Chapter 5 — Why Does This Feel Like Looking for a Partner? Wei Zhao Smiled Faintly and Nodded, Shaking Hands Naturally with Gu Pengzhan. Such Ordinary Social Etiquette Came Easily to Wei Zhao: "Mr. Gu, Hello!"

Gu Pengzhan's warmth left Wei Zhao almost overwhelmed by the honor. It was the first time he had ever met an employer so enthusiastic. Though he had been invited here to carry out a certain mission, for the chairman of a Fortune 500 listed company to treat him this way made Wei Zhao curious. Why did it feel like a meeting between equals?

"Mr. Lin! I know as well that asking a man of your standing to stoop to such work may put you in a difficult position..." Gu Pengzhan hesitated a moment before he spoke.

Gu Pengzhan sounded more outrageous with every word, until even a thick-skinned man like Wei Zhao grew embarrassed and hurried to say, "No stooping at all... Back home I weave straw sandals and earn only a few hundred a month. The old man said this job would feed me for a lifetime..."

Wei Zhao thought to himself that this employer was truly decent. He had invited him here to work and was still so polite, unlike some people who, once they had paid him, began to pick and carp at everything.

"What? Weaving straw sandals?" Gu Pengzhan froze and looked Wei Zhao carefully up and down. He had not mistaken the man, had he? But what was all this talk? Could Old Lin really make him weave sandals every day for those few hundred? Gu Pengzhan was left speechless. From his own old father he had vaguely heard of some of Wei Zhao's exploits. The reward for that hostage rescue in Africa alone must have been counted in hundreds of millions of American dollars, and yet he wove straw sandals for a living?

"Yes, one pair of straw sandals sells for four yuan. If I weave three or five pairs a day, that is several hundred a month." Wei Zhao nodded. He himself faintly sensed something was wrong. The old man did not seem like a poor wretch at all.

Gu Pengzhan could not meddle in another man's private affairs. Hearing Wei Zhao's words, he could only shake his head helplessly and say, "From now on your salary will be thirty thousand a month. That covers your school fees and daily expenses. Of course, whatever you spend on my daughter can be reimbursed separately through Li Fu."

"Thirty thousand? Did the old man not say a few thousand?" Wei Zhao froze. No way? So high a salary? Had he known this, why would he have brought any money at all, sparing himself the sight of the old man's pained face. Wei Zhao recalled the scene when he had pried those forty-nine thousand yuan from the old man. "Wait, Mr. Gu, what did you just say? Going to school? School fees? And money spent on your daughter? What does that mean? I do not quite understand..."

Wei Zhao was thoroughly puzzled. What on earth did Gu Pengzhan mean? Had he not come here to carry out a mission?

"Oh? Did Old Master Lin not tell you beforehand? This way, please. We will discuss the details upstairs." Gu Pengzhan smiled faintly, made a gesture of invitation, and walked shoulder to shoulder with Wei Zhao toward the elevator.

In any case Gu Pengzhan was now his employer, and besides, the salary he offered was truly not low. Although what Gu Pengzhan had said sounded baffling, Wei Zhao had encountered plenty of strange missions over the years.

So as he walked with Gu Pengzhan, Wei Zhao deliberately slowed his pace, falling back as if to follow behind him, yet Gu Pengzhan quite deliberately kept his own steps level with Wei Zhao's.

Wei Zhao saw it clearly and felt some surprise. Why did Gu Pengzhan's attitude toward him seem overly warm? Strange though it was, Wei Zhao did not ask aloud. After all, it was his first meeting with Gu Pengzhan, and the two were not yet familiar. Some things were better left unsaid until, with time, everything would become clear on its own.

Gu Pengzhan's office sat on the top floor of the Pengzhan Building. It was two hundred square meters in size, with one whole wall made of great floor-to-ceiling windows that filled the room with unusually bright light.

After ushering Gu Pengzhan and Wei Zhao into the office, Uncle Qing withdrew and told Xiao Yu, the secretary in the outer office, to come in and pour tea.

"Mr. Lin, what would you like to drink?" Xiao Yu had already learned Wei Zhao's surname from Uncle Qing.

"Plain boiled water." At home Wei Zhao drank mostly plain boiled water, and abroad it was the same.

Xiao Yu froze for a moment, but still said with a smile, "Very well, please wait a moment." As for what Chairman Chu drank, she did not need to ask, for it was the same every day.

"Mr. Lin, starting tomorrow, Uncle Qing will arrange for you to enter Senior Three Class Five of Songshan First High School as a high school student, in the same class as my daughter Gu Mengyao. You will go to and from school with her every day, look after her life, and tutor her lessons when you return home... To put it plainly, you will simply keep her company... All these years I have been busy with business and have neglected my daughter, and I feel guilty for it. I want to find someone she can talk to, someone to give her more care... That is the true reason I asked you to come... You are about the same age, both young people, so you should have topics in common, no?" Gu Pengzhan said with a faint smile.

Wei Zhao was a little stunned. What was this about finding someone she could talk to? Giving her care? Topics in common? No way? Was this the so-called mission that could feed him for a lifetime? The more he listened, the more it sounded like looking for a partner. Could it be that this girl had some hidden ailment that kept her unmarried, and he had been found to make up the numbers?

"Mr. Lin, what is wrong?" Gu Pengzhan saw the look of astonishment on Wei Zhao's face and seemed to guess what he was thinking. "I had assumed Old Master Lin had already told you what you would be doing this time, but now it seems that is not the case?"

"Mr. Gu, just call me Wei Zhao. Mr. Lin sounds awkward." Wei Zhao gave a bitter smile. "To tell the truth, I really did not know what I was coming to do. The old man only said this was an important mission, and that if I did it well I could live off it for a lifetime..."

"Live off it for a lifetime?" Hearing Wei Zhao's words, Gu Pengzhan froze, then burst into great laughter. "Ha ha ha ha, quite right. Old Master Lin did not lie to you. If you do this well, the reward you receive will indeed feed you for a lifetime!"

"But..." Wei Zhao still did not understand what Gu Pengzhan wanted him to do. "What exactly is my mission?"

"Did I not just say it? You will accompany my daughter to and from school and study with her. Of course, you must also be responsible for her safety and not let anyone bully her." Gu Pengzhan explained.

"A study companion? A nanny?" Those were the only words Wei Zhao could think of.

"Er... you may understand it that way. In fact, that is what it is." Gu Pengzhan nodded, and without waiting for Wei Zhao to say more, handed him a file. "This is material on Songshan First High School. You can familiarize yourself with it first."

Wei Zhao nodded helplessly and took the file. So this was the old man's so-called top mission? Damn it, could he have been fooled again?

Just like last time in South America, when the old man told him to go rescue a person... In the end, where was it one person? It was a whole crowd...

But whatever was said, there was a high reward to be had, and the danger of this mission was rather low. It only had something of the nature of being a lackey to a rich family's young miss, but that did not matter. He would treat it as a rest.

Although Songshan City First High School was called First High School, it had long since become a private school. It had only kept its name when it was bought out, and Gu Pengzhan's Gu Group was one of the school's three major shareholders.