Chapter 29: Off to Shenzhen to Buy a QQ

Shen Yuequn didn’t wait until the next day; just half an hour later, he called Huang He back.

“Chairman, I just went out and bought a Nokia—it cost me 2,000 yuan! But from now on, I’ll never need to look for a public phone again. You can reach me anytime, anywhere, on this phone!” Those were Shen Yuequn’s first words on the call.

“Good!” Huang He laughed heartily. “General Manager Shen, I hope we’ll work together in harmony and enjoy a fruitful partnership.”

“Not at all, you will always be my chairman. That’s a lifelong commitment,” Shen Yuequn replied sincerely.

That night, Shen Yuequn didn’t sleep a wink—not from insomnia, but from busyness. Despite his difficulty with writing, he spent the whole night compiling a development plan of about ten thousand words.

The next day, Shen Yuequn didn’t go out to his stall. He handed off the task to his wife and parents—three people selling blind boxes—while he took the remaining 4,000 yuan in profits, first to register the company, then to look for office space and rent a warehouse.

In other cities, 4,000 yuan wouldn’t even rent an office, let alone a warehouse. But this was SY City, a region gradually hollowing out, once the heart of the old industrial base, with countless empty factories and warehouses, all lying idle, no one willing to rent them.

Exhausting every connection among friends and family, Shen Yuequn found a dilapidated, slightly leaky, but spacious and cheap factory from a defunct state-owned enterprise, and made it the office of the Northeast Branch of Jiangnan Leather Factory—for only about 2,000 yuan.

This was why Huang He treated Shen Yuequn with such favor: first, the man had ability—not the kind learned from books, but honed through the trials of real life, a quality no degree could bestow.

More importantly, the Northeast provinces were too far away for Huang He to manage directly, so entrusting the task to someone reliable was the best choice.

Next, Shen Yuequn began contacting his eighteen salespeople. When they learned he was now their boss, that they would all report to him, they nearly cursed him out over the phone.

But Shen Yuequn only smiled and told them all shipments from headquarters were now under his control; they would have to settle accounts with him. All marketing and advertising strategies were in his hands, and he could decide which regions would get more promotion.

That shut them up at once. Shen Yuequn may not have had much schooling, but he knew exactly how to handle people like them.

Shen Yuequn was growing at a remarkable pace, while elsewhere, our Chairman Huang He was also making rapid progress—watching the numbers in his bank account soar.

By now, a month had passed since his crossing, and the results were impressive. Of the hundreds of scattered salespeople, only a handful had completely disappeared, unreachable. A few more lost money and gave up, returning to the city to wait for their pay. But over 240 people sold 2,000 blind boxes each, bringing in an average of 16,000 yuan per person. That was nearly 4 million yuan in total.

But this was only the income from the first batch of 1,000 blind boxes. In the hands of top performers like Shen Yuequn, he had already sold 15,000 blind boxes, returning 120,000 yuan.

Yet, Shen Yuequn wasn’t the best performer; the real stars were in the coastal and southeastern regions, areas that had already become prosperous. Though their sales hadn’t been described before, these regions were even more vibrant than the Northeast, for a simple reason: people there had money and no longer considered ten yuan a significant sum.

The top performer among them was Zhang Yingguo, from near Wenzhou. He sold a staggering 60,000 blind boxes—more than four times Shen Yuequn’s total.

He was, in fact, the smartest of the four. Realistically, even with superhuman effort, he could never have sold 40,000 on his own in a month. But he outsmarted Shen Yuequn by recruiting more than a dozen people to work for him, sending them to cities and counties around Jiangsu and Zhejiang that had no assigned representatives to sell blind boxes.

With this approach, the company received 320,000 yuan in payments, and Zhang Yingguo made 80,000 yuan in pure profit. Even though he hired over a dozen people, whose monthly wages should have totaled nearly 20,000 yuan, he told them it was a probationary period, so their salary was only 300 yuan each. After three months, once they became permanent, they’d get 3,000 yuan a month. This left his team clamoring in protest, but Zhang Yingguo only paid a total of 3,000 yuan in wages, netting over 70,000 yuan for himself. Word had it he was now involved with a female university student, and his wife had already caused several scenes over it.

Zhang Yingguo was not the only clever one. Many others realized the blind boxes were selling like hotcakes and were not hard to move at all—especially after Huang He’s plan of using shills to boost marketing. Sales soared, and it became clear that working alone was foolish; recruiting a team and becoming a boss was the way to go.

So, many makeshift “Zhang Yingguo-style” teams sprang up. Huang He’s attitude was to turn a blind eye; he simply shipped goods to his own employees and ignored any outside requests.

After a month, over a hundred people had sold more than 10,000 boxes, and more than twenty had sold over 20,000. Huang He recovered nearly 30 million yuan in funds in a month. At that rate, reclaiming 80 million in loans in three months would not be a problem, which allowed Leng Zhiruo to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

It was worth noting, however, that apart from Shen Yuequn, others also wanted the legitimate right to open branch offices, but Huang He never agreed. He let them do as they pleased but never granted them official branch status.

This left Zhang Yingguo and the others disgruntled; some even confronted Huang He, but his stance was firm. They all left empty-handed, while an invisible flame of resentment simmered.

Leng Zhiruo also asked Huang He why he favored Shen Yuequn alone, granting him benefits that even top performers like Zhang Yingguo did not receive.

“I actually have people keeping an eye on all four of them,” Huang He sighed, “but only Shen Yuequn hasn’t tried to cheat me. The others are not good men.”

Meanwhile, something major happened in the Leng family: Leng Zhimeng’s college entrance exam. Yet, despite its significance, the family was rather indifferent. Everyone knew that, unlike her three sisters who had all been admitted to university, Zhimeng was a poor student, and spectacularly so—scoring 250 would be no better than 249. The family had no real expectations for her.

Come July, the results were in: Leng Zhimeng scored a glorious 251.

She wasn’t upset at all, but rather relieved. Now she could finally step into society. She had already planned to look for work at an internet company, since she had decent programming skills. Becoming a programmer wouldn’t be difficult—at this time, companies weren’t so insistent on elite university degrees, and the internet sector wasn’t yet highly profitable. As long as you could use Java, internet firms would gladly hire you.

But this kind of job was only a stepping stone in her plan. Her ultimate goal was to gain experience and connections, then create China’s own AAA game and fulfill her life’s ambitions and dreams.

It must be said, this was a solid plan, in line with the spirit of the times—Leng Zhimeng might really succeed.

Unfortunately, her plans were interrupted—by her brother-in-law.

“Come on, let’s go to Shenzhen. We’re going to buy QQ.”