Chapter 19: Collection

"That's about enough."

In 2023, due to highly developed electronic communication equipment, postgraduate entrance exam regulations forbade submitting papers more than 30 minutes early, but in 1995 there was no such rule; thus, amidst the astonished gazes of examinees and teachers, Di Ye submitted his professional course exam paper more than an hour early, walked out of the classroom calmly, and finished his postgraduate entrance exam task.

"It's really cold; looks like it's going to snow."

Di Ye walked out of the main teaching building, saw the overcast sky and howling cold wind outside, so he put on the hood of his down jacket, pulled the zipper to the very top, and with his neck hunched, arrived at a public telephone booth and dialed the phone number Xia Fangfei had left for him.

The "beep-beep-beep" ringing sound only lasted once before a man answered; he said in a voice clearly carrying a smile, "May I ask who you are looking for?"

"I'm looking for Xia Fangfei."

"Who are you? What business do you have looking for my younger sister?"

At this moment, Di Ye heard Xia Fangfei's voice; contrary to her gentle and graceful demeanor at school, she shouted loudly, "Second Brother! I said the afternoon calls could only be answered by me; hurry and give me the receiver."

"I paid to have the home phone installed, so what right do you have to say it can only be answered by you?"

"Just because I'm your younger sister, get away, hurry and give it to me..."

After some playful bickering on the other end, Xia Fangfei finally snatched the receiver, said "hello," and asked with a joyful tone, "Di Ye, is that you?"

"It's me."

"It's only four o'clock now; shouldn't you be taking your exam?"

"The questions were too simple, so I handed in my paper early."

"You handed it in so fast? Second Brother, get away..."

The sound from Xia Fangfei's side suddenly cut out, likely because she was covering the receiver to battle with her brother; after more than ten seconds, she resumed her gentle and graceful demeanor and said, "Since you handed in your paper so early, you'll definitely pass. Do you want to come to Jinling University these next few days to see the campus environment? I'll be your tour guide."

"Just a tour guide?"

"What else do you want to do?"

Di Ye once said that if he did not disappear, Di Ye would always keep his family and friends at a distance.

This statement was correct; although Di Ye had never liked Xia Fangfei, Di Ye had always treated Xia Fangfei as his girlfriend, usually only making some harmless verbal jokes and never once getting handsy.

Di Ye had now nominally disappeared, but in reality, he had merged into one with Di Ye, inseparable from each other, so naturally, there were no moral obstacles, and his playboy nature began to reveal itself; he teased, "There are many things I want to do, it just depends on whether you'll cooperate."

"How should I cooperate?"

"The kind of cooperation where 'the spring night is short and the sun rises high, from now on the monarch does not attend morning court'; I've finished my exam now, so it doesn't matter if I don't attend morning court."

"Cooperate with your big head!"

Xia Fangfei was greatly embarrassed and lowered her voice to warn, "You actually dare to say such things on the phone; if my Big Brother and Second Brother heard this, they would definitely beat you up."

"Why do I feel like you're quite excited? Do you want to see me get beaten up, or do you find it stimulating?"

"See you get beaten up! Are you coming to Jinling or not?"

At this moment, sporadic snowflakes drifted down from the sky; Di Ye stretched out his palm, using the cool touch to suppress the inner heat, and said, "I'm very busy lately, no time; let's talk after the Spring Festival."

"What are you busy with?"

"Busy making money; I have to support a harem of seventy-two concubines, so I can't do it with too little money."

"I really want to see you get beaten up now, beaten to death!"

"Oh, so you actually thought it was stimulating just now, right? How about I say something even more stimulating next time?"

"Don't..."

Di Ye stood in the drafty telephone booth and chatted aimlessly with Xia Fangfei for over ten minutes, only ending the call when the phone card ran out of money; after hanging up the receiver, he looked at the increasingly heavy snowflakes, shook his head, and laughed, "I never expected I would also end up 'boiling a telephone porridge'."

Long-distance calls were very expensive in 1995; Di Ye had only chatted for ten minutes and used up a magnetic card with a face value of 20 yuan, which felt very painful to his wallet, so he hailed a 'mian' taxi and headed straight for the Municipal Post and Telecommunications Bureau to find Di Yan; she was an internal employee and could get a discount on phone cards, and a significant one at that.

This day was Sunday, and she normally wouldn't have to work, but Di Yan was in a cold war with Lu Hanming and didn't want to sulk at home, so she took the initiative to come to her unit to work overtime; when Di Ye entered, she was flipping through a thick stack of personnel files.

"Little Brother, you finished your exam so quickly; how does it feel?"

"If I'm lucky, I can score 500 points; if I'm unlucky, 499."

Di Yan didn't know much about the postgraduate entrance exam and asked in surprise, "You estimated your score that accurately?"

Di Ye shook his right hand at her and postured, "Because the full score is only 500."

Seeing his confident expression, Di Yan was overjoyed; hearing that he wanted to buy phone cards, she took a stack directly from her desk drawer, pulled out a few with a face value of 100 for Di Ye, and said, "Don't buy phone cards outside in the future; come find me to get them when you run out, I have plenty here."

"Sister, you're really generous."

Di Yan pointed to the thin gold necklace on her neck, smiled, and said, "You bought such a good gift for me the first time you earned money; if I'm not generous to you, can I still be considered a sister?"

Di Ye smiled at this, looked down at the phone cards, discovered they were all magnetic cards, and asked, "Why aren't there any IC cards? I heard IC cards are cheaper for long-distance calls."

"IC cards haven't been issued yet; we have to wait a while longer."

"So that's how it is."

Di Ye put away the magnetic cards and was just about to leave when he heard Di Yan instruct, "Don't throw these cards away after you use them; give them to your brother-in-law, he likes to collect these."

"These cards have collection value?"

"Your brother-in-law says they do, I don't know either."

Di Ye felt he had seen some materials related to stamp and card collecting before, but couldn't recall them now, so he tapped his electronic watch, summoned the Light Screen, and had the panda Xiao Honghua search his forgotten memories using 'stamps' and 'phone cards' as keywords.

Xiao Honghua quickly searched out a dozen articles; Di Ye browsed through them briefly and discovered that the third wave of stamp and card collecting had broken out in the country between 1995 and 1997; one of the articles listed several highly sought-after popular magnetic cards, such as the "Yangcheng Magnetic Card Public Telephone Opening Commemorative Card", "CNT-00 Map Trial Card", "CNT-03 Mei Lanfang Centenary Birth Card", "CNT-04 Year of the Pig Zodiac Card"...

"Mei Lanfang Centenary Birth Card?"

Di Ye took a magnetic card out of his pocket to look at it and discovered that Di Yan had happened to give him one of these cards just now, so he sat back down at the desk and said, "Sister, this card is quite pretty; there should be a whole set, why did you only give me one?"

"There are 5 cards in this set, with face values of 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 respectively; I only have the 100 face value one here, no others; if you want them, I'll help you buy a set tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sister."

"Hehe, you're polite now; you weren't this sweet-talking before; did you get a girlfriend?"

"Not yet."

"Little rascal! Still trying to lie to me; if you didn't get a girlfriend, why get so many phone cards?"

Di Ye smiled without answering, had Di Yan take out all the phone cards from the drawer, checked them against the articles on the Light Screen, and discovered a popular card named "CNT-02 National Day 45th Anniversary Commemorative Card"; he was a bit curious and asked, "Why do some of these magnetic cards have serial numbers and others don't?"

"The ones with CNT serial numbers are issued uniformly nationwide by China Telecom, while the ones without serial numbers are issued by local Post and Telecommunications Bureaus themselves."

"Isn't your Post and Telecommunications Bureau still undivided? What is this China Telecom about?"

"In March of last year, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications split the Postal General Bureau and the Telecommunications General Bureau into two independently accounting enterprise bureaus, so China Telecom can use its own signage."

Di Ye finally understood. He put away a few popular cards, returned the rest to Di Yan, and said, "Sister, I already have the CNT-02 and CNT-03. Help me look for the CNT-00 and CNT-01 cards to complete the sequence."

"The Post and Telecommunications Bureau only sells cards, it doesn't buy them back. If you want old cards, go find your brother-in-law; I don't have any here."

Di Ye glanced at Di Yan's expression. Seeing she wasn't as angry as she had been the day before yesterday, he followed the lead and said, "I think Brother-in-law is a pretty good person, he just lacks a bit of luck. Once his luck turns around one day, he'll definitely be able to make big money."

Di Yan snorted and said with dissatisfaction, "He has no ambition at all, he only knows how to eat, drink, and have fun. Who knows when he'll ever make big money."

Di Ye stopped while he was ahead and stopped mentioning Lu Hanming. He changed the subject: "Sister, it's snowing outside. It's no fun for you to be here working overtime alone. Come with me to buy groceries, and we'll have a celebration dinner at home tonight."

Di Yan had only come to her unit to find some peace and quiet and didn't really want to work overtime. Hearing this, she put the files back into the filing cabinet, locked it, and said with a smile, "Have you been starved at school lately? You're always finding ways to have a feast. The day before yesterday was a send-off, today is a celebration, what's tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow someone is treating, no need to have a feast at home."

"Who is treating?"

"A big boss, the General Manager of Xinmin Pharmaceutical Factory."

Di Yan was slightly stunned and asked, "Why would he want to treat you?"

More and more reporters had been going to that Tongzi Building to report over the past two days, and the Feng Shijie case was about to be exposed. Di Ye saw no need to continue hiding it. On the way home to buy groceries, he used a selective narrative style to trim the beginning and end, telling the story to Di Yan.

Because he omitted details like playing along with Feng Shijie and selling the IBM internship spot, leaving only an image of someone with a sharp eye and heroic spirit, Di Yan felt greatly relieved after hearing it. She said excitedly, "I thought you were an honest person since you're usually so quiet, but I didn't expect you to be so cunning at a critical moment, actually daring to find a shampoo girl to frame a school teacher."

"Sister, are you praising me or insulting me?"

"Of course I'm praising you. Right, what's the name of the girl you saved? When will you bring her for me to see?"

"I don't know what her name is."

"Are you trying to fool a ghost! Hurry up and tell me the truth..."