"For stores, there are not only management issues, but also funding issues... Okay, leave it there and I'll take a look at it right away..." Xu Xilin took the contract handed over by his assistant while video chatting with Song Lianyuan. Before he finished speaking, the phone rang again. It was his finance department calling to request payment. Xu Xilin was a little confused. He took two sips of triple espresso and asked his finance manager, "What money did you just talk about?"

The financial manager wailed, “Pay the wages, boss!”

Any financial expenditure of the subsidiary in the north required his verbal consent or signature. Xu Xilin was so busy that he thought it was still the end of the month, but suddenly he found that it was already the 10th. He quickly said to the financial manager: "Fa Fa Fa, if you have nothing else, please kneel down. I'm in a meeting."

Song Lianyuan poked his head out of the screen through the network signal: "What are you drinking now? Did you have breakfast this morning? Who was the bastard who said he woke up with a stomachache last night?"

Xu Xilin was so angry just looking at him that he almost flipped the table: "Who the hell is this because of?"

Song Lianyuan: “…”

Maybe a person's character and luck are conserved over a period of time. Xu Xilin finally made things clear with Dou Xun. After walking away from the bad love life he had experienced for who knows how many years, he was slightly proud for two days, and then a lot of troubles occurred at work.

After a month of consideration, Song Lianyuan decided to transfer Xu Xilin away.

Firstly, the subsidiary has been established for nearly a year and a half, not counting the preparation time, and the dependence is still very strong, so Xu Xilin needs to loosen up a little and cultivate a group of capable teams. Secondly, Song Lianyuan has not given up on forcing Xu Xilin to "turn over a new leaf" and deliberately diverts his attention.

A few years ago, the "Xiangli" headquarters had just negotiated a mango breeding base, and Song Lianyuan immediately asked Xu Xilin to come over and ask him to find a way to brand the product, and to make other products in the future according to this model - the task was not heavy, but it would take him a long time. The climate in the mango-producing area is humid and pleasant, and it is said that there are several famous longevity villages nearby. Song Lianyuan's original intention was to let him raise the mangoes well in the local good water and soil.

Who knew that things would go against one's wishes.

When Xu Xilin arrived at the so-called base industrial park, he found that the management was in a mess. The project manager was hired from the local area and was half a local tyrant. He was not even good enough to take kickbacks from the inferior melons and jujubes grown by his aunts and uncles.

Xu Xilin had no choice but to fire the manager first. He couldn't recruit a suitable person in a short time, so he transferred a deputy from the headquarters. The two of them were exhausted from cleaning up the stall. As a result, at this time, something happened at the headquarters again. A copycat "Xiangli" suddenly appeared and wanted to sue. It happened that Gao Lan had just been diagnosed with pregnancy. The doctor said that this pregnancy was a little dangerous. Song Lianyuan was very nervous, so the matter on that side also fell on Xu Xilin.

At the same time, the negative consequences of Xu Xilin's previous workaholic style were clearly revealed. As soon as he left, all kinds of problems began to arise in the subsidiary.

Xu Xilin fights with various local tyrants every day. On average, he has to fly back and forth between the headquarters and the base industrial park every two or three days. He also has to remotely control his own affairs. All day long, he either has no time to eat or is rushing to dinner parties. As long as he sits there, he will receive 180 phone calls.

In the past, Xu Xilin had nothing else to do and devoted himself to his work. He felt that there were not many things that needed his attention and he could finish them in a short time. He had a lot of ideas in his mind that he wanted to realize and he had a little excess energy.

Now, he was determined to get back home after finishing all these things, but work suddenly piled up. For the first time in many years, Xu Xilin didn't want to go to work, and he often heard the "phone ringing" while sitting there.

"This is really a good working environment for recuperation," Xu Xilin said to Song Lianyuan in a sarcastic tone, "Brother, if I get killed in the revolution, remember to send someone to collect my body. I won't write a suicide note, and my wife can keep the inheritance."

Song Lianyuan: "If you keep talking nonsense, I'll beat you to death!"

Xu Xilin wouldn't fall for his sullen face. He didn't know if it was because of Song Lianyuan's bad mouth. After two sips of coffee, his empty stomach really began to ache. He glanced at the various documents that had piled up at his hands and wanted to go on strike even more.

Song Lianyuan took a deep breath and tried to change the subject with difficulty: "Now many large logistics companies are involved in e-commerce, and their coverage is simply not as good as others. I think the store proposal is also..."

Too much coffee can easily cause emotional instability. Xu Xilin sprayed back at their boss through the Internet: "It's also a good way to become a poor farmer. You should go and reclaim the land as a farmer. Don't talk nonsense to me. Do you have any idea about the rental prices in first-tier cities?"

Song Lianyuan: “…”

Xu Xilin became more and more angry as he spoke: "And this broken garden, when will it be over? How come I didn't know? Whose bad idea was this? Whoever came up with the bad idea, come over here and take it up, I don't care!"

Song Lianyuan felt a little guilty towards him, but now he could tell that Xu Xilin was simply fed up with being trapped in the garden and wanted to go back, so he was picking on him: "How come you don't know? What do you know these days except thinking about those perverted things all day long? If I didn't let you go back and get involved with that guy, even your breathing posture would be wrong, right? Have you improved in ten years, you bastard? Xu Xilin, let me tell you, I can't reach you now, but if I can, I can slap you..."

Gao Lan appeared from the other side of the computer screen, holding her waist. She raised her hand and pressed it on Song Lianyuan's shoulder to suppress him: "Speak properly! What are you arguing about?"

After she spoke, the two brothers stopped arguing for a moment. However, the sister-in-law had a strong deterrent effect on the eldest brother, and her effect on Xu Xilin was always limited. Xu Xilin calmed down for a moment and added with a gloomy face: "Anyway, I don't agree with what you said, so stop making trouble for me."

Song Lianyuan didn't argue with him because his wife was beside him, and he was so angry that he was gasping for breath.

Just then, Xu Xilin's phone rang.

Xu Xilin was annoyed when he heard the phone call. The moment he picked up the phone, his expression looked like he wanted to vent his unfinished anger directly on the unlucky guy who called. Unexpectedly, when he saw the caller ID, his anger miraculously calmed down. Song Lianyuan watched the person who had just thrown pots and smashed the stove at him change his expression like turning a book. A smile suddenly appeared in the corners of his tense eyes, and his voice became lower. He said happily to the person on the other end of the phone: "Well... I'm not busy. Are you off get out of class?"

Song Lianyuan's eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and then the video page stopped automatically - Xu Xilin closed the notebook!

Song Lianyuan spoke incoherently: "This grandson... this bastard!"

"Is it you or I who's pregnant? You have more emotions than a pregnant woman." Gao Lan stroked Song Lianyuan's dog head. She didn't ask clearly what happened, but she roughly understood something from the increasingly fierce quarrel between the two. She sat aside and said, "Why do you worry about it? Can heterosexuals find someone to live with forever? There are so many divorced and widowed people who simply don't get married. There will always be a way out when you reach the mountain. I haven't seen anyone have a miserable old age. Why do you care what he found?"

"That's different." Song Lianyuan's voice also dropped an octave. "How can that be the same thing? People like them are... bound to be criticized and discriminated against!"

Gao Lan rolled her eyes: "We women have been discriminated against for more than five thousand years, but we haven't been wiped out yet. Your brother has become a smart man, so he's not that fragile."

Song Lianyuan: “…”

"Besides, if you're afraid that others will discriminate against him, why don't you 'start with yourself'?" Gao Lan made a "tsk" sound, touched Song Heimian's forehead, and said sympathetically, "With this logic, no wonder he didn't do well in school when he was a child... Stop arguing. Look at Xiao Xu's face, it looks like it was stained with coffee. We should go back to a big hospital for a thorough check-up. If you can't find a solution, you can go there and let him go back to rest for a few days."

Song Lianyuan: "Then you..."

Gao Lan: "I'm fine without you two causing me trouble. Please, brother, get out of here!"

When Xu Xilin first arrived at the base, he sent a WeChat message to Dou Xun and took a picture of the mango tree to show him. Unexpectedly, as soon as he sent the WeChat message, Dou Xun called back.

Xu Xilin sensitively discovered that the feeling of Dou Xun on the phone was different from when they met. The uncertainty was gone. It seemed that he no longer intended to suppress his burning feelings and terrible desire for control. He called him at a fixed time and place every day, asking questions like "Where are you today?" and "Did you rest well?", as if he wanted to keep track of his whereabouts at all times.

Dou Xun said on the phone that he had dreamed about him in the middle of the night before, and when he woke up, he found a half empty bed next to him. He missed him so much that he felt very sad, so he asked him to take a photo and send it to him. Xu Xilin cleaned up the coffee and messy documents on the table, opened all the curtains, and tried to let the sun shine brightly around to cover the fatigue on his face. Then he closed the door stealthily, unbuttoned his shirt to his chest, took a bunch of photos, and finally chose a photo that looked flirty and casual and sent it to him.

After a while, Dou Xun sent a message back as a courtesy. Xu Xilin opened it with great anticipation and found that it was a photo of him and a parrot. The parrot had probably been tamed by him and was standing obediently on Dou Xun's arm. The background was the locked little room in his house.

Dou Xun: "If you don't come back, I'll take a leave and go look for you."

Xu Xilin stood up suddenly, and the assistant saw their boss, Xu, who was in a "meeting", running out of the office in dishevel, and hurriedly followed him: "Where is the boss going?"

Xu Xilin: "Go kill that Black-faced Song and escape from prison!"

Before he could take any action, Song Lianyuan came to be slaughtered the next day.

The two of them had a fierce argument, and as soon as Song Lianyuan arrived at the base, he saw that Xu Xilin had lost a lot of weight in such a short period of time, and he was immediately speechless.

Song Lianyuan's heart, which was full of feudalism and righteousness, had been tangled on the way here, and he sighed when he saw Xu Xilin.

Xu Xilin was angry with him: "Brother, haven't you heard the story? Countless classics and folk tales tell us that you can't break up a couple when they are in love. Why don't you wait until we are in the seven-year itch and then use the big stick to break up the couple? Wouldn't that be more effective?"

"Nonsense, waiting for seven years will make the opportunity cold, and the harm must be strangled in the cradle!" Song Lianyuan glared at him, "A year is more than 360 days, but the length of a year at the age of 18 is different from that of a year at the age of 28 or 38. Do you understand? When you are in your teens, it is common to break up and then get back together. Try it when you are in your thirties or forties. Every time you break up, you will be skinned alive and it will take you half your life to recover. Don't worry when that time comes. Don't say you found a man. Even if you found a monster, I would not easily persuade you to break up."

His tone was harsh and his words were extremely unpleasant to the ear, but Xu Xilin heard a kind intention in his words that put him in the other's shoes, and instead he could no longer lose his temper.

He placed one hand on his stomach and remained silent.

Song Lianyuan waved his hand impatiently: "Okay, I'll give you a week off. Go back and have a good checkup."

Before he finished speaking, Xu Xilin, who had been listless just now, jumped up and shouted to the assistant outside: "Xiao Zhao, book a plane ticket for me!"

Assistant: "Boss, when?"

Xu Xilin: "Tonight...this afternoon!"

Song Lianyuan: "I asked you to go back and see a doctor! I didn't ask you to see anything else!"

Xu Xilin treated him as a corpse.

However, his schedule was delayed to the next day because he had work to hand over and was invited to dinner by the local government. The local area had almost no other income except agricultural products, and the government hoped to use their brand effect to advertise the local area and use the local worthless land to attract investment.

Because they were talking about serious matters, everyone was more measured during the meal, no one forced them to drink, and Song Lianyuan was watching, so Xu Xilin actually drank less than two liang in total. When he left the table, his face was not red at all. He was talking and laughing, and his mind was sharp. You couldn't detect that he was drunk without a breathalyzer. But when he went back home that night, he couldn't stand up, he vomited all over the place, and was in so much pain that he couldn't even stand up.

Song Lianyuan was also very distressed: "Why don't we go to the hospital? Come, I'll carry you... You're dying and still playing with your phone!"

Xu Xilin couldn't stand up, but his fingers could move. Song Lianyuan saw him sending a WeChat message to "Dounian'er" saying, "I just finished dinner with a group of people. Looking around the table, there were only fat people, old men, and a dark-faced guy. I feel like my eyes are about to become nearsighted from the injury. I want to go home."

There was also an expression of some unknown meaning attached at the end, which was just a way of acting cute.

"Black-faced" Song Lianyuan has complicated feelings.

The other party replied immediately: "Okay, I'll pick you up tomorrow. There's a surprise."

Song Lianyuan watched Xu Xilin sweating profusely and with a distorted face due to the pain, while he couldn't help laughing.

She still has the energy to flirt, so it seems like everything is fine.

Song Lianyuan threw him there in a rage: "You'd better crawl on your own."

When Xu Xilin woke up the next morning, he felt even worse, but he still managed to get up and rushed to the airport like a ghost. Song Lianyuan was very worried: "If you don't do it in one or two days, why don't you go to the hospital first, take some medicine, and go back for a thorough checkup when you feel better?"

Xu Xilin has been eager to go home for a long time. Besides, he doesn't know whether Dou Xun's "surprise" has a time limit. What if he bought something that would easily expire or spoil? Wouldn't that be a waste of his effort?

He has wasted too many years and has become a miser, unwilling to waste even a penny of his kindness.

Song Lianyuan understood what he was thinking and slapped him in the face: "You bastard, you want to die?"

Dou Xun looked over the flight information stored in his phone several times, arranged all his work matters early, and prepared to pick up the person. When he ran out in a hurry, he happened to meet the old professor who invited him to return to China. The old professor looked him up and down and asked, "Are you going on a blind date?"

Dou Xun: “…”

The professor asked again: "I've never heard you say that you have a partner?"

"Yes, I was just about to pick it up." Dou Xun said and ran away quickly, fearing that the teacher would stop him and talk about the quantitative relationship between marriage and income level.

Dou Xun first ran to Xu Xilin's house, gave the grey parrot a handful of nuts, and tied a small bow tie around the neck of the big bird that dared not speak out.

He spent a long time studying a medicinal dish that needed a long time to cook. Dou Xun turned down the fire to the lowest setting, opened a packaged paper box in the living room and took a look. Fearing that birds might harm it, he put it in the room and locked the door.

At this time, Xu Xilin's message arrived: "It's time to board the plane."

Knowing that Xu Xilin's flight would take more than three hours, Dou Xun couldn't sit still and simply went to the airport.

He felt as if he had won a 100 million lottery and was about to claim the prize, filled with restless anticipation.

Song Lianyuan used Xu Xilin's office, and Xu Xilin also sent him a message when he boarded the plane. Song Lianyuan was a bit feudal, and in fact a bit superstitious. Every time his family members went on a long trip, he would ask them to send him a message when they got on and off the plane, and he would reply "Have a safe journey" when he boarded the plane. However, Xu Xilin was so angry that day that he snorted and ignored him.

Half an hour later, Xu Xilin's assistant Zhao suddenly rushed in from outside, looking shocked: "Song... Song..."

Song Lianyuan looked at him with a frown.

Assistant Zhao handed him the phone tremblingly. It was urgent news pushed by a social networking site. Song Lianyuan took a look and his mind buzzed.