In late August 2006, Qian Dan was on another business trip, this time to Iraq.

When Western telecommunications companies withdrew from Iraq after the outbreak of the war in 2003, the Chinese bucked the tide and seized the opportunity to quickly enter Iraq to fill the gap left by the European evacuation.

"Weizhong" has almost become the exclusive supplier of Iraq's first mobile operator "AC Telecom", and the Iraqi subsidiary has also become one of the most important revenue and profit granaries of "Weizhong" in North Africa and the Middle East.

When Lu Wentao was in Cairo, he told his roommate Qian Dan the story of his business trip to Iraq, and he was almost bombed with a bazooka on the way. His story took place in 2004, when they had to get in and out of Iraq by dangerous highways.

Qian Dan was going to Iraq when the fighting had subsided for more than three years, and despite reports of bombings, kidnappings, clashes almost every week, and despite the fact that he had just seen on television that the Chinese Foreign Ministry was warning Chinese citizens not to go to Iraq in the near future, he already had a safe route from Dubai to his destination, Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq.

Although he had a safe route, it seemed that he wanted to add some tension to his first trip to Iraq.

He flew from Cairo to Dubai and had trouble entering the UAE. He didn't notice that his name was misspelled on his UAE visa before he set off, and he was stopped at the entrance. He was detained in an office next to the arrivals hall for more than an hour, and finally spent more than 100 dirhams to make up the formalities and pass the customs.

He planned to stay in Dubai, but could not find the company's new location in Dubai. I called a taxi at the airport and showed the Indian driver the address written to him by the local secretary, and the Indian driver nodded, walked around the night for more than an hour without saying a word, and then parked the car on the side of the road and said that he could not find his destination. Qian Dan had to contact the dormitory administrator to show them the way on the phone, and he didn't arrive at the dormitory until 3 o'clock in the morning.

The next day I woke up and got another bad news, there was only one flight to Iraq every day, and the ticket agent said that because he didn't have an Iraqi visa, he couldn't help him buy a ticket in advance, and the only way was to go to the airport in the morning and try his luck with the airline.

Qian Dan slept another night in Dubai, and the next morning he went straight to Dubai Airport.

"Iraqi Airways" sold him the ticket, and there was another accident during the check-in, and the guy at the counter had already handed him the boarding pass, but opened his passport to find the visa.

Seeing his serious appearance over and over again, Qian Dan hurriedly put on the most sincere smile, holding an invitation letter and saying that he would definitely be able to apply for a landing visa at Sulaymaniyah Airport.

The young man hesitantly got up and walked to an old man in a straight uniform next to him, the old man should be the captain of the flight, he looked at the invitation letter, and then looked at Qian Dan, whose face was full of honesty and loyalty, and read it out loud with righteousness and solemnity, to the effect that "Iraqi Airways" would not bear any responsibility for his trip.

Qian Dan nodded again and again, and almost didn't pat his chest and burst out with a sentence "Wealth is in the sky, life and death depend on fate" to express his sincerity in visiting this country.

He finally boarded a "Boeing 737" of "Iraqi Air". The plane is not well maintained, and the decoration in the cabin has become quite mottled.

Less than a third of the passengers sat on the plane, and there was no need to sit in the right seat, Qian Dan chose a window seat to enjoy the scenery on the ground along the way, but the days of running and nervousness made him quickly fall asleep, and when he was awakened by the violent turbulence caused by the air current, the plane was already over Sulaymaniyah.

The arrival hall at Sulaymaniyah Airport was small, the staff was friendly, the visa on arrival was processed smoothly, and he quickly passed through customs and set foot on the territory of the Republic of Iraq.

As soon as you walk out of the gate of the airport terminal, you will see the vast wilderness and clean sky in front of you, and the fragrance of the sun unique to the plateau will be filled between your breaths.

Tucked away in the mountains of northern Iraq, this small city is a safe haven compared to other cities in Iraq, and it is said that it has not been bombed for more than half a year.

The dormitory where Qian Dan lives is next door to Lao Zhang, the leader of the subsidiary's technical services.

Lao Zhang is in his forties, an old leader of the company's technical service system, a few years ago Qian Dan took domestic customers back to the company to communicate, and he saw Lao Zhang when he was the leader of the company to accompany the customer for a meal and bragged.

When Qian Dan was in Dubai, he went to a Chinese supermarket to buy a box of Chinese noodles and a few bottles of chili sauce and carried them to Sulaymaniyah. I was going to give it to my brothers, but as soon as I opened the door that day, I saw Lao Zhang in the room with the door open, so I gave him a box of noodles.

Lao Zhang saw the noodles in the tattered cardboard box after the bumps and displacement, and his face suddenly bloomed like a lotus flower. His bright smile was beyond Qian Dan's expectations, here, a box of noodles of unknown origin would be so precious to a "big money" like Lao Zhang.

However, Lao Zhang's interest in life is still different from that of a group of young people. He brought a complete set of purple sand tea sets and more than one kind of good tea from China, and on weekend nights, he first made lo noodles with the noodles brought in by Qian Dan and invited everyone to eat, and after he was full, he sat around his room to taste tea, listen to music, and talk about traditional Chinese culture.

Qian Dan has always had mixed tastes, eating and drinking both Chinese and Western, but it was only after the age of 30 that he came to the edge of the ancient Babylonian kingdom and calmed down for the first time to listen to people talk about the knowledge of Chinese tea.

In the past, because his father loved to pull the erhu and was familiar with the melody of "Spring River Flower Moon Night", because of a set of Taiwanese TV dramas and knew the name of "Plum Blossom Three Alleys", this night he learned that the original Chinese have "ten classical famous songs", just listening to their names can feel the beauty of China's charm: high mountains and flowing water, plum blossom three alleys, sunset drums, Han Palace autumn moon, Yangchun white snow, fishing wood Q&A, Hu Eggplant eighteen beats, Guangling San, flat sand falling geese, ten sides ambush.

Halfway through the tea, a few little brothers who were obviously drunk broke in from outside to say goodbye to Lao Zhang, and walked out of the door in a hurry. They were to set off at night and fly to Baghdad, where the security situation was at its worst.

The curtains in Qian Dan's dormitory were thin, and he was woken up by the sun at six o'clock every morning, and when he woke up every morning, he heard Lao Zhang reading English aloud next door.

Qian Dan asked in a daze: "Why did he come here when he is old?" ”

The life of the "Weizhong people" here is poor, lacking water, electricity, and vegetables, but it is not monotonous.

The leader of the software service of the counterpart Qiandan's subsidiary is called Liu Tie, who is a few years older than Qiandan. On weekends, he took Qian Dan and Lao Zhang to go on an outing outside the city.

The first thing you encounter outside the city is the friendliness and warmth of the Kurds towards the Chinese. Sulaymaniyah is not far from Baghdad, Mosul and other places where the security situation is severe, and there are countless checkpoints on the roads outside the city, and soldiers are loaded with guns and ammunition, checking every car and person in their passing. Only with the face of a Chinese, they only need to shout "hello" in Kurdish to walk freely among the smiling faces.

Standing on the roof of the dormitory and looking at the mountains outside the city, he saw a large area of earthy yellow, and Qian Dan thought it was a bare Gobi barren mountain. When I got close to them, I realized that I was wrong, where is the Gobi barren mountain, it is obviously the wilderness scenery of "the sky is blue, the wilderness is vast, the wind blows the grass and sees the cattle and sheep", but the rainy season has passed, and the color of the field is autumn yellow painted with withered grass.

As their car drove away from the road, through the village, and into the mountains, the scene changed from a vast field to a peaceful countryside, with crooked rivers and scattered farmhouses, lazy sheep sheltering from the summer under the trees, and ducks hobbling in the fields.

Lao Zhang showed off his "iPod", which made Qian Dan, who had only seen "MP3", make a new discovery.

They catch crabs in the stream at the foot of the mountain, and the stream is dotted with pomegranate and fig trees.

A Kurdish girl came up to them and invited them to come by a family not far away who were enjoying their weekend leisure.

Under the shade of the trees was a carpet brought by the family, and the hostess boiled black tea, and everyone took out their cameras and mobile phones to take pictures of each other while savoring the rich taste of Arabic tea.

Qian Dan pointed the camera at a beautiful little girl, her handsome face was half covered by the wind-blown hair, and her big pure eyes looked at her with a little curiosity and a little reserve. Seeing her bright eyes, love and pity emerged from the bottom of Qian Dan's heart, and he was distressed for this country that was still at war and her children.

Qian Dan and Liu Tie went to Erbi, the capital of neighboring Elbi province.

In addition to Lin Han, who was born in 1979, Qian Dan's roommate in the same dormitory in Cairo is Wang Haitao, who was born in 1983.

Wang Haitao joined "Weizhong" after graduating from Xidian University of Science and Technology in 2005, and was called to North Africa and the Middle East by Qian Dan, who was called for artillery fire after training in Shenzhen for less than two months.

In 2006, when the Spring Festival was approaching, he was sent by Qian Dan from Egypt to Iraq to support the project in Erbi, where he has been working for more than half a year.

Elby's construction site was on a hill on the outskirts of the city, in poor condition, and the mobile phone signal was unstable, and Qian Dan and Liu Tie did not contact Wang Haitao before they arrived. They went straight to the computer room, and as soon as they entered the door, Wang Haitao and the account manager of "Weizhong" who was in charge of the customer were in the computer room. When Wang Haitao saw them, he was surprised and excited.

Liu Tie introduced the account manager and Qian Dan to know each other, and the account manager said: "This project is a wireless communication network built by the customer from scratch, and the customer usually does not come to the computer room, and I rarely come over, and the software products usually rely on Haitao to manage here." ”

Liu Tie said: "Haitao has grown rapidly since he came to Iraq, and he is already helping us take the lead. ”

The account manager praised Wang Haitao: "That is, don't look at Haitao as a fresh graduate, now we are completely under control, with good technology, good attitude, good English, and customers are very recognized." During the Spring Festival, several people from the subcontractor withdrew to the New Year, and he took two locals to stay here, which was very hard and not easy! ”

Wang Haitao listened and laughed on the side, and suddenly turned around, as if looking at the neat cabinet behind him.

When he looked back again, Qian Dan suddenly saw two more tear stains on his face, because the weather was hot and the sanitary conditions were not good, his face was mixed with greasy, sweat and dust, so the tears flowed, and the two tear stains were engraved on his cheeks, from the corners of his eyes to his chin.

In the evening, the account manager was treated, and several people went to the open-air restaurant of the Sheraton Hotel in Elbi City for a local meal.

The high walls of the hotel protect the peaceful scene inside, the green grass, the soft lighting, the music is beautiful, and even the patrol guard is a beautiful woman in neat white clothes and black pants, with a bumpy look and a weapon hanging from the side of the crotch, looking like Laura in "Tomb Raider".

Qian Dan looked at Wang Haitao, who was sitting opposite, and the two tears were still engraved on his face.

Qian Dan originally wanted to torture the plan, progress, risks, and difficulties of the project as usual, but he couldn't bear to speak for a while.

He understands that Wang Haitao's tears are not only a release of the huge pressure he has been under for a period of time, but also a relief and excitement when he hears that everyone praises himself and his hard work is finally recognized.

Wang Haitao took the initiative to bring the topic to the project, he talked eloquently: "Behind this customer is a Jordanian consortium, which wants to take advantage of the post-war reconstruction to make money in Iraq, and here is to build a new network, but they do not have much experience in market development and operation locally, we can only help customers build networks, and we are not able to help customers make money as soon as possible, and the customer's operation has not yet begun to enter a virtuous circle, and the business pressure is high." When they are stressed, it is easy to pass on to us. The customer departments throw each other off, and some people may say that the reason why they don't make money is because the equipment sold by "Weizhong" is not good, the software system of "Weizhong" is not easy to use, and the progress of the project is too slow or something. I deliberately found some information on China Mobile and China Unicom's expansion of software value-added business in China, and I discussed with customers when I had nothing to do. ”

After listening to him, Qian Dan asked, "Do you remember the question I asked you on the rooftop of the regional department's office before you came?" ”

Wang Haitao replied: "Remember, you asked me what is in the computer room of the training center?" Then I found out that we were not on the same channel. ”

Qian Dan sighed to everyone: "Haitao has really made great progress!" I asked him what he saw in the training center's computer room. He said that it was just servers, routers, and firewalls, and he didn't even pay attention to what the business environment built by these devices was, or the thinking of students in the laboratory. It's only been half a year, and now he sees more than just a 'box', he can already see the network, business and commercial success of his customers. ”

The account manager echoed: "You have to train Haitao well, he is definitely a promising rising star." ”

Liu Tie said: "I think our company is really training young people, a fresh graduate who has graduated for one or two years is responsible for the results of a multi-million dollar project, and the road that each of us has walked in a year in 'Weizhong' may be the road that others have the opportunity to walk in a few years." ”

Qian Dan said: "So there is no need to cultivate Haitao well!" The backbone of 'Weizhong' has never been cultivated, but selected! The company has never said that it wants to train anyone and everyone into cadres and experts, but to give you the opportunity to train you directly on the battlefield to the death. ”