From the initial “Tactic One” to the later physical training plan, the more Lin Wanxing got to know these children, the more she realized that what they needed wasn’t a growth path prescribed by adults.

What they needed was someone to tell them they could freely do many things and achieve them. Beyond that, it was about helping students achieve more small goals like “Tactic One,” teaching them to formulate plans and achieve objectives on their own.

And no matter what plan is launched, the first thing to do is collect information.

Earning money is no exception.

Lin Wanxing’s second lesson unfolded on a bright, sunny autumn day.

Wutong New Village had many daily livelihoods.

Li Sun was a famous tailor in his earlier years, but later as he aged and his eyesight deteriorated, he retired normally.

But he couldn’t let his craft slip away. Every day after breakfast, Old Tailor Li would push his sewing machine out from his small garage and take on some mending work.

He charged five yuan to alter a pair of pants, and curtains were more expensive, charging an extra five. Some neighbors would bring fabric for him to make undershirts and shorts, which were priced differently.

Because the open space in front of his house was large and shady, old buddies from the neighborhood liked to sit there.

Usually, it was old men and women surrounding Old Li, but today was different. From the moment he set up shop, there was a tall, sturdy student watching beside his stall.

As he thumped away at his sewing machine, the student sat boldly among the old folks, listening here, looking there, and couldn’t help but interject.

“Grandpa, is what you said about buying a box of bottled water for 1.2 yuan real?”

“It’s real! North Mountain Supermarket, using Cloud QuickPay, but each person can only claim once.”

The old neighbors were all warm-hearted. When the boy asked, they not only taught him how to claim mineral water but also told him where to get free eggs and which places gave away washbasins and napkins within several miles.

Old and young communicated enthusiastically.

The student took out a small notebook from his pocket and recorded all this information.

Old Tailor Li finally couldn’t help but ask the student, “Which school are you from? Not in class today?”

The student proudly held up his little notebook and said, “Our teacher told us to figure out how to make money ourselves!”

Compared to Old Tailor Li, Hong Shou, the owner of Red Longevity Skewer Shop, wasn’t so peaceful.

Hong Shou had a street-facing shop in Wutong New Village. He had bought this house specifically for this shop.

The old couple earned their living through hard work. At 5 a.m., he and his wife would get up. His wife went to the market to stock up, and he began cleaning the shop. At six, the shop opened punctually.

They sold from morning till night, with customers mainly from nearby residents and school students. When food delivery first became popular a couple of years ago, Hong Shou tried it too. But later, when the platform started taking a cut, they were unwilling to bother and simply gave up.

So when Hong Shou met those high school students at his shop door in the morning, he thought they were from some food delivery platform like Ele.me or Meituan coming to do business.

“Grandpa, could you let us take the things from your shop to sell at school? We’ll split the extra profits with you fifty-fifty.”

Hong Shou thought there was something wrong with his ears. He couldn’t figure out if this was some kind of extortion by young hoodlums or a new excuse to get free food.

Before he could refuse, his wife raised her oil tongs, ready to hit them.

Seeing the oil tongs about to strike, Lin Lu quickly hid behind Qin Ao, “Boss, I told you not fifty-fifty, not fifty-fifty, it’s too much!”

“Grandpa, Grandma, I meant the extra money we earn, sixty-forty, is that okay?”

“I’m forty-nine this year, and you’re calling me Grandma?”

“Sister, sister!”

Unable to dodge in time, Qin Ao got a few drops of hot oil splashed on his hand from the pot, making him yelp in pain.

After meetings and discussions, each student had different money-making ideas.

Zheng Feiyang thought reselling free giveaways was a good idea.

Qin Ao felt that seeking small advantages wasn’t the right way, and delivering takeout was better.

Fu Xinshu, with much experience in odd jobs, believed that finding small jobs nearby was the most reliable.

Everyone argued heatedly at once, and no one could convince the others.

Lin Wanxing’s advice to them was to first do some investigation, try to earn money, and then convince others with results.

This was why many shops in Wutong New Village had no peace early in the morning.

After discussion, the students’ first principle was “proximity.”

The coach was leaving in a few days, and everyone cherished this training time, wanting to learn more. So spending too much time on the road to earn money definitely wouldn’t be worth it.

Therefore, their first target for odd jobs was Wutong New Village.

This place was close to both school and the football field, neither interfering with classes nor football practice, which couldn’t be better.

But, in a place like Wutong New Village, most residents were lower-class people making a living in the city.

Chen Jianghe and Fu Xinshu’s team looked at the stairwells of the old new village buildings covered with small advertisements for half a day and found that there were too many people competing for work.

Whether it was moving things, unblocking drains, or washing windows, even if they posted their contact information on the wall now, it was unlikely anyone would contact them in the short term.

So the students decided to set their sights a little further.

Fu Xinshu, as the representative, was escorted by his brothers to walk two more stops to Wanda Plaza, which needed a large amount of labor.

Everyone started looking for work from the first basement level.

Fu Xinshu first took them to Dennis Hair Salon where he had worked before.

A hairdresser with flamboyant yellow hair came out from the shop.

Fu Xinshu — “Brother Huang, does the shop still need people? My classmates and I want to earn some money.”

The “Brother Huang” with flamboyant yellow hair heard this, looked each of them up and down, and finally said with a fake smile, “How to make money conveniently, you know best, don’t you?”

Fu Xinshu’s face slightly changed, and he remained silent.

Qin Ao was already displeased after seeing Fu Xinshu’s submissive attitude.

Hearing this comment, Qin Ao pushed Big Huang away, “What are you saying? Watch your mouth.”

Fu Xinshu held him back, “It’s okay, Qin Ao, we’re here to find work.”

“There’s no work here for you.” After saying this, Big Huang turned and went back into the shop.

Qin Ao hopped up and down in front of the hair salon.

But Fu Xinshu stopped him, “Forget it.”

Qin Ao was displeased as soon as he heard this, “Forget it, forget it, you always forget everything. That’s why you get shit on by Wen Gou.”

“Unfortunately, although Wen Gou is a beast as a person when it comes to money, he’s still useful,” came Qi Liang’s light voice.

“What’s that, Qi Liang? Suddenly want to suck up to Wen Gou?”

“I’m just saying. Are you unhappy hearing it?” Qi Liang asked, feigning innocence.

“Stop being so damn passive-aggressive with me!”

Having run around half the day without finding proper work, the boys were all somewhat anxious. Under Fu Xinshu’s mediation, they continued to walk upstairs while arguing.

Restaurants wouldn’t hire high school students part-time, only college students with stable schedules.

Clothing store owners were quite interested in tall male salespeople. But as soon as they let the boys try introducing clothes to customers, each of them turned red and couldn’t say a word, running away themselves.

From the 1st floor to the 5th floor, the students were rejected for the same reasons many times, and they became numb.

Finally, they sat in a row on the waiting seats in front of Golden Piggy’s Charcoal Barbecue at the top of Wanda Plaza, collectively staring ahead, feeling empty inside, with nothing but silence.

“Old Fu, you’ve had it tough,” Qin Ao patted Fu Xinshu’s shoulder with one hand.

“Why don’t I just go home and ask my family again…” Lin Lu said carefully.

“You ask for money and then what? When the bad woman asks where our money came from, we say we asked our parents?” Qin Ao countered.

“We can also lie to the bad woman that we earned it?” Yu Ming said.

“You think you can fool the bad woman?” Chen Jianghe sneered.

Just thinking of Lin Wanxing’s smiling face made Qin Ao unconsciously squeeze his mineral water bottle.

After a light “crack” sound, Qin Ao felt someone pat his shoulder.

He turned his head to see an old lady with a plastic bag standing in front of his seat.

The old lady had graying hair and wore worn but clean clothes. She bent over with her head lowered, extending slightly trembling hands, looking very sincere.

“Young man, are you still drinking that water? If not, give the bottle to Grandma.”

Qin Ao, holding the empty mineral water bottle, instinctively handed it to the old woman.

Quick as a flash, the old lady opened the cap, poured out the remaining water, then threw the bottle on the ground, and with agile movements, “crack,” stepped on the bottle to flatten it, and nimbly threw it into her cross-body plastic bag before walking gracefully toward the next person.

The whole set of actions was smooth and flowing, leaving Qin Ao stunned.

The old lady reached out to Lin Lu again. Lin Lu, reacting smartly, hugged his plastic bottle and refused to let go, “I haven’t finished drinking yet!”

“Then drink slowly, Grandma will wait for you,” the old lady said kindly.

“I’ll throw it away myself later!”

“Grandma will help you throw it away, give it to Grandma.”

The old lady persisted. Just then, she felt someone tap her shoulder. She turned around to see the boy from before bowing and smiling flatteringly at her, “Grandma, can you please give me back the mineral water bottle from just now?”

She heard the boy say this.

Generally speaking, collecting garbage wasn’t the student’s first choice. After all, young people with hands and feet could do many better things, and collecting garbage was too embarrassing.

But after searching around for money-making livelihoods, the students gradually understood their position.

Doing business now required capital, no one wanted them for odd jobs, they had no special skills, couldn’t even unblock drains, so “collecting garbage”—no, “recycling waste”—seemed a good choice.

Moreover, according to Teacher Lin, no matter what you do, trying it yourself to see if it works is important.

So the boys, learning from the old lady, got themselves huge plastic bags to carry, and began trying to collect mineral water bottles.

The first thing they did was collect the mineral water bottles that each of them had drunk from. This box of mineral water was claimed by Zheng Feiyang for 1.2 yuan at North Mountain Supermarket. The boys calculated that if they each claimed a box tomorrow, they would have over a hundred mineral water bottles.

However, apart from this, the boys had no experience in collecting plastic bottles and could only imitate what they had seen.

They wandered around Wanda Plaza for half an hour and collected only seven bottles in total, including two from their own group.

Qin Ao blocked two small boys, watching them finish the cola in their cans. Turning his head, he saw an old man take out two mineral water bottles from a corner trash bin.

Qin Ao and the old man made eye contact, finally feeling the strength of his competitor.

Rummaging through trash bins was still something the students couldn’t bring themselves to do right now.

The sky gradually darkened, approaching their daily training time. The boys regretfully slung their plastic bags and walked out of Wanda Plaza.

Chen Jianghe, hands in pockets, looking at the bustling crowd in the distance, finally opened his mouth to suggest, “We should go to the elementary and third middle school.”

“Do elementary school students drink a lot of beverages?” Lin Lu asked curiously.

Qin Ao gave Lin Lu a smack on the head, “This one used to specifically target the fat ones.”

Of course, Chen Jianghe was just speaking hypothetically, after all, he had already reformed and wouldn’t extort elementary school students again. But going to pick up bottles outside primary and secondary schools on the way wasn’t out of the question.

The training time was determined by the students themselves after asking the coach about the optimal daily training duration.

Because it was still hot at the end of September, they chose the early morning and evening when the sun wasn’t so scorching.

Lin Wanxing clocked out from work and waited with Wang Fa at the edge of the field.

The boys came to play football, preciously carrying a small bag of plastic bottles.

Seeing this scene, Lin Wanxing couldn’t help but laugh.

The students’ total income for the first day was 2.1 yuan. On average, each person earned less than 0.2 yuan.

“Although this looks like a small number, all in all, it’s a big step in your lives,” Lin Wanxing said after accompanying them to sell the plastic bottles at the recycling station.

The students returned to Yuanyuan Tutoring Center, and Fu Xinshu registered the 2.1 yuan on the blackboard.

They had previously discussed and decided to choose 7,980 yuan as the goal for these nine days.

The meeting also passed a draft resolution, not calculating it as 720 yuan per person, but rather considering everyone as a collective, with all earned money going into a public account.

2.1 yuan was still far from the goal of 7,980 yuan.

And if the time limit was nine days, they would need to earn nearly 900 yuan every day.

The three lines on the far right of the blackboard were: Date, Target Amount, and Actual Amount.

When Fu Xinshu wrote 2.1 yuan and 890 yuan together, the stark contrast in numbers made all the students depressed.

“Why is earning money so hard? How can we possibly earn 900 yuan every day? That’s ridiculous!” Yu Ming shouted first.

Lin Wanxing — “Is there a problem?”

“What do you mean ‘is there a problem,’ Teacher? Everything is a problem!” Qin Ao irritably scratched his head, his arm still bearing blisters from the hot oil splash.

Lin Wanxing — “This is why ‘trying’ is important. You’ve tried yourselves, gained some understanding, and can now readjust your goals. This is already a huge gain.”

“But it just feels so difficult. Your servant cannot accomplish this!”

“Is it harder than wanting to win the Youth Super League championship?” Lin Wanxing countered.

The students immediately fell silent.

“Why are you discouraging us, Teacher!” After a while, Lin Lu finally exclaimed.

Lin Wanxing — “Even the most ambitious goals are achieved through daily accumulations of 2.1 yuan. Although it’s a bit difficult to adjust, I hope you can look more at the 2.1 on the blackboard, and understand the preciousness of progress, rather than constantly doing subtraction in your head, calculating how much 890 minus 2.1 is.”

The students’ eyes fixed on the blackboard as if they were about to stare through it.

“The coach said, let us focus on our training duration, compare with ourselves, not with others,” Fu Xinshu said. “Teacher, you mean for us to focus on the progress we make each day, not just see the distance from our goal.”

“Thinking habits and attention points are important,” Lin Wanxing said seriously. “My point is still this—no matter what you do, your initial small goals might not be mature and should be adjusted based on actual situations. If it makes you uncomfortable, it should be adjusted, not forcing yourselves.”

The boys didn’t speak anymore, they just looked at the blackboard, lost in thought.

“Although everything you say sounds reasonable,” Qi Liang sitting in the corner said quietly, “why do I feel like I’m being tag-teamed by you and the coach…”

Lin Wanxing — “…”

The students recovered quickly. Soon, they began discussing the day’s gains and losses again.

“I think Wanda Plaza isn’t a good spot for us, too many competitors,” Zheng Feiyang said.

“A lot of people drink beverages at school too. We might as well just collect there,” Zheng Ren said.

“Right, if we cover the school completely, wouldn’t that solve everything?” Zhi Hui added.

At this point, the students immediately slapped their thighs, regretting their day of looking far when the solution was near.

“Right! Tomorrow let’s clean up the school first. I saw at the garbage collection place that waste newspapers and cardboard boxes sell for the most. Doesn’t the school have a lot of old test papers? Let’s go look for those too.”

“Yes, and we can also collect in the New Village.”

Lin Wanxing raised her hand and interjected, “This area is all old new villages with many elderly. Don’t you notice you hardly see any cardboard boxes and such things?”

“Oh, that’s true?” Yu Ming continued to slap the table, “The enemy is too powerful!”

So the students began discussing where to find the most recyclables.

“New residential areas have the most waste. With luck, you might even get discarded doors and windows. They’ll give them to you for free if you help dispose of them,” Zheng Feiyang, who had mixed with the elderly in the morning, offered his suggestion.

The students discussed one after another, and Fu Xinshu recorded everyone’s ideas with pen and paper.

First, they determined the industry they would currently engage in. Since their time and energy were limited, collecting garbage was the most suitable work for them. The main advantage was that this business had no cost, only requiring manual labor.

As for the specific work arrangements for the “garbage collection” job, it was roughly divided into three parts:

1. Find a place with relatively fewer competitors but plenty of garbage.

2. Check recycling station prices, compare prices at several places, and choose one with the highest purchase price for long-term cooperation.

3. Research which items have the highest purchase price at recycling stations and strive to get those.

Feng Suo and Chen Weidong were responsible for information collection.

Fu Xinshu was more detail-oriented and good at bargaining, mainly responsible for scouting recycling stations.

Professional school bullies like Qin Ao and Chen Jianghe naturally took charge of recycling work within the school.

After completing the summary and analysis, the students determined their work objectives for the next day.

Each of them felt full of energy. Although they had only earned 2.1 yuan, it seemed like becoming millionaires wasn’t just a dream.

Lin Wanxing was still a school employee. Although temporarily managing the football team children, she also needed to do her regular job.

This meant that she couldn’t supervise the football team students for about seven to eight hours. The boys would be very free during this time, with plenty to do and no teacher supervision.

Lin Wanxing didn’t try to manage what they would do, after all, students let out like water spilled. Although she always felt they would create some kind of trouble, for Lin Wanxing, “letting go” was also a good choice.

The night before, the students were all clamoring to collect garbage at school.

But Lin Wanxing waited all morning the next day and didn’t see them come to the sports equipment warehouse.

Not only that, Lin Wanxing didn’t even receive complaint calls from other teachers, which surprised her greatly.

By noon, Lin Wanxing let down her guard, assuming the students had changed their target and weren’t at school.

She went to the cafeteria to buy chicken leg rice and returned to the warehouse. The moment she pushed the door open, she was completely shocked by the huge net bag filled with mineral water bottles.

The net bag was green, made of nylon material, very dirty, similar to those commonly seen at recycling stations—clearly professional equipment.

The bag was filled with plastic bottles, each cap removed, the bottles carefully flattened, and the quantity far exceeded her imagination.

Qin Ao, Chen Jianghe, and Yu Ming sat on the soft mats resting.

“Isn’t this too many?” Lin Wanxing was shocked, “Where did you get them?”

“A small part is from the school garbage bins and collected from various classes. The rest is mainly from Class (2) of Grade 10, their environmental protection station specifically for recycling plastic bottles. I directly cleaned them out,” Qin Ao said.

“Did you consider why that class specifically set up such a recycling station?” Lin Wanxing asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Qin Ao said impatiently. “Of course, I asked. They collect plastic bottles just for environmental protection activities. When they heard we could help them dispose of the stuff, they were very happy. Do you think anyone in this school besides us needs these few yuan?”

That seemed to make sense. Lin Wanxing nodded in agreement.

Qin Ao didn’t look well, appearing very unhappy, which didn’t match the cheerful mood one should have after cleaning out another class’s stockpile.

Lin Wanxing asked Yu Ming, “What’s wrong with your boss?”

“We went to the classroom to collect garbage and ran into Wen Gou.”

Hearing this, Lin Wanxing crouched down and carefully examined Qin Ao’s face and limbs.

Qin Ao was very impatient, “What are you looking at!”

“You didn’t get injured? Didn’t fight with Wen Chengye?”

“Can’t be bothered with that dog.” Qin Ao touched his pocket, looking very frustrated, wanting a cigarette.

Chen Jianghe — “He’s on warning disciplinary status. If he fights again, he’ll be expelled, so he can only endure it.”

Qin Ao — “You talk too much!”

Chen Jianghe couldn’t be bothered with Qin Ao, just coldly snorted and leaned against the warehouse shelf to rest.

The students naturally treated the small warehouse as their base.

Later, Chen Weidong and Feng Suo, who had gone out to scout for information, also returned. The two had even compiled a small note with records of nearby newly opened residential areas.

According to the elderly’s guidance, new residential areas had many people moving in, and new homes always meant furniture and appliances, providing plenty of cardboard boxes. They wouldn’t even need to pay for recycling; they could just take them away for free as a disposal service.

The elderly also said that these new residential areas had many people renovating, who would specifically call for construction waste recycling. Although it was dirty and tiring work, the pay wasn’t bad, and they could try their luck.

There was also a phone number at the end of the note, said to be from Tailor Li who operated the sewing machine. Grandpa Li said his son managed property at a newly completed high-end residential area and suggested they could contact him.

The students enthusiastically discussed their money-making plans for the afternoon.

Lin Wanxing listened while enjoying her chicken leg rice from the school cafeteria with relish.