After entering 1984, he began brewing his own soy sauce, rice vinegar, rice wine, white liquor, grape wine, various pickled vegetables, watermelon sauce, shiitake mushroom sauce, chili sauce, chili bean sauce, soybean sauce, and various desserts. Fresh crucian carp, carp, and loaches sold well for at least two months each year, and eggs and quail eggs were supplied in an orderly manner, so by the end of June 1984, after the summer harvest, the income of the small store had stabilized at five hundred yuan per month.
He had become a whirlwind of activity, wishing so much to have someone help him, but the secrets he harbored were too many to take lightly.
Now that his space had more balance, he would resell pastries, bread, mushrooms, and various sauces from his space to the outside world to alleviate his own burden.
Because of their unique taste, especially the Lao Ganma sauce and the introduction of Fuling Pickles, his business was even better.
With a monthly income of five hundred yuan, that would total six thousand yuan in a year, and with the significant profits during New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival, it was very easy to earn seven or eight thousand yuan in 1984.
Indeed, this was the case, and by the end of 1984, his savings had reached thirteen thousand yuan, truly making him a ten thousand yuan household of the 1980s.
Fortunately, he wasn’t loose with money, but just because he didn’t flaunt his wealth didn’t mean that others in the village didn’t know about it; after all, people had seen him bustling at the market, and it would be strange if the villagers weren’t envious. Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by novel⚑fire.net
Gradually, people started asking him to lend them money. He categorically refused to lend for things that weren’t vital, not fearing to offend anyone.
In any case, you’re not necessarily seen as a good person for lending, and if it’s easy to offend either way, it’s better to do so from the very start.
The truly poor couldn’t even ask for help. Those who wanted to borrow money for weddings, building houses, or buying cars, he refused them all.
But for Uncle Wang from the east end of the village, who had broken his leg when a roof beam fell on him during house construction, he took the initiative to give one hundred yuan, without stating whether it was a loan or a gift. He gave the one hundred yuan, and if Uncle Wang could repay it later, all the better; if not, no problem—the philosophy being to assist in emergencies, not in poverty.
He didn’t even entertain those trivial reasons.
In the summer of 1985, Zheng Kai graduated from university and continued to pursue his master’s and doctoral degrees, perhaps spending another five or six years in academia.
Zheng Long’s business was getting better and better; the small store could no longer contain his ambition. So with the thirty thousand yuan he had earned over the years, he opened a comprehensive supermarket in downtown Chongqing that specialized in fruits, vegetables, pastries, and sauces, spanning five hundred square meters.
He rented an apartment nearby as a temporary warehouse and stayed there every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday to prepare his storage of vegetables, fruits, and other goods from his space. Then, he transported them batch by batch to the supermarket on a motorized tricycle to resupply. He hired ten people for the supermarket to take care of cashiering, security, sales, and logistics to ensure that every aspect was covered.
The wholesale market store wasn’t closed either; Ma Rong and Sister Zhao looked after it, and in the village, he hired an elderly couple to help him pick vegetables and loosen the soil. He was mainly responsible for transport and watering, busy at home on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. If his work at home was finished, he would ride into the city.
He had bought the motorized tricycle from his space for a cost of seven or eight thousand yuan, even fitting it with a canopy to keep warm in the winter and to cover longer distances. It was quite convenient, especially since motorized tricycles were rare in that era. Therefore, he became familiar with the instruction manual and the production process of the trikes, ensuring he could convincingly explain them. So when asked, he could plausibly claim he had made it himself.