Chapter 6 — Who Is This Bumpkin?
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 2
From this, one could infer, indirectly, just how high the salaries at the Gu Group must be. Seen in that light, his own thirty-thousand-yuan salary hardly counted as generous.
Led by Qing Bo, Wei Zhao came to a dark blue Bentley Arnage 728. It was an '06 model, very well maintained. Whether it had been bought recently or simply cared for with unusual diligence, he could not tell; the car looked brand new.
"Mr. Lin, please get in." Qing Bo opened the passenger door and gestured him inside.
"I sit up front? Then what about the young miss later...?" Wei Zhao asked after a moment's hesitation.
"The miss always sits in the back," Qing Bo said. "She has a schoolbag. Sitting up front would be inconvenient."
Wei Zhao nodded and got in. Qing Bo 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 with grave faces.
Qing Bo drove with great skill, though it was plain that his was the steady, by-the-book sort, not at all the style Wei Zhao had been taught. What Wei Zhao had learned leaned far more toward racing. He had no choice in the matter: the old man at home had a famous saying, that if you cannot win, that is not your fault, but if you cannot win and cannot even run, then you deserve whatever bad luck comes.
So Wei Zhao had learned a good many escape techniques. True, he had only ever used them on the old man himself; in front of everyone else, it was always the other party who did the running.
"Mr. Lin, can you drive?" Qing Bo asked, glancing at Wei Zhao, who sat quietly beside him, while waiting at a red light.
Qing Bo 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 Qing Bo had asked.
"A little," Wei Zhao said, thinking to himself that as a newcomer he had better be modest.
"Do you have a license?" Qing Bo did not ask just how much "a little" meant; he knew how much the boss trusted this man.
"Not yet." Wei Zhao shook his head. He could drive, and 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, so that if Mr. Gu and I have something to attend to, you can drive the miss to and from school," Qing Bo said.
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 files, Wei Zhao already knew that although Songshan No. 1 High School was a private school, it was not the kind of aristocratic academy one might imagine. It was a provincial key high school that admitted students by examination from across the whole province. There was no lack of sons and daughters of the powerful and wealthy who got in through connections, but the great majority of students had earned their places on their own merit.
Backed by three major conglomerates, Songshan No. 1 High School surpassed other schools in both facilities and faculty, which was also 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 with some water. 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 sound of the dismissal bell rang out, and Wei Zhao lost himself for a moment. How many years had it been since he last heard that sound? But the lapse was brief; he recovered himself and watched the school's athletic field with calm eyes.