Gong Yang was standing right there.
In front of Xia Xiaolan, he didn’t dare to act important. Xia Xiaolan was like a mentor who had led him into the renovation business, and he valued her opinion greatly.
Gong Yang wasn’t just highly educated; he was also a company veteran and key member.
By May, most of Gong Yang’s classmates had secured their assigned work placements, but Gong Yang refused his assignment. School teachers talked with him, his family couldn’t understand, and his classmates thought he was crazy:
“Gong Yang, without a job, how will you handle retirement?”
“No housing allocation…”
“What about medical care?”
“Most importantly, what about your household registration!”
They thought Gong Yang had become confused by his part-time work, refusing his assigned position.
Gong Yang admitted his teachers and classmates were right. Everyone followed the same path, taking their assigned jobs – why should he be different?
Even his family couldn’t understand.
Getting into university had made Gong Yang an urban resident. Rural students’ household registrations transferred from rural areas to the school’s collective registration when they entered university. Upon graduation, their registration would follow their work assignment to their work unit.
If Gong Yang refused his assignment to work for a private company, where would his household registration go?
Even Yuan Hui’s owner Liu Yong still had a rural registration!
Having finally escaped rural life, potentially being sent back due to work issues – naturally, the Gong family couldn’t understand his choice.
But Gong Yang had already made up his mind.
He was now Yuan Hui’s only designer, earning a base salary equivalent to foreign-owned factories. He earned money for each design he drew, and when not drawing, he helped with odd jobs, never missing an opportunity to earn money. With monthly earnings of over a thousand yuan, he believed he could eventually solve retirement, housing, medical care, and registration issues himself!
Every gain comes with a loss. Coming from a poor family, after earning money, he became increasingly dissatisfied with a monthly salary of just dozens of yuan.
Sure, assigned work was stable, but how many years would it take to improve his family’s conditions and give them a better life?
Peng City was constantly building high-rises; the renovation market was huge. Gong Yang didn’t believe his choice was wrong.
He wasn’t afraid that the state wouldn’t allocate housing. Like his boss Liu Yong, who spent several thousand yuan to buy a courtyard house in the capital, Gong Yang could save enough in a few years. Besides, he didn’t need such an expensive courtyard house – finding a single-story house in Commercial City for ten or twenty thousand would be enough to move his whole family into the city. Money really could solve many problems – a farming family couldn’t save even a few hundred yuan all year, less than Gong Yang’s monthly income, so what difference did rural or urban registration make?
Even if his whole family stopped farming, he wasn’t worried about grain quotas and fees.
Having cut off his retreat, one can imagine how hard Gong Yang worked. Xia Xiaolan couldn’t always draw designs with him, but he was fortunate that from the beginning, he was influenced by Xia Xiaolan’s ahead-of-its-time aesthetics. Their few collaborations had given Gong Yang a high starting point in renovation aesthetics… After a year, he had finally transformed from amateur to professional, as Xia Xiaolan could see from the new store’s renovation plans.
The overall style remained unchanged, and Xia Xiaolan thought Gong Yang’s partial modifications were quite good.
“Sister Bai, I think it’s fine. Gong Yang’s design is very good.”
Bai Zhenzhu nodded, “I see Gong Yang puts in the effort. Amazingly, you could find someone like this from university – he’s even willing to do laborer’s work.”
“If he didn’t do laborer’s work, how would he understand the difficulty gap between design drawings and actual implementation? But Gong Yang is indeed working very hard.”
Gong Yang stood nearby, smiling sheepishly.
Previously, he did laborer’s work to earn extra money. Now it was just as Xia Xiaolan said – without hands-on experience, he wouldn’t know if his designs were feasible.
Xia Xiaolan hadn’t just picked up Gong Yang.
Initially, Xia Xiaolan had asked Zhuo Weiling’s sister Zhuo Na for help, but Zhuo Na looked down on drawing posters for clothing stores because her family was well-off and didn’t need the money.
But Gong Yang needed it.
The money-hungry Gong Yang met the money-making opportunity from Xia Xiaolan, naturally hitting it off, and was lured away from Commercial University by her.
Xia Xiaolan had also recruited Bai Zhenzhu, though Bai Zhenzhu herself was unaware of it.
Xia Xiaolan chose Bai Zhenzhu for her character. Of course, Bai Zhenzhu also needed money, from her struggling fruit stall, which was why Xia Xiaolan could persuade her to come to Peng City to make money. Now that Bai Zhenzhu had indeed made money, Xia Xiaolan asked if she wanted to buy a car when she was buying one for Liu Fen.
Bai Zhenzhu was somewhat tempted.
The store had a truck for deliveries, and Bai Zhenzhu often volunteered as the driver.
While most women liked to wear makeup, Bai Zhenzhu didn’t.
Even her clothes leaned towards a masculine style, and she was genuinely interested in cars. She used to drive Kang Wei’s car, but after his accident, Du Zhaohui modified a new car and sent it directly to the capital.
The building materials store had distributed dividends before the new year; Bai Zhenzhu received twenty-five thousand. She had distributed small commodity market stalls to several people to operate, each paying her several thousand monthly. Though the building materials store wouldn’t have dividends for a while due to the new branch opening, Bai Zhenzhu had other income sources and was financially comfortable.
She now lived permanently in Peng City, had bought a house there, and brought her grandmother to live with her.
“I bought a single-story house for less than twenty thousand. The welfare housing you mentioned earlier never materialized. But it’s good for my grandmother at her age – no stairs to climb. Had Uncle Yong do some simple renovations, and now I can call Peng City home!”
A car could wait, but housing was essential.
The Bai family had an old house in Yang City, but Bai Zhenzhu had an older brother. She figured her brother would need it when he married, so she wouldn’t compete with him for it.
As for her marriage, Bai Zhenzhu had never considered it.
Marriage meant washing clothes, cooking, and having children for someone else – not as satisfying as making money.
However, when Xia Xiaolan mentioned buying a car, Bai Zhenzhu was somewhat interested. Even after finishing work at the store, she didn’t want to go home, where her grandmother would nag her about marriage. Who could she marry, being the way she was?
“I’ll go look with you, but I can’t afford to buy now.”
Xia Xiaolan thought customs cars were relatively cheap. Before they could leave, Liu Yong rushed back breathlessly: “Don’t leave yet, Little Wang says Mayor Tang wants us both to go to his house to discuss the Nanhai Hotel matter!”
Was the Nanhai Hotel finally starting its renovation bidding?
Since Liu Tianquan, that fat guy, had left Peng City, Xia Xiaolan had put the Nanhai Hotel matter out of her mind.
Since Tang Hongen was calling her and Liu Yong over, Yuan Hui must have a chance at part of this project. A five-star hotel with hundreds of rooms was a huge project – the money was secondary; even partial involvement in such a project would be a great credential!
Just like with the Peng City Government Guesthouse – without renovating the guesthouse, Yuan Hui couldn’t have established its reputation.
Xia Xiaolan immediately forgot about buying a car – cars wouldn’t sell out, but such opportunities were fleeting:
“Uncle, I’ll go with you right away to check the situation!”