Chapter 75

On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, the lanterns on the streets of Qingshui County began to be taken down.

This also signaled that the 1982 Spring Festival was completely over, and workers in factories and mines should put away the laziness of the holidays and put their spirits into the great cause of the Four Modernizations.

Li Ye turned left and right, dodging workers dismantling scaffolding while frowning as he walked forward.

These past two days had been full of annoying things, making him very unhappy.

First was the matter of his stepmother Han Chunmei buying out her pension money, which had fermented much faster than Li Ye had imagined.

In just a few days, it had spread among relatives and friends, and many people were laughing at Han Chunmei and the Li family.

A daughter married off is like spilled water; the original sixty-yuan dowry was already high enough, and now she was being sold again—are you made of gold?

The poor woman cried so much she didn't even dare to go to work, always feeling like people were poking at her spine behind her back, her ears buzzing with flies.

Li Ye thought he had succeeded, but the old man at home was pulling a face like a cloudy, rainy day, and Li Kaijian was looking at him with nothing but disdain.

【It's all the good work you caused, kid.】

Damn it.

A group of people who were slow to realize were completely unaware that Li Ye was solving a huge future problem for the family.

The mindset of Li Kaijian and Li Zhongfa was still stuck in the thirty-year era of "low wealth gap," where a factory director only earned a few dozen yuan more than an ordinary worker.

If a worker pointed at a factory director's nose and cursed, it was just how things were.

But after 1980, people didn't worry about poverty but about inequality; the harmonious concept of family affection would soon face a severe test.

Han Han Lao Han's family wouldn't even give their own granddaughter breakfast—do you still need to wonder what kind of people they are?

No matter how much Li Ye explained, Li Zhongfa and Li Kaijian wouldn't believe the severity of it; Li Ye had seen those bloodsucking leeches in his past life who could drain their relatives dry.

Blood is thicker than water, and bones are connected by tendons; when you have eight million in your hands, your parents come to kowtow and reminisce about the bitterness of the past, asking you for a hundred or two hundred thousand...

What do you do?

When your own brother kneels before you and bangs his head on the floor, what do you do?

To cut ties, you have to be ruthless; this time, he had to make Han Chunmei completely give up hope, otherwise, who knows how the Han family would stir up trouble once the Li family became wealthy!

With Han Chunmei's soft personality and Li Kaijian's wife-obsessed nature, wouldn't Li Ye be cleaning up their messes all day long?

Li Ye didn't have the energy to drag things out with the Han family, so he focused on Han Chunmei.

Otherwise, he would have taken action the night before last.

He could have beaten that brat Han Xiaoxu, then provoked the Han family into a group brawl, sending them straight to the hospital, and making the two families bitter enemies.

But if that happened, would Han Chunmei be as full of hatred for the Han family as she was now?

You've already sold your daughter!

No matter how much the Han family stirs up trouble, as long as Han Chunmei doesn't nod, it's all in vain; even if Li Kaijian loves his young wife, he wouldn't fill the hole.

After such a scene, the Li family would no longer recognize this relative.

Therefore, Han Chunmei's psychological shift was the key.

Li Ye seemed to be dealing with Han Han Lao Han, but in reality... he was forcing Han Chunmei.

Of course, if Han Chunmei could cut ties, the suffering she was enduring now was nothing; later, she would naturally understand what kind of blessings she had cultivated for generations to be with Li Kaijian, a super potential stock, and what kind of life she had won for herself and her two daughters.

If Han Chunmei couldn't cut ties... she would be in even more pain.

Li Ye was no saint; he could spare a few hundred coins, but touching the foundation of the Li family... humph...

Another annoying thing was Hao Jian and Jin Peng.

These two guys took their two lackeys, Ergou and Sanshui, to Guangdong Province on the third day of the lunar new year.

After settling in Yangcheng on the seventh, they sent Li Ye a telegram saying they were safe, and then until the nineteenth, there was no news at all.

Li Ye originally thought that both of them had finished their business, or at least one of them should be coming back according to the plan.

But yesterday afternoon, Li Ye received a telegram saying that those two guys had been like headless flies for more than ten days with no progress, and they had no choice but to urgently ask Li Ye for help.

【What a pair of blockheads, they don't know how to adapt, don't know how to scheme, and even delayed asking for help for ten days. It's lucky they met me, otherwise, they'd be slapped to death on the beach sooner or later.】

Li Ye cursed to himself several times and walked into the Qingshui County Post and Telecommunications Bureau.

Seeing Li Ye walk in, the clerk inside smiled and said: "Li Ye, you're really diligent! Why don't we give you an honorary staff title!"

When Li Ye came to send manuscripts, send telegrams, or collect manuscript fees a few days ago, everyone had come to know him.

It was only after Teacher Ke returned that the letters and packages to and from the capital were handed over to her.

Li Ye took out a telegram draft and handed it over, saying: "Sending a telegram today."

The telegraph operator took the draft and was stunned: "You're sending a telegram? Not a letter? This many words will cost a lot of money!"

At this time, a telegram cost seven cents per character; three characters could buy a jin of rice, so people usually tried to write as little as possible. But Li Ye was different—it was almost like writing a letter.

Li Ye confirmed: "It's a telegram, to Yangcheng."

"Yangcheng?" The operator suddenly remembered something and asked: "There was a telegram for you from Yangcheng yesterday; are you submitting manuscripts to Yangcheng again?"

Li Ye smiled and said: "No, just a pen pal."

"Whoa, sending a telegram to chat with a pen pal? You're really impatient."

The operator smiled and took Li Ye's draft to send it.

"Pen pals" in the eighties were like the first batch of netizens in later generations—truly fashionable, and among the sand, there were real ladies of good families, unlike later generations... where it was either a dinosaur or a trap.

But people usually chatted with pen pals through letters; using a telegram to send hundreds of words was truly "impatient."

Hao Jian and Jin Peng were very anxious.

The two of them, along with a "lackey" Sanshui, were squatting outside the Yangcheng clothing wholesale market, watching the vehicles and merchants coming and going, as if watching batches of walking Chinese currency slipping away before their eyes.

"Brother Peng, what should we do? Why don't we try another place! Such a big Guangdong Province, it's not like only this place has clothing wholesale."

"You don't know anything. This is the provincial capital; if things can't be done where the officials are in charge, going elsewhere will just mean getting scammed even more, right?"

"I was just saying... three cobblers... I'm just anxious..."

Hao Jian glanced at Sanshui, exhaled a puff of smoke, and remained silent.

Sanshui had only joined the group before the new year; he had some drive, but he was far inferior to Jin Peng. Saying he lacked a brain cell was an injustice to him, but in the current environment of Yangcheng, his little bit of brainpower was useless.

When the four of them first arrived in Yangcheng, they were full of confidence, thinking they could get a large batch of good goods in three to five days and return to Qingshui County to make a fortune by train.

But reality taught them a good lesson.

From the southeast, northwest, and center, go to Guangdong to get rich.

This saying would spread across the country in a few years.

Yangcheng in early 1982 was far from as open as it would be later; the clothing wholesale markets in Yangcheng had only been open for a little over a year, and the business conditions were far from the loose and enlightened environment Li Ye described.

Throughout the early eighties, clothing and department stores were actually a seller's market in China; as long as you sold them outside Guangdong Province, there was a significant profit within a few hundred kilometers.

So Hao Jian came over with money to buy goods, and he expected people to welcome him?

Forget it; he had to compete with a group of local Guangdong natives who had started selling in surrounding provinces years ago. Hao Jian and his group were snatching food from a tiger's mouth.

Northerners called Southerners "Southern Barbarians," and Southerners called Northerners "Northern Bumpkins." In a merchant circle with strong regional characteristics, outsiders couldn't squeeze in at all.

The tin houses in the wholesale market looked simple, but many were agents with factory backgrounds; they all had their own networks, and regional groups like the Huizhou gang were extremely exclusionary.

Merchants didn't care about peddlers like Hao Jian and Jin Peng who showed up irregularly. Even if Hao Jian begged and pleaded, the prices they quoted were retail prices—it was bullying.

The shops that were willing to talk to Hao Jian were a mixed bag and very deep. Hao Jian contacted several, paid nearly a thousand yuan in tuition fees, and only then realized he had to stop the losses.

Otherwise, the twenty-thousand-yuan capital might have already drifted away.

Moreover, Hao Jian wasn't someone who bumped around without a brain; he carefully combed through the process of selling goods and found that even if they were lucky enough to gather the goods, transporting them back was a big problem.

Because their introduction letters were no good.

Their introduction letters were issued by the Qingshui County grain department, with vague wording, mostly saying they were coming to Yangcheng to purchase supplies.

Not to mention how tight railway shipping was at this time—without connections, you wouldn't even know when you'd get a turn in line.

And with an introduction letter from the grain department, shipping a few bags of luggage, rice, peanuts, or nuts might be fine, but shipping thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of clothing?

Who are you kidding? Do you really think the railway authorities are blind? Who would be willing to take that responsibility?

But if they didn't ship them, and relied on the four of them to pack them up and carry them onto the train, how could they carry twenty thousand yuan worth of goods?

The Chaoshan people Hao Jian saw in the provincial capital of Dongshan were peddlers carrying large bundles on their shoulders, with hundreds of pieces of clothing and department store items.

Making a few yuan per item, and tossing them around once or twice a month, they could also complete their primitive accumulation.

But twenty thousand yuan worth of goods was just too unrealistic.

You want to use road transport?

Forget it; not to mention whether the transport teams would take the order,

in this day and age, the national highways had long stretches of mud roads, and anything could happen over a journey of more than two thousand kilometers.

If you were pulling a truckload of machinery, that would be one thing, but you're pulling clothing, a daily necessity... it would probably be gone overnight if you broke down.

Why was there a crackdown in '83? Learn about the road bandits of '82.

Hao Jian tried various methods, hoping the wholesalers in the clothing market would help him solve the transportation problem, even if the price of the goods was higher, he would accept it.

As a result, a bad egg who tried to scam them reported them, saying they were scammers who were trying to get something for nothing.

Fortunately, Hao Jian and his group were staying in a legitimate hotel and had official seals and introduction letters, and the market management department didn't have the time, so they didn't get to experience the taste of prison tears.

If this were a few years later, when temporary residence permits became popular, they would have had a hard time!

But in any case, being a "speculator" in early '82 was really hard!

"Brother, Brother Peng, the telegram is here, the telegram from home is here!"

A thin young man ran over from across the road, nimbly dodging cars on the street, climbing over the guardrail, and running to Jin Peng and the others in one breath.

This was Ergou; like Jin Peng and Sanshui, he was an unemployed youth in Qingshui County who was bored to death, and he had come to wander the world with Hao Jian and the others with dreams of getting rich.

Yesterday, they sent a telegram to Li Ye at home, and today Hao Jian let Ergou wait for news at the hotel while he and Jin Peng continued to squat here waiting for an opportunity.

Now that the telegram had arrived, both of them stood up suddenly, full of anticipation.

At this moment, they could only listen to the advice of Li Ye, the major shareholder.

After all, Li Ye had said at the beginning that he would have the final say on business matters.

Now, whether to go or stay, it was up to him!

Ergou handed the telegram paper to Jin Peng, but Jin Peng didn't take it, gesturing for him to give it to Hao Jian.

Over the past few days, he had also realized that in some matters, Hao Jian was slightly better than him, and besides, Hao Jian was the second-largest shareholder, wasn't he?

Well, it was mainly due to a difference in education; although both were junior high school students, Hao Jian was someone who could study newspapers, so he was stronger in text comprehension than Jin Peng.

But even this person who boasted about being able to see national affairs from newspapers looked at Li Ye's telegram paper over and over again, sighing repeatedly in the end.

Jin Peng was so angry he cursed: "What the hell are you sighing for! What does it say?"

Hao Jian smacked his lips and said: "He scolded us."

Jin Peng blinked and asked: "And then? Nothing else?"

Hao Jian said: "Yes, he told us to find locals to help."

Jin Peng was happy and asked: "Find who to help?"

Hao Jian shook his head: "I don't know, he told us to find them ourselves."

"I..."

Jin Peng snatched the telegram paper and read it twice, only understanding one sentence.

"It is best to find someone who is unwilling to submit to fate; it will be twice the result with half the effort."

Jin Peng asked blankly: "What is someone who is unwilling to submit to fate?"

Hao Jian lit a cigarette, took a deep puff, and said somewhat intoxicatedly: "Someone like me."

".........."

Jin Peng, Ergou, and Sanshui were all stunned.

After a long time, Jin Peng clicked his tongue, his face almost twisted like a stroke patient.

"That's going to be tough; someone as ugly as you is really hard to find."