Chapter 220 The power of silence

The day passed quickly.

After Zhang Yunqi and Chu Jian finished their lunch in the store and returned to the classroom, Wang Xiaokai ran to him excitedly and told him that they and Li Yufei had sold all the canned food at the entrance of the cafeteria at noon. The winning rate was very high, and with Li Yufei, a very famous beauty in the school, there was a large wave of students, making it like everyone was scratching the lottery.

Wang Xiaokai, this little fool, is always noisy, and about half of what he says can be taken seriously. But as the initiator of the Longjingyuan canned food sale of hundreds of thousands of boxes, Zhang Yunqi naturally knows clearly that the current winning rate of Longjingyuan canned food is over 50%, which makes it easier to sell. Stimulated by various incentive policies and commission plans, the employees of Longjingyuan have formed a mighty sales team, almost coming out in full force. Now, it is time to ask Li Jilin to lower the winning rate of canned food, strive to recover more costs, and be a little richer when construction starts on the eighth day of the first lunar month next year.

After school in the afternoon, Zhang Yunqi planned to go to Liansheng.

He put away his textbooks, put on his scarf and headphones, and stood up with his schoolbag. Wang Xiaokai looked at him, his eyes widened and he said, "You're wearing a red scarf. Don't you have to be so coquettish? Boss Zhang, spring isn't here yet."

"I am happy with my work!"

Zhang Yunqi ignored Wang Xiaokai and walked out of the house with his schoolbag in a leisurely manner. However, before he had taken a few steps, he unexpectedly saw Zhang Xiaonan standing in the corridor.

Zhang Xiaonan was the head teacher of a junior high school class in the city's No. 1 Middle School. Although they were in the same school and sometimes met on campus and chatted casually, Zhang Xiaonan had never made a special trip to see him.

Zhang Xiaonan had obviously been waiting at the door for a while. She must have something to discuss with him. Zhang Yunqi walked over and asked, "Sister Xiaonan, are you looking for me?"

Zhang Xiaonan hesitated for a moment and said, "Yunqi, let's go for a walk first."

Zhang Yunqi agreed.

The two went downstairs.

School is over. The campus is particularly bleak in the cold winter. There are few people. All you can see are the scattered yellow leaves, the boys' dormitory covered with moss, and the iron-blue electric wires across the sky, which make people feel unspeakably lonely.

The two walked on the quiet campus path. Zhang Xiaonan asked Zhang Yunqi about some things in her studies, but Zhang Yunqi always felt that she seemed a little absent-minded, so he asked: "Sister Xiaonan, did something happen between you and my eldest brother?"

Zhang Xiaonan sat down on a stone bench by the roadside, hesitated for a long time, and then said: "Yunqi, the matter between me and your elder brother should have been decided by adults, but Uncle Zhang hasn't come out yet. You are a good child with a bright future, sensible, smart, and thoughtful. Many times, many things are more far-sighted than me and your elder brother. So, there are some things that your elder brother can't say, but I have to lower my face to tell you now, because it will be unbearable if I delay any longer."

Zhang Yunqi smiled: "Sister Xiaonan, I understand, go ahead."

Zhang Xiaonan twisted her hands together and said, "Some time ago, my dad came to the city to talk to your eldest brother and put forward some ideas. I think your eldest brother didn't mention this to you and Aunt Zhang, right?"

Zhang Yunqi nodded: "No."

Zhang Xiaonan looked at Zhang Yunqi, who looked calm, and sighed softly: "Actually, the last time my dad came, he asked Yunfeng to buy a house in the city."

Zhang Yunqi felt uncomfortable listening to such words. In the early 1990s, there was no unwritten rule requiring the man's family to have a house and a car for marriage. However, for the current Zhang family, this was not a problem and was not a big deal.

However, Zhang Yunqi soon realized the crux of the problem. The subtext of Zhang Guorui's request for his eldest brother to buy a house must be that he wanted his eldest brother to separate from the family and live on his own.

As far as he knew, Zhang Guorui's eldest son and daughter both worked and settled in other places, and could not take care of their parents who were far away in Yunxi Village. His youngest daughter Zhang Xiaonan, who worked in the city, was considered to be relatively close. Under such circumstances, Zhang Yunqi did not know whether Zhang Guorui made this request in order to wait for Zhang Xiaonan to move from Yunxi Village to the city after she got married. Thinking of this, Zhang Yunqi felt that with the usual way of doing things by Zhang Guorui, the number one strong man in Yunxi Village, he must have other requests that his elder brother Zhang Yunfeng could not cope with, so he asked Zhang Xiaonan: "Anything else? Sister Xiaonan."

Zhang Xiaonan's face was already very embarrassed. "Who do those two Zhangji Qifengdu fish meal shops belong to? Yunqi, please don't misunderstand and blame me. I'm not greedy. I don't want anything. I just want to be with your eldest brother. But your eldest brother is a straightforward person. What my dad said that night made him angry. He directly told my dad that it wasn't his. He said that the fish meal shop was all funded by you, and the big ideas and directions were all set by you. It's yours. But, you know, he can't get past my father like this."

Zhang Yunqi sat on the stone bench, was silent for a while, and said: "I know, Sister Xiaonan, don't worry about this, I have my own plan. What I want to know now is, what is the situation between you and Ma Lin?"

Zhang Xiaonan was silent for a long time, and finally sighed.

******
Zhang Yunqi didn't sleep very well that night.

In fact, as he got older, he rarely lost sleep over love, because experience had taught him a lesson, or it could be said that it had taught most middle-aged men like him a lesson: in this world, apart from family, there is nothing that cannot be taken lightly.

What Zhang Xiaonan told him today was probably because Ma Lin was pestering her too much, her father Zhang Guorui was pressuring her too much, and her eldest brother Zhang Yunfeng, who had always been taciturn, would never confide such an embarrassing thing to him.

Zhang Xiaonan was really at a loss.

In fact, whether Zhang Guorui deliberately made things difficult for his elder brother Zhang Yunfeng and made these demands to make him give up, but if you really think about it, these demands cannot be said to be excessive. As parents, they always hope that the man’s family will sort out these family affairs before marriage, create a good living condition for their daughter, and avoid entanglement with the husband’s family in the future. Especially their Zhang family has many people. But Zhang Yunqi also knows that no matter from the rational or emotional point of view, his elder brother Zhang Yunfeng will never ask his family to buy a house to divide the family.

Zhang Yunqi always remembered an incident his mother always mentioned when she taught him to study hard. When his eldest brother graduated from elementary school, he was just a little short of 14 years old. He ran home from Zhaoping Township Central Primary School with his transcript and the admission letter from Longwan Town Middle School. The first thing he said to his parents was, "I don't want to go to school anymore! I will stay at home and farm. Let Qiulan, Yunqi and Chunlan go to school."

At that time, my parents looked very worried and didn't know what to do.

From then on, the eldest brother followed his father in shouldering the responsibility of feeding the whole family. This young man, who should have been studying in the classroom with Zhang Xiaonan in Longwan Town, supported the whole family, young and old, and the sick, by digging in the soil day and night with the little money he earned.

After his father was imprisoned, it was natural for his eldest brother to become the real head of the Zhang family. Zhang Yunqi deeply knew and was grateful that without this silent pillar, the family would have never been able to survive the gloomy days when his father was imprisoned. It was also with the leadership of this silent pillar that the family was able to get through the most difficult years together.

Now, it is difficult for him to separate and give up this responsibility.

Although the family conditions are very good now, this is not only a question of life philosophy, but more importantly, the blood ties between him and the whole family cannot be severed.

As for how to divide Zhang Ji Qifengdu Fish Noodle Shop, Zhang Yunqi felt an indescribable pain in his heart after listening to Zhang Xiaonan's words. This was his eldest brother, an ordinary man who was not good at speaking. He had led his family through hardships when he was less than fourteen years old, and he had formed the strongest neural reflex arc in his mind to think about his family in everything.

Zhang Yunqi finally got up from the bed.

It was already very late at night, so dark that one could not see one's fingers. The north wind was howling against the windows. He lit a cigarette, went to the living room, picked up the receiver of the landline phone, and dialed a few numbers.

The phone rang for a long, long time, and then it connected.

Zhang Yunqi said, "Help me find someone to check for a traffic policeman named Ma Lin in the city's traffic police team, and see where he has been on duty in recent days."

******
(End of this chapter)