Chapter 12 – Making things difficul (1/2)

Day of the interview.

Dong Xuebing was afraid that his mother and Aunt Xuan’s hopes will give him too much pressure and he was scared of disappointing them. This was why he did not tell them about his interview. He woke up early and had a bowl of porridge for breakfast, before secretly leaving for the “battlefield” alone.

Baiyun Times Mansion.

On the 22nd floor of this building, there was a row of offices. At the door of the offices, there were signages like Earthquake Bureau, Customs, etc. After asking the directions with the receptionist, Feng Yu was directed to an office right at the end of the corridor and saw Unit 2216. There were no signages outside. There was only a piece of A4 paper “Waiting Room for candidates” pasted on the door.

The door was open, and there was a stench of cigarette smell.

Dong Xuebing looked at his watch. It was 10 minutes to 9 am. He clenched his fist and knocked lightly on the opened door.

“Come in.” It was a man’s hoarse voice.

“Good morning, I am Dong Xuebing. I am here for the interview.”

“Oh, show me your documents.”

There were 2 men in civilian clothes sitting behind a desk. One was taller and about 45 years’ old, the other was shorter, about 50 years’ old. Both of them looked at Dong Xuebing’s documents and waved to him to sit down. There was an empty chair in front of them. Dong Xuebing sat upright. He was nervous, and his heart was beating very fast.

After waiting for a while, a middle age woman walked in from outside and sat behind the desk. She was much shorter than the taller man.

“It’s about time.” The taller man took out a stack of documents. “Can we start?”

Dong Xuebing replied: “…… yes.”

Dong Xuebing was perturbed. He had thought that with his results from the AAT and the written test, he should be one of the top 3 candidates. But the woman from State Security who called him told him that he was fourth place. That means he was the fourth person that was interviewed. If he could not answer the interviewers’ questions, he might even lose his position to the 5th and 6th candidates.

The State Security was only recruiting 4 people in this recruitment exercise.

The 3 interviewers looked at each other, and the taller man said in a stern voice: “What do you think of this year’s stock market?”

Here it comes.

Dong Xuebing’s mind was working as fast as he could. He had traded shares before when his family still had money. He knows a bit about the stock market. He also watched the news regularly and had keep track of the financial markets. Dong Xuebing could answer this question in many ways. But when he was about to open his mouth, he remembered Grandpa Hu’s reminder. He had told Dong Xuebing that behind every question, there was a hidden meaning.

Close. Dong Xuebing nearly told the interviewers about his analysis of the stock market.

The interviewers asked this question was not to know if Dong Xuebing play shares. They should be looking for other answers.

Dong Xuebing reorganized his words in his mind and said: “The earlier part of the year, all the major markets were doing well. I think this is a good thing, but also a bad thing. From the perspective of economics……” Dong Xuebing starts to talk about how the global economic situation can affect China’s economy. This was what he learned over the past two weeks. Although it was not very impressive, it was better than repeating what was reported in the papers. At least he did not say anything wrong.