Chapter 67: Knowing and Not Knowing

Today is August 18th, and the lunar calendar has already entered the seventh month.

It just happens to be Sunday.

After finishing the phone call and simply tidying up the items he had bought, Lin Jianlu hoisted several heavy goods onto his old Flying Pigeon bicycle and leisurely headed back to Nanluoguxiang. The moment he stepped inside, he greeted everyone he encountered.

Since it is a day off, most of the neighbors in the large compound are at home.

"Oh, Uncle Gao, patching a tire?"

"Ah, Xiao Lu is back! Haha, just patching it up, it was leaking air a bit slowly."

Gao Jiancheng's face stiffened slightly, but he still managed to squeeze out a forced smile in response.

Both mother and son in the Lin family possess sharp tongues and particularly enjoy sparring with him. Yet he is foolish enough to keep asking for it; whenever he takes a hit and fails to come up with a retort on the spot, he gets more and more irritated thinking about it later. Next time, he simply cannot resist running his mouth again, and naturally gets put in his place once more, leaving him speechless and fuming all over again.

This very morning, he had just been rebutted a few times by Lin Jianlu's mother and had been harboring resentment all morning.

Consequently, as soon as he finished answering and before he could say anything else, someone else had already struck up a conversation with Lin Jianlu. He had no choice but to absentmindedly file the inner tube while listening to the dialogue over there—

"Jianlu, didn't they say you bought a BMW? Why are you still riding this beat-up bicycle?"

"Hey, driving a car burns gas! My car is just for putting on airs in front of strangers. We’ve been living under the same roof for all these years, everyone knows everyone! What kind of act am I putting on?"

The entire compound burst into laughter at these words.

Mother Lin had already opened her door and was standing under the eaves watching her son.

Seeing Lin Jianlu prop up his bicycle, she reached out to take the things, not expecting her son to suddenly drop a bizarre question: "Mom, why does Uncle Gao's face look like he just lost two hundred yuan? Don't tell me he asked you to marry him and you turned him down?"

Another wave of laughter suddenly erupted across the whole compound.

Gao Jiancheng's face instantly turned crimson. He opened his mouth a few times, but for the life of him, couldn't think of a clever comeback—what could he do? He was just damn slow-witted and couldn't match the quick tongues of that mother and son pair next door!

By this time, Mother Lin couldn't help smiling either as she chided, "Shut that mouth of yours! Even if not for your Uncle Gao, think of Wenwen. Playful is playful, but don't go tossing around jokes like that!"

Lin Jianlu obediently took the scolding, "Aye! Got it!"

Then he turned his head, "Uncle Gao, apologies!" and raised his voice, "Wenwen, don't be mad! Just a little joke!"

Once they were back inside the room and his mother briefly explained the matter, Lin Jianlu was stunned. It really was on account of Gao Wenwen—word was that starting this year, her school would no longer guarantee job placements. There was a new policy called something like "two-way choice," meaning a state-run unit had to be willing to accept you and sign an employment contract with you.

How could that possibly be easy!

In this day and age, major institutions can barely afford to pay wages. Getting out is easy, but getting in is desperately difficult.

Not to mention those small enterprises that could go bankrupt at any moment; how could they possibly be hiring?

This was precisely when the advantage of studying in the capital became apparent. Studying in the capital offered numerous conveniences for signing employment contracts. However, when Gao Wenwen and her peers took their college entrance exams, no such policy existed. Back then, regardless of where you went to school, upon graduation you were uniformly assigned back to your place of origin for work placement!

Gao Wenwen came home for the break and brought this up, leaving Uncle Gao frantic with worry since he had no connections. Originally, he kept it bottled up, afraid of becoming the laughingstock of the neighbors if word got out.

Yet somehow, he caught wind of rumors from somewhere claiming that the big star Lin Jianlu from their courtyard knew many high-ranking officials whose words carried weight. Unable to help himself, Uncle Gao had proactively approached the Lin family the day before to drop a hint. With Mother Lin's cleverness, how could she possibly agree to such a baseless matter? Even if her son truly had that kind of capability, she would still have to consult him first!

As a result, she didn't agree. Uncle Gao choked down his resentment, and waking up this morning, made a sarcastic remark. Mother Lin, having no tolerance for that, immediately fired back on the spot, leaving old comrade Gao speechless and full of suppressed anger.

"Oh! We'll see later, isn't there still a year left? As for his family's affairs... sigh, if it were just for Uncle Gao, I wouldn't care at all. But for Wenwen and her sister... we'll see!"

In truth, Lin Jianlu had little desire to get involved.

Wenwen is a childhood nickname mostly used by neighbors who watched her grow up, but her formal name is Gao Yufeng. True to her name, she is exceedingly proud and arrogant. Her younger sister, however, is quite nice; Gao Yuhuang is a lively, adorable girl who doesn't nitpick.

Growing up as neighbors, Gao Yuhuang had even tagged along playing with Lin Jianlu for over a year. When her turn came to worry about graduating without a job, Lin Jianlu wouldn't mind lending a helping hand.

"Let's not talk about them anymore. Mom, let's discuss something."

"Speak... Whoa, is this lamb leg meat? This cut looks great. We'll slice it later and have a hot pot!"

"Well... how about changing jobs?"

"Huh? Change to what job?"

"Forbidden City Film Studios."

"What do they do? Screening movies?"

So he patiently explained: four companies in the capital, the Beijing Film Studio, himself, and the superstar Brigitte Lin, forming a joint venture considered state-controlled, with himself as the largest individual shareholder... yadda yadda yadda.

Upon hearing that her son had invested over four million into it, Mother Lin's eyes widened. She immediately stood up, peered through the crack of the door to glance outside, wanting to say something, but swallowed the words back down as they reached her lips.

She turned around and sat back down.

She exchanged a glance with Old Lin, who had similarly twisted around from his desk with an expression of profound astonishment.

"Are you certain about this? Just splashing money around like that?"

"It's not a matter of being certain or not! It's something that has to be done. The more famous I get, the more ties I need to establish with official circles; otherwise, things won't be stable."

Father Lin took off his glasses and turned completely around.

The couple exchanged another look. Mother Lin asked, "And you need to throw in that much all at once?"

Lin Jianlu spread his hands, "That's not even much! Your son earns way more than this!"

Mother Lin picked up the lamb meat, then put it back down, lifted the gills of the large sea bass to take a peek, and showed a rare, subtle trace of panic, "What kind of job would I do if I went in there? Keep accounts for you?"

Lin Jianlu clapped his hands, "Ah! That's why I say it has to be my mom! Keeping accounts!"

Mother Lin hesitated for a moment and said, "I'm not going, have your dad go instead! Your dad is exhausted from being a teacher. Since you're a film studio, don't you need scripts to make movies? Your dad loves tinkering with ink and paper, let him go in there to review and write scripts for you! If there's no work, he can just stay idle! My factory is still alright; up to this point this year, they've already issued four months' worth of wages, which isn't bad. Mostly, the work isn't exhausting. Besides..."

She paused before continuing, "Since it's a joint state-private venture, all the accounts belong to the state! Do state accounts need us to manage them? Even if we go, it's useless. The state says how to spend it, so that's how it gets spent!"

Lin Jianlu was momentarily left speechless.

Still, he attempted to persuade her, "It's different, Mom! Whether you go or not, we won't dictate how they spend their money over there. But if you don't go, it means we don't know; if you go, it means we do know. Knowing and not knowing are two entirely different things."

Hearing this, Father Lin pushed up his glasses, and Mother Lin raised her head, looking at her son with startled astonishment.

…………

They genuinely had hot pot for lunch.

Since Lin Jianlu had bought plenty of meat, Mother Lin specially called the two Gao girls from next door over and invited them to eat with them, though the older Gao couple were left out—well, it still counted as easing the tension somewhat.

However, after the meal, the two girls happily expressed their gratitude once more and went home. Mother Lin sat there sighing, "No good, it's a bust! These two girls, one is foolish, one is slow-witted, and the foolish one is unbearably arrogant while the slow-witted one... oh my god, how the hell did either of them pass the college entrance exams!"

Lin Jianlu hid to the side and chuckled secretly.

He understood his mother's underlying intention, but he couldn't be bothered to comment. Look at that, she had backed out of her own accord.

Their appearances were passable, but how should he put it? Evaluating a girl as quite pretty from a normal person's perspective, compared to the beauty of Brigitte Lin or Rosamund Kwan, simply wasn't even in the same dimension of discussion.

A forty-two-year-old Brigitte Lin wouldn't be traded for ten twenty-one-year-old Gao Wenwens!

An aging beauty is still a beauty!

A brand-new Alto is still just an Alto, while an old Bentley remains a Bentley!

Of course, Mother Lin wasn't picking a daughter-in-law; she wanted to bring someone into Forbidden City Film Studios as an assistant. But as for her having zero thought of personally grooming a daughter-in-law along the way, Lin Jianlu found that hard to believe either.

Let her be. As long as she agreed to go, his mission was accomplished.

Just as she herself had said, in all likelihood, it probably wouldn't even fall to her to actually handle the accounts.