Chapter 30: An Unexpected Windfall

Even Weidong himself couldn’t curb his parents’ enthusiasm for making money. After a whole day’s work, pushing the food cart back to their storefront, they had sold out all three hundred skewers of meat and vegetables they’d prepared, and the pot of steamed rice had sold out even faster. Some young workers, left with no other option, would buy a bottle of beer at the door, crouch down to eat two or three skewers, and happily urge them to make more for tomorrow.

Although the daily takings amounted to only thirty or forty yuan, the former construction worker and site cook were thoroughly delighted. On the way home, Weidong saw his mother more excited than ever before: “So many people love it, all saying it’s delicious! Tomorrow we’ll make more, buy more ingredients!” His father, the main hand at skewering, was equally astounded. “City folks really don’t mind spending. Cabbage at eight cents a jin, and you can make twenty or thirty skewers—are we making so much money that we’ll get arrested?” The meat was just a few thin slices, but at seventy or eighty cents a jin, it could stretch into many skewers. He even felt a little guilty.

Guarding the tax office gate for a month earned just thirty yuan, but here one or two days’ work brought in the same—and making more every day seemed possible. His mother was eager to keep improving: “Add a little sugar to the cold dishes; they said it tastes better that way. Tomorrow I’ll make them even better.” His father nodded quickly: “I’ll cook more rice. Some of the kids weren’t full.” It felt like a sin not to do their best.

Weidong found he couldn’t dissuade them, so the next day, with double the ingredients, he moved the food cart closer by several dozen meters to the storefront. The result was even better sales; many workers heard the news and flocked to enjoy the hot, spicy food, and even more sat on the roadside curbs with a beer. In the dead of winter, a couple of mouthfuls of steaming, numbing spice with a cold beer was truly satisfying, though people didn’t yet have a word for it—just endless praise of how “comfortable” and “enjoyable” it was.

Weidong had no choice but to move the cart farther away, as the few restaurants and eateries by the factory gate were starting to look at them with open hostility. He hurried over, handed out cigarettes, and explained that they were working for the Labor Service Company of the Hongguang Factory, and that with the factory restructuring, they had to find ways to make a living. He almost believed himself that this family of three were full-time employees. Only then did the shopkeepers look slightly less unfriendly.

After he left, they whispered among themselves: wasn’t this young driver the same country kid who sold cured meat last year? But since that photo had been taken, Weidong’s hairstyle had changed noticeably, and with his army jacket, police trousers, and suede shoes from Shanghai, he looked like a new man—especially now that he was driving a truck. Who would believe that a few months of selling cured meat could land you behind the wheel of a big truck?

In reality, these young workers, who spent a few dozen cents to squat by the roadside for a hot meal, were not the regular customers of those eateries, so there was little real conflict. Thus, over the next six or seven days, their customers followed them like cattle with a ring through their nose, gathering outside the storefront. Weidong even moved the big truck parked at the door to make more space, still nervously waiting for trouble to break out. He certainly didn’t want his parents to face any consequences once he was gone.

Thankfully, after about ten days, the neighborhood committee and a police officer finally came to inspect, but found nothing amiss, not even requiring the food hygiene permit Weidong himself offered up. The market had only just been liberalized; such permits didn’t even exist yet. If you had a restaurant license or a grocery permit, that was enough—both were for self-employed businesses, which the authorities could control. But this was just a roadside stall, operating under the company’s banner. Behind the mailbox factory were units directly under the ministries, out of local jurisdiction.

These “cowhide military-to-civilian” factories were common in Jiangzhou, with two or three in the area. Other factories, with more staff, were untouchable, but even this storefront, with just three temps, was afforded the same immunity.

Weidong realized there was no talk of crackdowns here, so he followed the routine from the tax office and politely asked for the location of their office: “Our brother factory in Northern Jiangsu is about to ship over a batch of tape recorders, a great tool for children to learn English. We’ll send your office one for trial, so you can give us feedback on whether our factory should produce them.” Now, lying like this came as second nature to him. He’d heard plenty of such talk, but never been on the pitching side before.

Sure enough, the response was polite curiosity and refusal: “No need, we’re just two streets back. Drop by sometime; we’re here to serve everyone.” Weidong didn’t take it as a rejection.

When his shipment arrived at the freight department, he hurried over to collect it—five hundred units, all for just over forty yuan in shipping. Each weighed about six jin, totaling one and a half tons. Because water transport was slow, the shipping was cheaper, but piled onto his five-ton truck, it was a full load. Seeing the mountain of goods, Weidong was stunned—he hadn’t realized how much it was until then.

The shipping crew, amused by his confusion, sold him a tarpaulin and, cigarette in hand, taught him how to tightly secure such a tall load, since even the side rails couldn’t contain it. Weidong almost wanted to pull out his phone to take a picture—it was as solid as a work of art.

Back at the storefront, it took him and his father ages to unload and stack all five hundred tape recorders inside. He immediately took two units to the neighborhood committee and the local police station, asking sincerely for their feedback.

To be honest, by this point, he was having second thoughts about selling them, at least not until he could come back with Goudan—he suddenly felt a bit panicked. Why on earth had he ordered five hundred? Could they really sell them all? And even if they did, wouldn’t people realize they’d had tens of thousands of yuan’s worth of goods on hand, putting his parents in danger? The scale was too big and would inevitably attract attention, which was completely contrary to his philosophy of quietly making a fortune.

Still, when asked what price he was selling the tape recorders for, he blurted out, “Ninety-nine.” The police immediately stopped him and said, “Don’t go! Sell one to each of our offices right now! We’ll bring a police car over to collect them and pay on the spot!” The neighborhood committee, right next door, also wanted in.

Weidong, accustomed to the abundant goods and cutthroat prices of online shopping forty years later, and having just spent time in the countryside, had completely forgotten how scarce consumer goods were in the big city at this time. He’d been through this the first time he sold cured meat: dual-income families could save up and spend a few dozen yuan on meat, but couldn’t buy home appliances without a ration coupon.

Just as the market was about to open up, he, a small-time profiteer, had cut out all the middlemen and snapped up a batch of goods. In department stores, these tape recorders would sell for at least one hundred forty or fifty apiece, and that’s if there was stock—usually you needed a ration coupon. He was now selling them at rock-bottom prices. Didn’t people say that pricing things at nine ninety-nine or ninety-nine cents made them sell better? He wasn’t looking to make a killing—the department store price couldn’t possibly triple or quadruple. He just wanted to safely convert his savings into goods.

As a result, that entire afternoon, cars from all the nearby offices came to pick up tape recorders, with some coming from two or three districts away. Even police tricycles made seven or eight trips, and there were several police cars as well. Weidong gave up resisting; they could buy all they wanted—he'd just let it happen. He didn’t bother with product introductions anymore; he’d previously thought of bringing in a photographer to shoot product photos for advertising, or recording sales pitches on tape to play on a loop.

Now there was no need. He just unboxed one unit, cranked the volume to maximum, and played an English tape on repeat. Everyone, including the local officer, declared it wonderful—they all wanted one for learning English.

That wasn’t the strangest part—they had already sold over a hundred units. His mother was fretting about the crowd blocking the entrance: “Are we still opening for food today?” The tape recorder buyers caught the scent and wondered, “What’s that delicious smell?” The young workers came over to see the commotion, wondering if there had been a major incident because of all the uniforms. But when they realized they could get a brand-new, beautiful tape recorder for only ninety-nine yuan—not nine hundred ninety, not a hundred ninety-nine—they rushed off to borrow money, scrape together funds, and even buy together.

Everyone was determined to get one. Owning a tape recorder like this would make you the most impressive among your peers—the hottest new entertainment gadget, like being the first to own a new game console or beat the latest video game.

The scene outside the storefront was utter chaos. Those who’d bought tape recorders wanted to try the delicious-smelling food, while those who’d come to eat scrambled to buy tape recorders, knowing that such good things usually sold out instantly. If the Yanwu Factory heard about it, they’d probably be furious—this price was pure market disruption. But there was no way for the news to spread; there were no channels for information.

Weidong’s only regret was that he and his father had wasted time unloading everything—he should have just opened the truck bed and sold them straight from there, like fruit. All that work for nothing.

Now, all he could do was keep shouting, “Please sign your name here; the funds need to be accounted for by the company to confirm there’s been no price gouging!” This was mainly to maintain the image of being a company unit, to avoid being targeted as a private vendor.

He even made a show of depositing the money at the nearby savings office in front of everyone and pretended to use the old hand-crank telephone to “report” to his superiors. After shouting himself hoarse—competing with the tape recorder for volume—he realized he’d brought it upon himself.

But he’d made nearly seven thousand yuan in two days—an amount it had taken him two months and more than ten trips to the provincial capital to accumulate selling cured meat. Now he’d done it in just two days!

He should have gone back to Shangzhou after picking up the goods, but had to stay another day because the next morning, citizens from all over, tipped off by various offices, bought up the remaining tape recorders. It was a scene of eager, competitive buying.

Even the officer who’d brought people from the local police station had to help maintain order. Weidong made a point of showing off his sales department ID, and with his newly bought national road atlas, asked the officer for directions to a few optical military factories rumored to be nearby in northern Jiangzhou. He had the addresses, but didn’t know how to get there; he told them his factory had sent him on business.

The officer, friendly as ever, gave him directions and joked that those were the old guerrilla bases of the legendary Double-Gun Granny, and that these third-line factories, used to working in the mountains, might never get out if they went in. Weidong took the opportunity to ask how long it would take to get to Shangzhou from here. Someone who’d driven there before helped him mark the route on the map and remarked on how hard sales work must be.

Hard work, my foot, Weidong thought—he was just driving the truck home to show off!