After Li Ye and Xiao Zhu left the airport, Wen Leyu had already gotten into the Audi 100 that had come to pick her up. She waved to Li Ye through the window, then sped off in a puff of smoke.
The two of them had come sightseeing on the way, so no matter what, they had to handle their business first before getting to the "on the way" part.
When Xiao Zhu saw Wen Leyu leave, he urged the driver, Qu Qingyou, to get moving. "Go, go! Old Niu didn't bring a car. If we leave too late, he might try to hitch a ride with us!"
Li Ye asked in surprise, "How did you know Old Niu didn't bring a car?"
Pursing his lips, Xiao Zhu said, "He definitely didn't. He always sees himself as a public servant, so how could he possibly spend one extra cent of public money?
"He was just lecturing us, saying we should have driven from Beijing to Shanghai with you. One car for four people would have been the most economical. He even showed off, saying that when he came over, he could clearly have taken a soft sleeper, but chose a hard sleeper to save money."
Li Ye truly could never understand Niu Hongzhang's "frugality."
In the nineties, when fuel consumption was ten yuan per hundred kilometers, four people driving from Beijing would only cost one or two hundred yuan. Split four ways, it was indeed cheaper than taking the train—and Li Ye had even flown here.
But when you could clearly take a soft sleeper, insisting on taking a hard sleeper to save ten or twenty yuan—how much good could that possibly do for an enterprise?
Perhaps it was only of great use when he wanted to advertise how "wholeheartedly