Chapter 33. Certificate

     Li Yaolin added Zhou Yingying as a friend and sent her the official website of Xingzhou Island and some videos and photos so that she could understand the future working environment first.

     As for the salary, they have not discussed it yet. Zhou Yingying is not in a hurry. Anyway, it is impossible for her to continue working in this diving shop. Even if she can’t reach an agreement with Li Yaolin at that time, she can still find a job in another diving shop.

     Before Li Yaolin left for Malaysia, Zhou Yingying also recommended a lot of diving coaches to her, some in Thailand, some in Indonesia and Malaysia, all of whom are diving coaches with good reputation.

     At this time, roommate Zheng Xuan and her new husband also set off for Malaysia together. Their destination is Semporna, where Li Yaolin is going this time.

     Li Yaolin first flew to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and then flew to Kota Kinabalu and Tawau in Sabah, and then took a car. It took ten hours to get to Semporna.

     Before meeting Zheng Xuan and her husband, she went to the diving shop recommended by Zhou Yingying to sign up for the diving certificate.

     She didn’t take the exam in Qionghai because of the tight schedule. This time she planned to stay in Semporna for a few days, so she had plenty of time and got the certificate first.

     OW’s course schedule is three days, with theoretical study on the first day and diving learning on the second and third days.

     After taking the theoretical test on the first day, Li Yaolin hurried to a popular seafood restaurant, where Zheng Xuan had arranged to meet her.

     Since the second semester of her senior year, her roommates in the dormitory have either been busy with internships and writing papers or looking for jobs. Almost everyone has moved out of the dormitory and they only see each other a few times a month. The last time Li Yaolin saw Zheng Xuan was when she was defending her thesis, which has been two months ago.

     “Ah, Sanniang!”

     As soon as Li Yaolin saw where Zheng Xuan was, the latter trotted over and threw herself into her arms, “Long time no see!”

     Zheng Xuan’s height was only up to Li Yaolin’s chin, and Li Yaolin stroked her head and said with a smile: “I haven’t seen you for two months, did you miss me?”

     “I miss you, my baby misses you too!” Zheng Xuan said with a smile.

     At this time, Zheng Xuan’s husband Sun Fen walked over and greeted Li Yaolin: “Junior sister Li Yaolin, long time no see!”

     Sun Fen is the senior of Li Yaolin and Zheng Xuan. When Li Yaolin was a freshman, she participated in the women’s basketball game, and Zheng Xuan joined the cheerleading team to cheer up her roommate. Sun Fen, who was already a junior at the time, was a referee and had contact with Zheng Xuan. They became familiar with each other after a few interactions.

     After that, he launched a fierce pursuit of Zheng Xuan and finally won her back during the Spring Festival.

     The two have been in love for three and a half years, so for many people, Zheng Xuan got married too early, but for them, settling down early is not a bad thing.

     Li Yaolin did not comment on their affairs. She smiled and replied to Sun Fen: “Long time no see, Senior Brother Sun, it seems that Brother Xuan takes good care of you.”

     Sun Fen was stunned and said: “You said it the other way around? I am the one who takes care of her!”

     Zheng Xuan rolled her eyes at him and said: “I asked you to lose weight. Your belly is too big and it won’t look good in wedding photos!”

     Sun Fen: “…”

     Li Yaolin looked at his roommate whose figure and complexion were not the same as before: “You should eat more. How can you be so thin! Didn’t you get enough rest at night? You need to rest more so that you and the baby can be healthier.”

     Sun Fen heard that Li Yaolin was criticizing him for not only not taking good care of Zheng Xuan, but also making himself fat.

     Zheng Xuan pulled Li Yaolin to complain: “I’ve been so busy lately that I don’t have much appetite. I have to work, find a studio to take wedding photos, and discuss the banquet…”

     “You need to take care of the baby now, so just leave those things to your husband, right?”

     “He is careless, and I’m worried about leaving the only wedding in my life to him!”

     Sun Fen was left aside by the two of them, and he wisely didn’t bother them. He ordered the dishes silently, and then listened to his wife chattering to Li Yaolin like a bamboo tube pouring beans. 

     They always have a lot of topics, from life to work, from work to classmates’ gossip, and then back to them.

     Unconsciously, the night deepened. The singers in the seafood restaurant sang Cantonese songs that were familiar to people in Lingnan. Outside, it was bustling and noisy. The orange street lights and LED lights of various seafood restaurants illuminated every corner of the street.

     After dinner, Li Yaolin said goodbye to Zheng Xuan and her husband.

     On the way back to the resort, Sun Fen asked Zheng Xuan gossipingly: “Is Li Yaolin still single?”

     “Why are you asking about this?” Zheng Xuan asked back.

     “I want to introduce her to my brothers, Ah Zhan, you know, why don’t you find a chance to help match them up?”

     Zheng Xuan waved her hand: “You don’t know Sanniang, she is not interested in dating. It’s not that no one pursued her in school, but she rejected them so decisively. Once, a junior stopped her on her way to work and confessed to her. Her eyes at that time, my goodness, were so murderous that the junior avoided her when he saw her later. To her, love is not as important as bread.”

     Sun Fen said: “What if there is both love and bread? Ah Zhan is from Xian Village, and he is in the same village as her. It’s definitely not a loss!”

     “It doesn’t matter if it’s from Liede!”

     Sun Fen said puzzledly: “Don’t be so absolute! I remember her family is not well off. The company where she interned went bankrupt a while ago. I heard that the boss absconded with the money and withheld her salary for several months. She should be on the way to ask for her salary now, how can she have money to travel here?”

     Zheng Xuan’s eyes flicked at him: “She is here on a business trip.”

     “You believe this, but I don’t. Which company will let a girl who has just entered the society go abroad for inspection? And she came here alone and refused to follow our itinerary. If someone hadn’t paid her to come out and have fun,, I’ll twist my head off!!”

     Zheng Xuan was furious, not caring that they were on the streets of a foreign country, and yelled at him: “Sun Fen, are you sick? You think so dirty about people, what right do you have to slander her?”

     Sun Fen was also annoyed: “Then why does she smear me and say that I didn’t take good care of you?”

     “She is my sister, and it’s normal for her to remind you to take good care of me? !”

     “Didn’t I take care of you? She doesn’t know about our business, why is she worrying about it?”

     “You said you took care of me, why didn’t you accompany me when I went for a re-examination? And when we went out for a trip, I made the guide and booked the tickets , I found the hotel, you didn’t do anything, how can you take care of me? “

     Sun Fen said impatiently: “I have to go to work, right? If I don’t work, how can I have money to support my children! If you think it’s tiring to make a guide and it’s troublesome to book air tickets and hotels, why don’t you just follow my instructions and sign up for a tour group? I said to sign up for a tour group, but you didn’t let me, so you insisted that I pay for both the money and the guide, and I didn’t go to work and just stayed around you all day, right?”

     “Sun Fen, you are sick!”

 

…

 

     Li Yaolin didn’t know that she was the fuse of the quarrel between the newlyweds. After returning to the cabin, she sent Zheng Xuan a message that she had arrived safely, and then went to take a shower.

     When she came out of the shower, Zheng Xuan replied to her “I’m back too”.

     Li Yaolin felt something was wrong. After all, the resort where Zheng Xuan lived was closer than her, so how come she came back later than her?

     Seeing Zheng Xuan chatting with roommates in the dormitory group, sharing the beautiful scenery and food she took today, as well as their group photos. She hesitated, thinking that she was overthinking.

     After chatting in the group for a few words, she opened the Poseidon Holiday APP to see today’s operational summary of Xingzhou Island.

     During the days when Li Yaolin was not on Xingzhou Island, the only people who called her were the government departments who talked to her about the protection area, Cen Yingda and Long Feng, and some investors who wanted to invest in restaurants and hotels on Xingzhou Island.

     Lin Qiang and other employees reported directly to the little mermaid, which showed that there was nothing that needed her to deal with personally.

     However, the weather in Yóushì was not very good in the past two days, resulting in a decrease of one-third of tourists on the island. The turnover was also relatively reduced, but Li Yaolin’s mentality was relatively stable. These were all expected things, and the typhoon season was coming, and the island would definitely be closed. How could she be unstable?

     The work group was quite active, and the employees were asking Li Yaolin how the scenery abroad was.

     Li Yaolin was a person who rarely posted on WeChat Moments, and even less likely to take the initiative to share her journey with others, but since the employees asked so, she cooperated and posted a few photos and short videos. Some were taken during the trip to Qionghai, and some were taken casually today.

     The employees were silent after reading it. If they didn’t know what was wrong with the island owner’s phone, they would have thought that the island owner deliberately took ugly photos to belittle her peers and elevate herself.

     The ticket seller gave her advice: “Boss, isn’t it time for you to change to a new phone?”

     If it were in the past, Li Yaolin would of course change her phone if she had money, but now, she found that this phone is very easy to use. After being bound to the Poseidon Holiday APP, it is very smooth to open any software. Except that the camera pixel is a little bit worse, she has no dissatisfaction.

     “My phone is very good, I don’t need to change it. I can make calls and chat, and it saves power and is resistant to falling.”

     Employees: “…”

     Obviously, the island owner is younger than them, why do they feel that the island owner is like an old aunt?

     At eight o’clock the next morning, Li Yaolin had already arrived at the diving shop to start the second day’s diving course. She had passed the theoretical test yesterday and officially went to the sea today.

     The practical part is not just about diving and surfacing in the sea with all the equipment in place. She must complete the specified actions, such as taking off the mask and practicing how to exhaust the air when there is water in the mask.

     Li Yaolin had no pressure to do these actions. She felt that she could hold her breath in the sea for five minutes. After surfacing, the coach gave her a thumbs up and said “awesome”.

     At the end of the day, Li Yaolin learned very smoothly, and the students who were with her were very envious. They were either uncoordinated or choked by water. The worst thing was that they suffered from decompression sickness, and their legs were red and swollen, which was particularly tormenting.

     In the end, Li Yaolin naturally got the OW certificate smoothly, and she spent another two days to take the AOW exam.

     When she got the AOW certificate, she couldn’t help but show it on her circle of friends. As a result, Fang Xinhua didn’t know where she learned that she was learning diving, and called her in a panic: “I say, Mr. Li, you are too mean.”

     “Ah?” Li Yaolin was a little confused. Why did she do that to him?

     Fang Xinhua asked: “Did you go to Malaysia to learn diving?”

     “Yes, I came here to investigate and get a certificate.”

     Fang Xinhua felt very regretful and asked restrainedly: “Is Mr. Li going to follow the example of Southeast Asia to develop and operate the islands?”

     “It’s not about imitating, but learning from their strengths, exploring our potential, and creating our unique island style.”

     “Mr. Li is right.”

     Li Yaolin: So why did you make this call?

     Without her asking, Fang Xinhua took the initiative to say, “Mr. Li, I have a project I want to invest in. I wonder if you are interested?”

     Li Yaolin was not very interested, but out of politeness, she still asked, “What project?”

     “Diving!” Fang Xinhua’s tone was much higher, “I discovered a long time ago that the water quality of our Xingzhou Island is very good, which is rare in coastal provinces, and the wind and waves are not big, and the visibility is high, which is very suitable for building a diving base. I have been preparing to cooperate with you recently. I have prepared the project plan and will wait for you to come back and formally talk to you.”

     Li Yaolin found that his words were also interesting. What “our Xingzhou Island” meant that he did not regard himself as an outsider at all.

     “It seems that Mr. Fang and I have the same vision. I also want to develop a diving base, so I came to a foreign country to study and learn from others, and to verify it by the way.”

     Fang Xinhua always felt that she was going to leave him alone and said anxiously: “Isn’t that just right? If Mr. Li knows about this industry, we don’t have to go through so much trouble to discuss cooperation.” 

     He was very annoyed that he was too late. He thought that Li Yaolin had just developed Xingzhou Island and would definitely not be able to turn over funds. He didn’t have so much money to continue to develop new projects for a while. He was even ready to take the initiative to attract investment from Li Yaolin. But he didn’t expect that Li Yaolin would be so quick. The project that others took half a year to complete, she said she was ready to start, is it really “rich and willful”? !

     Li Yaolin found that her position with Fang Xinhua seemed to have switched. When she wanted to fight for the route in the past, Fang Xinhua must have been sitting on the Diaoyutai, waiting for her to get anxious, right? Now she is not anxious, but he is getting anxious. Li Yaolin did not immediately reject Fang Xinhua’s proposal for cooperation, but asked: “How does Mr. Fang want to cooperate?”

     “It’s hard to explain over the phone, why don’t we make an appointment to talk?”

     Li Yaolin said: “Yes, I can. I just got all the business licenses for developing a diving base. The next step is to open a diving shop, recruit people, and then officially open for business. Mr. Fang’s call is very timely.”

     Li Yaolin said lightly, but Fang Xinhua felt like a huge rock was pressing down on his heart, heavy. She took the initiative to explain that she had completed the relevant procedures, which was to tell him that the most difficult stage of developing a diving base had been passed, and the rest could be solved with money.

     Li Yaolin didn’t need his connections and power at all during the development process, which made him quite passive in the subsequent negotiations.

     Assuming that Li Yaolin hadn’t completed the relevant procedures, he could completely use this as a condition to get more benefits in the cooperation with Li Yaolin. But this only opportunity is gone. What else can he do except hoping that Li Yaolin is short of money?

     But does Li Yaolin look like she is short of money? She doesn’t look like that!

     In other words, now he was begging Li Yaolin to take him out to play, instead of Li Yaolin asking him to play!

     After Fang Xinhua hung up the phone, he was very frustrated and called his employees overnight to ask them to re-draft a project plan.