Night.
At home.
Dong Xuebin and Xie Huilan returned.
The moment he entered, Dong Xuebin stretched lazily. "Whew, I'm exhausted. But today's results weren't bad. Uncle Yang and my mom went to Mayor Zhong's place for dinner—they must be trying to build connections for us. Old Yang had a good personal relationship with Mayor Zhong back when he worked in Fenzhou City."
"I've offended Secretary Wan, the Top Leader, and I bought Mayor Zhong's calligraphy, letting him show off a little. From now on, we should be able to get closer to Old Zhong. With support from the city, things will be much easier for us in the future. At least if something happens, there'll be someone backing us up."
Xie Huilan smiled. "Three million for one piece of calligraphy was a little expensive."
Dong Xuebin did not mind. "Our family can afford it, so it doesn't matter if it costs a little more. Other people don't have our advantage."
"It's never good to draw too much attention."
"I know, but do you think I wanted to steal the spotlight?"
"I think you were dying to," she said with a chuckle.
"Come on. If Song Fei hadn't kept bidding against me, would I have gone as high as three million?"
"That's true. I've met Song Fei once. He's far too obsessed with money. I don't know how the Construction Committee gave his company so many building-material quotas for post-earthquake reconstruction."
"From what I saw today, he's too utilitarian in the way he does things. For profit, he'll disregard anything. That's a problem. We can't exactly say we bought that calligraphy without ulterior motives either, but we're still different from him. This donation was mainly for the ordinary people, wasn't it?"
Dong Xuebin nodded. "He humiliated my wife in public. I