Liu Jun first went north to make a detour to Mr. An’s home, bringing along clothes, food, and daily necessities that the An family was sending to their precious son, before heading south to Guangzhou to exit the country. Since he was doing this, he had to put in more thought and effort to do things completely, thoroughly, and considerately – when giving money, it had to be given willingly.
Young Mr. An was young and inexperienced. Liu Jun coldly observed young Mr. An’s posture when receiving money and could tell this wasn’t the first time he had done such things, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. When young Mr. An was bustling about at the bank counter handling procedures, Liu Jun grew impatient and went outside to wait. He opened young Mr. An’s car – a Mitsubishi EVO – and carefully examined the modifications inside. From the moment he saw the EVO’s wheels when young Mr. An picked him up at the airport, he, who wasn’t very familiar with Japanese cars, had sensed that young Mr. An’s car might have undergone expensive modifications. Now, with the car keys in hand and the hood open, he understood even more clearly. Young Mr. An’s heavy investment focused on modifying the appearance, with little involvement in power components. After all, non-professionals don’t dare to touch power parts. Unlike Liu Jun, his Golf GTI looked unchanged on the outside, but when you opened the hood, any expert would smile knowingly. Liu Jun thought about how young Mr. An seemed quite disdainful of him, which was understandable – how good could a bribe-giver’s attitude be? But he was an adult; he couldn’t show his disdain for the bribe-taker, nor could he show disdain for such amateur modifications.
When young Mr. An came out, Liu Jun began to guide him step by step, asking if buying a second-hand EVO III despite having money was influenced by Initial D, asking if he enjoyed the pleasure of modification, and so on. Once they started talking, they opened up completely. Liu Jun had to withdraw money from the card over two separate days to avoid money laundering suspicions. During the two days he spent with young Mr. An, he specifically taught him how to modify and improve the third generation’s cornering performance, upgrading toward the platform-enhanced fourth generation. What Liu Jun offered was solid expertise. Since young Mr. An played with modifications, he had naturally encountered difficulties with power component modifications – the hardest part was matching and breaking in modification parts. He immediately recognized that Liu Jun had real knowledge, so he pulled Liu Jun to show off his precious steed and visit his regular modification shop. Finally, when seeing Liu Jun off at the airport on the second day, he was quite reluctant to part, naturally speaking many good words about Liu Jun in his phone call to his father.
Thus, after Liu Jun returned home, he quickly received notification to go north and collect the bank draft. The first payment was made on the contract’s agreed date, not a day late, not a cent short.
To get a bank draft, it had to go through the financial supervisor’s hands. If you didn’t take care of finance, even with Mr. An’s strong authority, the financial supervisor of such a state enterprise could use various excuses to make you wait three days without any recourse. Moreover, anyone who could sit securely in the position of financial supervisor under Mr. An was undoubtedly one of Mr. An’s trusted confidants. If Liu Jun didn’t pay proper respect and got rebuffed by finance, Mr. An certainly wouldn’t uphold justice for him. Besides, he still had two more payments waiting to be processed through the financial supervisor’s hands in the future. Liu Jun knew what was proper – he not only gave gifts but also treated him to dinner.
After three cups of wine, the cautious financial supervisor revealed a bit of inside information. It was said that the company’s current business situation wasn’t good – they had been losing money for six consecutive months, and today’s payment was only made on time because Mr. An personally went out to raise funds. Liu Jun was very surprised. By all accounts, this year’s economic climate had improved, with good orders nationwide. A company with Mr. An’s solid strength should have even better days. Moreover, the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions were suffering from power shortages this year, and even he felt this year was better than last year. How could Mr. An’s company be having a harder time instead? To Liu Jun’s questions, the financial supervisor only smiled and, no matter how much more alcohol was poured, refused to say more.
Liu Jun felt this was strange but didn’t inquire further – too many words lead to mistakes. He just kept this in mind after returning home. Within the same industry, if you pay attention, you can always hear some news. He heard that the company was rather entangled with an industrial company, and behind that industrial company, Mr. An’s shadow could be faintly seen. Liu Jun wondered why Mr. An would still spend big money supporting his research and development. Liu Jun naturally couldn’t conduct a deep investigation into Mr. An’s company to avoid angering Mr. An, but he filed this matter away in his mind and became more calculated when spending money, lest the future two payments fall through and affect the overall situation.
Factory troubles never end. Before Liu Jun could settle things at the R&D center, the workshop and Luo Qing’s sales department started fighting, with Liu Shitang’s mediation on both sides proving useless. Both sides were very stubborn and didn’t listen to Liu Shitang, the supreme emperor – they only recognized Liu Jun. When Liu Jun returned from Australia, he went straight from the airport to the factory to mediate.
It turned out that since this summer, the local area had been generally short of electricity. In the previous two years, there were occasional power outages, but back then, the power cuts were more formal, with the power bureau giving notice. But this year’s power shortage was serious – the power bureau would often pull the plug on an entire area when they saw the load couldn’t handle it. Industrial enterprises feared unannounced power cuts the most. The biggest problem with sudden power cuts was fatal accidents, not to mention the economic losses from sudden power cuts, which had become routine. The industrial zone became a disaster area due to power shortages. Although there were directives from above to guarantee production power, as soon as the temperature exceeded 35°C, workshop production managers would nervously await power cuts. Tengfei originally had two diesel generator sets that could guarantee emergency use, keeping a few machines that couldn’t be stopped barely alive. But with frequent power outages and orders that had to be completed on time, two diesel generators weren’t enough.
Through the joint efforts of enterprise owners in the industrial zone, the power bureau finally agreed to give enterprises in the industrial zone some leeway, changing from regular power outages, stopping for two days, to operating for five days. During power supply shortages, they would change to stop three, operate four, or stop four, operate three, with advance notice. At the coordination meeting, Liu Jun learned that the frequent blackouts and power rationing had complex causes. It wasn’t just that people’s lives had become prosperous, and they used air conditioning without blinking at the electricity costs. There were many combined reasons: drought from last year until now causing water source depletion, greatly weakening local hydroelectric power; national cleanup of small coal mines leading to reduced coal production for power plants, leaving power plants without fuel; local substations’ maximum load capacity not keeping up with the vigorous development of local power demand, while new substation construction needed time and wouldn’t be operational until the end of next year at the earliest; a medium-sized local power plant was shut down for environmental retrofitting, changing from coal to natural gas… and so on. In short, with so many factors combined, power bureau leaders told the bosses not to harbor any illusions – blackouts and power rationing would only intensify over the next two years, not ease.
As soon as the coordination meeting ended, Liu Jun reluctantly allocated money to order diesel generators. But during this widespread power shortage, the diesel engine factory immediately became arrogant – even with piles of cash offered, you still had to queue for them to produce the products. Liu Jun had already been waiting for two months. But orders wouldn’t wait, especially export orders – if shipping time was off by even one day, foreign merchants could use this to refuse payment, and the losses would be immeasurable. Luo Qing often coordinated with the workshop for this reason, but the workshop had no choice either. They couldn’t remove installed molds and programmed sequences today to rush Luo Qing’s work, then reinstall them tomorrow after finishing – costs wouldn’t allow it. At first, both sides could still consider the big picture, but over time, they developed disputes. When Liu Jun was away on business in Australia, beyond his reach, the two sides finally started fighting.
Liu Jun patiently listened to the workshop supervisor’s complaints first, offering a few words of comfort. Then he called Luo Qing for a private talk, which was also mostly listening to complaints. After Luo Qing finished, Liu Jun also said gloomily: “The workshop for the two new generators has long been ready for everything, even the supporting diesel tanks are completed. When exactly can these two generators be delivered to us? Have you asked these past few days?”
“I asked, how could I not ask? Half their products have been requisitioned by the government to meet local production needs. Our order has already been pushed forward as much as possible under my urging, but we’ll have to wait until at least the end of next month for delivery.”
“Another two months, and our diesel engines aren’t even non-standard… When they deliver, can we waylay and rob two units?” Robbery was, of course, unrealistic. “How much bribery would get them to deliver early? It’s already autumn, winter’s coming, and the power outages are endless.”
“The supreme emperor has already went to communicated, but other companies have the same idea.”
Liu Jun thought for a long time, then called his father: “Raise the stakes! Raise them hard, spare no expense! Delivery this week!” If the generators were delayed another two months, Tengfei’s losses would only be greater. Money stuffed anywhere was bribery – if they could spare no expense for East Sea No. 1, they could do the same for diesel engines. The seven necessities of life, and countless hungry mouths waiting for money, all around.
But Liu Shitang felt sorry for the hard cash. Carrying money with a beaming smile and humble demeanor, he squatted at the finished goods warehouse gate of the diesel engine factory for a day, then went directly with money to the logistics company that specialized in transportation for the diesel engine factory. He only bled 20,000 yuan, and on the third day, two diesel engines that should have belonged to another company entered Tengfei’s gates. The logistics company naturally had their story – nothing more than being held up by local thugs during transport and having no choice but to enter Tengfei. With the raw rice cooked, the diesel engine factory could only accept it, sending installation workers, delivering assembly diagrams, and taking Tengfei’s final payment.
This incident taught Luo Qing, who had been pursuing orthodox high-end approaches since returning, a lesson – a lesson about aiming high but settling for the middle.
Indeed, the power bureau’s words proved true. After autumn, although summer air conditioning electricity use stopped, winter heating electricity use caught up, and power outages continued. A week of “stop two, operate five” felt like winning the lottery, with most time being “stop three, operate four.” Moreover, because residential power cuts caused public resentment, the government’s attitude shifted from guaranteeing production electricity to guaranteeing residential electricity, making factory electricity even tighter, relying only on diesel generators. The soaring electricity costs greatly eroded product gross margins. But could they stop production? No. They would rather have reduced gross margins than lose markets they had already captured. Many enterprises in the industrial zone competed with northern companies that didn’t worry about electricity. Already operating on thin profit margins, when electricity costs rose, they could only obediently comply with the power bureau’s outage notices – three days fishing, two days drying nets.
The R&D center also had to use diesel generators. To ensure equipment operation, and because diesel generation costs too much per kilowatt-hour, everyone had to reduce heating electricity use. Coincidentally, Cui Bingbing became pregnant. Staying in the cold big villa during the frigid weather wasn’t feasible, so the two had to move to the city. Due to the original residents constantly moving out of Liu Jun’s residence, many apartments were rented out, mostly to companies, making personnel traffic immediately chaotic and causing serious damage to building facilities, with elevator malfunctions constantly occurring. The two didn’t dare live there and temporarily stayed at Cui Bingbing’s home.
During the New Year holiday, Qian Hongming invited Liu Jun and Cui Bingbing to dinner at his home. He had bought two more apartments inside Shanghai’s inner ring as investments this year. He advised Liu Jun to buy property – looking at this situation, buying property was not only adding assets but also preserving and increasing value. He said he had seen foreign newspapers saying the RMB’s future trend would be appreciation externally and depreciation internally, so the most foolish yet most effective way for private wealth preservation was acquiring real estate, while the most foolish method was saving. But Qian Hongming smiled at Cui Bingbing while speaking, saying he was showing off in front of Guan Yu’s temple, but for the sake of friendship, he’d be thick-skinned and not care.
Cui Bingbing thought about the internal materials she had recently seen that said the same thing, but she didn’t want her money tied up in hard-to-liquidate real estate – her money had its investment channels. Liu Jun said his investment was Tengfei, so why consider anything else? Qian Hongming had no choice but to ask Liu Jun what car to buy for Jiali – something beautiful, sturdy, and easy to park. He wanted to buy a supercar and asked which brand to choose. While the two men discussed, Cui Bingbing mentally calculated for Qian Hongming: a supercar, a car for Jiali, two apartments in Shanghai’s inner ring, plus what Qian Hongming kept on hand – how much money had Qian Hongming made this year? She couldn’t help but mentally calculate Liu Jun’s 2004 income – certainly not little, but could Liu Jun learn Qian Hongming’s carefree style? The money Liu Jun earned had to be continuously invested in equipment updates to maintain an advanced position in the industry, or else it would be a case of not advancing means retreating, with thousands of sails passing by the sunken boat. So while Liu Jun seemed to earn quite a bit, there wasn’t much he could take out to use.
After leaving the Qian household, Cui Bingbing couldn’t help but sigh: dealing with the virtual was better than dealing with the real. Real industry required large investments with small returns, really testing one’s patience.
This year, Liu Jun received a nomination for the city’s top ten young entrepreneurs, which the industrial zone reported based on his total tax contribution. But he wasn’t enthusiastic and was too lazy to campaign for votes. Predictably, when the final results came out, he lost. Cui Bingbing felt that this supposedly vulgar individual businessman was truly extraordinarily refined at heart. In contrast, Cui Bingbing herself had gained considerable fame and profit at the head office, securing her position as executive vice president of the local branch.