“Dad!”
“Guangyuan.”
Su Lan and Zhao Shuo quickly moved to calm him, too scared to say much, urging, “Don’t get worked up, stay calm.”
Zhao Guangyuan’s face turned purple-red with anger. “I, Zhao Guangyuan, don’t have a son like that! I don’t!”
On the way back to Haicheng, Jiang Luo got a call from Yu Dong.
“I’ve thought it over,” she said on the other end. “You were right. Time to cut losses.”
“I’ll head back to Singapore for the next couple of days. Once I’m there, I’ll start closing the factory, though it might take some time.”
“When I return, I’ll report to you and officially start working.”
“Good.”
Jiang Luo smiled.
Yu Dong’s tone was light, playful, full of confidence again. “Just asking ahead—what kind of work will you be giving me?”
Jokingly, she added, “Don’t put me on a sewing machine in the workshop—I’m hopeless at it.”
“That would be a waste of talent,” Jiang Luo replied.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be work you can handle and that helps you advance.”
“You’ll like it.”
Once he wrapped things up with Yu Dong, Jiang Luo returned to Shengfei. At the factory gate, chaos had erupted—people crowded around, cars couldn’t get through.
“Beep! Beep!”
Old Four honked repeatedly.
The crowd slowly parted.
“What’s going on?” Jiang Luo asked, puzzled.
“No idea,” Old Four replied as he drove in.
Approaching the new sliding electric gate, Old Four froze. “Hey,” he said to the backseat, “Boss, there’s an old lady at the gate.”
Jiang Luo looked and saw the woman sitting on the ground. He didn’t pay much attention. “Let’s go.”
Inside the factory, more workers peeked toward the gate, curious. Jiang Luo finally turned to a worker. “What are you looking at?”
“Boss,” a few workers greeted him.
One man said, “That looks like Director Zhang’s wife.”
Zhang Ningfu’s wife?
“What happened?”
“Apparently they’re divorcing. Director Zhang wants out, but his wife refuses. She came here, couldn’t get in, and started causing a scene at the gate. Everyone’s watching.”
Divorce?
Jiang Luo was amused, thinking: finally, Zhang Ningfu knows how to ditch that pair of leeches.
He signaled Old Four, “Call Zhang Ningfu. Tell him to my office.”
Then to Old Three: “Go put the dogs out at the gate.”
Old Three hesitated. “If the dogs bite the old lady, we’ll have to pay, right?”
Jiang Luo looked at him. “You don’t follow orders—you’ll get your salary docked, right?”
Old Three raised his hands in surrender.
Old Four kicked him lightly, laughing. “Talk too much.”
Jiang Luo entered his office. Just after he did, Zhang Ningfu came in, thinking it was work-related. “What’s up?”
“Divorce?” Jiang Luo asked, sitting behind his desk.
Zhang Ningfu: …
Jiang Luo praised him immediately. “Good. I like it. Go to finance—I’ll give you a 500 yuan bonus.”
Zhang Ningfu: ?
“Take the initiative to file for divorce, 500. Keep it up, another 500. Finish it, 500 more. Once you have the divorce certificate, bring it to me—I’ll give you an extra 3,000 in cash.”
Zhang Ningfu: …
Old Four at the door laughed uncontrollably.
Zhang Ningfu frowned. “Are you… mocking me?”
“Who’s mocking you? I’m serious.”
Jiang Luo added, “Next time you remarry, I’ll give you a big red envelope too.”
He continued, “Don’t worry about the old lady at the gate. There’s a gate, a security booth, people, dogs—she can’t get in. Let her make a scene; I don’t care.”
Zhang Ningfu sighed. “I’m embarrassed.”
Jiang Luo snorted. “What’s embarrassing about it? You have a job, a salary, a real position as deputy director. Who’s laughing at you?”
“Believe it or not, you get the divorce certificate, and there’ll be a line of people introducing you to new wives—maybe ten years younger.”
“You’re not embarrassed. You woke up in time and got out of misery.”
Jiang Luo waved him off. “Go, get your money.”
Zhang Ningfu still felt Jiang Luo was mocking him. “Who gets a bonus for divorce?”
“Less talk,” Jiang Luo said. “Go.”
He called out, “Old Four!”
“Eh?”
Old Four entered, linking arms with Zhang Ningfu to walk to finance. “Let’s go, come on.”
At the gate, Zhang Ningfu’s wife sat on the ground, screaming, “He must have another woman at the factory! Definitely! He thinks I’m old, useless, not as young as the foxes at his factory!”
“Judge for yourselves. After half a lifetime together, he kicks me out for a younger woman! My life is so miserable!”
The crowd murmured and whispered.
Suddenly came barking, “Woof! Woof! Woof!” and a deep voice shouted, “Dogs out!”
The crowd scattered. The old lady scrambled up, swearing in dialect as she backed away.
Several fierce dogs ran to where she had been sitting, barking wildly. She dodged and cursed, spitting toward the factory gate: “Divorce? Dream on! I won’t leave! Not for any fox!”
Then she tripped, “Ah!”—falling flat on her face.
That evening, Jiang Luo returned to his Wukang Road home for dinner. Changing shoes at the door, his mood was visibly good.
Huo Zongzuo was in the kitchen, carrying dishes to the table. Seeing Jiang Luo stride in and smile while raising an eyebrow, he asked, puzzled, “In such a good mood?”
“Yes,” Jiang Luo replied, moving quickly past the table to wash his hands in the kitchen.
After washing, he pulled out a chair and sat. “My deputy director is finally divorcing that leech of a wife,” he said.
Huo Zongzuo knew Zhang Ningfu—the same one involved in a previous car accident. Sometimes Jiang Luo would chat with him about factory matters.
“Divorce?” Huo Zongzuo asked.
“Yes,” Jiang Luo said, picking up his chopsticks. “I came back from Haimen today, saw a crowd at the gate, that old lady sitting on the ground causing a scene. I told Old Three to put the dogs out.”
Huo Zongzuo laughed. “The rural guard dogs I helped you find back then… I see how useful they are.”
“Exactly.”
Jiang Luo shared more: “Remember that girl at Hongming’s gate? The one always waiting for me?”
Huo Zongzuo: “Yeah.”
“I hired her to work for me.”
Then he briefly explained Yu Dong’s situation: “She’s going back to Singapore to close the factory, then comes back to work for me. I needed someone anyway—she’s confident, smart, understands business and people. I put her on market expansion.”
Huo Zongzuo’s curiosity was piqued: “Yu Dong? Which Yu, which Dong?”
Jiang Luo: “Yu, like the beauty; Dong, like winter.”
Huo Zongzuo thought it was a funny coincidence—the same surname, same character.
“Do you find her pretty? Like her?”
Jiang Luo froze. “…Like her? I don’t date colleagues. I hired her to work.”
Huo Zongzuo kept a straight face. “Just asking.”
Jiang Luo rolled his eyes. “You just assume I like every woman.”
“I don’t like her, okay? End of story.”
“I like you the most,” Huo Zongzuo joked.
“And I like you,” Jiang Luo shot back.
Huo Zongzuo laughed. “Fine, eat.”
After dinner, Huo Zongzuo washed the dishes, leaving them soaking in the sink for the morning cleaner.
Jiang Luo, like a little dog, sat close, holding an apple, nibbling while chatting:
“I’ve long wanted to push Zhang Ningfu toward divorce. He makes two hundred yuan, sends one eighty home. Makes five hundred, sends four fifty. Makes eight hundred, sends seven hundred…”
“He doesn’t smoke or drink, has no hobbies. Even on break, he checks samples and steps on the sewing machine.”
“No ox works harder than him.”
“Now he’s deputy director, manages workers—no need to step on machines. Keep it up and he’d blind himself.”
Huo Zongzuo noticed, “You care a lot about him.”
Jiang Luo nodded, unabashed. “They work for me. They’re my people. I care about them.”
He gave an example: “Like Wang Chuang—can’t waste time partying when he’s out.”