Chen Junnan immediately said, "I've finally found an opportunity to change my fate. Your invention can transform the entire industry. I've even given up my secure job as a doctor just for this product." He showed his medical license to Professor Du, and the old man felt reassured.
Chen Junnan added, "For such a remarkable invention, I'm willing to bet ten years of my life. It's worth it."
You see, when talking to intellectuals, don't mention money. Money isn't the real currency in their eyes. For intellectuals, reputation and time are the true hard currencies. Flowers don't bloom forever, and youth never returns—if you're willing to gamble with your time, that shows more sincerity than gambling with money.
Just as persistent pursuit wins over reluctant women, good people can't resist genuine flattery.
What businessperson wouldn't appreciate a client with high moral standards? Chen Junnan nearly laughed until tears came to his eyes. The moment the contract was signed, he immediately stayed up all night writing a business plan. He wanted to start this venture with Liu Zhengliang and said to him over the phone, "How much money can we really make being doctors our whole lives?"
As soon as the patent was secured, Chen Junnan returned to Fushun to resign. He went to Dean Long's office, handed over 50,000 yuan, and said, "I'll make up for all the deducted salary. I'm quitting."
Dean Long said, "Young man, don't act on impulse."
Chen Junnan replied, "I've thought it through long ago. The risks and rewards in this job are completely disproportionate. I'm done."
After much persuasion from Liu Zhengliang, Chen Junnan only applied for unpaid leave, planning to start his business in Beijing for two years. If it didn't work out, he could still return. As Chen Junnan departed, Che Mingming stood by the office window and cried. Liu Zhengliang invited Che Mingming to visit Zhang Jiao together—the young girl had now recovered enough to pour water for herself.
Seeing Zhang Jiao pour and drink water on her own, Che Mingming finally smiled through her tears. The child's hands were still somewhat shaky, but at least the commands from her brain to her limbs could be accurately executed.
Zhang Dexu brought corn grown in his backyard and insisted that the two take some home. Zhang Dexu said, "Looking at her progress, she should be able to leave the hospital by autumn."
Liu Zhengliang said, "Let's aim for her to walk out of the ward on her own. You'll need to do strength training with her afterward—get her muscles moving. The muscle activity will also stimulate her brain and aid recovery. Take it step by step: start with passive movements, get her active, and gradually encourage her to initiate movements herself."
Zhang Jiao slowly articulated each word and asked Liu Zhengliang, "Dr. Liu, I speak so slowly. What should I do? I want to speak faster, but I can't."
Dou Liping added from the side, "She cried at night out of frustration, worried she'll always talk like this."
Liu Zhengliang patted Zhang Jiao's head and said, "Take your time when you speak. Let your thoughts linger in your mind a bit longer, so you can think clearly before speaking. You hit your head, and it's like a circuit got disconnected—similar to a burnt tungsten filament in a light bulb. The filament is still there; with a little shake, it might reconnect, and the light will turn on. You must keep practicing and not let your brain rest. If you let it rest, it'll get lazy and won't repair itself properly."
Chapter 15When Chen Junnan left, he didn’t take the high-speed train. He had quite a bit of luggage, almost like moving to Beijing, so he didn’t want to transfer in Shenyang. Instead, he took a slow train from Fushun at night, arriving directly in the morning. For dinner, he ate with Liu Zhengliang, who had already toasted him farewell. At the table, Liu Zhengliang said, “Man, I’ve only been back for a little over a year, and now you’re leaving.”
Chen Junnan said, “Honestly, if my project takes off, could you come? We could work on it together.”
Liu Zhengliang said, “I’ve only got a brain for treating illnesses, nothing else.”
Chen Junnan said, “People fear being pushed, horses fear being ridden. Don’t leave yourself a way out—there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.”
Chen Junnan’s family was originally just an ordinary cadre household, not well-off. His father still earned a fixed salary of just over four thousand yuan a month. His mother ran a business, with the capital provided by her grandfather, but she wasn’t wealthy either.
Chen Junnan’s great-grandfather’s surname was Di, and his name was Di Xuemeng. Di Xuemeng’s ancestral home was in Changli, Hebei. Fleeing famine, he and his younger sister ran to the Northeast. When they first arrived in Fushun, they had nowhere to stay and no money, so they walked the streets carrying baskets on their backs, selling miscellaneous goods. Later, after saving up a bit of money, he wanted to rent a shop to settle down. There was an empty storefront at the Happy Garden Club, diagonally across from the club’s entrance. With all the foot traffic, business was sure to be good, so he thought about renting it.
Upon inquiring, he found out the landlord was Yamaguchi Fumio, a Japanese man—yes, Li Xianglan’s father. But this Japanese man was said to have been frightened by the Volunteer Army and had already gone to Beiping to develop his business inside the pass. The house was now managed by Li Jichun.
This Li Jichun was a major traitor, serving as the president of the Shenyang Bank in Manchukuo at the time. Di Xuemeng asked the Di family’s head steward to put in a few words for him, and Li Jichun waved him off like a beggar, renting the place to him. Naturally, Li Jichun didn’t care about the rent, and Di Xuemeng dutifully paid tribute to the steward. In this muddled way, several years passed.
The brother and sister began selling dried goods at the entrance of the Happy Garden Club in Fushun—walnuts, hazelnuts, dried dates, and pine nuts filled their warehouse. These items now sell for forty or fifty yuan per jin, but back then in the Northeast, they were just supplementary foodstuffs, abundant in the mountains and not worth much. Still, they managed to settle down. Later, Di Xuemeng married and had two daughters, one named Di Xiuying and the other Di Xiuyun.
In 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, the Nationalist 52nd Army was stationed in Fushun. Di Xuemeng’s younger sister was beautiful, and while working in the shop, she met a young officer who had abandoned his studies to join the military during the War of Resistance. They fell in love, and since the war was over, they thought there would be no more fighting. Both were getting older, so they decided to marry.
Unexpectedly, not long after, the civil war broke out again. The brother-in-law followed his troops from Fushun through Qingyuan County to Kuandian, claiming they were going to suppress bandits. Di Xuemeng muttered to himself, “That’s all hilly terrain, and there are no bandits there—it’s the base of the Northeast Democratic Allied Army’s Fourth Column.” The brother-in-law said, “You don’t understand—they are bandits.” Di Xuemeng thought to himself, “I’ve been there to stock up on goods and met them. They were quite polite and didn’t rob me. How could they be bandits?”Within days, the Battle of Xinkailing commenced, and the Nationalist's elite 25th Division of the 52nd Army, known as the "Thousand-Li Colt," was completely annihilated by the People's Liberation Army. My brother-in-law returned in disgrace and, after spending a considerable sum to pull strings, managed to secure a position in the rebuilt 25th Division. With senior officers captured at Xinkailing, he was promoted to brigade commander by default—the best of a bad lot.
By 1948, the 4th Column of the 4th Field Army had advanced from Kuandian to Tashan, where they blockaded Nationalist reinforcements heading to Jinzhou. This time, the Nationalist troops stationed in Fushun wised up. Their commander, Liu Yuzhang, told my brother-in-law, "We can't reinforce Jinzhou—it's a death trap now. Let's head to Yingkou instead. There's a port and cargo ships there; we can escape anytime."
When my brother-in-law departed, he and my sister wept bitterly, as if parting forever.
Not long after, Jinzhou was liberated, and Liao Yaoxiang's westward-bound corps, dispatched from Shenyang, was wiped out. Seeing this, Liu Yuzhang, commander of the Nationalist 52nd Army, decided, "Let's not stay in Yingkou—board the ships and flee!" They escaped to Shanghai and later to Taiwan.
After Fushun was liberated, my sister cried incessantly. Soon, a letter arrived from Hong Kong—my brother-in-law had arranged for someone to mail it, saying he had settled in Taiwan and hoped she could join him. Di Xuemeng thought, "With the strait separating us, how could she possibly cross?"
But my sister missed her husband, and leaving them separated was no solution. As her elder brother, I felt for her and suggested, "He's already fled to Taiwan—why wait for him? Couldn't you remarry and start anew? You have no children together—wouldn't marrying someone else be fine? But in these chaotic times, how would you even find someone?"
My sister insisted it was love.
Unable to dissuade her, I discussed it with my wife, who said, "Then take her there yourself and return afterward. I'll look after our two daughters. We have the business—we won't starve."
So my sister and I journeyed south, eventually reaching Xiamen. But Xiamen was then the front line, with Kinmen Islands visible nearby, bristling with guns and artillery on both sides. As ordinary civilians, we couldn't cross. Di Xuemeng devised a plan: he went to a commune store, claiming to be a PE teacher buying four basketballs. He then wrapped the basketballs in discarded fishing nets and, under cover of a dark, windy night, secretly entered the sea from Shijing Town north of Xiamen. They drifted for hours, nearly swept away by ocean currents into the Pacific, before being rescued by a Taiwanese patrol boat.
Upon reaching Kinmen, the garrison troops demanded identity checks. My sister and I were separated into two rooms for interrogation, questioned about everything—our ancestors, daily life details: how high the kang bed was, the size of our cooking pot, where the kang cabinet stood, our children's names, our eldest daughter's birthday, who we rented from, the landlord's name. A single wrong answer would label you a Communist spy and execution. We answered truthfully, but the political officers remained suspicious. They found two men from Liaoning in Kinmen—one from Benxi, one from Tieling, both familiar with Fushun and formerly of the reorganized Northeast Army—to test us further. They asked, "What do you call a table in Fushun?" Di Xuemeng and his sister separately replied, "Zhuozi."
The two men reported back, "Correct—that's Fushun dialect." The political officers ordered more questions.
They asked, "What's the township west of the West Open-Pit Mine called?"
Di Xuemeng and his sister separately answered, "Qianjin Township."
They pressed further, "What's the village east of Lishizhai called?"The siblings answered separately: "Tian Tun."
The brothers told the political officer: "That's right, definitely not a communist spy."
Only then did the political officer unload the terrifying bullet from his gun and contacted the Taipei 52nd Army headquarters, confirming that their sister was indeed a military dependent. With a single boat ticket, she was sent to Taipei.
Di Xuemeng said, "I've delivered the person, I should head back now." The Kuomintang political officer replied, "You can't go back." Di Xuemeng asked, "Why can't I go back? My wife and children are still in the Northeast—I need to return to make a living." The Kuomintang political officer said, "The landlord of the house you rented on the mainland—is his name Yamaguchi Fumio? His daughter is Li Xianglan, who was nearly convicted as a Hanjian but was released after it was discovered she was Japanese. Was the agent who rented it to you named Li Jichun? He was just convicted as a Hanjian and executed by the other side—it's even in the newspapers. What's your relationship with him? Why did he rent the house to you and no one else? If you return from Taiwan, wouldn't you be considered a spy? Are you here to pass on intelligence? Would you be executed? It's even possible your wife and children have already been executed. Even if we set all that aside, you've already been to Kinmen—how could we let you go back? What if you pass intelligence to the other side?"
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