Chapter 4 — Dogs Judge People by Their Looks

"Hold on a moment, let me take a look." Wei Zhao thought to himself that a big city really was more proper — it even had security guards. Though this one was all show, and nowhere near as tough as A Hu.

A Hu was one of Wei Zhao's playmates. He had no skill in martial arts, yet a single punch from him could kill an ox. In Wei Zhao's eyes, this guard fell far short of an ox; he was not even as strong as one.

Wei Zhao fished another slip of paper out of his trouser pocket, glanced at the words written on it, and said, "I'm here to see Gu Pengzhan."

"Gu Pengzhan? Who's that? Why does that name sound so familiar?" The guard was taken aback and repeated it under his breath.

"The chairman!" The other guard, an older man standing off to one side, caught on faster. He realized in an instant who Gu Pengzhan was, and his heart jumped. He hurriedly plucked at the first guard's sleeve and whispered, "Watch your mouth. If the captain hears you, you'll be out on your ear."

"Ah!" At the old guard's words, the first guard was frightened half to death. His eyes went wide, and he cursed himself for running his mouth. What had possessed him to babble on about nothing? Now he had done it. He did not even know the chairman — what business had he being a security guard? Guarding whom, exactly?

Even so, the guard looked Wei Zhao up and down, his eyes darting about, and his fear drained away. However he looked at it, Wei Zhao seemed in no way the sort who could have any connection to the chairman. One was the chairman of a colossal conglomerate on the Fortune Global 500; the other was a farmhand come in from the countryside. Surely there was no link between the two.

The kid could not be from some construction site, come to lodge a complaint against the chairman, could he? At that thought, the guard's vigilance shot up. Just two days earlier he had watched a movie like that — what was it called, "You Owe Me a Hundred and Fifty Thousand" — in which a migrant worker goes to a chairman to demand his money.

At that, the guard and the old guard exchanged a glance. Clearly, both had landed on the same idea.

"What do you want with Chairman Chu?" The old guard cleared his throat and fixed Wei Zhao with a stern stare, afraid he might do something reckless.

"It's not me who wants him. My old man told me to come and find him," Wei Zhao said lazily. What his employer's true identity was in real life, Wei Zhao could not have cared less. Whoever he was, he was the one asking Wei Zhao for a favor.

"Hm? Your old man?" Hearing this, the two guards grew only more certain. In the movie, that migrant worker was demanding money on his brother's behalf; this kid in front of them was surely demanding it on his father's.

"All right, spare me the useless chatter. Just tell me what floor Gu Pengzhan is on and I'll go up myself." Wei Zhao had no time to waste on two small-time guards. Best to see the man himself and be done with it.

"The chairman isn't in. You'd better go..." The old guard sized Wei Zhao up twice more, satisfied himself that the fellow could absolutely have nothing to do with the chairman, and gave him his marching orders outright.

Wei Zhao could not be bothered to bandy words with these two. He had seen the look in their eyes plainly enough, and could guess nine-tenths of what they were thinking. They simply thought he dressed like a country bumpkin. Dogs judge people by their looks.

"Since he's not in, I'll go inside and wait for him." That said, Wei Zhao strode toward the company building.

"Wait — you can't go in there!" The two guards had not expected him to dare force his way past. They hurried to stop him.

Just then, the elevator on the first floor opened, and out stepped a somewhat plump middle-aged man and a thin, dark middle-aged man.

"By my reckoning, it should be about time. Why hasn't Xiao Yi contacted me yet? Li Fu, why don't you drive over to the station and pick him up? You've seen the photo, haven't you?" the plumpish middle-aged man instructed the thin, dark one.

"Yes, President Chen. I'll head over right away," Li Fu said respectfully.

Before Li Fu could take a step, Gu Pengzhan caught the sound of quarreling at the company entrance. He frowned and said to Li Fu, "Go and see what's going on first."

"What's going on here?" Li Fu walked briskly toward the entrance, where he found the company's two security guards blocking a young man from entering.

"Uncle Qing, this man says he wants to see the chairman, and he's forcing his way into the company..." The guards of course knew Li Fu. Li Fu held no specific administrative post in the company, but he was the chairman's closest man. If you had to pin a title on him, you could only say he was Chairman Chu's driver.

Everyone in the company knew, however, that Li Fu was far more than a driver. And so the guards never treated him as one. They respected him like a leader.

In many cases, Li Fu's words carried the weight of the chairman's own.

"You..." Li Fu stared at Wei Zhao, eyes wide. "You're Wei Zhao?" he said, somewhat startled.

"That's me." Wei Zhao glanced at Li Fu and nodded. Ever since Li Fu had appeared, he had been studying the man. By instinct, this was not Gu Pengzhan. As the chairman of a conglomerate, a man carried an innate air of authority about him, and this man had none. Stern he might be, and respected by those around him, but a man's aura could not be manufactured.

"Hello." Li Fu knew how highly Gu Pengzhan regarded this young man, so the moment he confirmed Wei Zhao's identity, he dared not be remiss. He quickly put out his hand to shake. "I'm Chairman Chu's secretary, Li Fu. The chairman was just about to send me to the train station to fetch you. I didn't expect you had already arrived."

"No matter. It gave me a chance to get to know the roads." Wei Zhao smiled and shook Li Fu's hand. Such was his nature: respect him, and he would respect you in return. Seeing Li Fu so courteous, Wei Zhao felt quite embarrassed instead.

"The chairman is right over there. This way, please. Let's go and see him together." Li Fu gestured for him to proceed, then took the lead himself.

The two guards stared blankly at Wei Zhao's receding back, their mouths hanging open in shock.

"He's really the chairman's guest?" the young guard muttered incredulously.

"Uncle Qing came to fetch him in person, so there's no mistake." The old guard sighed. "We nearly gave offense. Thank goodness Uncle Qing came when he did. If we'd really thrown him out, we'd have been in for a world of trouble."

When Li Fu had begun walking over, Wei Zhao had already started watching the other man not far away, the somewhat plump middle-aged one. If his guess was right, this was the man he had come to see: Gu Pengzhan, director of the Gu Group.

"Wei Zhao, isn't it?" As Wei Zhao followed Li Fu over, Gu Pengzhan strode toward them and extended his right hand with great warmth.

...

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