On a Friday in May 2009, the "TeamBuilding" of the Technical Services Department went to Ain Suhra.

Ain Suhra is located on the western shore of the Red Sea, more than 100 kilometers from Cairo and about 40 kilometers from the Suez Canal, where many resorts have been built along the seaside, which is the closest seaside resort to Romania.

Qian Dan was swimming in the sea, and when he got out of the waves, he saw Lu Wentao standing in the water closer to the shore looking behind him in a daze, turned his head to look, and saw several black fins swimming in the distance, and the body under the black fins jumped out of the sea, and they said in unison: "Dolphins!" ”

More than a dozen dolphins are swimming in the direction of the Suez Canal, jumping one after another, drawing beautiful arcs. They excitedly shouted at their colleagues on the shore to tell them that there was an uninvited guest at sea.

Some of the colleagues were resting on beach chairs, and some were indulging in a game of beach volleyball. Instead, a Western tourist heard their cries, followed their fingers and looked at them, and his face was full of horror: "Shark? It’sshark！ ”

Qian Dan was taken aback by him, and when he looked at it again, it was still a dolphin.

The dolphins swam away and disappeared from sight. Qian Dan happily ran to a wooden trestle bridge jutting out into the sea not far away, hoping that more dolphins would arrive.

However, they were not seen again until the sky darkened, and all that was in sight was the Red Sea at sunset and a few large ships waiting to pass through the Suez Canal in the distance.

He sighed at this wonderful world, and a second before he would never have thought to look back and see a herd of dolphins, sometimes people thought that there was no interest in front of them, but interesting things were slipping away from behind him. Sometimes it is only about the direction you choose at that moment.

Back at the beach chair, there were two missed calls on the phone, Chen Yongsheng in Libya.

In the past two years, the competition in the Libyan market has become increasingly fierce, and Weihua has not prevailed. Chen Yongsheng began to apply for permanent residency in Europe in the summer of 2008, and the leader said that Libya was under great pressure from competition, and he had rich competition experience, so he went to Libya to support him for a year and then let him go to Europe, so he went to Libya with the European dream in early 2009.

The delivery of the software product on a BSS project at LA Telecom in Libya was experiencing difficulties, with constant customer complaints and a lot of dissatisfaction from the representative office. Qian Dan called back: "What are you doing?" Didn't you arrange for good people to support you? Why are you still sending mail all over the place? ”

The other end of the phone was also very unhappy: "Brother, I encountered a bad project of your software in the United Arab Emirates, wiped my ass for your software several major accidents in Sudan, and this time I encountered your bad project in Libya, I have a grudge against your software?" The customer is borrowing the topic to play again, am I easy? ”

"Okay, okay, don't be croager, I'll get a visa to come to Libya right away. Don't send emails all over the world, especially don't send that kind of 'kneel down Sahara, vomit blood and ask for help!! 's mail. ”

In early June, when the H1N1 influenza epidemic was in full swing, Chandan flew to Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Of the several countries in North Africa, he was left with Egypt and Libya to the west.

Chandan was originally known about Libya because of Gaddafi. There are too many stories about the old Ka's unruliness.

For example, when he visited other countries, he did not want to stay in a hotel, but always set up tents as camps, and even brought his own camels so that he could enjoy the taste of camel milk from his hometown during his trips.

For example, he first fanatically devoted himself to the unification of the Arab world, and in the 70s of the 20th century, he organized tens of thousands of Libyans to cross the Sahara Desert on foot and "march to Cairo", hoping that Libya and Egypt would become one. After his dream of uniting the Arab world was shattered, he went around calling for the creation of a united "United States of Africa".

For example, he came from a Saharan nomadic Bedouin family, was born in the desert, and seized the supreme power of the country before the age of 30.

In recent years, Gaddafi has been actively moving closer to the "famous and upright", and he paid a high compensation of 2.7 billion US dollars for the victims of the Lockerbie air disaster, and stood up for the first time to support the Americans' war on terror. The United States and the European Union reciprocated by lifting long-standing sanctions on Libya, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Tripoli in a lively manner, promising to exchange France's nuclear reactors for Libya's high-quality oil.

Although the country has embarked on a path of change, it is not so easy to change what it does in its bones.

Qian Dan's People's Republic of China passport has Chinese and English, and I haven't heard of any country's embassy that can't understand it in recent years, but to apply for a Libyan visa, he must first translate the passport information into Arabic, and he has to go to the Chinese embassy to stamp the certificate and paste it on the passport, which delays a lot of time.

When he got his visa, he found that unlike the visas of more than a dozen other countries in his passport, it was all written in Arabic and not a single English. He had to ask Egyptian staff to help confirm visa information such as expiration dates.

On the night he landed in Tripoli, he looked around as he waited in line to enter the country, and was stunned to find no English guide in the arrival hall of the University. However, the attitude of the border control officer was much friendlier than expected, he glanced at the visa, stamped it on the ground, and released Qian Dan into Libya in less than a minute.

A few days after he arrived in Tripoli, Qian Dan remembered what Lao Xie had told him when he arrived in Egypt in early 2005: "Do a good job, you have to believe that we will never have peace." ”

Because, from the difficulties of their project delivery, he saw that Weiwah's software project delivery has new characteristics, and will face new challenges in the future. The new project involves more complex solutions, more integrated products, and more customization to customer needs.

There are a lot of people who are invested in the project, from seven or eight departments belonging to R&D and service, but there is a lack of project managers who have both front-line customer service experience and understand the objective laws of software development, and there is also a lack of experts with system and business vision.

Qian Dan first led everyone to insist on the most basic actions of project management, holding a long or short project analysis meeting every night to review the project plan and progress, refresh the remaining problems and risk tracking table, and strive to synchronize the project team members from various mountains on one channel.

There are also many customer departments involved in the project, and Chen Yongsheng often comes to participate in the project analysis meeting. He told Qian Dan: "The system used by the customer was made by a local software company, and the company had various interests with some of the customer's executives, and the old system was actually quite stable, and the customer was very accustomed to using it, so they were very reluctant to completely replace the old system with our things." ”

Qian Dan told him the truth: "Our product is not yet mature, I think it is rash to replace others now?" ”

Chen Yongsheng disagrees with the statement of "presumptuous": "Then we have to have a 'little three' mentality." What is the 'Little Three' mentality? We must firmly believe that the customer is not happy now, firmly believe that the original match is not suitable for the future development of the customer, firmly believe that although they also have problems, how can they be better than the original match, and can strive to be better than the possible 'little four', firmly believe that we are truly customer-centric, and customers will live a happy life only when they are with us. ”

Qian Dan glared at him: "Okay, I don't believe in anything else, the most convinced thing is that you can handle the customer relationship and make the customer's lover look like a shih hiff." ”

Qian Dan went to LA Telecom with the project team during the day and worked overtime in Weihua's office at night, working far more than the so-called "996". He just has lunch in the dining room on the roof of the client's office every noon while looking at the blue Mediterranean Sea in the distance, and every night when he walks back from the office to the dormitory, he can pass by the fiery red phoenix wood, the green lemon tree, the ripe figs on the ground, and the faint fragrance of locust flowers.

A month passed quickly, and their project was gradually on track, but Qian Dan thought that it was only temporarily back on track, and there was still a lot of work to be done before the project was completely successful. He had to go back to Egypt for other work, so he arranged for Lin Han to come over and help him continue to keep an eye on the project. At the same time, they need to think about and summarize the replicable play style for new scenarios.

Many famous cities in North Africa were built along the Mediterranean Sea. Because Italy is across the river, there are ancient Roman ruins everywhere you go on this side of the sea, and it is often listed as a world cultural heritage. There is also one near Tripoli, which is not an amphitheater or a lonely castle that often comes to mind when people think of Roman ruins, but a town next to the sea.

At noon on Friday before Qian Dan left, after the project analysis meeting, Chen Yongsheng took everyone to the ruins and let everyone relax for a long time.

The town has long been deserted, and from the grandeur of the ruins, you can still see the prosperity of the past from the erection of the Roman columns, and it is said that a Roman emperor was born here.

When we first got off the bus, everyone was not far from the office from body to mood, they were neatly dressed and their faces were serious, but they were soon brought into the scenery by the salty sea breeze and strong colors. There are only two colors in the landscape, the earthy yellow of the ruins and the dark blue of the sea and sky, and the strong colors make Qian Dan feel as if this place has been renovated by Zhang Yimou.

Walking to the beach, everyone couldn't help but throw off their shoes, take off their clothes and pants, and jump into the embrace of the Mediterranean. Chen Yongsheng was the happiest one, burrowing in the seawater, laughing happily and joking with his companions from time to time.

He called out to Qian Dan on the shore: "Lao Dan, are you really not coming down?" It's so cool! It's been a long time since I've had this cool! ”

"My back hurts, and I can't come down."

Qian Dan really twisted his waist when he moved the table in the computer room the day before, he sat alone on the reef and watched the vast blue of the sea, the people were lively and lively, and his heart was full of relaxation and happiness.

Chen Yongsheng went ashore and sat next to Qian Dan: "I'm so tired, I won't swim." ”

"You're like this now? How long have you been swimming, and you're so tired? ”

"It's a bit empty, it's really cool, but the endurance is not good, and the chest is tight. Am I old? Can't do it anymore? ”

"Old fart? You're a year younger than me. ”

After Qian Dan returned to Cairo, Lin Han came to Tripoli as planned to continue his eyes on their project.

One evening in mid-July, they returned to the Weihua office from the client for their daily project analysis meeting.

Chen Yongsheng insisted that these two needs were the key needs from the customer's senior management, and he must push the family to give an implementation plan to meet the customer in this period.

The atmosphere in the conference room was warm and the air was a little stuffy. After putting aside their differences, discussing other issues, and finally returning to the point of disagreement.

Chen Yongsheng stood up, walked to the whiteboard, took a pen and was about to write something, but his body was crooked, leaned on the whiteboard, and then slowly slipped and fell to the ground. Lin Han, who was closest to him, hurriedly stood up: "Old Chen, you didn't go to dinner when I told you, you're hungry and faint?" ”

He walked over to help Chen Yongsheng: "I'm really dizzy!" ”

"Heatstroke, right? The air in the room was so bad that I left the windows open. ”

Chen Yongsheng closed his eyes tightly, exhaled twice as if sighing, and completely calmed down. Lin Han's heart tightened: "Damn!" Wrong! Find a doctor! Who knows where the hospital is? Who knows the emergency number? ”

In his dormitory in Cairo, Qian Dan sat at his desk in his bedroom, staring at the emails he received from Chen Yongsheng in the morning.

The subject line of Chen Yongsheng's email was "Kneeling in the Sahara naked, vomiting blood for help!! However, the email was only sent to Qian Dan alone. He asked Qian Dan to help push the company to meet the two new needs of customers.

Qian Dan looked at his mobile phone, it was ten o'clock, his habit was not to make work calls after ten o'clock in the evening to harass others, but he hesitated that day and still dialed Chen Yongsheng's number.

It took a while for the ringback to sound before the phone was connected, and he was about to open his mouth when he heard a foreigner on the other end say a few words in Arabic and hung up the phone. Qian Dan was stunned for a moment, waited for a few minutes and then dialed the phone, this time it was Lin Han on the other end of the phone.

Lin Han in the hospital.

Chen Yongsheng was not rescued, he left the Arab world forever on that night in the middle of summer 2009, leaving Weihua's brothers and sisters, his distant relatives, and everything he loved. The doctor said it was the misfortune caused by myocardial ischemia.

Qian Dan sat at the table for a long time, and suddenly felt that the room was stuffy, and he walked out of his bedroom.

Lao Xie was also not there, and he went on a business trip to Alexandria. The living room was not lit and was particularly quiet.

He went to the balcony and leaned feebly over the balcony railing.

On both sides of the road on 199th Street are apartment buildings one after another, and you can vaguely see the days of the Cairo family in the opposite building, and several men in this family are cheering at the TV in the living room. The mother and daughter of that family slapped the quilt on the balcony during the day. There was a guy on the balcony opposite him leaning over the railing to talk on the phone, was he using the network built by Weihua? Is the signal okay?

Two young Chinese with computer bags walked down the alley from 200th Street to 199th Street, their shadows on the ground stretched by street lamps, Weihua people returning late from overtime.

In the early hours of the morning, Qian Dan, who finally fell asleep in a daze, was woken up by a phone call, and a new employee called from Shenzhen.

The newcomer excitedly told Qian Dan: "I am about to be transferred to Egypt, I heard that you are the supervisor, so I will call you first." ”

He obviously didn't think about the time difference, Qian Dan didn't remind him, said a few words of welcome, and waited for him to hang up the phone. As soon as he closed his eyes, the phone rang again, and it was the newcomer, who excitedly told Qian Dan that he had made a mistake and that he was going to Nigeria and not Egypt. Qian Dan still didn't remind him to pay attention to the jet lag, but just wished him "a smooth journey!" ”

Every year, a group of young people of Weihua go overseas in this way ignorantly and bravely go to the unknown new world.

Qian Dan simply got up and went to the balcony again.

For the first time of the day, there was the sound of babbling and prayer from the mosque next door.

Qian Dan turned his head to look at the faint green lights on the minaret, and suddenly remembered Chen Yongsheng, who explained to him when he first heard the dawn prayer in the UAE in 2005. He couldn't help himself, tears welled up in his eyes, and in an instant he burst into tears.

He leaned on the balcony railing and sobbed uncontrollably.