Chapter 52: Let Me Treat You to Fish

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It was obvious that Wei Dong made his living by exploiting information gaps. Aunt Wang, who spent her days knitting and wasn't particularly proactive, still understood these unspoken rules and never asked unnecessary questions. After all, why should someone earning a fixed salary trouble themselves with such concerns?

Unlike her, Secretary Xu was determined to uncover where Wei Dong intended to sell his goods, which naturally made her rather unwelcome in his eyes. So, after entrusting the three country girls to his mother to start making spicy hotpot, and only a couple days after their hotpot meal, Wei Dong took Gou Dan and the others and left immediately. Secretaries could stay out of the way, as far as he was concerned.

Of course, there was another reason: sales of the cameras in the Jiangnan riverside area were far from promising. While running the spicy hotpot stall and selling cured meat, Wei Dong had brought the cameras to sell to young workers, police officers, and neighborhood committee members. He managed to sell seven or eight at thirty yuan apiece. A few more were sold later out of curiosity, totaling a little over a dozen. But that was all. Photography simply didn’t have the same necessity as a tape recorder.

Although this wasn’t the sales model Wei Dong had envisioned, the market had taught him a lesson: not everything would sell like the wildly popular ninety-nine yuan tape recorders. Even in an era of rationed goods, cameras just weren’t essential. In the surrounding factories, if someone bought one, everyone nearby could borrow it. Unlike tape recorders, which people would scrape together money for just to own one themselves.

This drove Dong Xueqing into a panic. She’d watched her brother-in-law spend nearly ten thousand yuan to buy five hundred cameras, and now that they weren’t selling, it felt as if the sky was about to fall. She wanted nothing more than to hawk them in the street every day.

But Wei Dong held her back. "Be careful, or you'll end up arrested as a profiteer or for selling substandard goods. I have a plan. Just take the tape recorder and the camera and get back to school early."

Xueqing, unlike her sister, was highly obedient. "Tell me how you plan to sell them, and then I’ll go to school with peace of mind."

Wei Dong thought for a moment, then whispered in her ear, "Just think, who’d most want a camera for thirty yuan? Tourists, of course. Who else would want to take photos for no reason or bother carrying around a camera? But when tourists see a beautiful scene, they wouldn’t hesitate to spend thirty yuan. So, I’m taking them to West Lake to sell."

Xueqing’s worried eyes lit up with admiration. "Wow! You’re amazing!"

For ninety-nine percent of people who had never left their hometown, this was truly daring. Wei Dong, delighted by her response, added, "Exactly! Your job now is to distract Secretary Xu, so he doesn’t notice us leaving. Who I sell these to is none of his business!"

Without a word, Xueqing went off to find Secretary Xu and ask what fun there was to do in Jiangzhou, and if he could show her around.

Apparently, young men who had studied in Jiangzhou were still rather naïve. No sooner had she left than the seven young men and a few girls hurriedly loaded the titanium ingots onto the truck, along with the remaining dozens of pounds of new cured meat and over four hundred cameras, and sped off.

When Secretary Xu returned an hour later, all he saw was Old Man Wei counting out a savings certificate for thirty-four thousand yuan, asking him to notify the factory finance office to collect the payment.

At last, Gou Dan could sit happily in the passenger seat, watching Wei Dong drive with rapt attention, almost hoping for a breakdown so they could have a chance to learn how to fix it.

Wei Dong nearly kicked him out for his nonsense. "You’ll never say anything useful!" he scolded, then sent him to the back to help the others spread the titanium ingots across the truck bed, cover them with straw, and hang up the cured meat to air-dry.

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Gou Dan, however, was delighted to announce that his mother had given them a pressure cooker! Whether or not it was used for cooking rice or soup didn’t matter—the crucial thing was that it could be sealed tight and used to carry spicy hotpot base! Now, they could enjoy hotpot wherever they went.

Wei Dong thought his mother was a genius. With eight young men, including himself, there was no need to chase after mealtimes as they had before. They took turns sleeping in the truck at night, bought meat and vegetables in the morning, and could make hotpot anywhere with some roadside firewood—a true luxury!

Thus, their journey wound through southern Hunan, Yueyang, Jiujiang, Huangshan, and finally to Zhejiang, turning sightseeing into a leisurely affair. They only drove after sunrise and always stopped in a town or county before dark, traveling for half a month in total.

As a result, they never encountered highway robbers. Even when they came across rocks deliberately placed on the road, the strapping lads would openly stop, axes and steel pipes in hand, some standing guard with binoculars while others cleared the way—no one dared provoke them.

After all, why rob these formidable types when there were easier targets? Last time, they’d only been fooled by a young girl in the driver’s seat.

Wei Dong took advantage of the more level stretches to teach Gou Dan and two others how to drive. He’d realized that as long as they had work permits, letters of introduction, and vehicle documents, even armed police at provincial borders never asked for a driver’s license. After all, this was on-the-job training—nobody checked for traffic safety certificates in those days.

Just before entering Zhejiang City, he found a Jiangnan bathhouse, treated everyone to a hot shower, and they all changed into new work clothes and padded jackets bought along the way, shaking off any hint of their rural origins as they drove into paradise.

He hadn’t chosen this place just because he and Gou Dan had once taken photos at the Bund in Shanghai. For one, the famous Oriental Pearl Tower hadn’t yet been built. More importantly, during his time as a security guard, Wei Dong had seen countless news reports and short videos about how West Lake drew the largest crowds during every May Day, National Day, or holiday.

If you were going to sell, you had to go to the most famous spot.

Besides, both locations were familiar to him. The Bund was small and didn’t allow hawkers, and the few vendors who did business there were always on edge, watching out for snitches and troublemakers.

Having once been caught selling sunflower seeds, Wei Dong was particularly cautious. Thus, he chose West Lake. But even here, Wei Dong didn’t intend to sell the cameras himself. After circling the lake, he left the truck near the Flower Harbor Fish Viewing area, where entrance tickets were only five cents. He let the others stretch their legs but made sure they stayed by the truck to guard the goods.

He took two cameras and the sharpest of the army lads with him across the road to the busiest lakeside sundries shop.

He walked right up and asked the shopkeeper, "Would you like to sell these cameras? They’re twenty-nine yuan each; I’ll give you twenty-four, and the five yuan difference is yours."

The shopkeeper, busy as he was, chuckled at the young man’s offer. "Is this a camera? More like a toy! Looks just like the real thing!"

Wei Dong quickly produced an unsealed sample and a stack of random photos. "It works—just the price of a color film roll. Would tourists buy it?"

It was the perfect question, instantly guiding the shopkeeper’s thinking. He nodded enthusiastically. "They would! Oh, you’ve got some talent, kid! This is interesting!"

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Wei Dong pressed his advantage. "I’ve made a sign for you—how about you put a hundred units here for sale? I’ll come back tonight to collect the money. If they don’t sell, I’ll take them back and buy you dinner."

The owner of this little sundries shop could never have imagined he’d be treated like a floor manager at one of the grand department stores on Sujing Road. Yet, as it turned out, the rights to this very stall would one day fetch a king’s ransom, worth hundreds of millions.

Wei Dong’s forward-thinking, so familiar to modern netizens, was remarkable in 1984. He didn’t care if he might lose a hundred cameras or how much he could earn—it set him apart.

The shopkeeper watched as the army lad unfurled a large sheet of newspaper with a handwritten sign: "Comrades, not 199, not 99, but a 29-yuan color or black-and-white camera—how can you not buy one?" The 199 and 99 were boldly crossed out in red.

He burst out laughing. "Good, good, you really know how to do business—come!"

He even helped hang the sign in the most prominent spot outside his shop.

From a distance, Wei Dong waved, and four of the lads immediately carried over two cartons.

Wei Dong, ever the showman, clasped his hands in salute: "I leave it in your capable hands, boss—hey, hey!"

He was instantly surrounded by a swarm of tourists. "I want one! I want one!"

"Does it come with film?"

"You must be dreaming! A roll of film costs nearly thirty yuan—would the camera be free?"

"I think this price is practically a giveaway!"

The shopkeeper, still standing on the stool hanging the sign, was nearly toppled by the crowd. "Don’t go! Young man, don’t go! Help me—help!"

Wei Dong cheerfully rushed back and, in a comical gesture, scooped the middle-aged man up in a “princess carry.” The army lads, under his direction, were already helping maintain order.

A color roll with a camera cost fifty-three yuan, black-and-white just five. Wei Dong had to climb onto the stool himself, holding up a camera to show how to load the film.

"You can buy a black-and-white roll to practice first. In Zhejiang right now, developing a roll of film costs two yuan for color, eighty cents for black-and-white, and each print is fifty cents for color, eight cents for black-and-white..."

No need—anyone who could tour West Lake had no trouble with fifty yuan. Most were on business trips with allowances; a single photo cost two yuan, but owning a camera meant endless photos in the future.

People wanted to see what a color camera could do. The temptation was just too great for tourists.

Wei Dong shouted himself hoarse in the chaos, wanting to let someone else take over. Impossible—no one spoke Mandarin as well as he did. The lads could only watch him in awe as they guarded the crowd.

And in just two and a half hours, all four hundred cameras were gone!

The shopkeeper, staring in disbelief at the pile of cash—over two thousand yuan—exclaimed, "Let me buy you West Lake Vinegar Fish! And get me more stock—no, an endless supply!"

That was a joke Wei Dong had heard before.

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