Chapter 157: Insomnia

Lin Fang finally agreed to return to school.

Bringing her back home, Zhang Min was much more polite than last time.

"Lin Fang, are you really not going to make a scene this time?"

Clearly, Zhang Min still found it hard to trust her own daughter.

"Mom, I said it already, I'm going to study properly this time. However, please don't talk to me about jobs anymore. This time, I just want to finish my major properly."

Lin Chuanzhi nodded.

"Don't worry, we respect your thoughts. Besides, opportunities like this will still come up in the future."

As he spoke, he looked at Xu Fei.

"Little Xu, thank you so much for your help this time."

Lin Chuanzhi pulled Xu Fei into the living room as he spoke.

"Sit down."

This was the first time Xu Fei had received such courteous treatment in this household.

He felt a bit uneasy inside.

He wondered what attitude this couple would have if they found out about the two-year agreement between him and Lin Fang.

"Here."

Lin Chuanzhi took out his most prized cigar, personally lit it, and handed it to Xu Fei.

Xu Fei was actually not unfamiliar with such things; in his past life, after all, he was a man worth billions.

He took a gentle puff.

Fake!

Although Xu Fei was living a second life, he had not forgotten his ability to appraise such luxury goods.

He glanced at Lin Chuanzhi and saw him smoking with great relish, so Xu Fei dismissed the idea of telling him the truth.

Perhaps.

Sometimes, for certain people, being kept in the dark is better than knowing the truth.

"How is it?"

Assuming Xu Fei had never smoked this kind of cigar before, Lin Chuanzhi smiled and said, "This is from Brazil, brought to me by a business partner of mine."

Xu Fei furrowed his brow slightly.

A business partner?

Sending fake goods like this?

"By the way, Uncle Lin, when I went to your company, I found that its scale is quite large. What kind of foreign trade does your company mainly deal in?"

Seeing that Xu Fei seemed very interested in foreign trade, Lin Chuanzhi smiled and said, "There's no harm in telling you. Now that our country is undergoing reform and opening up, there is a lot of business with foreign countries, and it's quite easy to do."

Xu Fei nodded.

That was indeed correct. Xu Fei remembered that during this period, most trade was based on third-party processing. After all, domestic labor was still relatively cheap, which was the country's strongest competitive edge at present.

"As for us, we mainly do raw material processing for those Western countries. Right now, my company is primarily focused on the apparel sector."

Apparel?

Xu Fei nodded.

"By the way, after processing, do you deliver the goods before receiving payment?"

Lin Chuanzhi paused slightly.

"Little Xu, you really know your stuff, don't you? That's right, we don't actually get to contact those foreigners directly. We just rely on some compatriots living abroad to bridge the gap for us."

"In other words, you don't even know who the other party is, do you?"

Lin Chuanzhi nodded with some embarrassment.

"Yeah, there's no help for it. If you want to get orders, you have to do it this way. After all, even if we were to go abroad to talk directly to foreigners—leaving aside whether it would succeed—they wouldn't trust someone like me, right?"

"But this makes it very easy for issues to arise with intermediate links when orders are subcontracted."

"You mean the intermediary might run away with the money? Well, that's true. Actually, I know of four or five such incidents happening in the past two years. Earlier this year, Old Wang, who also did foreign trade in the provincial capital, got scammed out of a million yuan. Sigh, he had to sell his factory and his house, and it took him immense effort to finally pay it back."

Lin Chuanzhi said, glancing at Xu Fei.

"However, this friend of mine would never cheat me. He was actually my college classmate who later went abroad, and now he's doing quite well over there."

Yet Xu Fei felt that this so-called classmate was not as reliable as Lin Chuanzhi claimed—at the very least, he might not be as wealthy as Lin Chuanzhi believed.

The fake cigar was proof enough of that.

"Right, Uncle Lin, may I ask you a rather private question?"

"Go ahead."

"How much payment for goods does this friend of yours currently owe you?"

Faced with this question, Lin Chuanzhi furrowed his brow and said, "Well, that's quite a bit. From the beginning of the year until now, roughly... roughly hundreds of thousands."

He glanced at Xu Fei.

"Little Xu, what do you mean by this? Are you trying to warn me?"

Xu Fei nodded.

"Haha, you can rest assured about that. To him, this amount of money is just a drop in the bucket. Do you believe that with just one phone call from me right now, he would immediately wire the money to me, and I could even borrow a large sum of advance payment from him?"

Xu Fei did not speak. However, his silence made Lin Chuanzhi feel that he didn't believe it.

"Fine."

With that, Lin Chuanzhi turned back and picked up the phone.

He was going to prove right then and there that his words were true.

"What's going on?"

Zhang Min walked into the living room at that moment.

"Nothing, I'm calling Davis."

"Why call now? It's the middle of the night over there."

Before he could finish dialing, Lin Chuanzhi smiled and put the phone down.

"Ah, that's right, how could I forget. Little Xu, it really won't do. But I understand your warning, thank you."

Zhang Min looked curious.

"What did Little Xu say?"

"Oh, Little Xu suggested that Davis might cheat me out of the payment just like that person Old Wang encountered. Haha, Little Xu is a good kid, but..."

Zhang Min frowned.

"Little Xu, on what basis did you say that?"

Xu Fei glanced at the cigarette in his hand.

"Intuition."

"Humph!"

Zhang Min let out a cold snort.

"Nonsense. Your intuition almost had our Old Lin calling Davis and waking him up while he was resting."

She looked at Lin Chuanzhi as she spoke.

"And you, Old Lin, have you forgotten that Davis suffers from insomnia? What he hates most is someone calling and disturbing his sleep."

"Oh, oh, look at my memory. I almost did something foolish."

Lin Chuanzhi gave Xu Fei a somewhat reproachful look as he spoke.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly turned awkward.

Both Zhang Min and Zhang Min sat in silence.

Xu Fei knew that staying any longer would truly be pointless.

"I'm sorry, I still have matters to attend to at the hospital, so I won't stay."

"Why don't you stay for dinner?"

The moment the words left Lin Chuanzhi's mouth, Zhang Min shot him a fierce glare.

Seeing Zhang Min's reaction, Xu Fei could only smile and shake his head. "Never mind, some other time."

With that, he placed the cigar back on the table.

"Little Xu, take it. This thing is top-notch."

Zhang Min chimed in, "Yeah, you should take it. Once you've smoked part of it, nobody else can smoke it, and such a large piece really would be a waste to throw away."

Xu Fei glanced at it, had no choice but to pinch the fake cigarette between his fingers, and walked out of the Lin residence.