In Rabat, the capital of Morocco, a country in the northwestern part of the African continent, in a conference room of "MT Telecom".

Lao Xie, Xiaoyu and the people of "Weizhong" sat on one side of the rectangular conference table, and several customers sat on the other side of the table.

Lao Xie was transferred to Morocco after his collapse in Chad, and is now working with his colleagues on the final contract negotiations for the closure of the disagreement clause for the new "3G" wireless communication network project of "MT Telecom". Lao Xie is the delivery project manager, who is responsible for the construction period, delivery responsibility matrix, change management and other aspects of the contract.

Xiaoyu is responsible for financial terms such as payment milestones, redemption periods, etc. She sat on a chair next to Lao Xie, wearing a black suit and skirt, and her face was wearing light makeup, looking a little more mature than when she was in Cairo.

The two sides are discussing the proportion of advance payment, arrival payment, and acceptance payment, and there are differences.

Several people in "Weizhong" always have an inexplicable uncomfortable feeling, the customer changed the conference room five minutes before the start of the negotiation, they said that the conference room that has been used in the past few days has been booked, and temporarily changed to a conference room that is unfamiliar to several people in "Weizhong", Lao Xie always feels that everyone's nervous and uncomfortable feeling is not out of thin air, but there is something wrong with this conference room, but I can't say where it is.

Xiaoyu is the first time to participate in the negotiation of the customer interface, and she has some stage fright. As soon as she spoke, Lao Xie heard the trembling in her voice and looked at her with concern.

As soon as his gaze touched Xiaoyu's face, he moved to the face of the customer sitting opposite, and then looked up at the ceiling. He seemed to notice something, and his signature honest smile appeared on his face.

He carefully moved his chair back, stood up gently, walked to the light switch at the door, paused for a few seconds, and reached out to press the light switch.

The row of spotlights in the middle of the ceiling went out, and a circle of lights hidden in the ceiling around the ceiling turned on, and the light in the whole room became brighter.

The two customers sitting in the middle of the other side of the table exchanged glances with each other, one seemed to be joking, and seemed to be serious and said to Lao Xie: "Xie, you are too vigilant, I want to ask you to leave the conference room and withdraw from the negotiation." ”

Xiaoyu was interrupted, and she turned her head to look at Lao Xie suspiciously.

Lao Xie returned to his chair, unscrewed a piece of water on the table, handed it to Xiaoyu, and said, "Don't be nervous, drink saliva, and slow down your speech." ”

Then, he laughed twice at the customer: "No problem, I can agree to your request, I leave the conference room and withdraw from the negotiation." However, the quid pro quo for this request I have made to you is that you also withdraw from one of you, and you leave the room with me, which is a matter of reciprocity. ”

He took a sip of water and continued, "What a long day! Let's speed up the pace, compromise, exchange, and end the negotiations as soon as possible! The sooner we sign the contract, the sooner the project can start and be completed, and the sooner MT Telecom can make money from 3G. ”

The customer thought for a moment, "Okay, now let's take a break and let's go have a cup of coffee." When you come back, pick up the pace and walk forward together. ”

A few people from Weizhong stood up and politely waited for the customers to leave the conference room first.

As soon as the customers went out, Lao Xie said, "Damn! Did you find any problems? The row of spotlights on the ceiling was supposed to be facing the middle of the conference table, but the client moved the table so that the spotlights were facing the faces of several of us, who sat in the dark and could see our micro-expressions clearly. I said, why do you always feel uncomfortable? It turned out that we were spotlights in the face like prisoners being interrogated. ”

Xiaoyu looked at the ceiling with wide eyes: "Uncle Xie, you are so careful!" No wonder I always feel nervous and don't know why? Did they do it on purpose? So bad? ”

"It's not bad, it's just negotiation skills, and negotiation is also a course. Let's go, let's go out for a coffee and come back and continue. ”

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the two sides finally negotiated all the terms, and only waited for the official signing the next day, and "Weizhong" successfully won the project.

Relieved, the group happily boarded the bus at the parking lot of "MT Telecom".

No one needed to take Lao Xie's car, he got into the car alone, lit the fire, and breathed a sigh of relief. He did not follow everyone in the direction of the "Weizhong" office, but drove out of the city alone, this time the hard work in exchange for a good result, he wanted to go for a ride on the seaside road.

Morocco is a colorful country, its northernmost point is the blue Cape of Gibraltar, looking out over Europa on the other side of the sea; The southernmost part is the Yellow Sahara Desert, where there are the footprints of Sanmao, the originator of a generation of literary and artistic young women; Between the north and the south, there is the ancient imperial city of Red Marrakech, and there is the white Casablanca that belongs to Rick and Ilsa in the famous Hollywood movie.

After Lao Xie came to Morocco, he did not have time to appreciate the Sahara, did not have time to visit Marrakech, did not go to Gibraltar, and only passed by Casablanca, he only lived in Rabat for a while, and decided that Morocco was one of the most beautiful countries in North Africa.

Rabat is not as famous as Casablanca, with a population of less than 700,000, but the city seems to be lonely, but it has a romantic temperament in its bones, which will always be inadvertently revealed.

Lao Xie's car drove under the blue sky, the green grass on both sides of the road, the yellow wild chrysanthemums dotted among them, and the vines and vines on the white courtyard walls on the roadside, the breath was so fresh. He was soon out of town.

The sea, just a stone's throw away, is the Atlantic Ocean from the continent to the west to the end.

The weather was not good, and he encountered the waves crashing on the shore and rolling up thousands of piles of snow, and the waves jumped high unruly, and the waves splashed all the way onto the road. Lao Xie felt that compared with the Shenzhen Bay, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea he had seen before, this was the real sea style.

On the other side of the highway is also the sea, a sea of flowers, not artificially pruned in the city's flower beds, but wild chrysanthemums that grow by nature and dot hundreds of kilometers of coastline.

He turned off the seaside road and drove towards the valley on the other side, just like a man swimming in a painting. The distant mountains are the green of the pine forest, the near slopes are the green of the meadows, and the closer ones are the flower fields that stretch all the way to the roadside, and there are a little red poppies swaying among the yellow flowers all over the field.

Lao Xie parked the car on the edge of the flower field, got out of the car with a can of Pepsi in his hand, leaned on the car door, and admired the layered colors of the field. His gaze fell on the tower of a rival's wireless communications network on the hill, and soon they were about to replace it with a "Weizhong" base station.

In his car was a book sent by Yan Lili from Canada, the memoir of Burrell Markham, a British female pilot who lived in Africa in the 1920s and 1930s.

Yan Lili copied a passage from the book on the title page: "The past years seem safe and harmless, and they are easily crossed, while the future is hidden in the fog, which makes people look timid." But when you step into it, the clouds will clear. ”

Although Lao Xie is generous by nature, he is not willing to admit defeat easily.

After leaving Chad, he spent his spare time studying, researching methodologies that the industry held as benchmarks, and pondering successes and failures both inside and outside the company.

He seriously reflected on his own journey and had a lot of new thoughts.

He told himself that life is a one-way street after all, there is no chance of "U-Turn", and the important thing is to focus on the present and meet the future.

He felt as if he had been opened up during this period of time, and he made rapid progress.

Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, a country south of the Arabian Peninsula, is in the staff dormitory of "Weizhong".

After washing up in the morning, Lu Wentao put on a tie in front of a mirror on the wardrobe, and he wanted to go directly from the dormitory to "YT Telecom" to visit the customer "CEO".

From the bathroom came the woman's exclamation: "Oops, the great aunt is here!" ”

Lu Wentao responded: "It's coming, it's okay, we will continue to work hard next month." ”

The woman said, "I've been in Yemen for half a year, do you think there is something wrong with your body?" ”

Lu Wentao comforted her: "Don't think about it, what's wrong?" It took us a few years for my colleague to get pregnant. ”

"That's the same, you go out early and come home late every day, you are tired like dogs, and your sperm motility is insufficient."

"Don't talk nonsense, how can I have insufficient sperm motility? It's that your emotions are not fluctuating enough. ”

The woman was happy, walked out of the bathroom, leaned on the door frame and said, "Then you will find a way to make my emotions more rippling next time!" ”

Many of the overseas employees of Weizhong are in their thirties, and they have arranged their "human creation plan" to live elsewhere. Lu Wentao's wife resigned before the Spring Festival this year to become a full-time wife, and came to Yemen to be a family member, and an important mission is to "create people".

Lu Wentao walked over and slapped the woman lightly on the face, feeling a little guilty: "When I'm busy for a while, let's rest for a few days and fully ripple." We have a major upgrade at 'YT Telecom' tonight, I'm going to the scene to keep an eye on, maybe I'll be back tomorrow morning, you sleep first, don't wait for me. ”

"Bye-bye!"

Elbi, an important city on Kurdish territory in northern Iraq.

The dormitory in Erbi is a simple two-storey local house with a rooftop roof.

It was late at night, and Qian Dan and Liu Tie were still standing on the rooftop chatting.

Liu Tie vividly told his Iraqi stories, for example, when he looked at the US "Apache" helicopter flying overhead at the Baghdad airport, he was afraid that he would make a big move and cause misunderstanding, and he was afraid that he would be overwhelmed when the artillery fire fell from the sky; For example, the joy of a car bomb on the streets of Mosul; For example, lying on the roof of Basra on a sleepless summer night and watching the rockets streak across the night sky in the distance, it is like looking forward to the strange psychology of fireworks.

Qian Dan was a good listener and was fascinated by it.

He asked Liu Tie: "Has your wife been with you in Iraq?" ”

"Well, when we came to Iraq, there were no civil airlines, it was not as convenient as it is now, it was not easy to get in and out, she had to come to see me, and she was too lazy to leave."

"You came in by Jordanian road, didn't you? It's dangerous. ”

"No, our route is more complicated! First flew from Dubai to Iran, then flew from Tehran to the following provinces by 'Iran Airlines' Tu-154, then took a car to the Iran-Iraq border, and then drilled the barbed wire fence on the Iran-Iraq border. They laughed at me for being afraid of my wife, I was in awe of my wife, and she dared to follow wherever I went. ”

Liu Tie continued: "Our Chinese staff has maintained the same number as we do now, and no matter how large the business volume is in the future, we will gradually have to rely on local employees." ”

Qian Dan has a good memory, he said: "I still remember when I first arrived in North Africa and the Middle East, you said that you would force you to use the words of local employees and you would quit, and now you have changed your mind? ”

Liu Tie said embarrassedly: "At that time, if you want to have a few more Chinese, you can ask for a few more Chinese, how troublesome is it to bring local employees?" At the time, I saw that they were all labeled, 'Iraqis'. Now that we've been together for a long time, look at them again, Sammy likes Barcelona, Raj supports Real Madrid, Harry just gave birth to twins, Sada got his driver's license a few days earlier, Faris's younger brother went to work at 'AC Telecom', and Hassan likes to play the guitar. Iraqis and Chinese are all brothers, and they can perform their duties and make the best use of their talents. We'll go back to Sulaymaniyah tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow I'll organize a meeting with the local staff so that you can get to know them. I have a lot of confidence in them now. ”

Qian Dan said: "Okay! I said that you have "reorganized more than a dozen local employees", and it turns out that you have changed your head. ”

Liu Tie said: "You sent you an email some time ago, saying that in order to solve the problem of two skins between Chinese employees and local employees, you need to first identify fellow travelers among local employees, and then turn fellow travelers into leaders, which I think makes sense." We have a guy named Sammy, who has a lot of potential. He used to live in Baghdad, he was a Christian, he came to Sulaymaniyah after the war, and he had a good working attitude and technical skills, so that he could become a leader in the future. In fact, the quality and education level of the Iraqi people are not bad, but it is a pity that the war has ruined the country. ”

Qian Dan also gained something: "Let's think of more ways to make Iraq a benchmark for us to train and use local staff. You just talked about the characteristics of each local employee, I think it is quite enlightening, we have to appreciate individual differences, we can't always ask all subordinates to look exactly like themselves, in fact, with Chinese is the same. ”

The two men whispered until three o'clock in the evening.

Qian Dan has been on a business trip in Iraq for more than half a month, and finally the day of departure has arrived.

His return journey was not easy, he went to the airport early to catch the 11 o'clock flight in the morning, went through the most stringent security check he had ever experienced, was sniffed by a wolf dog, was unpacked and turned over his luggage, and even the computer needed to be turned on until the security personnel could see the "Windows" boot screen.

After all the formalities were completed, the long wait began, the flight departure time was postponed again and again, there was no movement after lunch, there was still no movement after dinner, and it was not until 9 o'clock in the evening that the boarding began.

He got on the shuttle bus, and when the car got under the gangway of the plane, he saw the flight attendants waving their hands on the plane, and the shuttle bus was about to turn around and drive back. Qian Dan held back all day, and couldn't help shouting, and the flight attendant on the plane found this angry international friend, made a gesture, and let him get on the plane alone.

The shuttle bus drove back to the terminal with the remaining carload of locals, presumably waiting until the next day to fly.

When I walked into the cabin, there was really only one seat left, and I almost couldn't squeeze in when I took the plane.

The plane was already taxiing down the runway, people were still talking loudly on the phone, two children were competing in their mother's arms, whose cries were louder, and the cabin was noisy like a bazaar.

Qian Dan was unimpressed by everything around him, and after sitting down, he immersed himself in his mood: Lao Zhang after the 60s, Liu Tie after the 70s, and Wang Haitao after the 80s, their laughter, tears, and loud voices when discussing business and reading English aloud were replayed in Qian Dan's mind.