Gao Qiuyu shook his head.
If he knew, why would he still pay?
This salary hasn't even been earned yet, and I've already lost a thousand yuan.
"Too much talking." Wen Ying's simple three words made Gao Qiuyu and Zhang Wenliang both look at her.
Is talking too much a kind of illness?
Zhang Wenliang only pondered for a moment before understanding the key point. "I got it."
"What?" Gao Qiuyu stared at him, hoping he would explain.
Could it be that he, the person involved, is the only one who understands nothing about this?
"Ask Wen Ying yourself," Zhang Wenliang said, sitting on the sofa and casually picking up a nearby book that looked brand new.
"Dr. Wen, what exactly is my illness?"
"Though you talk a lot, it's not fatal. What's fatal is that you speak without thinking, without any filter." Wen Ying looked at him calmly and spoke slowly, "Like what you just said to me, you were scared only because you realized I had the means to destroy you. If you were facing someone like yourself, ordinary, powerless, with no way to expose you, would you still be so scared and nervous?"
Gao Qiuyu thought carefully for a moment, then shook his head.
"One good thing about you is that you don't lie. You know you're not a good person, nor a bad one, just an ordinary person with desires and emotions. When you make a mistake, you realize it and apologize. But not everyone you meet is like Dr. Wen, understand?"
Since you've entered this circle, you should know what kind of people are in it. Anyone you pick out at random is someone you can't afford to offend. If you're not careful with your words, do you think you'll have a good outcome?
Gao Qiuyu shook his head again; he understood.
He also knew that Dr. Wen had his best interests at heart.
Although it was painful to part with this thousand yuan, it should be worth it.
"You're distressed over a thousand yuan, but do you think a thousand yuan is more important compared to your life or even the lives of your family?"
Gao Qiuyu immediately stood up and shook his head earnestly, "Dr. Wen, I don't regret this thousand yuan. I just want to know what would have happened if I hadn't met you."
Zhang Wenliang was originally engrossed in reading a novel where the stand-in female character marries the domineering CEO. Just as the plot reached the point where the CEO's true love returns, she realizes she is merely a stand-in. It was the climax of the story.
He, however, looked up at Wen Ying, as he too wanted to know what would happen to Gao Qiuyu.
Can a foul mouth really endanger someone's life?
"You will gain some traffic after reporting on Zhang Wenliang and get your first sum of money. Then you start following the rising stars, thinking that as long as you capture evidence of their private lives, evidence of their relationships, you can rise to the top. You did exactly that, but the consequence was that you got your leg broken."
After a few months of recovery, your leg healed. You thought following male celebrities was too dangerous, so this time you chose a girlfriend. Coincidentally, a female celebrity had just stolen a role from her best friend, causing a huge uproar online. You accepted the assignment to take photos of her and an investor at a hotel. However, you didn't know that this investor's ancestors were not good people. Before he cleaned up his act, he was a leader of a certain underworld organization. Would he tolerate a small-time paparazzo like you, with no connections, exposing him?
So this time, not only did you break your leg again, but your wife was also threatened, and your one-year-old child... In short, your situation is quite tragic. Meeting me is a matter of fate between us, and of course, it's also because you caught my eye, nothing more."
Not to mention Gao Qiuyu, even Zhang Wenliang broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing Ying's words.
What era is this?
Could there really be such underhanded behavior?
"Don't believe that all human nature is bright; in the face of interests, many times, human nature is not worth mentioning."
Gao Qiuyu was drenched in cold sweat. It was precisely because his wife had given birth to their child, who was just over a year old, that he wanted to earn more money to provide a better life for his child and wife.
But if his wife and child were to meet with misfortune because of him, he would never be able to forgive himself for the rest of his life.
Might not even be able to continue living.
If he hadn't met Dr. Wen, he couldn't imagine whether he would have ended up on a path of no return, and then gone to find his wife and child.
It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when.
He would go completely mad, then seek revenge, and finally end it all himself.
Splash!
Gao Qiuyu knelt directly in front of Wen Ying. Sitting behind the table, Wen Ying didn't move, only softly said, "Get up. You can find a proper job that suits you, instead of thinking about making quick money. Have you already forgotten about your graduation project?"
Gao Qiuyu stood up and looked at Wen Ying with shame.
He was once the best in the class, even winning an award for his graduation project. He had the most beautiful dreams, envisioning a grand future after graduation. But after graduating, the gap between reality and imagination was so vast that he came to understand the need to submit and conform.
So, having come to this point today, he seemed to have lost himself, no longer the passionate and idealistic youth he once was.
He is now a greasy middle-aged man.
"Can I... still do design?" Gao Qiuyu's spirits were not high; he was no longer the person he was in his youth.
In everything, one must consider whether it can solve the family's basic needs, whether it can allow the children and wife to live a good life, rather than just one person being full while the whole family goes hungry.
"Why not?"
Hearing Dr. Wen's retort, a light reappeared in Gao Qiuyu's eyes, a light that only existed in youth, a light long extinguished by life.
"Thank you, Dr. Wen. I think I know what to do now. Since you told me this, it means I can rely on my own designs to give my wife and child a good life! I won't hesitate any longer! I'm going to find a design job right now!"
Zhang Wenliang stared in shock at the scene before him. He thought that if Wen Ying were to become a negotiation expert, she wouldn't need any special skills; she could simply lay out the trajectory of what was about to happen.
Looking at Gao Qiuyu, who instantly became as energetic as if he had been injected with adrenaline, Wen Ying reached up to rub her temples. This profession really is quite exhausting.
"Don't worry, you still have a month to pick up what you've lost. Think about it, how long has it been since you last did any design work?"
Wen Ying's words were like a bucket of cold water poured over Gao Qiuyu. He began to recall, "Me, more than two years. For the first year, I was working on a construction site carrying bricks. It paid well, but then there was a fatal accident. My wife wouldn't let me go back to the site, so I found a job delivering food. But there was an accident with that too, so I switched to this job that's supposed to make a lot of money... paparazzi."
The words "paparazzi" seem to inherently carry a sense of dishonor.