"She didn't eat me alive, which is already thanks to you," Ni Jingxi said calmly.
Lin Qinglang immediately laughed. Just then, the light turned red, so he stopped the car and turned to look at Ni Jingxi: "She ate you? Teacher, don't tell me you're afraid of her."
Lin Qinglang shouldn't interfere in matters between women.
However, if we're talking about who would win between the two, he really thinks that even ten Wen Tangs tied together wouldn't be as good as Ni Jingxi. Seriously, in all these years, he's never seen a girl more determined than Ni Jingxi.
Lin Qinglang was truly amazed by her tenacity and her fighting spirit of "I'll wear you down even if I can't kill you."
The two arrived at the entrepreneurship competition venue. Today was the preliminary round, and there were over 30,000 companies that had registered. Not to mention Lin Qinglang, even Ni Jingxi was stunned.
This was far beyond their expectations.
They originally planned to select a few seed companies and conduct preliminary interviews, but now it seems to be quite troublesome.
However, the organizers were quite cooperative with the interviews. Ni Jingxi and Lin Qinglang took turns conducting the interviews and filming, and they managed to complete the task quite well in one morning.
The two ate some boxed lunches and then went back to their own business.
Because the newspaper has a WeChat official account and a Weibo account, the report needs to be published online immediately.
So Ni Jingxi sat in the hall, polished the manuscript, and sent it to Lao Zhang.
"Shall we return to the newspaper now?" Lin Qinglang asked.
Ni Jingxi was about to nod as she shut down her computer when her phone rang. She answered the call but remained silent for a long time before finally saying, "Okay, I'm coming over now."
After hanging up the phone, she turned to Lin Qinglang and said, "I can't go back to the newspaper right now. You should go home first."
"Where are you going? I'll take you." Lin Qinglang said immediately when he saw her serious expression.
Ni Jingxi shook her head: "No need."
Lin Qinglang still said, "I'll take you. I don't have anything else to do this afternoon."
Suddenly, Ni Jingxi seemed to remember something and asked, "I forgot to ask you before, why did you go to that Dadi Kang health products company?"
Lin Qinglang didn't expect her to ask this, but he didn't hide anything and said directly, "It's because the people from this health product company somehow tricked my grandma, and the old lady actually spent hundreds of thousands of yuan on this company."
The Lin family is wealthy, so it's not that Lin Qinglang is stingy with the money; he's just unhappy that the other party is trying to fool the old man.
So he decided to go to the company first, but when he got there he bumped into Ni Jingxi arguing with someone, and of course he helped without thinking.
Ni Jingxi: "Then come with me."
When the two arrived at their destination, Lin Qinglang was quite surprised. This place was an old alleyway in Shanghai, unlike the glamorous buildings not far away. Time seemed to have stood still in this place, as if it had been frozen in the last century.
Lin Qinglang couldn't help but ask, "What are we doing here?"
"Let's go upstairs first." Ni Jingxi looked up at the building.
Once upstairs, Ni Jingxi knocked on the security door according to the room number given by the other party. After a short while, a middle-aged woman who looked to be in her fifties stood in the doorway.
"Are you Reporter Ni?" The middle-aged woman seemed somewhat surprised by Ni Jingxi's youth.
Ni Jingxi took out her press card and showed it to the other party through the door: "Hello, Ms. Meng, I am Ni Jingxi from Shanghai People's Daily. This is my press card."
The woman glanced at the camera in Lin Qinglang's hand again before smiling and opening the door.
As soon as the door opened, Ms. Meng started rambling on and on: "Hey, tell me, aren't these health product companies harmful? Ever since my mother believed in this health product company, she won't go to the hospital when she's sick. She insists on calling the company's sales representatives and asking them to deliver medicine to her."
"This is ridiculous."
Lin Qinglang was dumbfounded. He never expected that there would be an elderly person who was even more exaggerated than his grandmother.
Ni Jingxi asked, "Can we go see Grandma Meng?"
Ms. Meng nodded: "Okay, but you must not say anything bad about this health product company. You can't say anything. We children have no choice but to let those people brainwash my mother."
Afterwards, they went to Grandma Meng's room together. As soon as they entered, Ni Jingxi saw the Dadi Kang massager, which was worth more than 20,000 yuan. The huge massager stood out in the somewhat cramped room.
But what's even more surprising is the neatly arranged bottles and jars on the table, with small bottles next to large ones.
Not only are they on the table, but some are even placed in the ground.
"These are the medicines, you two reporters, take a look. My mother's monthly salary of five thousand yuan is basically all spent on these. Not to mention anything else, this massage device alone cost twenty thousand yuan. When we didn't let her buy it, she was so angry that she almost had a heart attack," Ms. Meng said helplessly.
Fortunately, the old lady was quite old and not very hard of hearing, so she didn't hear Ms. Meng's quiet complaints to Ni Jingxi.
So Ni Jingxi chatted with the old lady for a few minutes. When she talked about Dadikang products, the old lady had a happy and satisfied smile on her face: "This medicine is good. I don't feel dizzy anymore after taking it. I used to get dizzy all the time."
After chatting for a while, Ni Jingxi left the old lady's room.
In the living room, Ms. Meng wanted to pour out all her grievances, and when Ni Jingxi asked if it was okay to record the conversation, she didn't mind.
"I agreed to this interview today because I want you to report on this properly and stop these health product companies from harming people."
"Moreover, they not only harm people but also act like scoundrels. When my mother was hospitalized, we suspected it was because of these health supplements. Guess what they said when we called them? They actually told me to go back to the person who sold us the products. Can you believe how shameless they are?"
After finishing her conversation with Ms. Meng, Ni Jingxi took many more photos of the chat history in the DadiKang WeChat group that Ms. Meng had joined before leaving.
When they got downstairs, Lin Qinglang couldn't help but ask, "Are you planning to do an in-depth interview?"
Ni Jingxi glanced back at the stairwell and said calmly, "Shouldn't I?"
"Do you know how many vested interests are involved behind these health product companies?" Lin Qinglang's family is in business, so he has a clearer understanding of the network of relationships behind these companies.
Some things are truly impossible to touch.
Ni Jingxi stared straight at him: "I don't care about any benefits. I just want to tell the public, who should know the truth, everything I have seen and heard."
Lin Qinglang looked at the light in her eyes, which was dazzlingly bright.
He suddenly recalled the scene when he first gave in to Ni Jingxi.
I still remember when she first came to our house to tutor him, Lin Qinglang was a troublemaker, and no amount of famous teachers could teach him.
Anyway, he was unruly, so Ni Jingxi was quiet at first, only giving him lessons and not saying much. Until the mock monthly test came out, Ni Jingxi looked at his math test paper with only 46 points, her two hands gripping the edge of the paper tightly, her lips pursed, her little face as cold as ice.
Lin Qinglang didn't care at first, but looking at her extremely stubborn face, he suddenly felt annoyed.
He simply stood up and prepared to leave.
Ni Jingxi immediately stood in front of the door, her expression still cold and unyielding. "What are you trying to do?"
"I didn't do well on the exam, so I was in a bad mood and went out for drinks," Lin Qinglang said with a roguish grin.
He's the kind of person who doesn't listen to authority, and at this moment his true nature was fully exposed.
Ni Jingxi took a deep breath, seemingly trying to suppress her anger, and said in a low voice, "My tutoring session today is two hours long. It's not time yet, so you can't leave."
"I don't care, I don't want to go anymore." Lin Qinglang reached out and grabbed her, preparing to make her move aside.
But Ni Jingxi suddenly looked up, her dark eyes fixed on him. The sharpness and desperation emanating from her eyes sent a chill down Lin Qinglang's spine.
Ni Jingxi stared straight at him: "Okay, you're in a bad mood and want to drink, right? I'll keep you company."
Finally, Ni Jingxi actually pulled him along and took a bottle of wine from his wine cabinet. She unscrewed the cap and drank it straight down. Lin Qinglang was so stunned that he forgot to grab the bottle back.
Ni Jingxi put down the wine bottle and looked at him, saying, "I'm not in a good mood either, because your score is so low that it could make me lose my job at any time."
Her tone was calm; it was neither a bitter accusation nor a calm statement.
Lin Qinglang remained silent, his face grim.
Until Ni Jingxi looked at him with the bottle of wine and said, "I need this job because I need money. So if I finish this bottle of wine, will you be able to concentrate on the lesson?"
Lin Qinglang hadn't spoken yet.
She had already picked up the bottle and started drinking again, the strong smell of alcohol filling the air around him.
The desperate gamble in that girl's eyes back then still sends shivers down his spine to this day.
That same solitary courage reappeared in her eyes today.
Or perhaps, this is what a real journalist is like.
*
Ni Jingxi didn't leave the office until after 7 p.m. Huo Shenyan had sent her a message earlier, telling her that he needed to be at the company that night.
So Ni Jingxi thought for a moment and then called Tang Mian.
Tang Mian: "Madam?"
Ni Jingxi asked, "Are you still at the company?"
"President Huo is still working overtime. Would you like to speak with him on the phone?" Tang Mian asked respectfully.
Ni Jingxi smiled faintly: "No need, but could you come downstairs to meet me later?"
Actually, it wasn't far from Ni Jingxi's company to Hengya Building; it was only six subway stops away. And since it was already past rush hour, she quickly arrived at the Hengya Building.
Tang Mian came downstairs early to wait for her.
When Ni Jingxi saw him, she asked in a low voice, "Won't someone see us going upstairs?"
"Don't worry, I can use the private elevator by swiping my card," Tang Mian reassured her with a smile. There is a private VIP elevator in the Hengya Building, which can be used by executives and above.
Tang Mian is Huo Shenyan's secretary, so it's not surprising that he has a card.
So Ni Jingxi followed him upstairs, but when they got to the elevator, she looked at the takeout Tang Mian was carrying and asked in a low voice, "Hasn't he eaten yet?"
"President Huo has been very busy these past few days because we'll be flying to New Zealand in a few days to discuss a project," Tang Mian said in a low voice.
He said these things were company secrets, but since the other party was Ni Jingxi, he revealed a bit more.
Ni Jingxi was a little surprised and asked softly, "Are you going to New Zealand?"
When they arrived at the floor where Huo Shenyan's office was located, it was unusually quiet as almost all the people in the secretariat had left.
Tang Mian knocked on the door and said, "Mr. Huo, dinner is here."
"Bring it in." A voice replied from inside. Whether it was because of the distance or the good sound insulation of the solid wood door, his voice sounded deep.
Just as Tang Mian was about to push the door open, Ni Jingxi patted his shoulder, signaling for her to take the dinner inside.
So Tang Mian didn't say anything else, handed her the things, and went back.
Ni Jingxi carefully pushed open the door. The man sitting behind the desk didn't even look up; he was still looking down at what he was holding.
This office is incredibly spacious, with a predominantly white color scheme accented with black.
It has a rugged yet modern feel, exuding sophistication in every detail.
She looked around for a while until Huo Shenyan spoke again, "Let's eat now, I'll eat later."
He didn't look up while speaking, remaining focused on the task at hand.