I am not Ximen Qing.

Sometimes, Zhang Sheng would often go to Jin Xia's house to drink with the boatmen, the First and Second Boatmen. The Second Boatman used to be a cook in Shanghai, and Jin Xia was a waitress. There were unspoken rules in the restaurant industry; the cook's status was equivalent to that of a director. If a girl wanted to appear on screen, it was best to exchange her body for a soulful performance. The allure of art always drives people crazy. A director who isn't lecherous can't be a good director. In fact, the creativity of art, whether from Adam and Eve, or from Guan Zhong, the progenitor of brothels, to Bai Juyi, Yuan Zhen, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Emperor Yang of Sui, Liu Yong, Su Dongpo, Tang Yin, to the late Ming Dynasty painter Lao Lian, a stroll around West Lake, Su Xiaoxiao by the lake, The Peony Pavilion, The Peach Blossom Fan, and the most outstanding work in The Palace of Eternal Life is actually the plum spirit mentioned by the Jade Emperor. The Second Boatman's appearance was just a setup. He's just a cook, but actually, he looks rather grotesque, like the monkey under Nobunaga's command in Tokugawa Ieyasu. His face is exactly like the monkey in the Japanese version of Journey to the West; perhaps he was born with the aura of the Victorious Fighting Buddha from Journey to the West. His leap from chef to video editing software and hardware sales is quite large, purely the style of Zhu Yuanzhang from Anhui. His Buddhist nature has little to do with culture; like the Sixth Patriarch, he became a Buddha and a master simply by listening to the Diamond Sutra. There is no Diamond Sutra here, no Nirvana Sutra, no Ullambana Sutra, no Dzogchen, no Avatamsaka Sutra, and certainly no Surangama Sutra. The boatman listens to the tiger's boasting every day; those brilliant practical lessons are better than ten years of studying books.

What's so scary about Zhongguancun is that the uncultured can give university professors brilliant, heartfelt lectures on high-tech culture every day. And Old Lü? A descendant of Empress Lü Zhi. His brother-in-law's entire family, including his wife's extended family, have all profited from his printer supplies business, riding the wave of success. Pigs, ducks, chickens, dogs, and geese are all flying high. But there's one thing Old Lü isn't entirely satisfied with. Back in his hometown in the Central Plains, if a man can't produce a son, he can't hold his position as the head of the household. Old Lü is the richest man in our village, but his wife, a woman of faith, hasn't been very fertile, giving him three daughters already, unlike Tiger and his wife, who immediately had a son.

"Old Lu's soldiers are not about quantity, but quality, as Sun Tzu said."

"Get out, get out of here! Why bring up something you shouldn't be talking about?"

Zhongguancun is teeming with stories of fortunes straight out of the Bible: one night you're drowning in despair, the next you're a millionaire. "Seize the opportunity! Seize the opportunity!" The wise always remind themselves to grab the chance, to haggle relentlessly, to change their destiny, to escape poverty, to undergo a complete transformation. The wealth of Zhongguancun and the feng shui of Haidian are both indispensable; a life of poverty can be transformed into wealth. Zhongguancun in Haidian is an exceptionally auspicious place.

Some of Huangshan's residents came to Beijing from Shanghai seeking opportunities. They speculated on real estate, counters, and shops. New buildings were always full of Zhejiang and Wenzhou people, as if they had inexhaustible wealth, chattering in incomprehensible dialects. These Zhejiang men were generally refined and fair-skinned; Zhejiang and Wenzhou merchants had ventured all over the world, opening eyeglasses stores and shoe stores worldwide. Wherever goods were concentrated, there were Zhejiang people. Ren Niangzi, though seemingly a devoted family woman, saw Zhongguancun as a lucrative opportunity and immediately hired the boatmen, the second boatman, and her sisters. Jin Xia, also a skilled boatman, worked with her sisters, saving on labor costs. This helped accumulate initial capital, but soon conflicts arose. The boatman complained that his brother-in-law and second brother were too greedy, always managing to bring in customers for them to exploit. However, their exploitative behavior angered the boatman. His signature buck teeth were so painful that the eldest son got angry and went to start his own business in Hailong.

At the time, Zhang Sheng lived in the Shangdi University Student Apartment, which consisted of rows of neat single-story houses. The larger apartments were two-story buildings, each over 100 square meters and housing more than a dozen people. The monthly rent was only about 800 yuan. Zhang Sheng lived with Wang Xiaolin, also from Huangshan. Wang Xiaolin kept telling Zhang Sheng that he wanted to visit Huangshan with Xiaolin sometime, and specifically see the Welcoming Pine Tree as a souvenir. Xiaolin, after graduating from university, had been struggling in Beijing, but his situation remained poor; he couldn't find a good job. So sometimes he hung out with Zhang Sheng, and sometimes they separated in the university apartment to work on his favorite video post-production. Wang Xiaolin was eloquent, and he and Zhang Sheng loved literature, often discussing poetry and the works of Yao Nai. Xiaolin also had a girlfriend in Huangshan, a nurse. Every night, they could hear the deafening singing and drinking at karaoke bars, a cacophony of men and women, a world of worldly chaos.

Zhang Sheng was perhaps too careless. To earn a few tens of thousands of yuan in profit, he went to another city to deliver goods—ten Toshiba laptops, five HP laser printers, and some cash. Because it was a bank draft, Zhang Sheng's understanding of bank drafts was somewhat flawed. In reality, a bank draft is essentially the same as a check; if there's no money in the account, even a draft worth hundreds of millions is useless. Sure enough, the bank draft wasn't just out of money; it was a fake draft made by fraudsters. Just then, Song Yu called Zhang Sheng to watch the World Cup with him. The World Cup was being held in the United States, with Germany and Italy as the teams. At that time, most young people had their favorite foreign teams. Song Yu supported Germany, and so did Zhang Sheng. Song Yu didn't notice Zhang Sheng's bad mood, and Zhang Sheng didn't show his inner pain. Song Yu liked to make cocktails with vodka, ice, and a bottle of Red Bull—the taste he'd had at a nightclub in Seoul, South Korea. He couldn't forget that taste. He loudly exclaimed, "Drink up! How's this?"

"good"

"It was good. Back then in Seoul, it only cost $600."

"It's a bit expensive, $600 a bottle!"

"Plus, there was a Korean nightclub girl who was so beautiful she looked like Venus."

"With a Korean girl? You're really got guts."

"It's a pity they lacked the courage and were afraid to spend money. The investors who went with them were also afraid to spend money."

Baggio's disappointing shot dashed Italy's championship dreams and paved the way for Germany's three-pronged attack. Klinsmann's golden bomber, the dream of a championship-winning coach, and the Germans' ability to gain confidence and national pride from the World Cup—all these contributed to the triumph. Maradona, with his "Hand of God," sadly waved goodbye to his admirers. Argentina, the African lion, and Nigeria, the short-bed team, played with a rapid, disorganized pace, resulting in a chaotic defeat. Perhaps it was fate that getting drunk saved him from disaster; in the middle of the night, Xiao Lin slipped from Zhang Sheng's upper bunk to his lower bunk. Luckily, Zhang Sheng hadn't returned to the apartment. Even Lao Chen, the network manager fired by Jinxiu Dadi, was shouting from another bunk, "Someone's dead! Someone's dead!"

"What kind of death happened? Brother, you're just lucky."

"Oh, is this guy out looking for women? He's being so secretive."

"Do you think everyone is like you?"

"What's wrong with me? Xiaolin, tell me I didn't lie to them. Women are actually more lustful than men."

Chen Guangyuan is an old lecher, a lecherous man of his generation, absolutely a lecherous man of his generation. He encounters girls who are all similar to the lecherous women of his generation, living purely for desire itself. He is indeed indiscriminate; any girl he captures through online chat, whether a young girl or a mature woman, he treats them all equally, a monster existing solely to awaken girls' desires. Whether you believe it or not, his descriptions of the various details of love are impossible to recount without firsthand experience. His seemingly boastful account of hunting down young girls suggests that Chen Guangyuan has developed an ability to make girls who are just beginning to develop feelings for him reveal another side of themselves. Gentlewomen actually crave love, but the process of love between the old lecher and young girls, the tender paradise of these young women suffocating the old lecher's love. He emphasizes that girls' love is like the tide, like the moon's attraction to the Qiantang River; once ignited, the paradise becomes a love fantasy. It's unclear whether he's deliberately showing off. His greatest wish was to have a romantic relationship with a young girl from the blossoming spring of Turpan, but lately he often sighed, realizing that the era of beautiful young love was over, and his methods no longer worked on them. These past two days, he'd been focusing on a "little dinosaur," a female college student from China University of Geosciences. He called her his "little dinosaur." Why "little dinosaur"? Simply because her face wasn't particularly captivating or delicate, unlike the "water-like" girls he described himself as, the kind of girls who brought him the most blissful moments of love.

Why did he choose to share a 30-square-meter apartment with Zhang Sheng and Xiao Lin? Because Chen Guangyuan's habit of taking advantage of others at work was discovered by his supervisor, and the culprit was the CPU processor. The server originally had eight CPUs, but Chen Guangyuan always tried to be clever, claiming four were faulty and selling them at the Zhongguancun market. A single Xeon CPU cost 2000 yuan, so several CPUs would cost several thousand yuan. This might be acceptable once or twice, but if a server needed its CPU replaced three times in six months, even if the supervisor didn't think he was at fault, he would still question the quality of IBM servers. After Chen Guangyuan used these three tricks, the HR manager would give him a one-year compensation contract, allowing him to play around for another six months. He spent tens of thousands of yuan on pursuing girls and romance, as if his true home was a paradise.

The cocktail Zhang Sheng and Song Yu drank had a really strong aftereffect; it almost killed Zhang Sheng. He couldn't get out of bed for a whole day and night, feeling dizzy, in pain, and heartbroken. There was nothing he could do; this was the ultimate challenge every business owner in Zhongguancun had to face. Xiao Lin went to the cafeteria to buy Zhang Sheng a bowl of millet porridge so he could drink some and help digest the alcohol. Chen Guangyuan's IBM laptop light kept flashing, filled with messages from girls all over the country on QQ. He numbered them, like a king. His phone kept ringing; it was a call from his girlfriend in Shanghai. The Shanghai accent coming through the phone made her sound wanton and wanton. She said she missed Guangyuan. "What do you miss about me?" "Baby, tell me, do you miss me?" "I hate Guangyuan." "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving Shanghai?" "I want you now, Guangyuan." "Baby, what am I going to do in Beijing? Can you use your hand to replace my... you know...?" "More tricks, you wanton woman." No way, absolutely! If men can do it, why can't women? That's a bit too blunt and too plain.

"This is my girl from Shanghai, pretty good, right? With mature girls, you have to be direct and don't give them any chance to hesitate. Little Dinosaur is about to be my prey. You guys think dinosaur girls from China University of Geosciences should be pure angels, right? Why am I looking for dinosaur girls? Because I know all the goddesses at school are women now, and dinosaurs are still angels even though they're ugly. Angels are fun. It's been a long time since I've tasted an angel. Oh, by the way, dinosaur girl also has an angelic best friend. Which one should I introduce to you two?"

"Give it to the eldest brother, give it to the eldest brother."

Chen Guangyuan was extremely smug. His female sex partners in Shanghai missed him so much that they couldn't bear to part with him and insisted on flying to Beijing immediately, thinking that Guangyuan had made a fortune in Beijing again.

"What to do? The sluts from Shanghai insist on coming to me to relieve their pent-up desires. You've all heard it, the Shanghai women's lust is too intense, they have to have sex three times a night. I have to get Little Dinosaur tomorrow, get Little Dinosaur. I'm begging you two, could you please get Little Dinosaur by noon? And Little Dinosaur's angel best friend is yours."

"Does he really listen to you that much?"

"Why can't you listen to me? I'm doing this for you, brother. Otherwise, I would have won over the little dinosaur's angelic best friend too."

"Chen Guangyuan is too greedy."

"What are you greedy for? Do you two know my record? I took down an entire dorm room. I'm not bragging, I took down the whole dorm room."

"Who would believe that?"

"I don't believe it. If nothing unexpected happens to Dinosaur Girl tomorrow, and she transforms from an angel into a woman, she'll miss me terribly."

Forget tomorrow, Zhang Sheng won't show his face day or night. Where is Zhang Sheng going? He doesn't know himself. Anyway, Beijing is so big, can't he go wherever he wants? It's all for pursuing a girl, he has to go beyond his means. He rented an office and then a nice shop, turning a counter into a storefront, much more impressive, and the products could be sold at higher prices. Customers also choose the level of the storefront. A counter is a bit like a small vendor, but now it's an office-like shop where customers can chat and drink tea, and also leisurely discuss professional knowledge about Moore's Law and the various upgrades in the chip world. From the R2000 graphics card, now there are two giants, NVIDIA and ATI, as well as Intel and AMD, Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Hyundai, Micron, Kingston, Japanese and Korean monitors, American chip world, and the four giants of chips from the US, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The problem now is that the cash flow is strained. They urgently need to pay the rent for the downstairs store and the office. The future plan is perfect: upgrading from a counter to a spacious office shop, plus renovations, will be a good presentation to customers, at least the company's future looks bright. The new store's location overlooks Lin Xiaoqing's company. She still has that same energy, her smile revealing a pair of dimples that completely captivated Zhang Sheng. Zhang Sheng occasionally visits her shop, but she's very perceptive, always treating Zhang Sheng as just another customer. Zhang Sheng begins to reminisce about the good old days selling CD burners with Lin Xiaoqing. Back then, at the counter, Zhang Sheng helped Lin Xiaoqing sell LG CD burners to her customers almost every day, and incidentally promoted Lin Xiaoqing's company as well—those were wonderful times. She dressed conservatively, never wearing dresses, preferring pink, elastic, tight-fitting short-sleeved t-shirts with a high, open neckline, and loose red casual trousers. The most striking feature was her full, prominent breasts, their outlines barely concealed. She walked with almost a quick, small gait, her proud breasts exuding the spirited charm of a southern girl. Lately, she had almost vanished from Zhang Sheng's mind; his brainstorming was entirely focused on funds, rent, and money, consuming both his mind and body.

Lin Xiaoqing's voluptuous and robust figure was everywhere, brimming with youthful vitality, which deeply attracted him. If their intimacy was ever-present, he would constantly appear before her eyes: her smiling cheeks, dimples, and her rosy, fair complexion—a pure, alluring sight, the dream goddess of King Xiang of Chu, the goddess of Cao Zhi's Luo River. Lin Xiaoqing was almost perfect in every way, except for her slightly asymmetrical eyes, one larger than the other. This was because Zhang Sheng had observed her so closely, intoxicated by the fragrant scent of orchids, osmanthus, and other flowers emanating from her, seemingly forgetting the poet in the library, Jane Eyre, and the broken hearts of those girls who had once scorned him. At least Lin Xiaoqing remained poised and elegant. Zhang Sheng had once suggested they have a drink together—at the island coffee shop downstairs, of course. That was a gradual display of Zhang Sheng's courage; he carefully nurtured this sweet, indescribable love. Yet, as always, Lin Xiaoqing resolutely refused.

Zhang Sheng still worried that her beautiful image would vanish like Jane Eyre's. She would still come, only concerned with how many LG DVD burners Zhang Sheng had sold for her. Only then did Zhang Sheng remember to continue promoting Xiao Qing's DVD burners. At least Lin Xiao Qing would come again. Lately, this seemed like a luxury for Zhang Sheng, as all his thoughts were focused on the disastrous consequences of the financial crisis. It seemed love would fade away because of this misfortune. Lin Xiao Qing was still sitting in the company showroom, patiently explaining the various advantages of the LG brand to each customer. Zhang Sheng seemed to be caught up in his past anxieties about Jane Eyre, fearing Lin Xiao Qing's prolonged conversations with men. What was that? It was a manifestation of greed, jealousy, and possessiveness; it was also a sign that he had fallen deeply in love with Lin Xiao Qing. But everything was teetering on the brink of collapse, beyond Zhang Sheng's control.