Zhou Lin - Chapter 179 Chapter of the Sacrifice (2)

Even though the way I got this position was unfair, even despicable and despicable.

But I… don’t feel ashamed about it.

First of all, the leader I took advantage of did not deserve sympathy and did not deserve sympathy.

Secondly, this kind of position that can be obtained through nepotism is not worth showing off.

To take a step back, I really can’t devote any loyalty or sense of honor to a unit that is full of hidden rules and corruption from top to bottom.

Maybe this happens to people after being in society for a long time. Each of us becomes more and more shameless in the process of self-persuasion, and then we try to convince ourselves that this shamelessness is a sign of maturity.

Those incompetent people often gradually give up thinking and introspection on this mature road, and become ridiculous and sad two-faced people; they nod and bend in front of others during the day as tired as their grandchildren, and at night they go online to suppress and show off. Come for a cheap feeling of superiority and let off steam. If you are arguing with people on the Internet about certain opinions and encounter someone who always likes to ask How old are you?, then you have probably met this kind of person… There is no doubt that the guy behind the screen is probably fine. He is capable, and he is not young either.

I don’t want to become that kind of person, so I also torture myself when trying to convince myself.

I have also asked myself: Can I be forgiven if I use the wrong means in the right place? Can I even be said to be doing a good deed?

It’s a pity that I haven’t been able to come up with the answer, so I can only advise myself – it depends on the person, the situation, the situation, and a clear conscience.

Of course, what happened this time cannot be said to be a good thing. After all, my motivations contained self-interest: judging from the results, I received better pay and a higher social status.

No matter how insiders view me, at least in the eyes of most uninformed outsiders, an investigative reporter is still much more respectable than a letter boy.

When you live in this world, no matter how others maliciously speculate and slander you behind your back, as long as you can make them be polite to you on the surface, that’s already pretty good.

This is what most of us have been pursuing.

When you think about it thoroughly, you will find that it is impossible for everyone to respect you or understand you from the bottom of their hearts. It will not be possible on the day you die; in this era, even emperors, great men, and saints… …After death, people will also take it out and slander them at will, let alone us mortals.

Therefore, what we need is never a real identity, but some labels.

Reporter, doctor, mentor, expert, leader, talent, rich man, boss, famous entertainer, successful person… use these to make strangers The label that looks up to you, at least in front of you, is false and submissive. Sticking it on yourself as much as possible and enjoying the vested interests is our pursuit and the concept that has been instilled in us since childhood.

No matter how false and empty the textbooks we read are, the real environment will eventually point us to this path.

I understand this, I understand it all.

But I, Li Xiaofan, still have a dream – a dream that is not so realistic and self-interested.

I want to be a pair of eyes, a pair of ears, a mouthpiece… to show people in the world things that they can’t see or hear, but should see and hear.

I want those who have given up thinking and introspection to regain the habit of reflection and the courage to question.

I will use any means necessary to realize this ideal and carry out my justice, even if it is a despicable justice.

…………

On September 9, a week had passed since I became an investigative reporter.

I am almost familiar with the working environment here and have become close friends with my colleagues.

But actually, my job doesn’t require a good relationship with other people in the office. I just need to flatter the editor; others can’t control me, and I can’t control them.

I am mainly responsible for print media and online news, so I am not the kind of reporter who needs to interview people directly in front of the camera. There is no need for me to be assigned a photographer or something; all I have to do is to investigate, collect evidence, and then report what I see. What I heard was turned into a written report and handed over to my boss…that is, the editor-in-chief’s desk. As long as he nodded and said it could be published, then my work was not in vain.

My editor-in-chief, whose surname is Luo, is over 50 years old and has a high degree of education. When he was young, he interned at the New York Herald. However, because of his lack of ability and poor conduct, he was kicked out before the internship period was over.

This matter… In the entire unit, apart from him, I am the only one who knows about it.

Because I investigated him.

Many people think that it is difficult to investigate a person, even if you are not a police officer. But in fact, as long as you know some skills and dare to wander within the boundaries of the law, a lot of information is at your fingertips.

Editor-in-Chief Luo has been able to reach his current position in our organization on the one hand because of his profound ability to flatter people and deceive others, and on the other hand because of his original resume of having worked at the New York Herald.

Although 99% of office workers will dislike their leaders to varying degrees, or despise the leadership’s ability to do things, or question the leader’s resume, I am afraid that less than 1% of people will actually take action to confirm their opinions.

I am the 1%.

When I was determined to be transferred to this department, I launched a comprehensive investigation into Chief Editor Luo…the man who would be my immediate boss in the future.

First, look at written materials.

Editor Luo’s files are naturally in the Human Resources Department. Although I am not from the Human Resources Department, I can still see them because I was still the mail delivery boy at that time; all the company’s files that have entered the mailroom will be in our computers here. Keep backups and back up first and then print is the basic policy. This is to prevent files from being lost or damaged during delivery.

Although this information cannot be taken out of the company (anti-theft measures are very complete), for things like personnel files, which only have a few words in total, I can just memorize them when I read them… Don’t forget, I am a Chinese major. .

Next, it’s time to check out this person’s reputation.

This is even simpler. Every one or two days, just grab a few cups of milk tea from the Internet celebrity store, go to the floor where Editor Luo works in your free time in the afternoon, find an excuse to stand at the front desk for a while, and chat with the front desk. By the way, chat with the OLs who are chatting with the front desk, and you can basically get a rough idea.

But you can’t do this too often, you have to know how to do it in a timely manner; if you go every day for a week, the receptionist will misunderstand that you are interested in her, and then you have to ask her out, otherwise she will She finds out that you are actually not interested in her… At that time, she will be a little unhappy. Even if she doesn’t like you at first and plans to reject you or use you as a backup, but if you stop something that she thinks already exists If you have an ambiguous relationship, she will hate you, and then she will start talking bad about you behind your back.

Human nature is such a troublesome thing, and I, who know how to figure it out, also find it troublesome. If I were a woman and born in ancient times, I might have the opportunity to use this knowledge in palace fighting activities, but unfortunately I am not.

Closer to home, after getting to know Editor Luo to a certain extent, my doubts about his resume became very strong. In order to verify this… I used a weekend to apply for a tourist visa and went to New York.

Before departure, I had contacted an old reporter who retired from the New York Herald via email and made an appointment to have a cup of coffee with him.

Naturally, I couldn’t ask him directly about Editor Luo online. It wasn’t because I was afraid of leaving any chat records, but because if you asked him such a question directly, he might not pay attention to you.

When I contacted the old reporter, I had a full set of words in mind. He had written a very famous report on environmental governance issues before, and almost won the Pulitzer Prize. I used this as a breakthrough. He claimed that it was because he read his report in school that he decided to become an investigative reporter. Now that he finally got his wish, he wanted to meet him, have a chat, and ask him as his life mentor to give him some advice. I’ll impart some experience.

As expected, the old man agreed readily.

Above-average arrogance, varying degrees of self-righteousness, and a desire to be taken seriously can be said to be common problems in the lawyer and journalist industry.

Imagine an old man who almost won the Pulitzer Prize is now retired at home; he is not old enough to have to enter a nursing home, and he has no financial difficulties; he is no longer busy from morning to day as before. Later in the day, the interpersonal relationships in the past gradually became distant and diminished; when he was young, because he was obsessed with work, his wife had already left him, and his children only saw him a few times a year…

What does such an old man need? money? Social status? He does not lack these, or in other words, they are no longer important to him now.

What he longs for most is the company of others. If this other is his relative, it would be best, or a friend, but there is really no such thing…a stranger with goodwill or respect would be fine too.

I contacted him as soon as I got off the plane that day, and forty minutes later we met in a coffee shop.

The old man came as soon as he saw that I still had luggage in my hand (I didn’t have much luggage, I only brought a small suitcase), but he was so moved that he shook my hand warmly and forcefully, as if I was him A close friend who is separated by oceans but has never met.

For more than an hour after that, I had a pleasant chat with him. After all, I had done a lot of homework before coming here and read a lot of reports he had written before. Carrying things is my special skill, otherwise I would be like this A poor student might not be able to get into college at all.

I could see the satisfaction in the old man’s eyes, and I could tell… It had been a long time since anyone had listened to him so carefully for so long.

Some people have never been valued or admired by anyone outside their family in their lives, and some people have enjoyed it, but one day…usually the day they retire, all of it disappears.

This psychological gap, coupled with the usual arrogance of these people, will make them very disappointed.

It is indeed very pitiful and sad for people to get older. When a person inevitably becomes less and less valued, or even regarded as a burden, and their body and brain gradually decline, they will slowly be left alone. and devoured by loneliness; many people are easily manipulated by some clumsy swindlers in their later years, but do not trust their relatives, just because the swindlers may spend more time with them.

I am also a liar.

I cheated his trust and got what I wanted.

When I was refilling my cup of coffee for the third time, I pretended to casually mention my boss, Editor-in-Chief Luo. Naturally, the old man didn’t remember that guy, but I was already prepared. I took out my laptop and clicked on I got a photo of Editor Luo when he was an intern at the New York Herald; this guy hung this photo directly on the wall of his office to show off, it was not difficult to get.

In that photo, in addition to Editor Luo, there were several other interns and the reporter who was responsible for guiding them at the time, that is, the old man in front of me.

Old American media like the New York Herald are still mainly controlled by white plutocrats, and overt and covert racial and gender discrimination are deeply rooted; Editor-in-chief Luo was an intern more than 20 years ago, and political correctness had not yet existed at that time. It’s so tight now, so there are very few Chinese interns. As soon as the old man saw the photo, he had an impression of him.

Perhaps because he was worried about my relationship with Editor Luo, the old man made some detours in his speech, but you could still hear that… someone with the surname Luo is a very different person.

It seems that his tricks of flattery and deception have not changed, but they do not work everywhere.

Three hours later, I said goodbye to the old reporter. Before leaving, the old man patted me on the shoulder, praised and blessed me.

If it was ten years ago, before he retired, he might not even bother to sit down and drink coffee with someone like me; even if he came, he wouldn’t chat with me for so long.

At that time, he would most likely put on airs with me, say something like he was very busy, rudely interrupt my statement, criticize our country’s press freedom, forcefully instill some values ​​he recognized, and answer some questions he wanted to answer. Ignore the rest, and after feeling a sense of superiority, leave a sentence of I bought this order, thank you for wasting my time, then throw down a few pieces of cash and leave rudely.

But now, he was standing on the street, waving and watching me get into the taxi. It wasn’t until the car disappeared around the corner that he turned his head, breathed a sigh of relief, and walked home.

Will he realize afterwards that I was just trying to get information on him?

It should be possible, but I think that even if he could, he would not let himself think that way; he would try his best to convince himself that what he met today was really a passionate young junior, and this junior really I came to see him because I admired him.

…………

On the afternoon of September 9, I got my first assignment from Editor Luo: to interview a couple.

I know them, they were the parties involved in the Death of anus-free baby incident that was a hot topic on the Internet a few years ago; of course, no one is paying attention to this matter now.

The editor-in-chief asked me to follow up on their situation and write a report on online violence; according to Editor-in-Chief Luo, they recently wanted to focus on the topic of cyberviolence and guide public opinion to a certain extent. Therefore, we need to use a more typical and tragic victim case to write a report that demonizes Internet mobs.

In fact, this is a good thing.

I didn’t wait until the next day. That evening, I took the high-speed train to Tianjin with the address he gave me.