Chapter 6 — Who Is This Bumpkin?
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
This in turn allowed one to infer, from the side, just how high the incomes of Gu Group employees must be. Seen in that light, his own salary of thirty thousand a month did not seem so very generous after all.
Led by Uncle Qing, Wei Zhao came to a dark blue Bentley Arnage 728. It was a 2006 model, immaculately maintained; whether it had been bought only recently or simply cared for with uncommon attention, the car looked brand new.
"Mr. Lin, please get in." Uncle Qing pulled open the passenger door and gestured him inside.
"I sit in the front? Then in a moment the young miss...?" Wei Zhao hesitated before asking.
"The young miss always sits in the back," Uncle Qing said. "She has her schoolbag. Sitting up front would be inconvenient."
Wei Zhao nodded and got in. Uncle Qing drove slowly down into the underground parking garage. As they passed the security post at the exit, several guards snapped to attention at once, watching the car out the gate with grave faces.
Uncle Qing drove with great skill, though it was plain that his was the steady, by-the-book sort, not the same school Wei Zhao had learned. Wei Zhao's training leaned more toward racing; there was no help for it, since one of the old man's famous sayings was that losing a fight was not your fault, but if you could not even run away after losing, then you deserved whatever bad luck came to you.
So Wei Zhao had learned a good many escape techniques. Though he had only ever used them against the old man himself; in front of anyone else, it was always the other fellow who did the running.
"Mr. Lin, can you drive?" Uncle Qing asked, glancing at Wei Zhao, who sat quietly beside him while they waited at a red light.
Uncle Qing was an old hand at the wheel and a keen judge of people. Whenever someone sat in his car, he could usually tell from small details whether that person could drive. Wei Zhao, however, showed no particular reaction, which was why Uncle Qing asked.
"A little," Wei Zhao said. As a newcomer, he thought, better to be modest.
"Do you have a license?" Uncle Qing did not ask how much "a little" amounted to; he knew how much the boss trusted this man.
"Not yet." Wei Zhao shook his head. He could drive — he had even raced cars abroad — but he had no license. "I just turned eighteen. Haven't had time to get one."
"Then give me your ID card. I'll have a license made for you. That way, if Mr. Gu and I have business to attend to, you can drive the young miss to and from school."
The car stopped near a school that looked extremely luxurious, but did not pull up to the gate — probably because the car was simply too conspicuous, and it would not do for the other students to see.
From the file, Wei Zhao already knew that Songshan No. 1 High School, though a private school, was not the aristocratic academy one might imagine, but a provincial key high school that recruited students by examination from across the province. There was no lack of sons and daughters of the powerful and wealthy who got in through connections, but most students had earned their places on their own merit.
Backed by three major conglomerates, Songshan No. 1 High School surpassed other schools in facilities, resources, and faculty alike — which was why its college-entrance rate had stood at one hundred percent for years.
In truth, Wei Zhao understood that this hundred percent must be padded. Some spoiled rich kids never studied at all, yet in the end they too went to university — on the strength of their families' influence.
The familiar bell marking the end of class rang, and Wei Zhao's mind wandered for a moment. How many years had it been since he last heard that sound? The lapse was brief, though, and he recovered, watching the school playground with calm eyes.