Chapter 231

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

When he went to Xijing again, Chen Yi brought his little sister along.

On one hand, the route was familiar now, and with his granduncle's arrangements, travel was convenient; on the other hand, he also wanted to see what Xijing's educational standards were like.

For Fang Man Yi and Chen Congyu, their youngest daughter's schooling was the most difficult problem. Qiming Girls' School was originally the best girls' school one could ask for — ordinary people couldn't get in even if they wanted to — but Chen Rongxi went out of her way to skip school, causing such a ruckus that even the Principal was unhappy. Moreover, what she learned in school was truly limited; watching her excellent computer talent seemingly go to waste, Fang Man Yi wondered if she should find two schools in Xijing, invite a few professors to remotely tutor their daughter in computers, and in another year or two, have her go straight to university. Of course, the best scenario would be to invite someone to Jiangning to teach directly; with Chen Guoliang's Major General title, there would surely be more options.

As for the little sister herself, she was now obsessed with researching supercomputers.

She originally wanted to crack the Floating Mountain Game Platform, but later discovered they used servers that were at least mainframes, naturally immune to many viruses, so she switched to researching mainframe architecture. When she had researched enough and wanted to attack, she found ordinary zombie computers lacked computing power, so she continued researching "Siren".

In just a few months, Chen Rongxi basically never stopped. What she was doing already resembled scientific research — identify a problem, conceive a solution, encounter a problem, continue solving...

Even before the research concluded, the problems and answers encountered during the process alone constituted a not-insignificant fortune. Often, the process is far more important than the result.

Chen Yi could no longer understand what his little sister was researching at all; even using a Skill Copy Scroll, he might need a moment to react. He had the confidence to try, but in the end, he still couldn't bear to use it.

Right now, the plan to screw over Mitsubishi had to take first priority.

Arriving in Xijing, the one picking them up at the airport was a Major under his granduncle, about thirty years old, wearing a green army uniform with an Italian belt — clearly an officer here to gild his resume. His car was also quite something, a 5.0L Land Rover, luxurious beyond belief; with taxes paid, it had to be over 3 million, two to three times or even four to five times the price of a normal Land Rover.

"Nice car." Chen Yi praised sincerely. This was far more expensive than his Raptor.

There was still a huge price difference between a pickup and an SUV. Even though their body sizes were the same.

"Transferred from the General Logistics Department. I'm Lan Jiaming, from the General Affairs Department." The other's tone carried considerable smugness; compared to buying a car with his own money, getting a luxury car from another department better showed his ability.

Chen Yi went along with the praise, added a couple more compliments, and got in the car. The surname "Lan" was rare; among the aristocratic families in Xijing, there was probably only the current old General of the General Staff Department. Unlike the Chen elder who started in the military and later took the political route, the Lan family was a purely military aristocratic family. If placed a few hundred years ago, they might have been the Lan Family Generals worshipped by the masses; now with no wars, they had become the idle, wait-for-death Lan family second-generation scions — perhaps third or fourth generation.

"Go straight to General Assembly?"

"Tomorrow. Let them prepare, go straight to my granduncle's house."

"Buckle up." Lan Jiaming stomped on the accelerator, and the Land Rover with two rows of passes hanging instantly shot onto the main road.

After a couple of turns, the car steadied. Lan Jiaming smiled and asked: "Heard from Young Master Mo that you do finance?"

"Partly." Jinsheng Securities' capital had risen to 2 billion US dollars, attracting more interested parties, but Chen Yi never agreed to cooperate.

Lan Jiaming was just asking casually; before long he talked about how Young Master Mo's business often relied on him, how rich the oil and water were at General Assembly... To Chen Yi, besides the car body being more comfortable, he was actually just as verbose as the taxi driver he first met.

After entering the city, the roads were easier. Lan Jiaming lowered his speed and half-truthfully bragged: "Heard you have a pickup? Beijing's roads are hard to drive, a Land Rover can't really open up. When we have leisure, let's go drive in the Northwest."

"West River?"

"There are military planes with spare seats, just hitch a ride. If you're capable enough, go through the procedures alone, flying solo is more comfortable. But planes to the Northwest are very bumpy; the mountain crossing section is like a roller coaster. I just think, if I have time driving my own Land Rover there, it'd be really cool."

You could tell he genuinely liked this car.

3 million right now could buy 10 sets of Third Ring Road houses. Whether from General Assembly or General Logistics, getting it was no easy feat. In fact, just the import vehicle taxes alone equaled decades of an ordinary worker's salary. Merchants might still use smuggled cars, but the military buying cars naturally couldn't.

The little sister looked around curiously like a baby, then pointed at the dashboard: "Can it get online?"

Lan Jiaming froze, then said: "I don't go online."

The wonderful year 2001 was precisely when US internet stocks were rampant, but this money-making business had a threshold clearly too high for Xijing's rich kids. People like Lan Jiaming, middle-aged and young, might not even touch it 10 years later. For them, dealing with people was obviously much simpler than dealing with machines; the former's fault tolerance was much stronger. Impartial and selfless was the attribute officials — aside from rulers — disliked most, just like ordinary citizens hate bank systems and telecom bureaucrats.

The little sister couldn't understand at all: "Then what use is your car?"

Lan Jiaming stared blankly: "Drive it. Let me tell you, a 5.0L fuel tank..."

"Can you plug in an ethernet cable?"

"No."

"Oh, then I'll play single-player." The little sister silently started playing on her computer.

Lan Jiaming froze for a long while, then silently drove. When they reached the Minister's house, he said: "I'm going back to work."

"Come in and sit?"

"Yeah, there's definitely internet inside." Before coming, the little sister specifically called her grandaunt, demanding internet installation.

Lan Jiaming declined with a wry smile, desolately driving away in his 5.0L displacement SUV from the villa district.

That night, after Chen Yi finished talking business with his granduncle, he found his cousin Chen Ye to handle Zhu Guangliang's matter.

Due to the special nature of his unit, Chen Guoliang certainly wouldn't personally operate this matter, so it was better to simply bypass him and let Chen Ye do it. Zhu Guangliang was just a minor Major, but with seniority and merit, promoting him to Lieutenant Colonel was a one-sentence matter; the key was finding the right channels.

This channel, Chen Yi couldn't find himself. Chen Ye had been the Commander's son for so many years; whether in Southeast Province or Beijing, he had his own methods. He only asked: "How important."

This was asking how much effort and resources would need to be spent.

Chen Yi pondered for a moment, replied: "A pretty good person. If it can be done, do it; if not, we'll discuss again."

Chen Ye understood, patted his shoulder: "This Zhu Guangliang found himself a good backer."

Chen Yi chuckled. He thought: This really is an extremely important person. Letting him become the Deputy Bureau Chief of the Security Bureau in Jiangning — not to mention an intelligence barrier as solid as a rock — would at least buy much more early warning time.

Everyone says the state machinery is ferocious, but the state machinery also needs people to be responsible. Not only must it be specific to the Security Department, but to the departments within the Security Department, and the people responsible for those departments. If one day Zhu Guangliang could be pushed to the position of Jiangning Bureau Chief, then Chen Yi's name would probably disappear from all public opinion bulletins.

As for now, even the Deputy Bureau Chief position could make his activities in Jiangbei and Jiangnan become clean. Big Yang and Xiao Zhu couldn't possibly talk to themselves, linking the Martial Arts Hall and certain improper institutions together; that would make their identities awkward.

Precisely because of this, Chen Yi would say he'd spare no effort.

Chen Ye only told him to wait for news, and in the middle of the night ran out. Xijing's department ranks were too high to decide the promotion of a small fry like Zhu Guangliang, but he still found the person in charge of personnel, worked through the night to pull Zhu Guangliang's resume, and kept a copy.

By the next morning, they went through the motions of a spot check on recent information, reviewed the "Martial Arts Tutorial" Zhu Guangliang had newly submitted, and sent it first thing to the Ministry's research office for so-called research... With a real case like Big Yang, experts felt writing boilerplate was absolutely safe... The answer obtained was naturally good.

If Chen Ye hadn't helped, finding key personnel for a spot check, the Martial Arts Tutorial would have entered the review process, but the first step would have to pass the Jiangbei Bureau's review. The Bureau Chief would only recommend upward if he felt it had value, then it would enter the Southeast Region commissioner's review. Only if he felt it had value would it be summarized to Xijing. In this process, although a one-step arrival or sending to the research office was possible, that relied on the handler's ability, not a certainty.

Comparing by time, a simple favor saved at least two or three months, and turned a possible commendation into a certain commendation.

That afternoon, the internal contact Chen Ye found personally went to the Deputy Minister in charge of training, submitted the Martial Arts Tutorial, and combined with the experts' comments, a Secret Commendation Order directly issued by Headquarters was freshly produced.

The Jiangning region's department even held a small ceremony for it, making Zhu Guangliang excited beyond measure. For a minor Major, this basically equated to a promotion order. Barring accidents, his remaining work was just waiting for time and a vacancy.

The sun was high — Chen Yi, pretending to have jet lag, finally woke up. By then Chen Ye had pretty much finished everything, and came joking: "Little Yi, let me give you a briefing."

He skipped the steps, only stated the result: "Now the commendation order exists. According to his resume, he basically meets all conditions, but when he gets promoted depends on his superior's recommendation."

"Your friend won't work?"

"Although he's within the system, he's not familiar with Jiangning after all. Besides, Bureau Chiefs in various places are two ranks higher than Deputy ones, one rank higher than the Institute, different from ordinary institutions, and his rank isn't high enough to have a say either."

Chen Yi pondered, saying: "Could it be that you want me to go speak? That's not appropriate either……"

Chen Ye immediately laughed, patting his shoulder and saying: "Just let him go speak himself, wouldn't that work? With such a major commendation order, wouldn't he go report on his work?"

"Himself……" Chen Yi patted his own forehead and also laughed, pulling out his mobile phone and saying: "I'll call him."

He simply made the call right in front of Chen Ye.

The latter drank tea beside him, and after he hung up, laughed and said: "I have a political mission today, I'll send you to the Institute."

……