Chapter 134: A Hearty Appetite (Thanks to SSSDC for the Generous Reward!)

Darkness gradually spread across the sky.

Countless stars burst through the night, while the dampness of evening slowly permeated the air, filling it with a tranquil atmosphere.

Wang Qiang had just come out of a small restaurant after eating a bowl of pork-chop noodles. He looked up and found the stars especially brilliant that night.

The streetlamps had come on one row after another, filling the streets like luminous pearls. Walking through the night, immersed in a sea of light, Wang Qiang felt at peace. He had even forgotten his worries over whether the four-piece bedding sets would sell.

No matter how busy or exhausted you were,

you should never forget to give your heart a little time off.

He was wandering aimlessly down the street when, suddenly—

Beep beep.

His pager sounded. Who was paging him at this hour? Puzzled, Wang Qiang pulled the pager from his belt and switched it on. To his surprise, the message had been sent sometime after four that afternoon but had only just reached him. He was speechless. The roaming pager signal was simply too poor.

“What does Old Zhu want with me?” Wang Qiang muttered as he put away the pager.

He glanced around and spotted a telephone booth near the intersection ahead. After waiting for the traffic light, he crossed the street.

At the booth, he took out a few coins and dropped them in.

He dialed the hotel’s number. As the ringing sounded, Wang Qiang leaned his shoulder against the booth’s plastic windscreen. Fortunately, the hotel phone had no caller ID. Otherwise, he would never have used a public telephone to call. It was not that he was afraid Old Zhu might discover anything; he was merely worried that Old Yao might have improper intentions.

Click.

A burst of laughter and chatter came from the other end, as though there were many people there. Then the proprietress answered.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Big Sister, it’s me, Little Wang.”

“Oh, Little Wang. Old Zhu was just saying that you hadn’t called back. I’ll get him for you.” Her loud voice rang out. “Old Zhu! Little Wang’s on the phone!”

“Coming, coming!”

Old Zhu’s voice came from somewhere in the distance.

A hurried series of footsteps followed, and before long, someone else picked up the phone.

“Hello, Little Wang? It’s Old Zhu.”

“Brother Zhu, why did you page me?”

“Oh, it’s like this. Old Yao and I managed to get the company-name approval notice these past two days. Tomorrow we’re going to the bank to handle the registered-capital procedures. Where did you put the money?”

“I had my father hide it. Didn’t you ask him?”

“Uh, no. I always thought it was with you.” Old Zhu paused. “I’ll ask Uncle Wang in a moment.”

His father’s voice came through the receiver.

“What are you asking me?”

Old Zhu and Wang Qiang’s father discussed the money for two or three sentences before everything was clarified.

Then his father took the phone. Wang Qiang chatted with him for a while. Since he had warned his father beforehand, the older man did not mention Shenzhen at all.

After talking for a little while, Wang Qiang was about to hang up.

“Wait, Little Wang, wait.” Old Yao hurriedly took the phone. “I need to tell you something.”

A truck passed by, honking loudly, and Wang Qiang failed to hear him clearly.

“What did you say?”

“I said I have something to tell you.” Old Yao continued without waiting. “Old Zhu and I have pulled a few strings. Once we get the capital verification report, the business license should probably be ready within a week. As for the company’s bank account, you see…”

Wang Qiang understood at once. They were talking about the company’s funding. Once the company was formally established, the money would have to be deposited into its corporate account. They certainly were not referring to the money hidden by his father, but to the additional thirty thousand yuan each of them would have to contribute afterward.

“I’ll be away for a few days,” he said. “Including the capital verification report, roughly how long will it take for the business license to be approved?”

“Let me calculate.” Old Yao began counting. “Today is Thursday. We’ll handle the capital verification tomorrow, but even with connections it’ll probably be Monday. Then there’s the business license. Hmm… about ten days in total.”

“Fine. Wait for me to come back.”

Wang Qiang agreed without hesitation and hung up.

The confident expression he had worn earlier immediately collapsed. His face filled with helplessness. Only moments before, he had told himself not to forget to give his heart a break no matter how busy or tired he was. Now he had another headache to deal with.

There was only fifteen thousand yuan in his bag. Where was he going to get the other fifteen thousand?

Even if the shopkeepers who had taken the goods managed to sell every bedding set, the payments would amount to only a little over eight thousand yuan. He would still be short by several thousand.

Unless he could close several more bedding-set deals within ten days.

He could forget about Big Sister Xu. Judging from her sales rate last time, it would take her roughly ten days to sell the three hundred and twenty sets.

Wang Qiang let out a heavy sigh.

Ah, he might as well go back and sleep. Tomorrow, he could see how the other shopkeepers were doing with the bedding sets.

For now, that seemed to be all he could count on.

That was what he told himself.

But after returning to the hotel, taking a shower, and lying down on the bed, he still found himself staring wide-eyed into the darkness, unable to sleep.

The seconds and minutes crept by.

The night had become as thick as ink in a grinding stone, so deep and heavy that it seemed impossible to dissolve. Wang Qiang’s mood was just as tangled as the darkness around him.

…

When he awoke the next day, the light outside the window was dim.

Having fallen asleep late, Wang Qiang assumed it was still early. Bleary-eyed, he picked up the watch from the bedside table and glanced at it.

It was only noon…

What?

Noon already?

He sprang upright, hurriedly slipped on the disposable slippers, and rushed to the window to pull open the half-drawn curtains. Outside, the sky was covered with dark clouds, as if rain might fall at any moment. No wonder the room was so dim.

He had overslept.

Wang Qiang tapped his head reproachfully. He had wasted another half-day. The previous night, he had planned to check how well the shopkeepers were selling the bedding sets.

He washed up as quickly as he could, did not even have time for lunch, changed his clothes, and went downstairs. Then he headed for the Jia Hua Clothing Wholesale Market.

Jia Hua Clothing Wholesale Market.

The sky was gloomy, and since it was lunchtime, there were few customers. Only a dozen or so scattered people moved through the aisles.

Wang Qiang jogged to the first shop on the eastern side.

As soon as he reached the entrance, he saw Boss Ding, whose eyes crossed slightly, sitting behind the counter and eating a huge bowl of beef noodles.

“Boss Ding, having lunch?”

“Why, it’s Boss Wang!” Boss Ding put down his chopsticks and stood up to greet him. “Let me get you a stool.”

Wang Qiang waved him off.

“No need. You go ahead and eat.”

Boss Ding did not insist. He sat down again, picked up some noodles, and asked, “Back at the wholesale market to sell bedding sets again today?”

He blew on the noodles dangling from his chopsticks, then slurped them into his mouth.

Leaning against the counter, Wang Qiang asked, “No, I came to see how your bedding sets sold this morning.”

“Not bad.” Boss Ding nodded.

Wang Qiang brightened at that, but Boss Ding’s next words nearly made him faint.

“I sold two sets. One polyester-cotton and one all-cotton.” Boss Ding looked quite pleased.

Wang Qiang was speechless.

You sold two sets, and you call that not bad?

What Wang Qiang did not know was that Boss Ding genuinely thought it was a decent result. The wholesale market had originally dealt in clothing. The fact that the bedding sets had sold at all, having only just arrived, was already cause for celebration. It meant they had gotten off to a good start. Once word spread that bedding sets were available here, the business would gradually open up.

But even if Wang Qiang had understood Boss Ding’s reasoning, he would still have been worried.

After exchanging a few more words, Wang Qiang arrived at Boss Tan’s shop with a heavy heart.

Boss Tan was nowhere to be seen. Only Big Sister Qiu sat behind the counter, holding a ballpoint pen and making corrections in a notebook, apparently doing the accounts.

Before Wang Qiang could greet her, Big Sister Qiu spotted him.

“Little Wang, you’re here?”

Wang Qiang gave her a faint smile.

“Yes. I came to conduct a little market research and ask how your bedding sets sold today.”

Big Sister Qiu rolled the ballpoint pen between her fingers and replied casually, “What can you tell after only half a day?”

“How many did you sell?” Wang Qiang pressed.

Big Sister Qiu laughed.

“You’re rather anxious, aren’t you?”

She put down the pen and pointed to the rack beside her.

“There. Nineteen sets left.”

Only one set sold?

Even fewer than at Boss Ding’s shop.

Wang Qiang could not help frowning. He realized that opening up a market for the bedding sets would not be easy.

After leaving Boss Tan’s shop, he visited the remaining nine stores one by one. He did not go to Big Sister Xu’s shop. Even if she could not sell them at retail, she would still have other channels. Asking would have been pointless.

The nine shops were all in different situations.

Four or five of them had not sold a single set. Big Sister Wang’s shop had sold three, while the remaining three had each sold only one.

…

After making the rounds, Wang Qiang left the Jia Hua Clothing Wholesale Market and found a small restaurant nearby.

He ordered a serving of Chaoshan beef meatballs. Amid the bustling restaurant, he seemed strangely out of place.

He stirred the soup with his spoon, resting his chin on his other hand as he watched the fine drizzle beginning to fall outside. What was he supposed to do?

Leave it all to fate?

That had been his earlier plan, and indeed, it seemed to be the only option.

But was it really?

Wang Qiang furrowed his brows. He glanced at the two young men across from him, laughing and joking together, then shook his head helplessly. They were about his age, yet they lived so carefree a life, while he was so worried he felt like tearing his hair out.

Ah, life.

“Hey, I heard a new movie theater opened in Futian District. Want to take your girlfriend to a movie tonight?”

“Forget it. A movie costs ten or twenty yuan. I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Who told you that? Didn’t you see the advertisement in yesterday’s Shenzhen Evening News?”

“What?”

“It opened today. Movie tickets are forty percent off—only three yuan each. You don’t even have six yuan?”

“Of course I have six yuan. Hey…”

The two young men continued chatting.

Wang Qiang, however, no longer had the heart to listen. His eyes suddenly lit up, and a wild idea sprang into his mind.

That’s right. He could use the newspaper to raise awareness of the bedding sets.

Of course, he was not thinking of placing an advertisement.

Leaving aside whether newspaper advertising was expensive, the placement would likely be rather inconspicuous. There was no telling whether anyone would even notice it.

Still, calling it advertising would not be wrong, because Wang Qiang was thinking of an advertorial.

Most newspapers at the time carried all kinds of daily news. What if he could somehow persuade a newspaper reporter to write a news story about him?

If he succeeded, the article would be far more eye-catching than an advertisement, and the public attention would increase dramatically. It might even drive the bedding-set business at Jia Hua Clothing Wholesale Market all at once. In time, it might even turn Jia Hua Clothing Wholesale into the Jia Hua Clothing and Home Textiles Wholesale Market.

Simply getting a reporter to agree would probably not be enough.

The newspaper would certainly review the stories reporters submitted each day before deciding what could be printed. He would need the editor-in-chief’s approval as well.

Wang Qiang’s eyes flickered as a rough plan gradually took shape in his mind.

Once he had settled on a direction, his appetite returned. He polished off the bowl of beef meatballs in no time.

After eating, he paid the bill and left.

He hoped his idea would work.

No.

It had to work.

Wang Qiang clenched his fists as he stepped outside, encouraging himself.