Chapter 408

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Wang Xiaohua, holding Lin Xiao's mobile phone, personally trotted over to the school gate.

He first called Zou Laoban back, then waved to Zou Laoban.

"Zou Dage, many thanks for coming to collect our waste books. Chunsheng Uncle told me about you long ago — you're the best person, I can put a hundred hearts at ease with you."

Zou Laoban is a middle-aged man nearing forty; by etiquette Wang Xiaohua should call him Uncle, but Wang Xiaohua deliberately called him Dage.

Because at a glance he saw that this Zou Laoban cares quite a bit about his image — his hair is styled, gelled, and he dresses to look as young as possible.

From this one detail, Wang Xiaohua guessed that calling him Dage would surely win more goodwill than calling him Uncle, Boss, or General Manager.

Sure enough, Zou Laoban said cheerfully:

"You little kid, I'm nearly forty, why call me Dage? Calling me Uncle is fine!"

Wang Xiaohua immediately feigned surprise:

"No way, looking at your appearance, this get-up, I thought you were only in your early twenties! You really look young!"

Zou Laoban heard this and laughed even more happily.

Wang Xiaohua then said:

"I'll go greet the security guard Uncle and have him open the gate; you just drive the car straight in!"

While Wang Xiaohua went to greet the security guard Uncle, Zou Laoban, with nothing to do, went to look at the Honor Roll nearby.

When Wang Xiaohua returned, he couldn't help but praise Wang Xiaohua a few sentences:

"You kid are something — not only first in the whole school, but a runaway first place by a huge margin. No wonder Niu Zong treats you so well!"

Wang Xiaohua hurriedly said humbly:

"Only in this small county town can I bounce a bit; compared to top students in big cities, I'm still far behind."

"How did you do on the college entrance exam this year?" Zou Laoban asked casually.

Wang Xiaohua replied:

"I finished all the questions, but exactly how many points, I'm not sure either — have to wait for the scores to come out."

Zou Laoban suddenly made a request:

"How about we take a photo together at the Honor Roll? Who knows, you might even place first in the whole city. Let's take a picture now; later when you're famous, I can use this photo to teach my son to study hard."

Wang Xiaohua agreed readily:

"Sure, no problem!"

So the two took a photo together in front of the Honor Roll, asking the security guard Uncle to help take the picture.

Then they went inside the school together to purchase the waste books.

The car Zou Laoban drove was an Isuzu light freight truck.

When he drove the Isuzu to the downstairs of the Senior Year Three classroom building, he immediately couldn't help but exclaim:

"Good heavens, you actually collected this many books! Good thing I drove the Isuzu; if I'd driven a minivan, it might not have fit all of them!"

Then he also said laughing: "Niu Zong said you only collected one or two thousand jin; looks like he underestimated your ability!"

Wang Xiaohua then handed over a small notebook, saying:

"Zou Dage, this is our record book from purchasing waste books — every transaction's jin count is recorded here. These jin added up make the total weight. We calculated, total weight is nine thousand eight hundred twenty-three and a half jin. You see if you want to weigh again, then load onto the truck?"

Zou Laoban glanced at this pile of books before him; with his many years of scrap experience, he could estimate at once that this pile definitely had eight or nine thousand jin, and seeing Wang Xiaohua and the other students, they didn't look like slippery society types, so he very readily chose to trust them.

"Since you've already weighed them, no need to weigh again — this many books, re-weighing would waste so much time!"

Then he also said:

"Nine thousand eight hundred plus jin, nearly ten thousand jin. Rounding off, I'll calculate the price at ten thousand jin. Ten thousand jin, eight mao per jin, that's eight thousand yuan!"

Zou Laoban unzipped his black waist pack, took out a stack of cash, and began counting money for Wang Xiaohua and them.

"Zou Dage, thank you so much — you're really generous!"

Wang Xiaohua hurriedly thanked.

Lin Xiao and Li Jianjia, also beaming with joy, chimed in with kind words.

"Boss, you're too good a person!"

"Wishing Boss prosperous business, wealth rolling in!"

Zou Laoban laughed heartily:

"You're welcome — just remember to put in a few good words for me in front of Niu Zong!"

Wang Xiaohua nodded vigorously like a chick pecking rice:

"Definitely, definitely. Later I'll tell Chunsheng Uncle: Zou Dage, you're super good, helped us big time!"

This transaction was completed just that readily.

The Academic Affairs Director watching from the side had previously worried the school's students might be swindled by a crooked merchant; now it seemed that worry was completely unnecessary.

"This kid, where did he get the ability to find such a generous boss?"

The Academic Affairs Director looked at Wang Xiaohua with new respect again.

In his impression Wang Xiaohua's family was poor; by rights he shouldn't be able to find such connections.

Wang Xiaohua and the others helped Zou Laoban load all the waste books into the Isuzu's cargo box.

Stacked layer upon layer, they actually filled a whole truck.

Some still couldn't fit.

They were piled onto the passenger seat in front of the car, and only then was everything barely loaded up.

After Zou Laoban left, Xiao Hua, Lin Xiao, and Li Jianjia all sat on the green space planters downstairs from the Teaching Building.

"Exhausted me to death!" Lin Xiao exclaimed with a sigh.

"This money really isn't easy to earn!" Li Jianjia lamented from the heart, "Before I still thought Mom and Dad earning money was easy, only now do I know it's this hard."

"Hehe, there are those who work even harder yet earn even less." Xiao Hua gave a bitter laugh, he thought of his mom and dad, his mom and dad suffered hardship and toil for a lifetime, what they earned certainly wasn't more than collecting scrap paper, and then he lamented:

"Society is probably like this, the more it's work selling physical labor, the less one earns, only skills and knowledge, such abilities, can obtain relatively higher rewards."

"Relatively higher? Isn't it the highest?" Lin Xiao was puzzled.

Xiao Hua then said: "Power, the rewards obtained by power are the highest, just like Jianjia's mom and dad, earning money is certainly much more relaxed than ordinary people."

Lin Xiao and Li Jianjia both couldn't help but be stunned, staring dumbfounded.

Xiao Hua hurriedly explained again:

"Jianjia, I'm not saying your mom and dad's money isn't clean, don't misunderstand my meaning, what I want to express is, power doesn't merely refer to being an official, but rather decision-making authority and rule-formulating authority, no matter which industry, as long as one monopolizes decision-making authority and controls rule-formulating authority, that is grasping power, grasping this kind of power, then wanting to earn money will certainly be very easy, this is the basic logic of society's operation."

"I'm very curious, where do you know this knowledge from?" Li Jianjia's pair of big eyes stared at Xiao Hua, unable to comprehend.

Since the high school second year arts and sciences class division, everyone has been together in one classroom for two years, Xiao Hua reads and studies, she also reads and studies, how does Xiao Hua know these things, yet she doesn't understand them well at all?

"When collecting essay material, I read newspapers a lot, and drew this conclusion, I also don't know if my conclusion is correct, but it should be eight or nine parts out of ten right."

Once Xiao Hua said this, Li Jianjia and Lin Xiao became even more puzzled and confused.

They also read the newspapers uniformly ordered by the Class every day.

How come when they read newspapers, what they see is all great nation revitalization, beautiful world, poetic sentiment and picturesque beauty, all kinds of positive energy commentary on hot news.

Yet when Xiao Hua reads newspapers, what he sees is actually the basic logic of society's operation?