In the spring of 1993, housing prices in Haikou had risen to five thousand yuan per square meter, more than double what they had been at the start of the previous year. Even Peng Zhou, someone who knew absolutely nothing about real estate, had begun entertaining thoughts of heading to Hainan.
“You’ve got money in your hands — you’re not buying property in Hainan, you’re not playing the stock market, and even keeping it in the bank beats messing around with whatever that card thing of yours is. These days, if you’ve got money and you’re not making it grow, you’re losing ground.”
In the spring of 1993, the one-year bank deposit interest rate was approaching eight percent. Everything was going up in price — small things like eggs and vegetables, big things like grain and housing. Construction was happening everywhere, and naturally the raw materials for construction were rising too: rebar, cement…
Gu Qiao was consumed with matters related to the antivirus card and hadn’t gotten around to replacing the Yellow Dahua. Every time she refueled, the price of oil seemed to climb a little higher than before. She had gone to look at apartments near the Asian Games Village — there was new property being developed there, though prices weren’t rising as sharply as in Hainan. She calculated in her mind: she could afford to wait a little longer; she still needed liquid capital on hand. Buying property with no time to renovate it was no different from not buying at all.
Gu Qiao had several hundred thousand yuan in her hands. In Peng Zhou’s view, not putting that money into property, land, rebar, or building materials, and instead spending every day wrestling with some broken card, was simply frittering away her potential.
The housing prices — climbing almost daily — stirred something in Gu Qiao too. But reason held her back: “There are over ten thousand real estate companies in Hainan right now. Even if there’s money to be made, it’s already too late to get in.”
Peng Zhou failed to persuade Gu Qiao, but his descriptions of Haikou’s property prospects did succeed in stirring Chen Qing’s interest. Yet Peng Zhou had no intention of going with Chen Qing: “You should just stay at the hotel and keep working. You can’t handle that kind of hardship. Once I’ve made my fortune, I’ll hire you at a high salary to be my secretary.”
“Who wants to be your secretary? Don’t look down on people — why would I be unable to handle hardship? I wasn’t willing to suffer before because there was no money in it. Working yourself to the bone just to earn a pittance — what’s the point of that?”
Chen Qing’s plan to quit her hotel job and go to Hainan caused an uproar in the Chen household. Mother Chen was so upset her chest ached. This child, having grown up all these years, had never been anywhere further than Tianjin and Beidaihe — never even left the city. Going off to Hainan with some man — what would happen if something went wrong? While Chen Qing was busy soothing her mother, Peng Zhou didn’t wait for her. He went straight ahead and bought a plane ticket, heading off to Haikou.
Before leaving, Peng Zhou said to Gu Qiao: “If you don’t go to Hainan, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it! Your brother here is off to make big money — when I’m rolling in it, don’t you dare be jealous!”
Gu Qiao hung up the phone and went back to soldering circuit boards with her electric iron. She had rented a one-bedroom apartment near Zhongguancun, using the living room as a workspace. Before moving to mass production, it wasn’t worth going to a contract manufacturer. When she had been learning to solder circuit boards, she’d familiarized herself with all the components. Working alongside her were two students doing part-time work.
Xiao Jia was different from Gu Qiao — he worked at a research institute and had no intention of answering the call to “jump into the sea” of commerce that had been surging since the previous year. His vision for the future still centered on the research institute. He came to this one-bedroom apartment only after work and on his single day off each week. Although Xiao Jia’s visits were brief, once he arrived he would plant himself in a chair and not get up, even forgetting to eat. Gu Qiao would physically drag him up, insisting he move around — the body was the foundation of all endeavors, and no matter what, your Brother Luo never forgot to go running. But she didn’t say that last part aloud. Under her coercion, Xiao Jia was forced to pace back and forth across the narrow living room in the name of exercise.
Although Gu Qiao had no dissatisfaction whatsoever with her identity as a self-employed entrepreneur, she couldn’t bring herself to persuade someone with a secure position at a research institute to come out and go it alone.
In the spring of 1993, “Michelangelo” would pass through Gu Qiao’s mind several times each day. For Gu Qiao, whenever those five syllables surfaced in her thoughts, they did not represent a great artist — they represented a virus that would reliably emerge on the sixth of March.
This computer virus, named Michelangelo, had first appeared on March 6, 1991, and struck again as expected on March 6, 1992. After the Michelangelo virus appeared last year, sales of antivirus products had surged. Gu Qiao had carved this date into her memory. If their antivirus card was going to make a splash, it had to be ready before March 6th. If this opportunity were missed, finding another suitable one wouldn’t be nearly so easy.
Sourcing circuit board components was her responsibility. Finding a designer for the packaging box was her responsibility. Future promotional distribution of sample cards would also be her responsibility. Gu Qiao could even help with soldering the circuit boards — none of it tired her in the least. A year ago, she couldn’t have imagined she’d be doing any of this. Somehow, she thought of Luo Peiyin — if he could see her now, he would surely think she was extraordinarily capable.
In late February 1993, the day after the explosion in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in America, the fourth Luo son received a phone call from his cousin. It was Aunt Zhang who answered, and the caller specifically asked for him. His cousin, usually so direct, was perhaps hampered by a poor signal and wasn’t her usual crisp self. Once the connection improved, Gu Qiao asked him what Luo Peiyin’s new contact information was.
That year, the culture section of the newspapers was ablaze with debate over a newly published book. The biggest point of controversy was that the text was constantly interrupted by strings of blank squares, followed by a parenthetical note: *author has deleted XX characters at this point.* Millions of readers were busy guessing what those XX characters might have been, wondering why they couldn’t be allowed to read them for themselves.
Luo’s fourth son had assumed that, for his cousin, his second brother was now like those mandatory omitted XX characters — something that could not be mentioned. It took him a long while afterward to understand that *not being allowed to mention something* and *not wanting to mention something* were two entirely different things. When his cousin told him that she and his second brother had broken up, Luo’s fourth son instantly regretted having once broadcast their relationship to everyone he knew, adding an inglorious Ba Fen – Chapter to his cousin’s romantic history. He had a very low opinion of his second brother now — only daring to break up over the phone, and too cowardly to even come home afterward. What kind of man was that?
Hearing his cousin ask for his second brother’s contact information, Luo’s fourth son was utterly taken aback. “Cousin, why do you want his contact information?”
“He still has something here that belongs to him.” Luo Peiyin’s share of the dividends — she hadn’t given them to him yet.
“Just throw it away. If he wants it, he’ll contact you. If he hasn’t contacted you, it means he doesn’t want it. Cousin, there’s no need for you to keep holding onto it for him.”
From Luo’s fourth son, she learned that his second brother had not come home for the New Year, had abandoned a perfectly good doctoral program to switch to a master’s midway through, and shortly after receiving his degree had made straight for Singapore — all of which had left his father unable to eat for several days in anger. The one thing that consoled Luo’s fourth son was that his father no longer held his second brother up as a model example at every turn.
In Luo’s fourth son’s estimation, his second brother had probably grown fed up with the life of a poor student and gone to Singapore to take refuge with his wealthy mother. What else would he go to Singapore for?
Luo’s fourth son went off on a tangent: “Dad used to say that my second brother had given up a comfortable life in Singapore to come back and be with him… but now Second Brother doesn’t even come back for the New Year to see Dad — just runs off to his mother’s. And who knows if he’ll ever come back. Dad doesn’t bring it up anymore.” The fourth son had always felt that when his father praised his second brother in front of him, there was a comparative edge to it — as if implying that *he* wouldn’t sacrifice a comfortable life to return to his father’s side. Though his father was quite right about that: he genuinely would not uproot himself from comfort just to enjoy a few minutes of his father’s guidance and instruction every day.
“Second Brother’s mother is in construction. Apparently she’s now building something in Shanghai — some kind of ‘Heng-something Plaza,’ out in Pudong. Dad thought Second Brother might come back because of that, but there’s been no sign of him at all…” The fourth son immediately regretted saying it — that was far too deflating. He should have been recounting his second brother’s misfortunes to cheer his cousin up. But fleeing to a wealthy mother didn’t seem like a misfortune in Luo’s fourth son’s view, so he said to Gu Qiao instead: “Cousin, at the rate you’re making money, you’ll one day own an entire building of your own.”
Gu Qiao had seen news in the papers about the new development plazas in Pudong — it was a very large undertaking.
“Thank you for the good wishes.”
“Do you still want his contact information? Second Brother is in Singapore now — I haven’t been in touch with him either. If you still want to know, I can ask my dad.”
“Cousin?” The signal was poor again. The mobile phone really wasn’t as reliable as a landline.
“Never mind. Pretend I never asked you this, all right?” What she meant was: don’t tell the others — specifically Luo’s fourth son’s parents.
Luo’s fourth son promised her: “Cousin, don’t worry — I will absolutely keep this secret for you. Not a single word will leak out.”
Gu Qiao never dialed Luo Peiyin’s American phone number again. An American mobile number couldn’t be used in Singapore — there was no way to reach someone in Singapore by calling an American number.
All his contact information had passed its expiration date.
March was nearly here, and the antivirus card was still some distance from its final finished form.
Gu Qiao posted small advertisements on bulletin boards at various universities and colleges around Zhongguancun, recruiting computer science students to serve as paid testers. Turn in a trial report and receive payment — the more machines tested, the more money earned.
Personal use and mass production were two entirely different things. The antivirus card that worked perfectly on her own computer broke down repeatedly on other machines. Students who owned personal computers were quite rare — most of the testing was done on machines in school computer labs. On one machine, after their antivirus card was inserted, something went wrong in the circuitry and the memory stick was burned out. The lab manager detained the student who had been testing it and refused to let him leave, insisting on compensation. When Gu Qiao arrived, the student surnamed Wu was arguing his case against the manager: “Whatever’s broken, I’ll pay for that specific part — I can have it fixed in no time. You’re going too far accusing me of deliberately damaging public property.”
Gu Qiao spent the entire day buying replacement memory sticks, handling the compensation, and working to ensure that the student surnamed Wu was spared any disciplinary action from the school. Xiao Jia came rushing to the computer lab the moment he got off work — but the moment he arrived, the computer was already fixed. Once the whole matter was resolved, Gu Qiao, Xiao Jia, and the student surnamed Wu sat in the cafeteria eating boiled cabbage cores in hot water. The last ladle of food had barely any cabbage left — mostly just liquid — and the cafeteria worker simply upended the large pot, pouring the remaining broth straight into their food bowls.
The student surnamed Wu said to Gu Qiao and Xiao Jia: “Senior Sister, Senior Brother, please don’t stand on ceremony — let me treat you today. I’m sorry to have wasted your time on my account.”
“Thank you,” said Gu Qiao without ceremony, ladling two spoonfuls of the cabbage broth directly over her white rice.
Just then, Gu Qiao’s mobile phone rang — it was Peng Zhou, calling to broadcast good news from Hainan. Gu Qiao’s reason for refusing to go to Hainan remained the same: “There are over ten thousand real estate developers in Hainan right now — even if there’s money to be made, it’s already too late for us to get in!”
Peng Zhou insisted over the phone that it was not too late to make money in Hainan. He was spending every day lying outside the sales office lining up to buy units — once he got a number, he’d sell it on, turning a profit right then and there. The sales office was packed with people who slept through the night to hold their spots. By this point, in Peng Zhou’s eyes, Gu Qiao had become a genderless entity — he told her how people in the queue, to defend their spots, would cover their occupied space with a jacket and then urinate into mineral water bottles. A bag of crackers that normally cost one yuan was being scalped on the scene for ten. Some people weren’t even buying property — they’d simply bought out all the snacks and drinks from the corner shops and were making a thousand yuan a day off that alone.
“Have you made any money off that virus card of yours yet?”
Gu Qiao was silent.
“I told you from the start — forget that thing! Bring your money and come buy property! And if you won’t buy property, you could make money just standing here selling instant noodles and bread and crackers!”
Gu Qiao suppressed the ache in her chest: “Keep making your money. Two minutes is up — goodbye.”
Gu Qiao lowered her head and ate her rice. The bowl was empty in no time — at a speed that utterly astonished the student surnamed Wu.
He hadn’t expected Gu Qiao to have such a hearty appetite — to power through an entire bowl of rice with nothing but vegetable broth, faster even than he could. He worked hard to push his astonishment down and pointed to the other bowl of food he’d gotten: “Senior Sister Gu, feel free to have more — don’t hold back.” The student surnamed Wu couldn’t quite gauge Gu Qiao’s age. She was wearing jeans with a wide belt and a thick yellow jacket on top. Visually, she seemed younger than him, yet something in the way she spoke made her feel more mature. He ultimately decided she must be a senior, not a junior.
“Thank you, I’m fine.”
“Senior Sister, what department are you in?” He hadn’t heard her name in his own department — and besides, although Senior Sister was certainly capable and reliable, she was a bit hazy on the technical side of computers. If it weren’t for a certain aura she projected, she’d nearly have been talked in circles by the lab manager based on her limited technical knowledge alone.
Gu Qiao smiled. “Sociology.”
“So you’re in the humanities?” That figured — consistent with his impression of humanities students.
Gu Qiao didn’t catch the condescension lurking in the student surnamed Wu’s smile — the quiet arrogance of a science student. She ignored it, wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, and this time spoke in a definitive tone: “I’m going to launch our antivirus card on March 6th.”
“March 6th?”
“March 6th.” Gu Qiao repeated the date. “It has to be that day. Miss that day and finding another angle to market it becomes much harder. An antivirus card is a seasonal product, like watermelons in summer. You can find watermelons in winter, too — but far fewer people buy them.”
Gu Qiao looked at Xiao Jia. “Thank you for all your hard work.” She left him no room to delay. She knew it was exhausting for him to put in extra time on this after a full day at the institute — effectively working two jobs. But without the hard work now, all the hard work before might turn out to have been for nothing.
She turned to the student surnamed Wu: “I’ll pay you a hundred yuan a day to assist Senior Brother Xiao Jia every day.”
“I have enough components stockpiled to make five thousand antivirus cards. The contract manufacturer is already lined up — they’ve agreed to do a rush order for me. The packaging has been commissioned at a small factory. Tomorrow I’m going to the newspaper office to place an advertisement.” Aside from improving the antivirus card itself — which wasn’t in her hands — everything else had been turning over in her mind for ages.
On March 5th — Gu Qiao’s birthday — she received many congratulations. Her mother called to remind her that she absolutely must not forget to eat longevity noodles. But Gu Qiao was far too busy that day. It wasn’t until March 6th that she remembered she should have eaten birthday noodles — and that she had forgotten.
She also remembered something someone had once told her: if she bit through the longevity noodles instead of slurping them whole, it meant she would live a life in one lifetime that most people couldn’t fill in two.
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