Chapter 3368: Confirm Again and Again! Are You Truly Certain?

A person must always know how to be grateful, and that is the main reason Zhang Lin spoke to Mr. Wang that way just now, though now Mr. Wang is no longer quite so nervous.

His response to all of this was relatively composed—after all, Zhang Lin was very frank, and so was he. Since both sides were operating on a basis of frankness, many problems could be resolved very properly.

Of this, Mr. Wang was more certain than anyone. On that basis, the things Mr. Wang could do multiplied; of course, what he had always cared about was not himself, but the fact that the Wang family's options had multiplied—and that mattered more than anything.

As long as the remaining time was enough to make the corresponding choices, Mr. Wang could die without regret; yet Wang Wang Canghai had never seen this point clearly.

He believed Mr. Wang was simply afraid of death, but for Mr. Wang, as long as the Wang family could continue to move forward well, his own life and death could be entirely set aside.

Others might only think about it, but Mr. Wang had always acted exactly that way—every choice he made tended toward making the Wang family better. It was just that Wang Wang Canghai did not think so, which ultimately forced Mr. Wang to betray Wang Wang Canghai and lead all the Wang family people to leave their homeland.

Having thought all this through, Mr. Wang knew that on every level he should be very grateful to Zhang Lin. Without Zhang Lin giving him this chance, Mr. Wang would have had no idea where to turn.

And the next moment, Mr. Wang took another deep breath and immediately said, "Mr. Zhang, what kind of answer do you hope this question will have?"

That was, in effect, tossing the question back once more.

But this time Zhang Lin did not think the other man had done wrong; instead he nodded quite approvingly, because this time the situation was completely different from the last.

Zhang Lin's aim was to take charge of part of the Wang family's authority, so that they would know how to choose afterward. If he could not obtain this portion of authority, then clearly Mr. Wang would have no way to achieve his own goal—everything sat within a mutually beneficial arrangement.

If either side deviated in the slightest, the two of them could not reach this kind of cooperation—that was certain. Since both understood this perfectly, they should not harbor any messy thoughts when speculating about what was to come.

Mr. Wang realized he had been overthinking things before, and now tossing the question back to Zhang Lin became the most carefree arrangement. On the surface it was him asking the question again, but in reality both Mr. Wang and Zhang Lin should have been clear about exactly what was being conveyed here.

The reason Mr. Wang acted this way was to hand all decision-making power to Zhang Lin. Right now the Wang family's substantive authority was still in Mr. Wang's hands, and with these words spoken, it was, in effect, letting Zhang Lin lead the entire Wang family.

In other words, there was no need to bring up those messy conditions from before anymore—whatever Zhang Lin said went, and Mr. Wang would act on the other's orders one hundred percent. That was extremely rare.

At the same time, all the effort Zhang Lin had put in for so long was meant to bring the situation to exactly this point. Zhang Lin believed that once things were controlled to this degree, what followed would become much simpler.

So now, after nodding, Zhang Lin said directly, "Have you thought this through and decided to ask me?"

It was not that Zhang Lin was being long-winded. First, there really was still time; second, this kind of matter had to be confirmed again and again—if the other party went back on his word, things would only get more troublesome.

Only when Mr. Wang had locked this fact down one hundred percent would Zhang Lin feel at ease doing what came next; that was his usual habit.

Even though later on Zhang Lin could use all sorts of methods to force Mr. Wang to compromise, he did not want to become Wang Wang Canghai himself—which meant that if he acted that way, there would be no difference between him and Wang Wang Canghai at all.

All the effort he had put in for so long was Zhang Lin deliberately drawing a line between himself and Wang Wang Canghai; the two were fundamentally different. If he were to continue colluding now, Zhang Lin would not have needed to go through such great trouble from the very beginning.

Therefore Zhang Lin would ask this kind of question now. To others it might seem that since the outcome was already decided and everything pointed toward the result Zhang Lin favored, why go on about it?

Only they were not Zhang Lin; they did not understand the other party's good intentions at this moment, nor did they know what Zhang Lin truly cared about.

If all he cared about were those two simple things, then Zhang Lin would not be Zhang Lin. He needed to control the whole picture, to take every development into account, and with regard to such developments, Zhang Lin had already thought through everything that came next.

Any tiny deviation would affect everything—this was the most awkward point in time. At the same time, Zhang Lin was certain that given the current situation, even he had to make his choices carefully rather than swinging a broad axe, blundering through everything with a slapdash attitude; that would only disrupt the archaeological team's rhythm.

For all this time, Zhang Lin had kept saying he had no obligation to help the archaeological team, yet every choice he made leaned toward the archaeological team—especially Archaeological Team Two. That was why Fatty felt Zhang Lin played favorites, since Zhang Lin had directed all his attention toward Archaeological Team Two.

As for Archaeological Team One, Zhang Lin's handling had been somewhat less than satisfactory. In the past, though, Zhang Lin had not shown that intention; it was only as time went on that he felt the changes on Archaeological Team Two's side were becoming more and more obvious, which was why he made this choice.

It turned out that precisely because of this choice, Fatty was thinking far more than before—and perhaps that was also why Zhang Lin was asking Mr. Wang the same question again.

He had to confirm it over and over, afraid that one day Mr. Wang would be the same as Fatty—not exactly turning against him, but carrying that instinctive doubt, doing certain things out of good intentions. Once such meddling became good intentions, the nature of it changed.

According to Zhang Lin's usual habit, if the other party was merely doing these things under the banner of good intentions, Zhang Lin would absolutely ignore it. Right now, fortunately, that was not the outcome.

That was also one of the reasons he had allowed Fatty to make a fuss until now. Only by letting Fatty completely say out everything he wanted to say and vent everything he needed to vent would the other understand Zhang Lin's good intentions.

Even taking it ten thousand steps back, even if in the end he still did not understand, someone would step in to explain.