Chapter 107: The Path Chosen, Even on Knees, Must Be Cleared to the End

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This was the dismantling of a forty-year-old stockpile bomb.

The result was bound to injure the man handling it—and leave the bomb-disposal expert on the verge of tears.

If Weidong had not arranged to meet Master Liao and his family at noon to register the company, he would never have left the hotel.

Once the fuse was triggered, who cared about this or that? After one bout of frantic fumbling, he finally understood how everything worked.

The flood that had been psychologically dammed up for forty years came crashing through, leaving nothing standing in its wake.

Lanzhi Zhang had plainly dismantled a nuclear bomb—and one with a chain reaction at that.

She exploded so violently that heaven and earth seemed to turn a deaf ear to her pleas. Her lovely face had lost its color, her coiffure had come undone, and she clung on weakly while urging them to put work first.

All right, Weidong was remarkably obedient by now. It was only through the force of his formidable desire to make money that he managed to tear himself away.

But having acquired a taste for it, he still said, “Why don’t you rest at the hotel? Staying a few more days wouldn’t hurt. I’ll be back in a little while.”

The secretary took one look at her boss’s wording. “Back in a little while” plainly meant that he intended to hurry off and return without any real business to attend to.

She immediately insisted that they should save on travel expenses and stay at the school guesthouse instead.

She felt that as long as she could make it out onto the street and delay matters somehow, it would be enough.

She even thought herself clever for wrapping herself in her pajamas and changing into her military uniform in the bathroom, hoping to intimidate the shameless rogue.

She had completely underestimated the effect of that uniform. The moment she appeared, humming weakly while bracing herself against the doorframe, he pushed her into the washroom and detonated another round in front of the sink mirror.

What kind of beastly employer was this?

Weidong walked around proudly with a row of teeth marks on his shoulder. Perhaps only now had he truly been reborn into this world.

For a man, this sort of thing was that important:

“You provoked me, so don’t blame me. I won’t mistreat you, anyway. From now on, you can marry and have children however you like.”

There was no romance, no tenderness, no sweet intimacy. Even the bomb-disposal expert’s eyes had begun to shimmer with tears.

The experience was absolutely awful!

Still, she forced herself to check out. She really did not dare remain there any longer.

Fortunately, she had been prepared and used her pajamas as padding, so she did not leave any marks on the snow-white sheets. Even in the elevator on the way downstairs, she could not stop throwing little punches at him.

She had no interest in admiring the famous lobby scenery of the Swan Hotel.

Carrying a plastic bag, Weidong looked like a bandit as he wrapped an arm around his secretary’s waist.

“Even if you were the old two-gun woman conducting guerrilla warfare around West Mountain, you still wouldn’t get away now!”

Zhang Lanzhi hurriedly took off her military uniform so it would not damage her image.

Yet throughout the entire journey she hung limply from his arm. Only in a public place did she feel even slightly safe enough to cling to him so intimately.

Her involuntary, coquettish, unsteady gait made her look as if she could barely walk, and she had no idea how many waiters were secretly laughing at her.

The Swan Guesthouse was famous at this time for being crowded with beautiful women.

But Weidong did not even glance sideways.

At the appointed Bureau of Industry and Commerce, Master Liao and his wife found the pair almost painful to look at. They had not been like this last night. How had they suddenly become such a sticky, inseparable couple while discussing business with them?

The actual proposal was simple. Weidong explained the details again: they would first experiment with several Sichuan- and Cantonese-style varieties, mainly turning pig offal into assorted small-packaged snacks.

His original plan required Master Liao to contribute neither money nor labor. They only needed to discuss the application procedures at the Bureau of Industry and Commerce.

A branch would be registered under the name of Dongsheng Trading Company, located beneath Master Liao’s own arcade house. His wife ran a grocery shop there, and the shares would be divided eighty-twenty.

Once the products and production methods had been finalized, they would add Master Liao’s Cantonese flavors. But as soon as the first batch of Sichuan-style products arrived in eastern Guangdong and went on sale, Master Liao would receive a share of the profits.

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Master Liao turned out to be far more enthusiastic than Weidong had expected. Perhaps people in those days were not yet so wary; perhaps the better-informed people of eastern Guangdong were especially eager for opportunities to make money.

He mentioned that relatives in Hong Kong had long ago suggested investing in a venture like this. The problem was that he had never known how the products could be sold.

Weidong was the first person to tell him that sales would not be a problem.

The young man from Sichuan whom Master Zhao had introduced looked reliable, didn’t he? Master Liao had already spent the previous night writing down three snack recipes for the principal shareholder.

The most readily usable was salt-baked pig stomach. It only needed a few adjustments to his signature dish.

He listed everything in detail: the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the critical steps, and the secrets behind its distinctive flavor. If they did not insist on the appearance of a five-star hotel dish, the process was not difficult at all.

Besides, in the hands of a five-star chef, they were no longer limited to fixed ingredients or especially rare cuts. Those were merely ways of justifying high prices.

In truth, almost any ingredient could be transformed into something special. Master Liao greatly approved of Weidong’s plan to use long-term preservation methods to turn the food into snacks for mass sale.

The other two products were improvised creations: tea-smoked fatty liver and barbecued heart and tongue.

The first borrowed its flavor from Cantonese tea-smoked duck liver. The second was a classic tribute to Cantonese-style barbecued pork.

The reason such foods had never been widely promoted was their difficulty in long-term preservation.

Once that problem was solved, they were certain to sell like hotcakes.

“Would you like to sample them?” Master Liao asked. “An old friend of mine runs a shop that serves similar dishes.”

The secretary was feeling unwell again and becoming somewhat restless.

Weidong understood at once and asked Master Liao to lead them to a place where they could taste the authentic versions he recommended.

In a shabby little shop behind a row of arcades, Zhang Lanzhi ate until her mouth watered nonstop.

Weidong then brought out the Sunshine Daily and a camera to prove that he represented a reputable trading company with real standing and the resources to make the food business large and successful. Master Liao listened with renewed confidence.

But the main purpose of the display was to hurry to the university and discuss the camera business, then visit a plastics factory to deliver samples and discuss custom packaging.

They arranged to meet for lunch over the next two days—to “hold major meetings,” which really meant eating and drinking in style. The two men quickly paid the bill and hurried off, and Master Liao praised the young people for being so hardworking.

Zhang Lanzhi had already spotted the three-wheeled “hen carrier” outside, known in Canton City as the three-legged chicken.

It was a transitional form of transportation from before taxis had completely taken over the market.

As soon as they came outside, she jabbed Weidong repeatedly in the waist and ribs. Sitting there felt oddly entertaining, and it brought back memories of the old days.

Unfortunately, Weidong felt no romance at all.

“Isn’t there a taxi up ahead? Who would ride in this wreck?”

He dragged his secretary into the sedan and promptly earned several more blows from her little fists.

Weidong remained entirely oblivious to the mood.

“You’re not even from Jiangzhou. How did you learn such a powerful dinosaur punch? Come on, come on—give your master a back rub.”

It was becoming extremely difficult for Zhang Lanzhi to recover her elegant bearing.

She kept grinding her teeth in fury. Things were nothing like what she had imagined.

This man was far too crude.

So even in the taxi she persistently tried to reform him. He absolutely had to wear a suit when meeting people. Even dressing as he had the previous night would have been acceptable.

Instead, Weidong was reminded of something and finally leaned close to whisper in her ear.

“Every secretary on television wears those skirt suits. You should buy one later and put it on too. All the female managers at the Swan Hotel’s front desk and lobby dress that way. It’ll give me a lot more face when I negotiate business.”

Zhang Lanzhi did not yet realize that this was another kind of uniform-induced advantage. Thinking it was for work, she nodded in agreement.

She only wondered why the fellow suddenly looked so sly and animated.

Her expression was still not the powdery, bashful sort that made Weidong lose interest in selling cameras altogether.

Of course, the main reason was that there was only one camera at present. To the campus photography enthusiasts who had come after hearing about it, he could only offer demonstrations, relying entirely on the Sunshine Daily as supporting proof.

Economic conditions here were indeed generally better, and there were many more purchasing channels. People genuinely looked down on this little device that cost less than thirty yuan when all kinds of imported cameras were available.

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So Weidong gave only a brief introduction.

“I’ve already arranged for two hundred units to be sent here by rail freight. The key is to find students interested in selling them at universities and in the surrounding areas of Canton City. Anyone interested can come speak with me here over the next two days before dinner. After all, these cameras are quite fun once you learn how to use them. More importantly, we are doing business, and the sales commission is very substantial.”

After handing out a round of business cards, he eagerly took his secretary to a nearby shopping center to buy a skirt suit.

In the past, he had never paid attention to what women wore. After all, what did girls wear in those years? Everything was drab and dowdy. Even when he had bought the two outfits for Fengchu, he had done so casually.

Now, however, he was choosing with great care.

Canton City really was closer to the fashions influenced by Hong Kong, and the variety of styles was dazzling.

Zhang Lanzhi happily tried on several outfits.

With her height and long legs, the secretary was genuinely tempting. The boss could barely restrain himself and was ready to buy everything in sight.

Then inspiration struck.

They had to buy black stockings too!

Exactly—hotel lobby managers all wore them that way.

When the secretary agreed but insisted on buying only one outfit, she had no idea she was pushing herself straight into a pit of fire.

One had to understand the intensity of Weidong’s release after decades of relentless repression.

A flash flood was always most violent at the beginning. Only after some time would it gradually subside.

Fortunately, Zhang Lanzhi was not completely foolish. After they left the shopping center, Weidong wanted to go to a hotel or guesthouse, but she suddenly cried out in alarm.

“We have to work! We’re in the middle of doing business. I’m dressed like this already, and you still don’t intend to work? Straighten your back!”

Weidong was instantly struck by a terrible realization.

Good heavens—was this what the men in the old tax bureau compound had experienced after getting married, when life became worse than death?

She had suddenly started bossing him around. Who had given her that authority?

This was why men who could not control their waistbands deserved whatever happened to them.

Still, his mind was full of skirt suits and black stockings, so he endured it.

The effect of the change in clothes was indeed remarkable. When they visited the plastics factory, the reception they received was immediately far more businesslike.

The boss himself was dressed in a suit, looking rather like a nouveau riche from a rural township enterprise. He held up the transparent plastic bag Master Liao had given him the night before and asked about it.

The factory called over a technician to identify it.

“EVOH—a copolymer of ethylene and vinyl alcohol. A heat-resistant aseptic packaging film. This material can only be imported. Worldwide, only a few factories in Japan and on the eastern shore produce it.”

There was nothing Weidong could do. By now, he understood just how wide the gap was in basic industrial capability. This was the only way forward.

Fortunately, the plastics factory in Canton City already had access to imported raw materials from Japan, an advantage unavailable elsewhere on the mainland. They immediately contacted the foreign trading office in Canton and obtained a quotation for the material. With a few adjustments to their existing bag-making machines, they could produce the packaging themselves.

The cost was actually only ten times that of an ordinary undershirt bag. But the amount of material used in one undershirt bag could make twenty small packages the size of a business card.

That still brought the price below two cents per bag.

Now that they had the bags and the recipes, Weidong felt as though he were playing an imperial strategy game, struggling to gather every necessary material. All that remained was to see how the vacuum machine turned out.

As it happened, the Canton Plastics Factory casually mentioned that there were already several domestic manufacturers producing vacuum machines, most of them concentrated in Shanghai.

The secretary immediately jabbed her boss again, the implication unmistakable.

He had barely recovered from his previous wounds, and now she wanted to poke them all over again.

Weidong was still basking in the fresh pleasures of his tyrant-emperor phase.

“All right, all right. Once we finish handling matters in Canton, we’ll go to Shanghai. We can stop by Zhejiang too, shall we?”

The secretary happily hid from the factory staff, rose on tiptoe, and kissed her boss.

The stimulation immediately made Weidong want to head for the guesthouse.

Zhang Lanzhi was once again terrified and began refusing him in every possible way.

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