Ten minutes later.
Li Tongwen came back to the fruit shop distracted.
With Yang Fei and Xu Wanying both busy, he took out his phone and sent Xu Ye a message.
Li Tongwen: “Xu Ye, the owner of Kangyuan Fruit Shop just came to see me.”
Xu Ye: “What did he want with you?”
Li Tongwen: “He asked me who was behind the promotion at the shop, and he said that from now on, if the shop runs a promotion, I should tell him in advance and he’ll pay me for it.”
Xu Ye: “How much?”
Was that really the point, Li Tongwen thought.
But he typed back quickly all the same. “I didn’t ask. I turned him down flat.”
Xu Ye: “Are you stupid? You should have shaken him down first.”
Xu Ye: “Forget it. That’s not something you’d ever do.”
Xu Ye: “Looks like he can’t sit still any longer. He’ll probably pull something else after this.”
Xu Ye: “I’ll have to keep an eye on him.”
Once he’d told Xu Ye, Li Tongwen put the whole thing out of his mind.
Xu Ye, in his position, would certainly have played it as a double-agent game. But Li Tongwen wasn’t that sort of person and couldn’t have brought himself to do it — quite apart from the fact that the fruit shop’s owner was Xu Ye. When he was minding the shop and ate a banana, he put it on his own tab, even though Xu Ye had told him long ago to help himself to whatever fruit he wanted. He held to his own principles anyway.
The way he saw it, he was a part-time employee. He did a certain amount of work and drew the wages for it, and anything past that was taking advantage.
Someone like him was honest to an almost frightening degree.
But after graduation, people like that weren’t necessarily well liked in a company.
Luckily, he had met Xu Ye.
At ten thirty the fruit shop closed and they finished for the night. Walking back to the dorm, Li Tongwen took a call from home…
“No, not yet. I only just got off work.”
“I’m not tired. All I do is sit in the shop and take the money.”
“The money’s fine. I make two thousand a month — I might even save up enough for sophomore year’s tuition.”
“Pa, put my sister on. Let me talk to her for a bit.”
“…”
His sister’s voice came through the phone a moment later, and a faint smile spread across Li Tongwen’s slightly tired face.
He talked to her for ten minutes or so, and by the time he hung up he had just reached the foot of the dorm building.
He went up the three steps in front of the building and reached to slip the phone into his pants pocket. He wasn’t careful enough — it slid out of his hand and dropped onto the hard concrete.
His stomach lurched and he snatched the phone straight up, but the top left corner had cracked all the same. The screen still lit up, but that small patch showed nothing at all.
He’d had the phone for several years, but he blamed himself bitterly anyway. A phone easily cost a thousand yuan or more, and with his family badly off, he had learned early the truth of the saying that money is hard to earn and shit is hard to eat.
Still, it had already happened, and all he could do was accept it. At least only a small patch of the corner had gone, and the phone still more or less worked.
By the time Li Tongwen got back to the dorm, his three roommates had all showered and were talking nonsense back and forth.
Seeing him come in, Xu Ye said straight out, “Tongwen, if you and Wanying can’t keep up in the evenings, just say the word and I’ll send Yang Fei over to help.”
“We can manage.”
Li Tongwen put his phone down and picked up his water card. “You’ve all showered, right? If nobody else is going, I’ll go now.”
With that he grabbed a couple of things to change into and went into the bathroom.
Xu Ye checked the time and was about to climb up to his bunk when Zhang Xinzhou suddenly called him back.
“What’s up?”
Zhang Xinzhou didn’t say anything. He just pointed at Li Tongwen’s phone, lying on the desk.
Xu Ye got up, crossed the room, picked the phone up and glanced at it, then set it back exactly where it had been so there was no sign he’d touched it. He thought for a moment, walked over to Zhang Xinzhou and lowered his voice. “Buy two phones. Two thousand or so is fine. Wait until this promotion is over, then give them to him.”
“Two?”
“One for Xu Wanying. The two of them have been busy lately, so call it a bonus for them. If it’s just him on his own, he won’t take it.”
Zhang Xinzhou smiled and nodded. “Sure. I’ll take care of it.”
…
Time went quickly.
In mid-April the fruit shop’s promotion finally came to an end.
And on the same day, Zhang Xinzhou got his driver’s license.
So at eight that evening Xu Ye took Li Tongwen, Xu Wanying and his roommates to a buffet restaurant at Baolong Plaza for a group dinner.
The promotion had been a real success — two weeks of takings had come close to matching everything the shop had brought in over the month and a half since term started. Before anyone picked up their chopsticks, Xu Ye said a few words as the boss. Then, at the right moment, he had Zhang Xinzhou take the phones out of his bag — he’d bought them well in advance — and hand one each to Li Tongwen and Xu Wanying.
“You two have had a hard few weeks. Call the phones a benefit from me — but since you’ve got the phones, I’m not paying you a bonus this month. Ha ha.”
Xu Wanying was delighted. Beaming, she said, “Thank you, boss.”
Li Tongwen knew perfectly well what was going on. His phone had broken not long before, and here was Xu Ye handing him and Xu Wanying a phone each as a benefit. If anyone told him that was a coincidence, he wouldn’t believe it.
He simply filed it away quietly and said nothing.
After the meal Xu Ye drove Xu Wanying back to the women’s dorm first, and only then drove to the men’s.
The car hadn’t even come to a stop when Yang Fei pointed out the window. “What are they doing? They’re not installing a vending machine, are they?”
There in the corner by the dorm entrance, two workmen in overalls were installing a machine that looked very much like a vending machine, right next to their own.
Xu Ye took one look and frowned.
What was this?
A competitor, showing up here?
That couldn’t be right. The logistics director was Jiang Wei’s uncle. If a competitor were moving in, he would surely have told Jiang Wei in advance.
Xu Ye got out of the car and headed for the dorm entrance.
Zhang Xinzhou, Yang Fei and Li Tongwen were right behind him.
“Excuse me — what kind of machine is this?”
From a distance it looked a lot like one, but up close you could see it didn’t even have a display case. Xu Ye had asked out of plain curiosity.
One of the installers laughed. “It’s a free condom dispenser. The school’s putting them in everywhere.”
Xu Ye pressed. “Free?”
He’d barely finished speaking when the other man finished hooking up the power. The machine came on, and Xu Ye could read the line of text across the top: Family Planning Supplies — Free Self-Service Dispenser.
On the right-hand side was a card reader. You swiped your ID card, pressed the button above it, and a box of ten condoms dropped out.
Xu Ye smacked Yang Fei at once. “Hand over your ID, let me try it.”
Yang Fei’s face darkened. “Swipe your own.”
Yang Fei talked a big game in the dorm most of the time, but just then embarrassment was written all over his face.
“Your old man doesn’t have his on him.”
And with that Xu Ye reached straight into Yang Fei’s backpack, dug out a black wallet, pulled the ID card out and swiped it on the machine.
He pressed the button, and sure enough a box of condoms dropped out.
“This thing isn’t bad.”
Xu Ye handed the ID back to Yang Fei and tucked the box of condoms into his own pocket, thoroughly pleased with himself. Yang Fei saw it and hurried after him. “Xu Ye, you bastard, you swiped it with my ID. That one’s mine.”
“You got any use for it?”
“I—!”
(End of Chapter 222)