Manager Wu was truly reliable.
Xia Xiaolan felt his service was world-class. With more money to buy government bonds, Manager Wu was like Doraemon – able to fulfill any fantasy and solve any problem!
Manager Wu had similar thoughts – as long as he could help Student Xia, she would bring him many quality clients.
Given Grandmother Yu’s age, Manager Wu couldn’t promote government bonds to her.
But an old lady bringing 80,000 yuan as a deposit proved Manager Wu’s theory: wealthy people know other wealthy people.
Xia Xiaolan alone had brought several people to conduct business at their branch.
Manager Wu took Liu Fen running around for two days before settling on a shop.
It was a single-story building that had previously been a department store.
The department store had moved to a larger location, leaving this building empty. The property rights were clear, unlike the small building at Erqi Square – it belonged entirely to the work unit. However, the unit hadn’t decided what to use it for, so it sat empty temporarily.
With Manager Wu’s connections, they said any reasonable rent would do.
But they couldn’t just give any amount. Xia Xiaolan didn’t want to take advantage of such favors – it could cause trouble later. They should pay what was appropriate, so no one could find fault, and those who helped wouldn’t end up in prison. The rent wasn’t expensive – although it was in Beijing and Xidan was quite busy, it wasn’t in the city center.
Grandmother Yu couldn’t imagine how quickly Beijing would develop. From her perspective, this location wasn’t as good as Erqi Square.
Considering it was in the imperial city, Grandmother Yu reluctantly offered 2,000 yuan per year in rent. Xia Xiaolan wanted to sign for 10 years for good reason – tenants feared landlords suddenly changing their minds. When business was good, relocating would be disruptive.
The person had no objection to the 2,000 yuan annual rent – the building would be empty anyway, and this would generate income for the unit.
But renting for 10 years seemed too long.
They only agreed to five years, but Manager Wu mediated: “Since you can make this decision, you should rent for longer. If they have to find someone else to renew later, who would be as reasonable as you?”
After much discussion, they agreed to eight years.
The 2,000 yuan annual rent remained unchanged, calculated from New Year’s Day 1985 to New Year’s Day 1993. Grandmother Yu knew Xia Xiaolan valued property – she’d even wanted the small building at Erqi Square, how could she refuse property in Beijing? They added a clause to the contract: if the unit wanted to sell the building, Xia Xiaolan would have the first right to purchase.
The director who agreed to the rental laughed:
“How could the unit sell property? We never have enough to distribute, never enough for housing.”
Though it was single-story and had been a shop, if distributed to unit workers for housing, no one would complain. In these times, lacking a toilet was nothing – plenty of people used spittoons and carried them to public toilets daily for personal hygiene!
Grandmother Yu also thought the unit’s property couldn’t possibly be sold.
Xia Xiaolan looked at the rental agreement, smiling:
“That’s not necessarily true!”
Weren’t there plenty of factories that went bankrupt in the 1990s?
The trend of becoming individual businesspeople was started by those laid-off workers in the 1990s.
Workers were laid off, factories were sold in packages, and some people used their positions to buy state assets at extremely low prices, completing the transformation of capital from state-owned to private. Xia Xiaolan wanted to catch such opportunities, though without state enterprise connections, such operations would be difficult.
But there was hope in buying a property that originally belonged to units.
Anyway, Xia Xiaolan happily kept the agreement.
There was another shop location for ‘Luna’, but Xia Xiaolan couldn’t decide this herself – she needed Chen Xiliang’s opinion. Chen Xiliang had installed a landline at home, and when Xia Xiaolan called, a woman answered.
She spoke Cantonese – Xia Xiaolan could understand but not speak it, failing to communicate with her.
She only understood that Chen Xiliang wasn’t home and was told not to call the house anymore – Xia Xiaolan was bewildered, could this be Chen Xiliang’s wife?
“Sister-in-law, I wanted to tell Chen—”
“Beep… beep… beep…”
Well, Xia Xiaolan couldn’t even finish speaking before being hung up on.
This wasn’t her first encounter with someone so difficult to communicate with. The feeling was quite familiar – when she was dealing in eels, the noodle shop owner’s wife had been like this, throwing tables and breaking bowls, just because Xia Xiaolan was selling eels… Later, Boss Hu felt bad and introduced her to his relative Hu Yongcai, who did purchasing for the Municipal Committee Guest House.
Xia Xiaolan had turned misfortune into a blessing, opening up Shangdu’s eel market. Without those two months of sending eels to Shangdu, where would she have gotten the capital to stock clothes in Yangcheng?
It didn’t matter if Chen Xiliang’s home life wasn’t peaceful – Xia Xiaolan just hoped it wouldn’t affect their cooperation!
She was planning to help Zhou Cheng invest quite a bit of money – if Chen Xiliang couldn’t handle his domestic affairs, they should dissolve the partnership early.
Unable to reach Chen Xiliang at home, fortunately, Xia Xiaolan had contact information for He Congsheng, the director of Chenyu Garment Factory.
Director He finally answered the phone:
“Comrade Xiaolan? Alright, alright, I’ll pass the message to Xiliang.”
Chen Xiliang was investing his entire fortune to create his clothing brand. He Congsheng personally took a wait-and-see attitude. Since it was Chen Xiliang’s own earned money, even though He Congsheng felt it wasn’t appropriate, there was nothing he could do – he couldn’t control how his brother-in-law did business.
Chen Xiliang’s family thought it was too risky, with his wife being the strongest opponent. She said Chen Xiliang’s partnership with Xia Xiaolan meant he had strayed, wanting to give their family’s money to another woman. Chen Xiliang’s wife was uneducated, and their marriage was passionless. When Chen Xiliang initially quit his job to do wholesale business, his wife created a huge scene, believing he was giving up stable work to do shameful individual business!
Chen Xiliang had been unmanageable at the factory but showed talent in individual business, earning a large sum in just two or three years.
Now Chen Xiliang wanted to use that money to create a women’s clothing brand, and his wife again disagreed.
Chen Xiliang spent his days running errands and making preparations, returning home to domestic warfare, leaving him exhausted.
He Congsheng couldn’t tell this to Xia Xiaolan – it was embarrassing, but he had no choice. Xia Xiaolan was Chen Xiliang’s main customer; even if they didn’t cooperate with the women’s clothing brand, she was still a wholesale customer, someone “bringing money” to Chen Xiliang. How could they just push her away?
Xia Xiaolan listened briefly, feeling exasperated.
This was a couple with completely different values – no wonder Chen Xiliang later changed wives.
Before Xia Xiaolan could communicate with Chen Xiliang, on Saturday, she took an early morning bus to Jibei Province. After several hours of bumpy travel, she finally reached Lu Academy:
“Hello, comrade. I’m looking for Zhou Cheng, he’s a new student from Beijing here for advanced studies.”
She stated his unit and position – just a new student who had recently arrived. Xia Xiaolan had timed her visit carefully, but was refused:
“New students cannot receive visitors. Please go back, comrade!”