Chapter 5 Forgot Something Important

  "Don't even have a letter of appointment? How does your Military Intelligence Bureau handle things? Unbelievable!"

  "What did you say?"

  "Nothing, just a slip of the tongue... A mistake! A mistake! But to be honest, you guys are really unprofessional and deceitful."

  "What's unreliable? A small detention center, can't we just go to the municipal government ourselves to get an appointment letter?"

  "But you also see that without a letter of appointment, they won't acknowledge it! These are all national heroes, you can't force them to obey orders!"

  "Enough, enough, no need to say those useless things. You stay here first, I'll send someone to deliver the letter of appointment to you tomorrow!"

  "Hey, don't bother me, I'm a stranger here, not even a position... Hey, hey, Station Master Xu, Station Master Xu, slow down..."

  ……

  Qin Wei followed behind Xu Yuanju, continuously calling out to him, but his feet moved slowly until Xu Yuanju got into the car and sped away. Only then did he let out a long sigh, picked up his own bag, turned around, and forced a smile at the middle-aged bespectacled man who was staring at him:

  "Is it Director Zheng?"

  "Zheng Zhenhua!" Zheng Zhenhua nodded his hands and carefully examined him for a few more seconds... He was dressed in a very foreign style, the fabric and workmanship of his clothes were not ordinary goods at first glance, and this person seemed to have some inexplicable strangeness. Unfortunately, before he could ask a few questions to dispel the doubts in his mind, those several big students had already rushed up.

  "Who are you? Without a letter of appointment, you want to take over as director of the orphanage? What do you want to do?"

  It was still the same girl who had spoken up, and it seemed that without Xu Yuan's and the sedan chair's "intimidation", her tone was even more aggressive, with a somewhat overbearing feeling.

  "Is this... Qi classmate? You think I'm just bored after eating, running to the shelter... what would you want to do?" Qin Wei was somewhat dissatisfied. I was also forced to, besides, I didn't provoke you or offend you, and you come up and interrogate me, what kind of attitude is this?

  "Hmph, who knows what kind of tricks you bureaucrats have up your sleeves..." a male student snorted.

  "I 100% agree with this, I also want to figure out what these guys are trying to do by sending me to this shelter. But the problem is, they don't even give me a chance to speak... How can you expect me to answer your questions? Also, I'd like to remind this classmate of one thing: before today, I had no relationship with the government. In other words, I'm not a bureaucrat. So, please don't use that word with an obvious derogatory tone to insult my character." Qin Wei said.

  "Heh—" Perhaps finding Qin Wei's words amusing, the girl who had remained silent finally couldn't help but laugh.

  "You mean you were forced to come?" The Qi surname female student asked again with an unhappy glare at her companion.

  "It's not like I was forced or anything... because... I don't think I ever really resisted either." Qin Wei thought for a moment before responding.

  "No resistance? If you don't want to come, why not resist?"

  "Please, fellow students, take a look at who I'm up against... the Military Affairs Bureau! Is that someone we commoners can easily resist?" Qin Wei shot back with an unfriendly glare.

  "Jun Tong!? You mean those people just now were from Jun Tong?" Finally, several students realized what they had not noticed earlier.

  "Is that Mr. Qin? I thought I just heard you call that person... Xu 'Station Master'?" Zheng Zhenhua, who had always been robbed of the right to speak, finally found an opportunity to speak, his tone was quite serious, and it seemed to have a slight tremble.

  "He's called Xu Yuanjie! He himself said he was the person in charge of Military Bureau in Chongqing, but I think his position is a bit lower than that Zheng Jiemin..." Qin Wei replied.

  "Head of Military Intelligence Bureau's Chongqing Station?" The sound of gasping in shock had already begun.

  "Who is Zheng Jiemin again?" another male student asked.

  "Director, you have the same surname as him, aren't you from the same family?"

  "I'm 80% sure. They all have the surname Zheng, and they even sent someone to replace our principal, they must be thinking that our principal is having a tough time here and want to help out!"

  The wounded soldiers behind also loudly responded with one word after another.

  "Get out, get out, all of you! If I had relatives who drove cars, would I still need to serve you bunch of crippled soldiers? Get back to class...!" Zheng Zhenhua was not polite at all to these wounded soldiers, scolding them as soon as he opened his mouth. But facing his attitude, those wounded soldiers seemed to be quite pleased, giggling and chuckling, and actually squeezed each other, turning towards the back of the hall.

  "Miss Qi, Miss Lu, Mr. Fang, Mr. Wang, Mr. Hu... Please continue with your lesson, it's getting late and I don't want to delay your return to school. As for this Mr. Qin, I'll take care of him myself, what do you think?" Zheng Zhenhua said after chasing away the wounded soldiers.

  "Alright... if there's anything, just call out. This is a shelter, where meritorious officials live, not some place where anyone can act recklessly." The female student with the surname Qi nodded and glared at Qin Wei again, instructing Zheng Zhenhua for a few sentences before leading her classmates to follow the wounded soldiers away.

  ……

  "Mr. Qin, don't mind them, they're just students who don't understand things!"

  Seeing everyone running into the hall, Zheng Zhenhua sighed and smiled, then nodded to Qin Wei.

  "It doesn't matter, it's all the same road we've taken, I can understand." Qin Wei smiled.

  "A road? Mr. Qin, you're also a university student?" Zheng Zhenhua was visibly taken aback.

  "It used to be. I even took the graduate exam, unfortunately, my English wasn't good enough... didn't get in." Qin Wei shrugged his shoulders, of course he wouldn't tell the other person that he hadn't even taken the English level 4 test, so he hadn't participated in the graduate exam at all.

  "Graduate student?" Zheng Zhenhua was stunned again.

  "Ah, graduate student!" Qin Wei nodded.

  "Oh... which university are you from?"

  "Let's just drop it? I'm just a graduate of that mediocre university, can't compare to those students from prestigious schools." Qin Wei continued to smile wryly.

  "What's this about a 'grass chicken university'? Look at what you're saying, university students aren't 'grass chickens', they're all phoenixes flying up to the branches." Zheng Zhenhua said with a smile.

  "Top school students are phoenixes, while those from non-top schools or key schools may not be chickens, but they can't be much stronger." Qin Wei shook his head and sighed.

  "Alright, alright, let's not talk about this." Although he didn't quite understand why Qin Wei looked down on his university student identity, Zheng Zhenhua knew how to read the situation and stopped pursuing the issue. "Uh... Mr. Qin, are you staying at our shelter today?"

  "It seems there is a need for this... Do you still have empty rooms?" Qin Wei asked.

  "This Guanyin Temple was not big to begin with, everyone was crowded together, I just lived in the gatehouse, which is a single room...” Zheng Zhenhua felt that this new person who replaced him as the abbot was not too difficult to get along with, although he still had some worries about his future situation. However, he wasn't someone who liked to be too particular, let alone with Qin Wei, who was personally sent by the Military Intelligence Bureau's Chongqing station chief. Even if it was "under escort", since they were being so "polite", it wasn't something that a small role like him could afford to be picky about. So he decided to speak the truth, at worst, he would just have to give up the gatehouse."

  "Are those college students going to squeeze in with everyone else?" Qin Wei asked.

  "That's impossible. Those few have to go back to school after finishing class for their brothers." Zheng Zhenhua said.

  "Oh......can you squeeze over there?" Qin Wei asked.

  "Squeeze? Oh, okay, of course." Zheng Zhenhua was stunned for a moment, then nodded repeatedly. He had also thought of this method earlier, but didn't dare to say it, and didn't expect Qin Wei to bring it up himself, "It's just... won't you feel uncomfortable?"

  "How could that be? I've done all sorts of things, like squeezing into capsule apartments with others. Your gatehouse is so big, how could I not fit in?" Qin Wei said with a smile, but he couldn't help but think of Gu Zhangjian again.

  Capsule apartment?

  "Uh-huh, it's just a compartment that can only fit a single bed."

  "So small?"

  "Yes, and there aren't even windows, it's still summer!"

  "My goodness, how can people live there? Won't they die of heat?"

  "That's not bad, I know some homeless people who can only buy something to eat in someone else's store and then sit there for a night, even solving the problem of sleeping on the seat."

  "Is this really happening? Won't they be driven out of business?"

  "It's not in a hurry, it's open for 24 hours, and the service attitude of the store is very good."

  "Oh..."

  Zheng Zhenhua's gaze at Qin Wei had changed a bit, although there was still some vigilance and caution, it didn't feel as distant as before... However, the sympathy Qin Wei expected to see wasn't there at all.

  "Isn't this life bitter enough?"

  Director Qin thought to himself, but little did he know that Zheng Zhenhua was also shaking his head secretly.

  "This guy is a bit silly. In the middle of summer, he insists on squeezing into a cramped room with no windows, why not just move the bed outside to the courtyard? It's spacious, cool and can even prevent theft, at most add a mosquito net... Still sitting in someone else's shop all night, with that little money for food, why not go sleep in a dormitory? Although people are crowded a bit more, isn't it more comfortable sleeping lying down? Must be poor but particular... These bookworms..."

  ……

  "Director, these are today's freshly laid eggs!"

  Two deans, one new and one old, were each engaged in their own secret mental activities. A soldier with a crutch, clothes full of patches, walking slowly, suddenly appeared beside them, and handed over two eggs. Qin Wei glanced casually, but found that the soldier's pants leg was empty...

  "Ah, I was just saying I wanted to go check on the chicken coop, thanks a lot."

  "It should be." The soldier smiled and ignored Qin Wei, hobbling away with his crutch.

  ……

  "He was called Yu De Cai, originally from the Jiangsu security team. During the Battle of Shanghai, their unit went to the battlefield and was transferred under the command of General Zhang Zhi Zhong. As soon as they took up defensive positions, before even seeing the enemy's shadow, the Japanese launched a barrage of artillery fire, and his leg was gone... Ah..." Zheng Zhenhua explained beside him, noticing Qin Wei seemed somewhat interested in this soldier.

  "How did he end up running all the way to Chongqing?"

  "Followed the wounded troops all the way back, huh! ……Just like our shelter, from all over the country, which place doesn't have? Even Northeast China has some!"

  "Oh..."

  "Hey, Mr. Qin, you just arrived and I was worried that there's nothing good to serve you. Now with these two eggs, we can barely make a small dish... Our conditions here are poor, please don't be disgusted, Mr. Qin!" Zheng Zhenhua added.

  “……”

  "Mr. Qin?"

  "Huh?"

  "Mr. Qin, what's on your mind? Got something bothering you?"

  "It's a bit. Just now when I heard you say those things, I suddenly remembered that I seemed to have forgotten to tell Xu Yuan and others something big!"