Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Three people hatch a plan (Let you see how precocious I am)

Zhang Zhifei asked, "I thought you'd come back to lie low, but it turns out you had other plans. Why didn't you stay in the city?"

"I can't do anything in the city, and there's no one I can trust." Zhang Zhixing patted his younger cousin Zhang Zhifei on the shoulder. "At least here, I have you to help me."

Zhang Zhifei rubbed his hands together, looking rather excited. "We're going big this time."

Seeing his uncle like this, Zhang Ke poured cold water on his enthusiasm. "How could it be that easy? Ding Xiangshan is Haizhou's local emperor. If he can pin corruption and bribery charges on Uncle Tang, crushing us would be as easy as crushing three ants. Our greatest advantage is simply that Ding Xiangshan definitely won't realize we exist. We only have one chance, and we have to use it to bring him down completely..."

"Oh..." Impressed by Zhang Ke's clear, logical analysis, Zhang Zhifei exclaimed, "You really aren't a kid to be underestimated. You could accomplish big things. Hurry up and graduate from university so you can help your dad, or me. Or forget university-go to a vocational secondary school and you can start working four years earlier..."

Zhang Ke curled his lip. At heart, he was just like his father: both were rather stubborn. Before his life had been reloaded, his uncle had asked him to help at the construction company after he graduated from university, even hoping he would take over the reasonably sizable firm. In the end, Zhang Ke had chosen to join Longyu Group. His career had gone fairly smoothly, and before the car accident, he had become a branch manager, which qualified him as young and successful. Now that he had inexplicably returned to 1994, perhaps because God had gotten his wires crossed, limiting his sights to a little construction company would really be letting God down.

"Let's not talk about all that now. Little Ke is right. We can only gather evidence in secret, and we have just one chance to strike. At the very least, we need evidence of Tang Xueqian's innocence. These few photographs we have don't prove much," Zhang Zhixing said.

"If someone in the provincial leadership could remain impartial and insist on a thorough investigation into Xinfeng Group, they could get to the bottom of it. Otherwise, with just the few of us gathering evidence in secret, I'm afraid it'll be difficult..." Zhang Ke had to remind his father, "Didn't you just say Uncle Tang had probably already discovered some problems? We can't speak to him now, but if we knew what he'd discovered, it would make things easier to follow the clues he'd found. Dad, do you think there might be something we need at Uncle Tang's home? If we find it, even if we can't investigate further ourselves, we'd have a stronger case when we appeal to the province..."

"Right..." His son's reminder suddenly brought something to Zhang Zhixing's mind. "Tang Xueqian carries his work diary with him, but he has a habit of jotting things down at random when he's thinking through a problem. He doesn't throw those notes away immediately, either. Every so often, he takes them out to organize his thoughts about work. We might find some clues at his home." Zhang Zhixing slapped his thigh. "Zhifei, drive me back to the city tonight. Ye Xinming might think of this too. We have to hurry..."

"Isn't Ye Xinming Tang Xueqian's secretary?" Zhang Zhifei asked, puzzled.

"Ye Xinming isn't trustworthy," Zhang Ke cut in, wanting to establish himself as a precocious boy in his uncle's eyes so it would be easier to ask him for help later. "Maybe when Tang Xueqian discovered the problems at Xinfeng Group, Ye Xinming was the one who tipped off Ding Xiangshan... And Dad, you can't go. Who knows whether anyone's watching Uncle Tang's home? You came here to mourn Great-Uncle, then slipped back into the city-what would happen if Ding Xiangshan found out? Let Uncle drive me there. I'll attract less attention. Besides, if anyone sees me, I'll just say I've been staying in the city with Mom..."

"Little Ke really thinks things through," Zhang Zhifei couldn't help praising him. "I heard you ranked third in the West District on the high school entrance exam. Those brains of yours are the real thing..."

Zhang Ke shot his uncle a sideways look. Careful thinking came from life experience. Often, failing to consider everything was a matter of insufficient experience, not so much intelligence.

Zhang Zhixing hesitated. If Tang Xueqian's home really was under surveillance, going there would be dangerous.

Zhang Ke could see his father's hesitation, but there was no one better suited to this than himself. He said, "I just thought of something else. If Tang Jing's mom knows Uncle Tang has another woman, won't she get very upset? What if she gets emotional and refuses to do anything about his case? And we can't let her know about the photographs. Women just can't be trusted. If she rushes to clear Uncle Tang's name, she could ruin everything instead..."

"You know quite a bit about women too, Little Ke?" Zhang Zhifei grinned and rubbed Zhang Ke's head. He had admired his older cousin Zhang Zhixing's brains since childhood. Seeing how logically Zhang Ke analyzed everything, he simply took it as good genes and a good upbringing producing talent, and wasn't particularly surprised.

"How about this? Dad, write a note for me to take over and clear things up for Uncle Tang. Even if Tang Jing's mom still has doubts, at least she'll be a little calmer..."

Zhang Zhixing thought for a while and realized there was no one more suitable. He patted his son Zhang Ke's head and instructed him, "Keep your wits about you..."

Though they had settled on a plan, they couldn't leave immediately. With a car, the trip from the old family home to the city took only a little over an hour, so they didn't need to worry about having enough time. Besides, with Great-Uncle having passed away, it wasn't so easy for his youngest son, Zhang Ke's uncle, to get away.

Most of their relatives back home already knew that Tang Xueqian had been placed in isolation for investigation. Zhang Ke and his father stayed in a guest room, and no one came to disturb them, leaving them some peace and quiet. His grandmother came to chat for a while, then went off to prepare for the funeral procession the next day.

After lunch, Zhang Zhixing phoned his wife, who had stayed in the city. Nothing had changed there.

The provincial inspection team hadn't gotten to Xu Si yet, so naturally the rumors hadn't begun spreading everywhere. His uncle went out briefly during lunch and, when he returned, slipped a new MOTO brick phone to his father.

"Here, it'll be more convenient. You can't keep sitting beside the telephone..."

Zhang Zhixing didn't refuse. At a time like this, he couldn't afford to miss any calls. He phoned his wife and gave her the number so they could get in touch promptly.

At last, they made it to dinner. Haizhou had a custom of keeping vigil for the dead after the evening meal. At the table, Zhang Zhifei made the excuse that something had suddenly come up at the company and he needed to return to the county seat that night to deal with it.

Zhang Ke saw that when his father's older cousin Zhang Zhiwei heard his uncle say he needed to make a nighttime trip back to the county seat, his displeasure was already showing on his face. "Is it really so urgent that you have to go in person?"

His father was an only child. Zhang Zhiwei and Zhang Zhifei were brothers, but his uncle and his elder brother had been at odds since childhood and were nowhere near as close as his uncle was to his father.

Zhang Ke could guess what Zhang Zhiwei was worried about. If announcing a severance of ties would do any good, he would have loved to cut ties with Zhang Ke's father right then. Zhang Ke thought about how he and his father had holed up in the little building with his uncle for half the day as soon as they arrived at the old family home. Who knew what wild ideas Zhang Zhiwei had come up with?

Seeing Zhang Zhiwei's suspicious gaze shift between his father and his uncle, Zhang Ke tilted his head and asked, "What's so urgent that you can't stay and play cards with my dad?" Great-Uncle had been ill for a long time, so his death didn't leave people feeling particularly grief-stricken. Keeping vigil was simply a matter of passing the time playing cards.

Zhang Ke saw his uncle give him a look, praising his quick thinking, and smiled smugly while Zhang Zhiwei wasn't paying attention.

Zhang Zhifei's expression shifted, then softened. Since Zhang Zhixing wasn't going out with him, he thought Zhifei really was returning to the county seat to deal with something urgent.

After dinner, Zhang Ke left the courtyard first. He was inconspicuous and outside the adults' field of attention; no one cared whether he was there or not. When his uncle's car arrived, he slipped inside. So much for Dongshe's county seat-after heading six or seven kilometers north along the Southern Suburbs Highway, the car turned left onto Shijiang Highway and drove straight toward the city.

In the car, Zhang Ke picked up his uncle's brick phone out of boredom. He admired this first-generation analog mobile phone as though he were handling an antique.

"What do you think? When you graduate from high school, shall I buy you one too?"

The Haizhou Digital Network would officially begin operating in the second half of the year. These bulky brick phones were products on their way out.

Zhang Ke curled his lip as he looked at the brick phone, too large to fit in one hand. In three years, this'll only be good for carrying around as a brick to hit people with. He casually tossed it onto the dashboard and said with a smile, "Not interested."

"Really?" Zhang Zhifei turned to look at Zhang Ke in slight surprise. This nephew had certainly astonished him on this visit. Quite apart from the calm and maturity he had shown during this crisis, virtually unheard of in a boy his age, his indifference to material temptation alone was worthy of praise.

"What's there to be interested in? The digital network has already begun trial operations. Analog phones are just products being phased out. Forget waiting until I finish high school-this thing will be outdated next year. It'll only impress country folk who've never seen the world. Give it to Zhang Yi and you could make him happy, but me? No thanks..."

Zhang Zhifei had always worked in construction and knew nothing about digital networks or analog phones. Though Zhang Ke sounded perfectly serious, he merely smiled and didn't take it to heart.

With seven or eight years of experience working at Longyu Group, now that Zhang Ke had returned to 1994, the easiest way for him to make his first pot of gold was to distribute electronics.

After the digital network began operating, the first Chinese-language digital mobile phone would be Ericsson's GH398, launched in 1995, pioneering the candy-bar form. Though its thirteen-centimeter length and 2.3-centimeter thickness looked very crude to Zhang Ke, in 1994 and 1995, the Ericsson 398's slender figure was immensely enticing to people using brick phones.

If he could secure the distribution rights for Ericsson Mobile Phones in Haizhou, he could make a fortune the following year by riding the 398's booming sales. Ericsson's operation in China had only just been upgraded from a representative office to a branch in 1994, and it still had no dedicated distributor in Haizhou.

Seeing that his uncle hadn't responded, Zhang Ke shut his mouth and said no more. He hadn't expected to interest him right away. Bringing it up now was merely meant to leave a deeper impression.