Material Empire

In an apartment on the outskirts of Washington, three Chinese girls are busy in the kitchen while chatting about gossip topics. These three people all came to study in the United States from Beijing University, and their relationship is extremely close. This apartment is shared by Zhang Weilin and Zhao Feiran who are studying in Washington. As for the third girl, Xu Xiaoqi who came to Washington from the University of Virginia to work, every time she comes to Washington, she always stays with her girlfriends. Overnight.

Since they each have their own studies and have to go out to work in their spare time, there are not many times when they can get together to cook by themselves. At this moment, there was a rare opportunity to chat, and Xu Xiaoqi told her girlfriends the story that happened in the restaurant where she worked the day before yesterday.

"Weilin, Feiran, do you two remember a girl named Tranquility in our school's 87th grade?" Xu Xiaoqi asked her two female companions.

"Remember, didn't those little boys in 87 call her the school girl?" Zhang Weilin said with a smile, not only boys appreciate beautiful women, girls also pay attention to the best of the same sex.

"What about the 87-year-old boy, the boys in our grade should also be applauded like this?" Zhao Feiran also echoed.

Xu Xiaoqi said: "Do you know that I ran into his brother at the restaurant where I was working the day before yesterday."

"Really? How do you know it's his brother? Do they look alike?" Zhang Weilin asked curiously.

Xu Xiaoqi shook her head: "They don't look alike at all. I remember that Tranquility has a pretty good figure, and her brother... is quite burly."

Speaking of this, Xu Xiaoqi couldn't help but chuckled in her heart. Using burly to describe Ning Mo was somewhat emotional. Speaking objectively, he is clearly a fat man, okay? But... Thinking of Ning Mo majesticly protecting her behind her, she couldn't help feeling that in fact, fat paper also has a cuteness about fat paper, at least it can block the wind, right?

"How did you meet him?" Zhao Feiran asked.

"The thing is like this..." Xu Xiaoqi began to explain what happened in the restaurant to her female companions. When Ning Mo and Qin Hai stepped forward to protect her, both Zhang Weilin and Zhao Feiran exclaimed.

"Wow, isn't this the hero saving the beauty? Xiaoqi, do you plan to make a promise to any of them?" Zhang Weilin teased shamelessly.

"By the way, Xiaoqi, have you asked what kind of work they all do? Are they cadres in the agency?" Zhao Feiran is a more pragmatic girl, and she is more concerned about the fate of these two heroes who saved the beauty. Can it be worthy of Xu Xiaoqi?

"Well, they said they were business people in a company." Xu Xiaoqi replied.

In fact, Ning Mo is currently the general manager of Jintang Chemical Materials Group Company, Yu Haitao also holds the title of deputy general manager in Haijie Company, and Qin Hai has even more titles. However, Ning Mo was worried that revealing his identity would leave a bad impression on Xu Xiaoqi as a "upstart", so he concealed the identities of himself and his two brothers, and only said that he was a salesman of the chemical material group and came to the United States. To discuss business.

"Salesman, that doesn't match us Xiaoqi." Zhao Feiran muttered.

"Why don't you deserve it?" Xu Xiaoqi retorted, but she forgot that this kind of rebuttal had some sense of self-confession.

Zhang Weilin immediately grasped the mystery in Xu Xiaoqi's words, and said with a smile: "So Xiaoqi is really tempted? Tell me, are you looking for the one named Ning Mo, or the one named Qin Hai... umm , I guess, it must be that Ning Mo, who has a burly figure and has a manly temperament."

"Why..." Xu Xiaoqi's face turned red immediately, "I just said that what Feiran said was wrong, and I didn't say anything about me..."

"Hee hee, since nothing happened, why are you blushing?" Zhang Weilin said, reaching out to touch Xu Xiaoqi's face, and then laughed loudly: "Oh, it's so hot, you can bake pizza."

"I'll kill you!" Xu Xiaoqi was ashamed and anxious, and wanted to chase Zhang Weilin.

"Wait, listen, someone is ringing the doorbell." Zhao Feiran said.

The three girls fell silent together, and sure enough, they heard the doorbell of the apartment being rang.

"Who is it?" Zhang Weilin came to the door and asked in English while opening her cat's eyes.

"I_am..." The person outside the door babbled in blunt English for a while, and finally switched to Chinese: "Excuse me, does Xu Xiaoqi live here?"

"Huh?" Zhang Weilin was surprised, she put her eyes in front of the cat, and looked out, only to see a person standing outside the door. The width of her body completely filled the cat's eyes. Judging from a sentence in Chinese, Zhang Weilin can tell that this is a person from China.

"Xiaoqi, I'm looking for you." Zhang Weilin yelled, seeing Xu Xiaoqi trotting over, she made a face at Xu Xiaoqi, and whispered: "I suspect it's your burly who came."

"Don't talk nonsense!" Xu Xiaoqi glared at Zhang Weilin, and then asked through the door: "Who is looking for me?"

"Is it Xiaoqi? I'm Ning Mo." The person outside the door replied, with a hint of excitement in his voice.

Xu Xiaoqi's heart jumped up inexplicably, she quickly took off the sleeves she put on for cooking, brushed her hair as fast as she could, tidied her clothes, and then opened the door, shyly He said, "Brother Ning, why are you here?"

"Well... yes... Qin Hai asked me to come, no, I told Qin Hai to let me come, Qin Hai said, there is something I want to ask you to help with, I don't know if you have time... I think This is pretty good, but I don't know if you are willing to accept it..." Ning Mo stood outside the door and said inconsequentially.

"It's Brother Ning, come in quickly, Xiaoqi was talking about you just now." Zhang Weilin poked her head out from behind Xu Xiaoqi, and greeted loudly.

Ning Mo timidly entered the living room of the apartment, and was directed by Zhang Weilin to sit on the sofa like a puppet. There were three girls lined up in front of him. The other had the look of a mother-in-law looking at her son-in-law, and looked him up and down with X-ray eyes.

"You...I..." Ning Mo had a sense of crisis like a sheep in a wolf's lair.

"Weilin, Feiran, what are you doing?" Xu Xiaoqi finally lost her temper, she pushed the two female companions to signal them not to play Ning Mo anymore.

"Haha, you guys chat, you chat, I'll cook for you." Zhang Weilin giggled and ran back to the kitchen.

"Yes, Brother Ning, you can eat with us. Xiaoqi, please accompany your guests." Zhao Feiran also made a funny face at the two of them, and ran into the kitchen behind Zhang Weilin.

"Based on my experience of reading countless people, these two people must have been connected to the electricity." Zhang Weilin whispered to Zhao Feiran in the kitchen.

Zhao Feiran looked outside, and lowered his voice, "I think the two of them are a bit unsuitable. How can a small salesperson be worthy of a female student studying abroad? Besides, this Ning Mo looks..."

"Well, quite burly." Zhang Weilin covered her mouth and smiled.

"It's a bit too burly, how could Xiaoqi like him?" Zhao Feiran wondered.

Zhang Weilin said: "You don't understand now, things like phone calls are simply unreasonable. Sigh, now I'm starting to believe in love at first sight again..."

The two eighth ladies were muttering in the kitchen. Although Xu Xiaoqi couldn't hear clearly, she could guess what it was about. Even now, she couldn't rush into the kitchen to clean up the two female companions, so she could only pretend that she didn't know anything with an ostrich mentality. She pulled up a chair, sat two meters away from Ning Mo, and asked, "Brother Ning, what did you just say that Brother Qin wants me to do? What exactly is it?"

"Oh, it's like this, take a look at this first..." Ning Mo then remembered the purpose of his trip, or more precisely, it was an excuse for the trip. He took out a few pieces of paper from his pocket, handed them to Xu Xiaoqi, and said, "Look at it first, and I'll explain it to you while you read."

Xu Xiaoqi took the few sheets of paper and found that there were some things written on them densely. Looking carefully, they turned out to be some statements about the latest research progress of polymer materials.

"These are new materials and new processes that our company plans to research in the future. Qin Hai said that domestic research in this area is still relatively backward, and we need to refer to foreign research status. Aren't you a chemical engineering student? Qin Hai would like to invite you Help us retrieve the latest research papers and related books in these areas in the United States, and help us do a research overview of these areas." Ning Mo said to Xu Xiaoqi as Qin Hai explained.

"So many..." Xu Xiaoqi was a little embarrassed. Ning Mo and Qin Hai helped her, so it was only natural for her to do something for them. However, there are more than a dozen research projects listed on these papers, each of which needs to be reviewed, which takes a considerable amount of time. If she spends her spare time doing this, she will have no time to work, and her livelihood in the United States will be affected. But how could she say such a thing?

Ning Mo said: "Don't worry, I haven't finished yet. Qin Hai said that these tasks will definitely take up a lot of your time, so we will pay you the necessary remuneration. According to the research projects listed above, each The remuneration for the project is calculated at 500 US dollars, and we will be responsible for the cost of buying books and copying materials, what do you think?"

"500 dollars?" Xu Xiaoqi was dumbfounded. She served plates at restaurants for $4 an hour, or $80 even if she worked a full 20-hour week. Ning Mo casually said that it was $500 per project. She had calculated just now that she could complete a literature review of these research projects in two weeks in her spare time. Calculated in this way, doesn't it mean that she can earn 1,000 US dollars a month, which will make her a rich man among all the students studying in the United States.