Chapter Fifty-One: Confession

  "Zhengping, I thought you would go into business for yourself!" Old mother came back to her senses and changed the subject, breaking the heavy atmosphere in the room.

  "I also hesitated, now many people are going into business, even government officials are doing it. I thought about our two-thousand-year feudal society, even after a series of movements, some ideas are deeply ingrained, carved into the bones and blood, and cannot be erased. It's still better to have someone in power who can get things done." My dad ostriched again.

  No one can help Dad with household chores, he has to figure it out himself.

  "Yes! 'Broken family magistrates, exterminated door officials' No matter how much money, in the face of absolute power, it's not worth a blow." Fang Mo Nan whispered.

  Mom covered her mouth, "You... speak softly, these words can't be said outside later."

  Fang Mo Nan nodded, but in his heart he didn't think so, thinking to himself that this was nothing, there were even more ruthless things than this. In later generations, it was normal for public officials to take bribes and embezzle funds, if extortion didn't work they could just pin a crime on you and put you away for several years, confiscate your property, and no one would dare to file a complaint. His old man's career in politics wasn't going well, he didn't hope for a high-ranking position, as long as there were people in the imperial court who could help get things done.

  1984 was a year of folk slang: "Let's all dive into the sea!", this year was a hot and enthusiastic year. All young or not-so-young people were using such words to probe and encourage each other. Companies sprouted everywhere, old dads also followed suit, which was unexpected yet reasonable.

  Since Fang Mo Nan decided to enter the system, he didn't want his father to have problems with money and style. At that time, an anonymous letter could bring down an official, so it was necessary to take preventive measures in advance. Money was easy to deal with, but style couldn't be talked about by her, nor would it be appropriate! It's better to let Old Man Lin talk to him about the complexity and diversity of political struggles. Don't have a mind to harm others, but don't lack a mind to guard against them, being prepared is the best way to avoid trouble.

  Mr. Lin returned from the county and began to handle Dad's funeral arrangements.

  Fang Mo Nan decided to confess their own affairs to Lao Da, and by nine o'clock in the evening, everyone sat in Lin's living room.

  "I also have something to say." Fang Mo sat up straight in his chair, looking at his parents and said, "I hope you're a bit prepared."

  Fang Mo Nan handed over the several documents in his hand to Old Mom and them. The two of them looked at each other suspiciously, opened the passbook, and a deposit slip fell out from inside. They picked up the deposit slip, and the name on it was written as: Mo Yongyan, Fang Zhengping. They continued to flip through the passbook, carefully counting the numbers on top. One hundred thousand yuan, what's going on? Old Mom looked at Grandma in confusion and asked: "Mom, where did so much money come from?"

  "It's all from Nanyang," said Old Master Lin. "This includes the feed factory, the fan factory, 'Jiale' supermarket, and also the dividends from Cheng Shigui's garment factory." Old Master Lin listed out these visible sources of income, but as for how much money Nanyang had overseas, he didn't know that either now.

  "Ah! What...what's going on?" The old lady and others stared at the crowd with their eyes wide open, expecting an answer. "You all know." She looked at Grandma, Old Man Lin, Qiū Shí, saw them nodding, while Little Aunt shook her head indicating she didn't know.

  "Even if the Fan Factory was set up by Nan Nan's investment alone, it wouldn't have been possible without her initial capital."

  "These were born when we weren't home." Dad asked in surprise.

  Mom said: "These are all born under my eyelids." The implication is that she is even more miserable.

  "It all started with Nannan's fashion design drawings..." Grandma told everything she knew about the past two years in detail.

  "Wait, Mom, you're talking about Hongwang Feed, Zhongteng Industry, and Jiale, they are all Nan's." Old Dad asked again, trembling with disbelief.

  "Yes," Grandma said, "At first I didn't believe it either, but the savings were real, and later on I even participated in some."

  Fang Mo Nan looked at the stunned expressions of his parents, "Actually, being idle is also a waste of time. I didn't expect that fashion design would be so lucrative. Later on, when I had more money, I wanted to improve our family's situation. But teaching someone how to fish is better than giving them fish. So I've made it this big and think it's better to tell you all, especially Dad who wants to enter the system. In terms of money, I don't want to become a corrupt official."

  "It's really like this!" Old Dad and the others looked at Lin Laoye and Grandma.

  "Master Lin said, 'We were called here as witnesses because you might not have believed otherwise.'"

  "How much does it cost now?" Mother muttered in a low voice.

  "There should be over a hundred million, right?" Little Aunt guessed.

  "Xiao Yan, you're underestimating it. You know our pendant lamps, the orders we've received are worth over 30 million yuan." Qi Qiu Shi said.

  "To put it bluntly, Nannan is actually the largest shareholder, and we are all working for her." Qi Qiu Shi now has more contact with her and understands her better.

  "I don't know the specific numbers either, I haven't counted them." Fang Mo Nan echoed in agreement.

  "But you're still so young, it's simply unbelievable!" His parents couldn't believe that while they were working hard to make ends meet, their daughter had earned a bonus of 2,000 yuan and was over the moon with joy. It was too much for them to take in.

  Dad and them worked hard to digest these things, after the initial shock, they calmed down.

  "You're not allowed to bully my granddaughter, or she'll become a monster. You just think of Nannan as a child prodigy and that's it, don't have any other wild ideas. If you don't obey, all of you get out, I won't recognize you!"

  "Mom, we didn't mean it that way, just feeling a bit ashamed and sorry, thinking ourselves useless." "No matter what, she is still my daughter." The old mother was moved to tears, hugging Fang Mengnan tightly, and choked with sobs: "You child, these are things we should do, you said you were crazy about it, isn't that enough?"

  "This is also fun, it's just that the play is a bit bigger, and it's convenient to make money." Fang Mo Nan said, hugging his mother.

  "Still, your mom hopes you can read more books and go to school. It's best if you can also get into Beijing University like your little aunt." Mom said.

  "Sister, I don't need to tell you about my niece, she's always got a book in her hand. When she goes to school, I don't even know if the teacher is teaching her or if she's teaching the teacher." The aunt sighed.

  "Mom, I understand this principle, live to old age and learn to old age." Fang Mo Nan replied, but she didn't agree to go to elementary school. Hmm! She should be going to elementary school this year.

  "Alright, now that everything has been explained clearly, from now on, all of you must keep your mouths tightly shut. No one is allowed to mention this matter again." Grandma said sternly. "Remember it well, if any rumors or gossip leak out, be careful, I'll take Nannan to the deep mountains and old forests."

  "Don't worry, we'll keep our mouths shut tight, not even talking in our sleep." Mom said, and this sentence made Grandma laugh.

  "Well, that's all settled then. Go to sleep!" said Grandma, whose position was now absolutely unshakeable.

  In the dead of night, Fang Mo Nan and his grandma knocked on his parents' door. His mom put on some clothes and opened the door to find them standing there.

  "Mom, what's going on that you're not sleeping so late?" Mom rubbed her eyes and muttered to herself.

  "Of course something's happened." Grandma said. My dad in the room heard their conversation at the door and also put on his clothes.

  "Mom, what's so important that it can't wait till tomorrow?" she asked in puzzlement.

  "Alright, let's go in and have your daughter talk to you." Grandma pulled Fang Mengnan's hand into the northern room, locking the door behind them.

  Under the dim yellow light, Dad and Mom sat on the bed with a sleepy face, barely mustering up their spirits to ask: "What's up?"

  Grandma looked at her daughter and son-in-law's appearance, furious, "You two, pull yourselves together, this is a serious matter."

  Fang Mo Nan saw the situation, looking at his parents gradually maturing through these days of trials and tribulations. He knew what he wanted in life, so he decided to thoroughly confess, as no one shared his pain and joy, it was lonely, which led to this reckless behavior.

  "Grandma, I think it's better to be more practical." Fang Mo Nan pulled Grandma's hand, took a few steps forward, and the three of them formed a circle with each holding hands.

  With a 'whoosh', under Fang Mo's lead, they entered space.

  Originally still dazed, the old mom was completely awake this time. The old mom stared blankly at everything in front of her, her mouth agape with shock for a long time, and she kept calling out: "Nan Nan, this...this..." She couldn't even speak coherently.

  Dad recovered the fastest, "Nan Nan, what's going on?"

  Dad and mom felt a bit hot, so they took off their thick down jackets.

  Fang Mo Nan instantly moved and brought Lao Ma and the others to the study, pharmacy, warehouse, practice room, second floor bedroom, grassland, forest, and finally brought them to the kitchen. Looking at the delicious food made in the kitchen, neatly placed on the dining table. After the four of them sat down, Grandma explained what was going on.

  "Isn't this a dream?" she exclaimed, pinching her husband's arm hard. "Ouch! Big Yan pinched so hard it hurts, look, it's all red."

  "Haha...... it's not a dream! More exciting than tonight, I don't even know what to say."

  Dad rubbed his arm, and indeed, it was pinched hard. But this time he also woke up, and his face sank. "A good man is not guilty but bears the guilt of hiding a treasure, didn't you tell anyone about Nan's affair?!"

  "No, just the three of you for now." Fang Mo Nan said softly, sitting across from his father with his hands propping up his chin.

  "Whew!" Dad let out a sigh of relief and said, "That's good! From now on, never tell anyone else again. After all, it's hard to know what people are thinking!"

  Mom nodded, "Your dad is right." "Right, Zhengping, now that we're keeping such a big secret, I think you'd better quit drinking. If you get drunk and spill the beans, our Nannan will be taken away by others."

  "Alright, I'll quit drinking." Dad said. He was a man who liked to have a little drink, but after getting drunk he would talk nonsense, so in order not to inadvertently reveal the biggest secret at home, he made up his mind to quit. From then on, Dad only had one small cup of wine in any drinking situation, more than that and he'd be allergic.

  "Dad might as well quit smoking too." Fang Mo Nan's hand appeared with a bottle of Maotai, which he placed on the table. "But today, let's get drunk."

  "Hehe... Alright, I'll quit smoking and drinking, starting tomorrow." Dad happily opened a bottle of Maotai wine, "It smells so good." It was the last 'farewell'.

  To help his father quit smoking and drinking, Fang Mengnan also made some small food by himself. When the urge to smoke or drink came, he would chew on these foods to occupy his mouth. Actually, his father's smoking history was not long. In the past, when they were poor in the countryside, who had money to smoke? It was probably after coming to the city and earning his own money that he started smoking out of curiosity.

  Mom said, "From now on, we have to be careful even when talking in our sleep."

  "Dad, Mom, you're so great." Fang Mo Nan's eyes were slightly moist, never thinking that they just wanted to protect their daughter in every way possible, fearing that something might go wrong with her.

  "Ah! We're in trouble now, you and Mo Bei have grown up, if we can't even protect you two then us two as parents are a bit too useless." Dad said.

  "Alright, our hearts have been stimulated to be strong enough to accept anything. Mom looked at the dishes on the dinner table, "Now our family's meals are all up to you!" She looked at Grandma again, "It's really hard for your two moms, in order to make a living and give these foods an outlet, I still have to get up early and work late making steamed buns."

  "Hehe... No, I have to thank my granddaughter now. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't know that I could make it this far. People! If you don't take the first step, you'll never know what the next step is like. I'm doing great now, life is fulfilling, and there's a lot of momentum, no time to idle around with random thoughts." Grandma said with moist eyes.

  "Alright, alright, let's eat. I've been walking for half a day and I'm getting hungry." Dad interrupted, breaking the sad atmosphere between the mother and daughter.

  "Hmm! Not bad." Dad picked up some food with his chopsticks and tasted it before saying.

  "In this space, things can only be digested and absorbed here. This will greatly benefit your bodies."

  "Oh! And this effect." Mom asked with concern: "What did Nannan learn here?"

  "I've learned a lot. After dinner, I'll show you." Fang Mo Nan said happily, like a little girl trying to please her parents.

  "Alright, but I think we should take a bath first." Dad pointed at the layer of black grease on our skin, which smelled awful.

  Fang Monan took his parents to the hot spring, put down their Hanfu clothes and left. The couple bathed for about two hours, until they heard Fang's father calling out, then Fang brought them back to the study. Looking at the refreshed couple wearing loose Hanfu, he felt a sense of elegance. His mother's face still had a hint of blush, and it was clear what had happened during their bath.

  Dad looked at Fang Mo Nan's seemingly smiling yet not quite smiling face, and awkwardly coughed twice. "Nan Nan, now that you're back, can you tell us what you learned in space?"

  Fang Mo Nan demonstrated the results of his spatial learning, mainly his own cultivated spiritual energy. He held his father's and mother's hands and inputted the spiritual energy into their bodies. The two truly felt the flow of energy and were extremely comfortable. She also demonstrated her ' Finger Flicking Divine Skill', which was related to medicine.

  After the demonstration, Father was very satisfied with her self-defense ability and stayed in the study to read. Grandma, Mother and Fang Mo Nan discussed the eternal topic of women's beauty care in the pharmacy. Mother searched for Fang Mo Nan's beauty skincare products and used them together with Little Aunt.

  After staying for about a day, Dad came out and decided to try to enter Fang Mernan's space less or not at all in the future, so as to reduce the probability of making mistakes.

  Lying in bed, the old mother carefully looked at the old father and whispered: "I don't know how far you can go on this path. If they see that we are doing well over there, especially what Nannan told us today, if they come to find us, what should we do? The big hat of filial piety will be put on us, and if it's not clear, people will say that we don't understand things and are unfilial. What to do?" After finishing speaking, she turned over and lay with her back to the old father.

  Dad sighed and didn't sleep all night. The family's worries aren't impossible, must it really be written in black and white?

  Dad was lying in bed, entangled, but it didn't affect Fang Mo Nan and Grandma. They returned to the room, and after she entered the space again, things were a bit different. Actually, she had already appeared earlier, but with Mom and others around, it wasn't convenient, so this time after entering, she found a faint scent and discovered a huge ancient tree. The trunk was so thick that Fang Mo Nan walked around it for several minutes. She flew up to take a closer look at the canopy, which could cover an entire basketball court. The branches were adorned with seven-colored flowers, emitting a fragrance that attracted swarms of bees buzzing as they collected nectar.

  "Hehe...... Now we're all set, there's honey to eat." Fang Mo Nan used his spiritual power to collect a lot of honey.

  Fang Mo Nan's family had an extra cup of honey water every morning, which was good for beauty and health. It wasn't until later that he learned from Mu Jing how precious this honey water was. The tree only blooms once every 9,000 years.

  One night passed, and Dad looked up at the sky. The sky was so blue, so high, everything was so beautiful, it was hard to believe it was real. They had already known that their Nannan was a bit abnormal, but after getting in touch with Mo Bei, they found out that Mo Bei knew more than ordinary children under Nannan's leadership, and sometimes even spoke English fluently. It turned out that the kids had changed so much in these two years when they were not around. They just felt that being such parents was too easy, without a sense of accomplishment. The two sisters arranged their own lives to be full, never mind, as long as they thought it was good, then it was good. But thinking about annoying things, his eyebrows furrowed again.

  The most important thing is that Dad and Mom think they should work harder to protect Fang Mo Nan and her sister, and at the very least not drag them down.

  When Dad went back to the city to handle the transfer procedures, he took a trip back home. As for how they talked about it, no one knows, only that when Dad came back, he told Fang Mengnan that he had taken 5,000 yuan and would pay it back later. Later, Dad rose step by step, and those people came to look for him. Dad took out the agreement signed at that time, and they left in a dejected manner.

  Dad's new job is as an officer in the county committee office, and he's busy adapting to going around the streets and alleys, accompanying the secretary on inspections to understand the actual situation.

  The beauty of April has faded, in the early summer town, as far as the eye can see, it seems that the colorful and vibrant colors of spring have really disappeared; only the greenery rushes to the eyes, deep or shallow, dark or bright, swaying in the wind, pleasing to the eye. In the courtyard, only the pomegranate flowers are slowly opening, with green leaves setting off the red flowers, extremely beautiful. From a distance, it looks like a piece of raging fire.

  Fang Mo Nan heard the phone ringing in the house, walked over and picked it up, figuring that the day had finally arrived.

  "Hey! I'm Fang Mo Nan."

  "Hey, boss! It's Skinny Monkey. I've got a situation to report - there are a lot of fake ceiling fans being sold in Shanghai that look almost identical to ours. They have four blades and the lights under the fan come in one, two or three pieces. The workmanship is pretty fine, but the price is 50 yuan lower than ours." Skinny Monkey exclaimed anxiously over the phone. "What are we going to do? Should we lower our prices?"

  "Let them gather information about those factories first," Fang Mo Nan said. "Find the ones that have factories, and for those that don't, find out about their sales channels. If all else fails, at least take note of the stores and shopping malls that sell these things, and I'll deal with them."

  Fang Mernan thought of this at the beginning of the opening up of the Shanghai market. The Chinese are famous for their shanzhai, although sometimes this fame makes us feel ashamed. Perhaps the quality and performance of shanzhai products are still not as good as those of genuine products, but the strong price impact is overwhelming. Small and medium-sized enterprises with an average survival period of less than five years do not have much heart to discuss national righteousness or national dignity; they will only choose their own survival method based on actual circumstances. The difficulty in collecting evidence of infringement of intellectual property rights in the manufacturing process and finished products is a global problem, coupled with insufficient law enforcement efforts, making it not worthwhile for enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to engage in independent innovation. Instead, they will take the more convenient route of shanzhai, even if the cost of punishment is not high.

  Fang Mo Nan made another call to Han Zhiqian.

  "Huh! I was just about to call you, didn't expect that we're really on the same wavelength. By the way, at this spring's Guangzhou Fair, other provinces' pendant lamps are being exhibited. I remember we applied for a patent, right? They shouldn't have gotten your authorization!"

  "I called you about this matter, and the fake ones also appeared in Shanghai. I'll call Jinhua and hire a lawyer. I'll let Qi Qiushi and others handle the specific matters, and you can negotiate with them." Fang Mo Nan said briefly.

  By dusk, after Old Dad and Qiū Shí returned, they discussed with Old Man Lin what to do next.

  "Nan Nan, what do you think we should do?" Qi Qiu Shi furrowed his brow. Although the sales volume had not decreased for now, he felt uncomfortable hearing that others were also producing pendant lamps.

  "Tell them, tell them they will be ruined." Fang Mosou said lightly.

  "This is unrealistic, let's not talk about winning or losing, even if we win, it will only be a fine. Moreover, local protectionism and the relevant departments are not doing anything, so who knows who wins or loses? The most important thing is that what reason do we have to sue them?" Dad said.

  "In March this year, the state promulgated and implemented the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China." Fang Mennai smiled and said: "Grandpa Lin forgot that we applied for a patent, they are infringing on our rights."

  "I knew you'd be waiting here!" Old Man Lin also laughed. "Infringement?" Dad asked in surprise, what does that mean?

  Mr. Lin said, "Patent rights are...?" "This four-leaf pendant lamp has a patent, and without patent authorization, they produce it which is an infringement. It can be said that on this pendant lamp, it is indeed written that only we can make..."

  "Wow! I can do it like this!" exclaimed Qi Qiu Shi with excitement.

  Dad frowned, "I'm afraid it'll end in nothing, you also know that our country's law is no more than human feelings, there are too many twists and turns here, and it will eventually come to nothing."

  "I don't care about winning or losing, I just want to make it bigger and better, the more sensational the newspaper headlines are, the better. It's free advertising, what great news material, this will also improve our..."

  Mr. Lin added: "It can also enhance the public's awareness of rights protection, patents and trademarks."

  Mr. Lin and others discussed specific operational matters and also went to see Secretary Wang specifically to talk about this matter.

  The next day, Wang Shuji, Lin Lao Yezi and Qi Qiu Shi took a train to the provincial capital, then flew to Yang City. Xian Hou also received the news and flew to Yang City.