Chapter 6 - Good brothers, walking together, hand in hand, for a lifetime

On Monday morning, after the regular morning meeting, the manager announced the good news that everyone in the service center had raised their salaries by one notch and their performance bonuses had doubled that month.

The entire service center, covering 16 floors, fell into ecstasy. Was there anything more joyful than a salary increase and bonus doubling?

Nothing!

It was just weird, why did they suddenly receive a raise?

Everyone guessed this and that, but no one could think of a passable reason, so they simply didn’t think about it. Wasn’t it good to have more money?

Compared with the excitement of other colleagues, Zhuang Yanyu was much calmer.

He had just been a human for more than two months, and he still had the generous pension from when he retired. His attachment to money was not as strong as that of a normal human being.

For him, the deposit in the bank was just one of the numbers in the densely recorded data in his brain.

Today’s technical service department was also very boring so everyone was discussing how to spend the extra salary.

Most of the people in the department were all workaholics, and everyone was talking about what new equipment to replace, or getting a novice to help.

Only one new intern said that this was his first salary and he wanted to buy a gift for his most important person.

Zhuang Yanyu’s ears moved¹, and he keenly caught this sentence in the midst of everyone’s voices.

Buying a gift for someone special?

So Zhuang Yanyu divided his salary into three parts, one part for his own daily expenses, one part to buy gifts for his father, and the remaining part to buy gifts for his good brother.

But what gift was more suitable for a brother?

Zhuang Yanyu was used to doing things with data supporting him².

He searched the Internet first, and after analyzing a large amount of data, he screened out several gifts, including sneakers, electronic products, games, etc., which were generally considered to be the most suitable gifts for a good brothers by people.

However, when combined with Wen Chenxi, these gifts don’t seem to suit him.

Zhuang Yanyu asked Zhou Quan: “What do you think is the most suitable gift for a good friend?”

Zhou Quan became interested: “Is it a birthday present? Or is it just an ordinary gift without any holiday or anniversary color? Is it for your favorite Miss sister?”

Zhuang Yanyu: “Ordinary gifts, for men, my brother.”

Zhou Quan’s interest dropped a bit, “Oh, brother…that’s simple, you see what he likes, or what he said he likes before but hadn’t bought one yet and give that as a gift.”

“He hasn’t told me what he likes.”

“Then I also don’t know, maybe you can check it online?”

The problem went back to the starting point, and Zhuang Yanyu gave up asking Zhou Quan.

Zhuang Yanyu recalled those Long Aotian hosts he brought with him before, what kind of gifts did they give their friends?

The modern Long Aotian sent money, status, house, car, etc…

The cultivator Long Aotian sent heaven and earth treasures, golden pills and elixirs…

The modern Wen Chenxi did not need those, since he had all of them. As for the cultivation treasures, he had nowhere to find, since this was just an ordinary world.

Finally, Zhuang Yanyu approached Comrade Lao Zhuang.

Comrade Lao Zhuang came earlier to the human world, so he must have a better understanding of human preferences.

Sure enough, the advice given by Lao Zhuang was much more reliable. Although he didn’t specify what to give, he gave Zhuang Yanyu a good idea.

He said: “Giving a gift to the other party, no matter what kind of gift one gives, needs to reflect the heart of the gift giver. No matter whether the gift is cheap or expensive, as long as the heartfelt sincerely is there and the other party could see your heartfelt sincerity at a glance, then that’s fine.”

Zhuang Yanyu’s brain PU³ quickly analyzed: “I want him to know my feelings⁴.”

Lao Zhuang said: “Yes.”

Zhuang Yanyu understood, “I understand, thank you Dad.”

After hanging up the phone, Zhuang Yanyu immediately wrote down a customized plan, and he had already thought about what he wanted to give to his good brother.

Zhuang Yanyu’s customized gift was made in less than five days and sent to his home.

But for the next following twenty days, Zhuang Yanyu didn’t see Wen Chenxi.

The two did not chat on WeChat. In the company, Zhuang Yanyu had never even met an executive other than the service center manager, except for that accidental encounter in the elevator.

How to give the gift to the other party was a problem.

The company has created a comfortable working environment for nerds and workaholics. The online OA⁵ automatic office allowed employees to stay in their seats most of the time, and it also blocked Zhuang Yanyu’s way to meet other executives in the company. Unless he took the initiative to find it.

But if he wanted to see Mr. Wen, he must make an appointment in advance.

Zhuang Yanyu was thinking about it when the technical service director came over, “Xiao Zhuang, the engineering department wants to transfer you to help, are you free now?”

After discovering Zhuang Yanyu’s qualifications, the technical service director frequently called Zhuang Yanyu to be seconded for the roll call.

From testing the software at the beginning to letting Zhuang Yanyu participate in the development and design of some public projects, Director Xu tried to impress Zhuang Yanyu with the sense of accomplishment brought by high-end technology.

It’s just that this method didn’t have any effect, with Zhuang Yanyu still leaving work on time when the time came.

Even, in order not to join the engineering department and get rid of Director Xu’s ‘lobbying’, after analyzing the situation, Zhuang Yanyu followed the example of others and started to behave badly.

For example, let him do what he wanted, behaved himself, and no longer tried to make any innovations or inventions.

However, if his morals were one foot tall, then his schemes were one foot tall⁵. After Director Xu saw that Zhuang Yanyu didn’t want to work overtime, he learnt to be smart.

For example, when Zhuang Yanyu was asked to participate in the development and design of the public project, Director Xu would ask Zhuang Yanyu for his opinion, and ask him if he had a better upgrading or improvement plan.

If Zhuang Yanyu said no, Director Xu would sigh and say, “Ai⁷, it looks like I might have to work overtime tonight. I’m sorry, Xiao Zhuang. It might cause you to work overtime with us.”

Zhuang Yanyu, who was retired and didn’t like working overtime, silently glanced at Director Xu.

Manager Xu looked at him with a smile, not hiding his wolfish ambition at all.

In the end, Zhuang Yanyu would be silent for three seconds, make his decision, and silently look at the code: “Let me see where I can upgrade, and fix it before I get off work.”

Director Xu succeeded who had in his plot, would say happily: “I knew that Xiao Zhuang would do it! “

Today was no exception. As soon as Zhuang Yanyu and Zhou Quan came, Director Xu directly asked Zhuang Yanyu to participate in the system design of a public project, and asked Zhou Quan to help Zhuang Yanyu.

Because it had been open sourced, with all data was developed and upgraded on the source code to improve user experience, there was no confidentiality needed, and Director Xu was very relieved to entrust the task to them.

Additionally, because Director Xu valued him so much, everyone in the engineering department was familiar with Zhuang Yanyu’s name.

“Is he Zhuang Yanyu from the technical service department?”

“Yes, I heard that Director Xu was going to transfer him to our R&D⁸ project.”

“Direct transfer? That should be impossible, right? This is Weilan Technology!”

“Yes, really, Director Xu had already told the manager, and I heard that he just graduated from an ordinary undergraduate.”

“Tsk… what kind of luck…”

Some people were envious, and naturally others would also be jealous.

Weilan Technology, as a leading technology company in China, was really not so easy to enter.

Especially in their R&D engineering center, which of them did not only have a masters or doctorate from a key university, but was also really skilled?

In this way, when they enter the company, some of them even have to go through two or three sides before entering.

Now that Zhuang Yanyu, a student who graduated from an ordinary university, could enter the R&D engineering center so easily, it was impossible not to be jealous.

It’s not that they looked down on students from ordinary universities, or they thought that it’s unfair. They even felt a little unworthy of virtue, and thought in their heart that if Zhuang Yanyu’s skills were so good, why didn’t he come in through regular channels? It was nothing more than good luck, and he happened to meet a few simple systems, which made Director Xu hold him in his eyes.

They spoke in low voices, and Director Xu who passed by noticed their expressions, so how could he not understand?

He deliberately asked: “What are you all doing here? Why don’t you go to work soon, do you want to stay and work overtime?”

A technical backbone hurriedly said: “We are not lazy, the program is currently in trial operation, so we are waiting.”

Supervisor Xu said: “So it is like this, since you have to wait, you go and see Xiao Zhuang, he is dealing with the project handed over by the three groups yesterday.”

Hearing this, the technical backbone said in surprise: “The one handed over by the three groups? That one was very complicated and you left it to him alone?”

Everyone was a little surprised, didn’t he just say that he valued Zhuang Yanyu? Was he sure this wasn’t embarrassing him?

The source code was extremely complicated and difficult to understand, even they probably had to study it for a long time to understand it.

Director Xu had a meaningful expression on his face, “You’ll understand after you’ve seen him.”

Zhuang Yanyu was staring at the screen intently in order not to work overtime, and didn’t care who was watching him type the code at all.

So he didn’t know at all that just now those few technical backbones who secretly envied him that he was “lucky” all gaped with their mouths open when they saw him type out dense codes at an extremely fast speed and skillfully upgrade the system.

After Zhuang Yanyu finished the finishing work, he turned around together and saw so many people behind him, he had a little doubt in his eyes: “Is there something wrong?”

“Xiao Zhuang… No, Zhuang Ge⁹, are you really just an ordinary college student?”

Zhuang Yanyu: “I am, what’s the problem?”

“No, there is no problem, we just think you are too good!”

“Could it be that you are self-taught?”

Knowing that Zhuang Yanyu really graduated from an ordinary university, the technical backbones all regarded Zhuang Yanyu as a self-taught genius, they admired him more and more, and joined Director Xu in persuading Zhuang Yanyu to come to their R&D engineering center.

However, Zhuang Yanyu didn’t want to come in, and he just didn’t come.

When being asked why, he said that the technical service department was very good and he liked it very much.

The engineers in the engineering center were going crazy, what’s good about the technical service! Not only was it easy to be scolded by difficult customers, but also to receive the anger of customers, how was it better than their development and design department!

Zhuang Yanyu didn’t understand their grief. Seeing that he was about to leave work, he hurried back to the 16th floor and took the gift he wanted to give to his brother to the security management office downstairs.

Because he didn’t know the address of Wen Chenxi’s home, he could only put it in the management office, where all the couriers sent to the company would be placed, and the security guards would send them to all departments.

After depositing the gift, Zhuang Yanyu thought about it, and took the initiative to send a WeChat reminder to Wen Chenxi: [This month’s salary increased, I bought a gift for you, but because I don’t know your home address, so I placed it in the company’s security room, it should be delivered to you tomorrow. 】

The Ji House.

Ji Zhiyuan’s birthday party had already begun to receive guests.

As a media group that dominated the entertainment industry, the Ji family could see that 80% of the people who came to this banquet were various actors, singers, directors, etc., and the rest were basically investors.

However, Wen Chenxi, who attended the banquet as a friend, received more attention than Ji Zhiyuan.

Wen Chenxi only stood in the banquet hall for a while, and many people came over and tried to talk to him, many of them celebrities or entertainers in the circle, both men and women, and was even more popular than the protagonist Ji Zhiyuan.

Ji Zhiyuan said sourly: “Is this my birthday party or yours…”

Li Xi: “Pfft, who let the outside world say that you love to play, and many people in the circle have an affair with you. Compared with you, Lao Wen’s ten thousand-year-old iron tree that can’t bloom is more popular.”

Ji Zhiyuan: “That’s all rumors!”

But soon he asked Wen Chenxi curiously: “I saw that from the several artists from our company that come to strike up a conversation with you, one of them is Xiao Lan, who is top-notch and looks very good, did you see?”

Wen Chenxi: “Which one?”

Ji Zhiyuan regretted: “…De¹⁰! Seems like you have no impression.”

Otherwise, it would not be asking which one.

Wen Chenxi toasted Ji Zhiyuan with a glass of wine: “Happy birthday, I’ll go sit in the back garden first.”

Ji Zhiyuan knew that he was tired of such occasions, so he waved his hand: “Go, I’ll let the waiter stop people, and try not to let anyone disturb you, let’s go to the farmhouse to play again next time, I miss the fruit from Xiao Zhuang’s house a little bit, it is sweeter than other places! Let’s call Xiao Zhuang next time, it happens to be his house.”

Wen Chenxi He raised his eyebrows and didn’t say yes or no.

Wen Chenxi avoided the crowd and sat alone in the back garden to check the messages from Special Assistant Lin.

[Special Assistant Lin: The R&D engineering manager has received a proposal from the department head again, hoping to transfer Zhuang Yanyu to the R&D engineering center instead of secondment. He could not get in touch with more core projects on secondment, because he wants Zhuang Yanyu to participate in the development and design of core projects. ]

[Wen Chenxi: He refused again? ]

[Special Assistant Lin: Yes. 】

Wen Chenxi slightly hooked his lower lip, [En. ]

Lin Lin¹¹ looked at the boss’s answer and pondered what the boss was thinking at the moment.

Since the boss asked him to check on this employee named Zhuang Yanyu half a month ago, Lin Lin often couldn’t figure out what the boss was thinking.

For example, if Zhuang Yanyu had such skills as Director Xu said. Then before that, Wen Chenxi would definitely try his best to hire him into the engineering research and development center with high salary and high treatment.

But now the boss didn’t seem to have this idea?

In the garden, after Wen Chenxi replied to Special Assistant Lin, he did not turn off his phone, but clicked on Zhuang Yanyu’s WeChat avatar.

Zhuang Yanyu was not a person who liked to post on Moments, the latest Moments was the one he had liked.

In the dialogue box between the two, there was no dialogue, other than the system prompt on the day they just became friends.

Obviously, the person who was very bold and proactive to invite himself to know more about him when he was in front of him, had been reserved as if he was shy in the past twenty days, and he was even embarrassed to send him a message.

Zhuang Yanyu’s high-definition ID photo was still lying on his computer.

Wen Chenxi had to admit that Zhuang Yanyu’s appearance and temperament all happened to be based on his aesthetic point.

To him, other people’s initiative was neither painful nor itchy, and he had no interest in them at all.

Only Zhuang Yanyu, a person he had not seen for almost a month, made Wen Chenxi still remember clearly the other person’s every move, his words and deeds last time.

Wen Chenxi’s eyes stayed on Zhuang Yanyu’s portrait for two seconds, he tapped his finger, and then typed: [Ji Zhiyuan said he still wants to go to your hometown again to fish]

Before he finished writing, a new message jumped to the dialogue box.

Wen Chenxi looked at the message from Zhuang Yanyu, and his typing hand paused, gift?

He deleted what he had typed and called the security captain.

Half an hour later, the security captain found the courier deposited by Zhuang Yanyu among hundreds of couriers, and delivered it to Wen Chenxi.

Wen Chenxi opened the gift box and took out a hand-made ornament.

Two small Q-version boys, one of whom was even wearing glasses, the two boys were holding hands, and the word ‘Forever’ was engraved on the base plate.

Wen Chenxi raised his eyebrows, took a photo of the figure and sent it to Zhuang Yanyu.

[Wen Chenxi: Who are these two people? ]

[Zhuang Yanyu: One is me and the other is you. ]

Zhuang Yanyu replied almost instantly. This was the inspiration his father gave him, and he wanted to let the other party know what he wanted.

His heartfelt sincerity was all here.

Good brothers, walking together, hand in hand, for a lifetime.

Originally, he wanted to get a music box on the base plate, so it could sing the song “Friends Walk Together for Life” at the touch of a button, but the store owner said the base was too small to get a music box.

[Zhuang Yanyu: Do you like it? ]

Wen Chenxi stared at the word ‘Forever’ and didn’t speak for a while.

The author has something to say:

PS——

Wen Chenxi who doesn’t want to make himself so easy to chase: You don’t have to be so proactive…

Lao Zhuang: Your thinking is correct, but Dad always feels that there is something wrong…

¹- It is just a personification to signifiy Zhuang Yanyu heard something.

²- 看数据说话, saying that Zhuang Yanyu spoke with data backing him. Not exactly only talking but also his every action.

³- PU, power unit

⁴- 心意, not feelings as in like or love ><, but the thoughts behind the gift.

⁵- OA, office automation

⁶- 道一尺高，魔一尺高, ‘一尺’ and ‘一丈’ both directly translate to a foot length. However, ‘一尺’ is about 168mm while ‘一丈’ is ten times the amount, 168cm. This shows that the technical director had more impure than pure ones.

⁷- 哎, ‘ai’ is the sound of sighing.

⁸- 研发, R&D, means Research and Development.

⁹- 哥, basically using a respectful connotation to call Zhuang Yanyu; like older brother type of meaning.

¹⁰- 得, pinyin is ‘de’, implying that Ji Zhiyuan was so taken aback by Wen Chenxi’s action of not paying mind to anyone.

¹¹- 林霖, Lin Lin is Special Assistant Lin’s real name and the author alternates between them.

HelenXD:

I kinda feel bad for Xiao Xi (I’ll just call Wen Chenxi as Xiao Xi) when he finds out what Xiao Yi’s real motives were. >v<

~Spoiler~

The best is yet to come ><

What will Xiao Xi give to Xiao Yu?

~~