Chapter 80: A Balance of Near and Far

Even after sending four young men off to Zhezhou and Rongdu, only three returned, and all ended up working on the spicy hotpot business. Still, over a dozen young men and women lingered at the gate of the Hongguang Factory’s storefront, bustling in and out; when idle, they squatted along the wall in a row, looking more like street punks intimidating the neighborhood. This was far from ideal, hardly conducive to discreetly making money.

Wei Dong felt the local police kept glancing their way a bit too often.

Paying childhood friends about forty yuan a month, matching the local factory wages, was no big deal. Yet these fellows, unwilling to return to the countryside, needed something meaningful to do.

He couldn’t just head out to do sales again, leaving a crowd of people idle in the city. The old security guard, who’d seen countless rural folk change after working away from home, knew this all too well.

The simplest solution was to open another spicy hotpot restaurant—a little further away, a little bigger. Especially now that there was cash on hand. Though thirty thousand had seemingly been donated, in truth it was akin to investing early in advertising with a celebrity.

Returning to Jiangzhou, Wei Dong received another delivery of two tons of titanium ingots from Hongguang Factory for April. The factory also reassigned Secretary Xu, who’d been idle, back to work, so Old Lang no longer had to covertly ride with the camera to the dock’s freight office. Wei Dong himself now delivered goods to the cargo ship, and about a week after the newspaper publication, nearly a hundred thousand in profit landed in his account.

Not to mention, the camera sales had now climbed to five thousand units weekly: three thousand at West Lake, one thousand each at Pingjing and Rongdu.

Superstar tourist attractions went without saying. Wei Dong had to remind the college students not to let work interfere with their studies. This was more like practice, learning the ropes; when the situation opened up, that would be the time for real profit—there was no need to rush.

Sales in Pingjing and Rongdu were deliberately limited.

Still, that meant twenty-five thousand a week, a hundred thousand a month in pure profit!

It was the perfect time for such investments.

And, as any man with money knows, once there’s cash in his pocket, his mind starts itching—for, say, a modest car.

Driving a five-ton truck around the city for errands was a bit much. Besides, even at the famed gourmet street from future years, there was nowhere to park; such a massive vehicle was an eyesore on the curb, blocking the storefronts and hurting their business.

Luckily, during his previous stay with Gou Dan and Er Feng at the military guesthouse behind, he’d seen the basketball court for the drivers’ vehicles. Wei Dong could enter by showing his work ID from the military factory. When paying the parking fee at the office, he noticed a sign beside him: "Office Space for Rent."

He looked around. The place was much like the guesthouse at Zhang Lanzhi’s military enterprise allocation station, but right in the city center, compact and with far better buildings. There were no single-story offices like at Xishan Factory; instead, four-story guesthouse buildings surrounded three sides. The long corridor-style rooms up front were clean and tidy—much safer and cleaner than any ordinary inn.

Glancing about, he saw many doors already hung with golden and silver nameplates: "Wujiang Industrial Development Group," "Huanya Economic Consulting," "Global Financial Information Service Department"—grand, yet down-to-earth names.

The parking fee was cheap, just one yuan a day, but renting a suite here was three hundred a month, and parking became free. Effectively, it was just over two hundred yuan.

Wei Dong went up to have a look—much like Zhang Lanzhi’s office: two rooms, inner and outer, but here with its own bathroom. They could provide beds or desks as needed.

So he rented it. Wei Dong, always accustomed to security dorms, had spent nearly a year mostly roughing it. Finally, he had somewhere to settle.

Especially with no women to disturb him.

When paying, the sharp-eyed guesthouse manager offered: "For an extra twenty yuan, we can help make company nameplates!" The old security guard knew well how persistent such petty operators could be, so he commissioned five: Sichuan Dongsheng Trading Co., Sichuan Xishan Optical Factory Jiangzhou Sales Department, Sichuan Hongguang Metal Factory Jiangzhou Sales Department, Dongsheng Trading Pingjing Sales Department, Dongsheng Trading Shudu Sales Department—all in gold.

Hung together, they dazzled the eye!

Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, "Are there any storefronts for rent nearby? Our trade and sales team wants to open a shop."

The guesthouse, guarded by soldiers, stood along this hundred-meter stretch of street.

Wei Dong knew that, once Jiangzhou became the hottest influencer city in the country, tourists would flock here for the local foods—those which locals barely glanced at. By then, this street would be an investment magnet; opening a snack shop here would require millions, aiming for annual sales in the hundreds of thousands, with profits that slipped through fingers seeming extraordinary.

But for now, it was still a street famed among locals—a gathering place for the city’s best "foodies."

Naturally, any shop had to be here.

The manager, grinning, pocketed the hundred-yuan nameplate fee and immediately shared a tip worth far more: "Come by tonight and see for yourself. This year it’s all night market stalls, but the city plans to move all merchants selling cigarettes, alcohol, tea, clothing, and electronics to the street behind. Only restaurants will remain here."

Wei Dong’s eyes lit up: "Electronics on the back street? Are storefronts available now?"

That meant he could open a shop selling tape recorders and cameras—not necessarily for big profits, but having a store with fixed prices was crucial in this era.

That way, he couldn’t be accused of being a speculative shell company, but a legitimate merchant.

This was the lesson from You Qili and the others, who established Wan Shang Trading. The city watched for nearly a year before finally losing patience and cracking down, yet never found any actual violation.

Wei Dong naturally wanted to give himself such an advantage.

But the manager confided quietly: "It’s already too late for the back street. The commercial bureau, light industry bureau, and district authorities have connections everywhere, scrambling to rent storefronts and flip them. Instead, the empty shops on this street are up for rent or sale."

Wei Dong was about to head off, nearly stumbling in surprise—up for sale?

He’d discussed with Dong Xueying in Shangzhou that there was currently no option for private home purchases, so even old houses that had been returned couldn’t be sold. They’d have to wait until real estate policies allowed buying homes in Jiangzhou to truly improve living conditions.

As so-called self-employed workers, lacking iron rice bowls, they were looked down upon for not qualifying for welfare housing—sometimes not even for the right to live in the city.

But now, ahead of the entire country, he had money.

No longer would journalists have to shout that only wealth could solve problems. This was no longer the era where poverty was glorified.

Money was no ordinary thing.

Wei Dong fought to keep his expression neutral: "For sale? You can buy property? I thought private transactions weren’t allowed?"

The manager, ever the informant, replied: "Jiangzhou just established a real estate company this year. Private buyers can’t purchase, but any local company registered with at least a hundred thousand yuan can."

Really?

Dongsheng Trading was registered in the provincial capital with two hundred thousand.

Though Jiangzhou had just become a designated city, it was still officially under Shudu. "Yes, provincial companies are fine too. Go see for yourself—number 13 is the district’s collective clothing trade company. They’ve been here for years, but now are being urged to lead by example. Clothing sales are moving to the back street, so they’re anxious to sell and secure a prime storefront for a shopping center—asking price is a hundred twenty thousand. Who can afford that?"

Wei Dong had never considered property investment; buying real estate in Jiangzhou wasn’t profitable.

After the new century, during the height of the housing boom, every well-off official or businessman in Shangzhou bought property in Jiangzhou.

Yet prices never rose.

Everyone lamented this fact.

You might buy a school district house or one near the hospital for practical use, but as for appreciation, it was negligible.

For that, you’d have to go to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen.

But right now, buying was sure to pay off—the key was having a place to call his own.

So, heart pounding, Wei Dong kept his composure, took the rental receipt and guesthouse entry pass, and slowly headed out to look for number 13.

Minutes later, he could only curse inwardly—what kind of place was this!

In forty years in Shangzhou, he’d never seen such a house; even after many trips to Jiangzhou, he’d never noticed it.

An old house—very old—like the brick-and-tile house the Dong family got back after the political campaigns, seemingly built before liberation.

Wood-framed brick, with patches of wall peeling to reveal reed matting beneath the plaster.

Such buildings were usually single-story; adding a second floor felt shaky.

Yet here there were four floors!

Because the storefront was narrow—five or six meters wide, about the size of a small snack shop—it looked especially tall and skinny.

With neighboring buildings of varying heights, many with unauthorized additions, the vertical lines skewed, making the whole row look ready to topple with a gust of wind.

Wasn’t this a dangerous building?

It seemed a mere lighter could burn through the reed mat walls.

But Wei Dong stepped into the "moving sale" clothing shop and felt the space—perfect for spicy hotpot, especially with a deep rear alley for washing and cooking.

The upper three floors could be used as warehouse or accommodation.

He wouldn’t live here anyway; weighing his options, he decided to buy it. It cost just a month or so of sales revenue. Opening a spicy hotpot branch here meant finally escaping the Hongguang Factory storefront’s shadow and having his own territory.

But Wei Dong’s approach was to return to the guesthouse manager and ask him to coordinate: "If you can handle the whole deal, I’ll give you two hundred yuan as a personal thank-you. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to help each other doing business on this street."

Such local fixers with military ties had peculiar influence.

Like Zhang Lanzhi, a second-generation military representative—seemingly just a secretary, but with credentials to don a uniform at any time, unrestricted by local rules, and the army had little control over these special cadres stationed at factories.

The guesthouses, supply depots, and allocation stations all operated similarly, connecting with people from all over the country.

Qin Jianjun, delighted at the unexpected windfall, assured him: "Don’t worry! I’ll make sure it goes smoothly."

By this point, the disabled old loser had never expected to make money from the restaurant.

Five cents a skewer—how much could you earn?

The real purpose was to solve employment for his countrymen. As long as he didn’t lose money, he could wait for the food street to become famous and, decades later, reap a windfall.