Chapter 77

After teaching the little girl some more lyrics from "Five Thousand Years of China," Jia Hongjian didn't have to wait long before Wang Koulan returned. As soon as she saw Jia Hongjian, she immediately asked curiously, "Hongjian, did your family sign the secret recipe from Ma Junren?"

"Yep, we did," Jia Hongjian nodded.

At this point, Old Luo also became curious, "Is that the Ma Junren from track and field? You signed his secret formula for replenishing energy?"

Before Jia Hongjian could repeat his answer, Wang Koulan answered for him, "Yes, Dad. Hongjian went to Northeast China to expose fraud, and on the way, he and his father signed the secret recipe from Ma Junren. When the news was broadcast on TV, I was really surprised. At first, I thought I was seeing things..."

At this point, Wang Koulan suddenly thought of something and turned to ask Jia Hongjian curiously, "Little Hongjian, can you tell me how much your family paid to sign the contract?"

"Hehe, sure," Jia Hongjian smiled. He knew this question would be asked repeatedly by people who knew his family. After all, who didn't know that Ma Junren had once said he wouldn't sell the secret recipe even for ten million yuan? If his family bought it, it would have to be for more than ten million, right? But his family wasn't that rich! "We paid a total of one million yuan, in installments, with zero down payment."

"One million? In installments? And zero down payment?" Wang Koulan really began to suspect that she was experiencing early menopause and was hallucinating. What had she just heard? That stubborn sports coach who said he wouldn't sell the secret recipe for ten million yuan had sold it to Jia Hongjian for one million? Why so low? Was Ma Junren doing charity? And in installments? With zero down payment? In China, which store would let you buy a TV in installments? Even a TV costing a thousand yuan couldn't be bought in installments, but a secret recipe could?

"Right," Jia Hongjian smiled innocently, "I guess he thought our family was honest and not bad people, and our promotion plan was quite comprehensive, so he finally decided to trust us..."

Originally, Wang Koulan was about to let the matter go, half-believing and half-doubting. But suddenly, she vaguely remembered the conversation when this young man first came to her house. At the time, she thought he attended a very ordinary middle school, but after much talk, he revealed that he went to a school with a nearly 100% college admission rate! He said he was being modest and didn't want to show off!

Thinking about this, how could Wang Koulan not be suspicious? She knew Jia Hongjian was different from other young people. Others would exaggerate their abilities, but Jia Hongjian was very humble, treating a hundred points as if they were one! The more she thought about it, the more she felt this was just another example of his modesty.

"Hongjian, be honest with me, about this contract..." She was about to ask if he was being modest about the contract, but suddenly another possibility popped into her head, "Did you have a hand in getting the contract for one million yuan?"

Yes! Wang Koulan's woman's intuition led her to this possibility. The more she thought about it, the more she felt it was true! If Jia Hongjian could use advanced graduate-level courses to train her daughter and expose fraud on his own, could he not have contributed to this business negotiation?

"Ah, Sister Wang... you're making me blush..." Jia Hongjian said, a bit embarrassed. He was being so humble, and Wang Koulan had still figured it out. "Alright, I did play a tiny role..." He used his fingers to indicate a small size, like a soybean.

"Cut it out!" Wang Koulan pressed on, "Tell me the truth, how much did you contribute? I hate it when you're not honest, you know? Honesty is the most important thing, right? You're so young, don't be so insincere... hehe." By the end, she couldn't help but laugh. She was trying to coax him into speaking, but her words sounded a bit like flattery.

"Alright, alright..." Jia Hongjian thought for a moment and smiled, "I did it all by myself."

Although she was satisfied with her curiosity, Wang Koulan was still shocked by the truth. She had thought Jia Hongjian had just come up with a few key ideas, but she never expected that he had handled the entire negotiation alone! "You did it all by yourself? How is that possible? No, no, I mean, how did you do it?"

"How did I do it..." Jia Hongjian thought for a moment and organized his words, "I provided him with a few cutting-edge technologies from Europe and America—like increasing red blood cell count without using performance-enhancing drugs, just by sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Of course, this method is quite expensive and requires expensive equipment. A cheaper method is to create a hypoxic environment, like having athletes sleep in airtight tents at night. This way, the reduced oxygen in the tent causes the body to produce more red blood cells..."

These weren't just random claims. Jia Hongjian, who was a web enthusiast and often read sports news in his previous life, knew a lot thanks to the internet and the explosion of knowledge. He had heard about European and American cyclists and other endurance athletes sleeping in rubber tents, and there were also methods like sleeping in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, which were a gray area between cheating and not cheating. He could even rattle off some pseudo-professional knowledge about herbal supplements and improving athletes' electrolyte balance.

"Oh, I see, you traded knowledge for his secret recipe?" Wang Koulan finally understood, "After all, he's in sports, and with advanced technology, he can keep making a living in sports, right?" Although she still felt the knowledge wasn't worth ten million yuan, she could imagine that Ma Junren had agreed to the contract after experimenting and finding the methods effective.

"Right, Hongjian, how did your fraud exposure in Harbin go?" Old Luo suddenly interjected.

"It went well. We finished filming, and the CCTV people took the footage to edit. It should air around National Day," Jia Hongjian paused, "But regarding Wang Hongcheng... it just shows that many of our leaders still have a lot to learn in terms of intelligence..."

Although Old Luo wasn't familiar with the term "intelligence," which would become popular later, he understood it meant "smart." "Do you mean the situation in the north is very serious?" he asked, a bit seriously.

"Old man, since we're close, I'll be straightforward and not use euphemisms," Jia Hongjian couldn't help but say, "To put it bluntly, Grandpa Luo, I met a State Councilor, a Deputy Director of the State Planning Commission, and even military officials and officials from the State Science and Technology Commission... Honestly, if I weren't born on this land and if I didn't love it, I would have thought I had the power to overthrow them and establish my own country..."

Jia Hongjian's words were more than just "arrogant." In this very conservative era, they were almost shocking! "Comrade Jia Hongjian! What are you saying? Do you still have party spirit?" The old man was a bit angry, but after scolding him, he remembered that Jia Hongjian wasn't a party member. "No matter what, you can't have such thoughts!"

Although he scolded Jia Hongjian, the old man could understand his thoughts and the state of affairs he had seen. If the head of a central department responsible for macroeconomic regulation was so ignorant, and if even military officials and State Councilors were so ignorant, how could Jia Hongjian, a young man, not feel frustrated? His frustration stemmed from the disappointment he felt, to the point where he wanted to stand up and rebuild everything himself.

"Here's what we'll do. Tonight, you'll meet my old comrades. After that, write a report about what you saw in the north, as objectively and neutrally as possible, and give it to me. I'll help you pass it on..." Old Luo said quietly.

"Alright," Jia Hongjian nodded, "Sigh... in the end, we have to stand up and fight the monster called reality ourselves. Those comrades, I'm not exaggerating, are all like pigs. I'm not afraid of formidable opponents, but I am afraid of pig-like teammates!"

But thinking about it, Jia Hongjian felt a bit more optimistic. No matter how bad the current situation was, everything would be better by 2001. Although the internet often talked about the families of top leaders being abroad, making it seem like the country had no hope, that was actually a situation of better times after hardship. The real darkness was in the 1990s! In a few years, a series of major espionage cases would be exposed, revealing that many officials had lost faith in the country and were competing to betray it...

In this era, the Taiwanese Air Force still had a significant advantage over the Chinese Air Force. In this era, the military's morale was low. In this era, except for a few newly introduced Su-27s, the entire country's airspace was defended by J-8s, J-7s, and even J-6s. In this era, even the top leader believed that "it's better to buy than to build, and better to rent than to buy." This era was truly filled with a darkness that seemed to have no future...

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