Chapter Fifty-Eight

The conversation continued, and after the matter of taking the role was settled.

“I told you, didn’t I? You’re about to join the crew soon. If you don’t hurry and urge Hui Zhen, when will you ever clear up the negative rumors about you?”

“Mm, you always think things through.”

“Of course. I’ve been in this industry for years, remember to repay me!”

“How should I repay you? This time I’ve brought back loads of gifts for you—enough to fill a semi-trailer!”

“What’s a semi-trailer? A freight truck?”

“Yes, and a really long one!”

“Oh my god, how much did you spend? Are you done living frugally?”

“I didn’t spend anything. I’ll tell you when we meet.”

“All right, but that’s not the kind of repayment I want... Whatever... You fool, I’m not saying any more. Figure it out yourself!”

Liu Qingshan scratched his head as he walked downstairs, still feeling aggrieved—it was, after all, his first love, and he knew so little.

Before the evening banquet, he called Kunall and the others over.

Originally, Jawahar’s welcome dinner was scheduled for that night as well, but since the D.A.D. Hotel received a notice from Karam, Shahrukh’s party would focus on Liu Qingshan’s activities.

So the two welcome banquets were combined, and over a dozen people arrived at the venue.

Fortunately, Park Huizhen had explained the situation to Lawyer Wang in advance. In the legal profession, the source of cases often depends on personal connections, and Lawyer Wang was not the type to bring his own network, so he was happy to meet more people.

As soon as they met, Liu Qingshan and Lawyer Wang struck up a lively conversation, for a simple reason—they were both small figures who had climbed up from the bottom.

Of course, it was mainly Lawyer Wang’s eloquence that kept the conversation going.

According to him, hiring a driver in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou costs at least five thousand yuan per month, but hiring an intern who has passed the judicial exam, can drive, schedule for their mentor, and serve tea and water, costs only three thousand yuan per month.

Lawyer Wang, whose real name was Wang Huansheng, had come up this way—three thousand yuan a month in the capital, sharing an apartment, eating the cheapest fast food for three meals a day.

With the addition of commuting and miscellaneous expenses, it was hard to support himself each month.

So he cherished the hard-won opportunity of his current job, which was why, even amid such urgency, he rushed over to secure this legal commission.

Compared to him, the twists and turns of Liu Qingshan’s career were even more pronounced, so two people with similarly difficult backgrounds conversed with great enthusiasm.

Once the banquet began, the conversation paused—for tonight’s dinner was meant to honor the guests from afar.

The D.A.D. Hotel officially took on the task of caring for their compatriots from India, though it was not affiliated with Treasure Pictures.

Jawahar, as the Chinese president of this hotel chain, naturally chose to serve wholeheartedly—the client was, after all, one of the main heirs of the Sashara Group, the most promising son of the famous business tycoon, Karam.

As for being assigned here, Shahrukh knew that, though officially they were opening up the market, in reality, this was tied to Treasure Pictures’ future development plans.

Compared to Jawahar, he understood more of the inside story, so he planned all business expansion around Liu Qingshan’s decisions.

“According to Mr. Karam’s instructions, the logo and location of Snowfield Effects Studio will need your strong cooperation, Mr. Liu.”

The Snowfield name was the result of Liu Qingshan’s discussions with Karam; the logo was an abstract image of the Himalayas, whose Sanskrit meaning is precisely “Snowfield.”

“It seems Mr. Karam made the right choice sending you—you’ve settled in quickly on your first day.”

Liu Qingshan’s praise was genuine; he had spent over two months in India and knew well the average attitude towards work among locals.

There, company systems are irregular, unions barely exist, largely due to the poor sense of responsibility among Indian people, and their concept of time is almost non-existent.

This is not an exaggeration—in their minds, time has meaning, but not power.

Indians often see themselves as insignificant, believing that life turns into a trivial speck in an instant, so they think it’s impossible for anyone to change the world in their lifetime.

Whether at work or in leisure, if an Indian tells you, “I’ll be right there,” you can expect them in ten minutes. If they say ten minutes, you can take a shower and come back in two hours. If they say an hour, it probably won’t happen that day—it’ll be tomorrow.

Why such a concept of time? There are two reasons: the living environment, and religion.

The influence of the living environment is easy to understand: India is in the tropics and subtropics. Peoples living in such places lack the sense of time found in temperate or polar regions, mainly because of food production.

In India, food can be produced year-round. Many just lie down and wait for coconuts or mangoes to fall from the sky. Without the production methods of temperate zones, there is no concept of time, and thus no productivity.

In other latitudes, missing the sowing season by ten days or half a month may mean a bad harvest in autumn, and hunger the next year—so how can one not value time?

Then, the time consciousness of Indian religion influences the secular sense of time among its followers. Their believers accept a very long religious sense of time, different from the Chinese focus on historical time.

Chinese people record history; Indians record religion.

In the eyes of Indians, a human lifetime is only about a quarter of a “divine year,” that is, one season of a divine year—so why fuss over a few hours in the mortal realm?

From their religious view, a thousand years in the mortal world is only a few divine years. For Indians who don’t value historical time, it doesn’t matter if the author of “Shakuntala” was born a thousand mortal years apart—it’s only three divine years!

So, apart from spending most of their day in prayer, the religious concept of time also influences Indians.

Now you understand India’s sense of time—it is, in essence, “divine time.”

Thus, Shahrukh’s upright work attitude immediately won Liu Qingshan’s great appreciation.

Privately, he still harbored doubts about these partners from the “Land of the Gods.”

“Mr. Liu, you’re too kind. Mr. Karam always reminds us that today’s world is characterized by accelerated development, compressed time and space, constant change, and both risks and opportunities. All of us at Treasure Pictures work this way.”

Everyone knows their own story. There was a trace of bitterness in Shahrukh’s smile—how could he not know about the global prejudice regarding Indians’ work attitudes?

Since it’s a prejudice, having journeyed all this way, if he didn’t achieve some outstanding results to set things right, and the partner filed a complaint to the boss, he’d be unable to bear the consequences.