I’ve handed it in.”

Zhou Sheng, “Damn, so much? Tell Xia Lei to wait for me to go extort some money from him. Does that friend of his uncle live an upright life? How many mistresses does he have outside? See if I’ll extort him to death!”

Yu Hao, “Quit it! Read your linear algebra.”

Zhou Sheng, “I finished reading it. That book isn’t even a kilogram. From today on, I’ll start studying microeconomics.”

Yu Hao felt his head throb when he looked at Zhou Sheng’s stack of  heavenly, inscrutable books. The miraculous thing was that Zhou Sheng would actually read it bit by bit, and after Yu Hao returned home two days later, he’d discover that Zhou Sheng had finished reading another half a book, and he could even answer any questions raised about its contents! And just like that, by finishing book after book, he was already halfway done with his preparations! That guy’s IQ was seriously terrifying. In addition, Zhou Sheng read books as if he were buying groceries. Other people would talk about the number of pages in books, but his way of measuring them was, “Western Economics 3.5 catties,” “Linear Algebra 400 grams,” and weighing knowledge in terms of catties, it was quite amazing.

The deadline for Yu Hao’s topic was close at hand. Suddenly, the head office made a request: no investigative interviews can be conducted in January.

“Ah?” Yu Hao almost cheered, but he didn’t dare to look too delighted in front of Lin Ze.

“It’s almost New Year.” Lin Ze looked at the paper’s piece regarding the train station fight for a previous issue, “Let’s conduct ourselves properly and not cause any trouble. Shift it to February ba, I’ll spare your life this once.”

Yu Hao still had lingering fears as he nodded. Lin Ze said, “A feature in February means that you can only change to a full-time position in February, what’s there to be happy about?”

Yu Hao was gradually starting to realise that he really has too much to learn. Even now, when he was about to go out for an interview alone, he would still feel like it was a little strange and frightening.

“Actually, the investigative interview you mentioned before with the border guard wasn’t bad.” Lin Ze said, “But you’ll have to do it in-depth and consider it from the standpoint of how they live their lives, how they stand guard, how they stay in touch with their families, and so on and so forth.”

That was a topic that Yu Hao came up with to serve as a stopgap after racking his brain had produced nothing. He hadn’t thought that Lin Ze wouldn’t think much of the ones he had mentioned seriously and would instead be more interested in his stopgap. However, if he set out from Beijing and went to the Khunjerab Pass border station at an altitude of 4,300m, he would be tormented for at least half a month coming and going. No one would write the manuscripts, and Lin Ze wouldn’t let him go so easily.

“I’ll think about it again.” The words Yu Hao said most often these days were, ‘think about it again.’ Just as he was about to write Jin Weicheng’s manuscripts like a pro, he picked up a call.

“Yu Hao.” Fu Liqun said from the other end, “Can you lend me 5,000 for food expenses? I’ve finished spending all the money I have. I only brought a little over 2,000 when I came to the South.”

Yu Hao said, “I’ll transfer you through WeChat.”

The money Cen Shan transferred over for her plane ticket was still in his WeChat wallet, and he immediately transferred the money to Fu Liqun. Yu Hao couldn’t feel rest assured about Fu Liqun being alone and only roughly knew that he had found a sales job in a prefecture-level economic zone of a coastal province in the south.

—

Juurensha: Hope things work out for FLQ….