Chapter 26

Selling retail, you’ll max out at ten or eight catties a day, making at most seven or eight kuai, and you still have to deal with thugs and hoodlums.

Wholesale starts at a hundred catties; find the right buyer and you can settle payment and delivery in five minutes...

Li Ye gave Hao Jian a live business lecture, and within minutes, Hao Jian’s eyes sparkled with bright, eager light.

The various wholesale markets that emerged in late 1980s Great Qing gave rise to countless “wealthy families,” with the most typical example being the setting of the story “Chicken Feathers Soar to Heaven.”

These wholesale markets retained strong vitality for many years afterward, proving that wholesale was a relatively easy path to profit.

The provincial capital was only forty kilometers from Qingshui County, with a large population and a sufficient middle- and high-income group— a potential treasure trove waiting to be developed.

Sesame candy, though an unremarkable snack, met all requirements for market expansion and initial capital accumulation, which is why Li Ye chose Hao Jian to go out front and test the waters for him.

Hao Jian was tempted, but he didn’t rashly accept Li Ye’s proposal—he voiced his difficulties instead.

“Brother, I won’t hide it from you—my family desperately needs money, and I’m willing to go to the provincial capital to try my luck, but I have no capital!”

On a normal day, Hao Jian dealt with at most one basin of sesame candy—twenty catties at most—with a capital of five or six kuai and revenue of a dozen kuai; he simply couldn’t afford the capital needed for a hundred-catty wholesale business.

Li Ye thought for a moment and asked, “How much capital do you lack?”

Hao Jian gritted his teeth and said, “At least fifty kuai, and I need a bicycle too.”

After stating these two demands, Hao Jian felt uneasy—he feared Li Ye might storm off in anger.

After all, calculating the cost of over a hundred catties of sesame candy made it clear: Hao Jian’s demands meant he was contributing not a single cent himself.

But Li Ye said, “Then get to the provincial capital quickly! If it seems viable, come find me at County No. 2 High School.”

Hao Jian watched Li Ye walk away after dropping those words, stunned for a long while.

【He just... agreed?】

Hao Jian still couldn’t believe it.

If an hour ago he’d thought of Li Ye as an easily fooled “kid,” now he had not a shred of underestimation left.

Li Ye first helped Hao Jian retrieve the sesame candy, then explained the concept of “wholesale,” then gave him five kuai as “operating funds.”

This series of decisions was swift, decisive, and clean-cut—Hao Jian felt he was facing not an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old boy, but the village chief who held absolute authority.

After staring blankly for a long while, Hao Jian finally snapped out of it and walked toward the county hospital against the cold wind.

He needed to get medicine for his child first; now that he had money, he might as well take several extra bottles and spend one or two kuai.

Hao Jian had never been a rigid man; though he still didn’t fully understand why Li Ye trusted him so much, he vaguely sensed he possessed something Li Ye needed—something worth exploiting.

You dare to use me, I dare to spend.

Lice don’t bite when there are too many; debts don’t worry you when they pile up—what can you do, kill me?

Either way, I don’t lose.

Here, Hao Jian felt he wasn’t losing; there, Li Ye felt satisfied.

Hao Jian only calculated financial cost and thought this deal favored Li Ye.

But Li Ye had calculated more comprehensively: labor cost and, more importantly, risk cost.

In this era, private enterprise still carried risk; he planned to train Hao Jian as an agent, staying hidden behind the scenes, so if anything went wrong, he’d have room to maneuver.

Li Ye knew Hao Jian was a “shrewd merchant,” but for this kind of “entrepreneurial” business, what was needed wasn’t a loyal, honest ox—rather, a bold, ambitious warrior ready to charge ahead.

In this era, you weren’t feared for having ambition—you were feared for not daring to act. Once you “acted,” you’d taken the most crucial first step.

Whether Hao Jian could ever be controlled by Li Ye later was a matter for another day; to earn your first pot of gold, you had to take a step forward, didn’t you?

Back at County No. 2 High School, Li Ye headed straight for his dorm.

In his dorm, he pulled a stack of cash from the cotton padding beneath his pillow, counted it—105 kuai total.

This was all the capital Li Ye could access now, mostly saved over the past few months.

Back then, with Lu Jingyao around, he never held onto money.

Now his family gave him thirty or forty kuai monthly; his meals—two dishes a day—cost only a dozen kuai a month; two packs of Da Qianmen cigarettes a month cost six or seven kuai.

There were no pay-to-win games back then, so no matter how he spent, he could never exhaust it—it was impossible to spend it all.

But if he were to launch the provincial capital profit plan with Hao Jian, this “fortune” of over a hundred kuai wouldn’t be nearly enough.

The initial small-scale capital would suffice, but if he later diversified or even sent Hao Jian south to ride the tide and chase the sea, he’d need tens of thousands—no less.

【For now, this will do. Earning some pocket money isn’t bad.】

Li Ye thought it over and wasn’t in a rush; his basic goal was to earn enough before next year’s college entrance exam to live comfortably.

With ten thousand taels of silver tied around his waist, riding a crane down to Yangzhou—he’d experienced enough of the difference between a rich college life and a poor one in his past life.

In the afternoon, as Li Ye entered the classroom, he saw a crowd gathered around Xia Yue, including many students from other classes, all excited and envious in an unnatural way.

Li Ye glanced over briefly and ignored it, but after sitting down at his desk, Xia Yue began speaking in a pointed, cryptic tone.

“As knowledge youth of the new era, we must use our knowledge to create a better life; ten years of cold windows have forged our fighting spirit and given us pride.”

“We must never be parasites, relying on our parents and families, enjoying superior material comforts yet still unsatisfied, and spiritually looking down on our classmates...”

Li Ye raised his eyes coldly and met Xia Yue’s challenging gaze directly—he immediately understood she was indirectly insulting him.

Perhaps because Li Ye’s gaze was too piercing, or perhaps because Xia Yue had recently been intimidated by him, she made eye contact with him for only a fraction of a second before turning away.

It was like a tiny terrier yapping loudly on a leash suddenly seeing a calm, sturdy Chinese native dog—and instantly feeling crushed.

Yet Xia Yue’s words stirred resonance among many around them, who chimed in with agreement, making Li Ye find it laughable.

Ten years of cold windows was indeed worthy of respect, but family background shouldn’t be despised.

Countless poor students rose through their own efforts to become first-generation rich—shouldn’t their children then be allowed to spend their father’s money without guilt?

To rationally confront problems and continuously close one’s own gaps is how you surpass pioneers and crush the waves ahead.

Poverty doesn’t diminish ambition—the key is “ambition,” not poverty.

Li Ye had no interest in arguing with them; Xia Yue hadn’t named him directly—why bother stepping in dog shit?

Still, he wanted to know what had happened, so he asked his desk-mate Wen Leyu.

Wen Leyu sneered, “Lu Jingyao wrote Xia Yue a letter, bragging that she published a poem and earned five kuai and fifty fen in royalties... She used to spend your money so much, now that she’s earned some, she feels free and noble.”

“Royalties?” Li Ye felt a sudden flash of insight.

“Yeah, only five kuai and fifty fen?” Wen Leyu whispered, sounding almost comforting.

But Li Ye’s mood was different.

Right—I can earn royalties too!

Is the “literary thief” tactic clichéd?

Extremely clichéd.

Is the royalty model outdated?

Extremely outdated.

But undeniably, in this era, earning royalties was the most direct, simplest, most effective, and risk-free way to make money.

No running errands, no traveling, no bowing to clients—just paper, pen, and a story in your head, and you get paid.

Li Ye thought it was viable, especially since Guo Jia had just clarified the royalty standards.

In truth, Great Qing’s royalty rates had been declining steadily.

Forget the era of Lu Xun, where authors became famous solely through royalties—even after 1977, writers living off royalties enjoyed a very comfortable spring.

In 1977, the State Publication Administration issued “Notice on Trial Implementation of News and Publication Royalty and Subsidy Measures,” setting author royalties at 2–7 kuai per thousand characters.

In 1980, the State Publication Bureau’s Group established a new standard, raising it to 3–10 kuai per thousand characters; for over a decade afterward, royalties followed the “basic rate + reprint bonus” model.

By 1984, the standard rose again to 6–20 kuai per thousand characters.

In an era where a catty of pork cost less than one kuai and rice was two jiao per catty, this royalty rate was extremely high.

Think about it: a worker’s monthly wage was only thirty or forty kuai—barely matching the royalty of a few thousand characters.

How rare were ten-thousand-yuan households in the 1980s? By modern standards, they’d qualify as middle class, wouldn’t they?

Yet many authors reached this level with just two books.

But in the modern era, “author” had become nearly synonymous with “impoverished”—the gap was staggering.

Of course, publications were scarce in this era, and publishing house ISBNs were limited; it was still difficult for authors to get articles or novels published.

But for Li Ye... this difficulty was merely “a little” hard.

In his past life, Li Ye had written web novels and earned royalties during his spare time—he had ample writing techniques and reading experience.

In an era where second-rate Hong Kong and Taiwan wuxia could dominate the market, wouldn’t high-quality modern web novels crush them effortlessly?

Don’t look down on web novels—both web novels and wuxia are popular literature; web novels evolved directly from wuxia Shuangwen .

Those top web novel authors may not rival Gu, Liang, or Jin, but they could certainly compete with other wuxia writers.

And when “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” first appeared, wuxia wasn’t even recognized by mainstream literature—yet it swept across the entire nation.

【Hmm, how many characters is “Doupo Cangqiong”? Too ahead of its time? “Xun Qin Ji”? Also too ahead?】

【What about “Qianfu”? Does it fit the era’s background well enough?】

Li Ye pulled out a stack of letter paper and began listing and analyzing the works most suited to this era.