1990: Starting from Baojia Street

After leaving Shi Wanchun's office, Zhou Yan did not leave in a hurry, but chose to walk around the school.

He spent too little time in school this year. He was teaching a course before, but he simply stopped this semester because he really didn't have the time.

Looking at the students coming and going in the school, Zhou Yan felt a lot more relaxed.

Along the way, students kept greeting him and he responded one by one.

News travels slowly these days, otherwise, when he walks on the street right now, he would hear not only greetings but also congratulations.

More than 20 years later, students in schools will receive news about such awards on the same night the results are announced, and social software will deliver the news accurately.

When I passed by the piano room, I happened to meet Sun Dong coming out.

Seeing Sun Dong was something of a coincidence for Zhou Yan, as he had just heard the teacher talking about Sun Dong.

Sun Dong and Zhou Yan were not particularly familiar with each other, but Sun Dong was a red-faced man who smiled at everyone he met. He was considered a "social butterfly" in the orchestra and was very popular in the school.

When he met Zhou Yan, Sun Dong was also very enthusiastic. "Teacher Zhou, how come you have time to come back today? You must be very busy recently, right?"

"Well, back to school to take care of some things."

"Are you done with your work?"

"I'm done with my work and I'm going to walk around the school."

Sun Dong seemed to have something else to say to Zhou Yan. He came closer and handed Zhou Yan a cigarette. Zhou Yan refused, so he lit it himself. Then he took a puff of the cigarette in the cold wind and said with a smile, "Teacher Zhou, how is your orchestra going this semester? Aren't you going to recruit new members?"

Under normal circumstances, the Youth Piano Orchestra has new member recruitment activities every semester.

Although the number of new members has decreased in the past two years, there are still some every semester. However, the Piano Youth Orchestra has not taken any action so far this year. Sun Dong happened to meet Zhou Yan today, so he asked him a question.

"Fang Xiu is in charge of recruiting new members. I usually don't ask about it. Maybe she has her own plans? You should be in touch with Fang Xiu often, right?"

Sun Dong also has teaching duties. He had taught Fang Xiu when Fang Xiu was an undergraduate.

After Fang Xiu took charge of the Piano Youth Orchestra, Sun Dong has also been in charge of the orchestral department, so the two should have had more contact.

"Fang Xiu told me that your band has a stable membership now and doesn't need to recruit new members for the time being. But I think that just as running water never rots, a door hinge never rots. Only by constantly having new members can the band be more vibrant. What do you think, Mr. Zhou?"

Zhou Yan nodded. In fact, what Sun Dong said made sense.

In an orchestra, too frequent staff turnover is definitely not good, but no staff turnover at all is not good either. If it is too stable, it will be difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of the original members.

Human nature is like this, it is difficult to change, and can only be maintained by rules.

Of course, Sun Dong said this not mainly for the sake of their orchestra. He definitely wanted to give the orchestra students the opportunity to gain experience in the piano youth orchestra.

No matter how good the teaching is, it is all empty talk without practice. In recent years, the Piano Youth Orchestra has been a good place for orchestral students to practice.

"Are there any outstanding students among the new class of orchestral students?" Zhou Yan asked.

"There are a few. If you have time, I can take you to see them?"

"I'm afraid not today." Zhou Yan shook his head.

"Haha, of course not today. Even if you want to watch it today, I can't go and get someone for you. Come to think of it, you haven't been to our orchestra department for a long time. Our orchestra can be considered half of your home. When you formed the Youth Piano Orchestra, you brought half of our orchestra there."

Hearing Sun Dong's words, Zhou Yan almost laughed out loud, because when he heard "half of the country", he thought of Wang Feng, and Wang Feng happened to be the one who was produced by their orchestra.

However, what Sun Dong said was not wrong. When the piano youth orchestra was formed, many people came from the orchestra department, all of whom were excellent students. It is not an exaggeration to say that they accounted for half of the industry.

"I don't even come to compose music often. How about this, when I finish my work, I will come to your place and have a visit. Don't be unwelcome then."

"Look at what you said. If you were to come, then all of us in the orchestra would certainly prepare food and drink to welcome you. There is no reason not to welcome you. When our two departments had a joint performance last semester, many people wanted to invite you to come, but you were too busy and we couldn't invite you."

Sun Dong was talking about the graduation concert, whose full name is the Composition Department Undergraduate Graduation Concert (Orchestra). It is a collaboration between the two departments and is also the most important event for the two departments every year.

In recent years, the most popular concert was probably the one when Zhou Yan graduated, and the concert hall was packed.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "If I have time next year, I can go and have a look."

"I've made note of what you said. I'll definitely remind you in advance when the time comes."

After chatting for a few more sentences, Sun Dong tightened his collar, said goodbye to Zhou Yan, and left with a cigarette in his mouth.

……

Zhou Yan didn't walk around the school for too long, mainly because he couldn't take a quiet walk in the school. There were too many classmates greeting him, and he had to respond all the time, which was quite tiring.

After returning to the studio, he first called Liu Hang to his office and briefly told him about the school-enterprise cooperation.

"During this time, make a plan and try to get this done this semester."

Liu Hang nodded and said, "No problem. The studio is indeed short of manpower recently. After the school-enterprise cooperation is implemented, it will also relieve our pressure."

Although Liu Hang had never done school-enterprise cooperation before, he was familiar with this model and knew that school-enterprise cooperation was very suitable for the current situation of their studio.

The studio has more and more work to do, but it is not appropriate to recruit a large number of full-time staff as it will create a burden on the studio. The key is that the people recruited may not be as useful as the students of CAF.

The main advantages of using students are high flexibility, low cost, and the ability to maintain good relations with the school.

"If you have any questions, feel free to contact me."

"Okay." Liu Hang nodded, but did not leave. He said to Zhou Yan, "I just came to work this morning and Director Li came to my office."

"He has something to do with you?"

"He didn't say anything specific. He just came over to chat with me, holding a cup of tea, mostly about the factory situation."

Zhou Yan narrowed his eyes. Some time ago, before the filming of "Time Traveler" started, Liu Hang had told him about this. Li Xiuhai always looked for him.

The electronics factory was in a worse and worse situation, and the hole was getting bigger and bigger, and it was about to collapse. At that time, Zhou Yan had the idea of ​​buying other buildings in the factory, but he put the plan aside at that time.

Now that Li Xuhai is here again, the situation must have gotten worse.

Come to think of it, the Chinese New Year is only a few months away, and the factory's performance is getting worse and worse. By the time the Chinese New Year comes, the workers' wages and benefits may not be guaranteed.

After a moment's silence, Zhou Yan said, "I know about this matter. You can go and do your work first."

"Ok."

After Liu Hang left, Zhou Yan picked up the phone on the table and called Li Xiuhai.

The call was answered quickly.

"Hello, who is it?"

"Director Li, it's me, Zhou Yan."

Hearing that it was Zhou Yan, Li Xiuhai's tone revealed a hint of surprise, "Teacher Zhou, why did you think of calling me?"

"Is Director Li busy now? If not, come to my office and have a seat and some tea?"

Facing Zhou Yan's invitation, Li Xuhai did not hesitate at all and agreed directly, "It's my honor. I'll go over now."

"Ok, I will wait for you."

……

In less than two minutes, Li Xuhai arrived at Zhou Yan's office.

Their offices were not far from each other, but it took some effort to go up and down the stairs. To arrive so quickly meant that Li Xuhai rushed here as soon as he hung up the phone, which showed that he was in a hurry.

Although there is no heating in the factory now, it is very warm inside the house. The temperature difference between indoors and outdoors is quite large. In addition, it is windy today. Li Xiuhai rushed here and was blown by the cold wind. His face turned red after entering the house.

Seeing Li Xiuhai's flushed face, Zhou Yan thought to himself that it seemed that he was indeed very anxious.

But Li Xuhai is really interesting. If he is in a hurry, why doesn't he come to him directly, but instead keeps "harassing" Liu Hang?

"Director Li, please take a seat."

Zhou Yan poured a cup of tea for Li Xiuhai and sat opposite him. "Director Li, we haven't seen each other for a while, right?"

"Well, Mr. Zhou, you have been very busy recently. It's not easy to see you."

Zhou Yan said with a smile, "It's not that difficult. I've been in the office all this time. If you want to see me, just come directly."

"I'm afraid it will delay your work."

"Director Li, you are too kind. I am indeed impolite. The studio has borrowed your precious space. Thanks to your continuous support, I should visit you more often."

"Mr. Zhou, you are too polite. You rented the warehouse and Building No. 3, which solved a big problem for us."

Seeing that Li Xiuhai didn't bring it up, Zhou Yan didn't beat around the bush and got straight to the point, "I heard from Liu Hang that the factory's operations are having some trouble?"

After Zhou Yan asked this question, Li Xuhai began to complain, "The overall environment is too bad now. Factories are laying off workers, and workers are laid off in waves. When I came, the factory was already a mess, and even gods couldn't save it. We tried everything, but in the end it was still powerless. We were lucky to be able to ensure that there were no large-scale layoffs. It's almost the end of the year, and there are a lot of places to spend money, but there is not much money in the account..."

Zhou Yan was not in a hurry to interrupt him. He listened to him complaining quietly for five or six minutes before he slowly spoke, "Is there anything I can help with?"

Li Xiuhai didn't hesitate anymore and said directly, "Teacher Zhou, your studio is doing better and better. How about renting both buildings here? These two buildings are about the same size as Building No. 3. We can rent them at the same rate as Building No. 3 and we won't raise the price. How do you think?"

Zhou Yan also found it interesting that Li Xuhai had endured these few words for several months, and it was only after Zhou Yan took the initiative to find him that he finally told him.

Renting a house is not a big deal to Zhou Yan.

The studio does need to expand, but that cannot be solved by simply renting a few buildings. These buildings in the electronics factory have fatal flaws and cannot support the subsequent transformation of the studio.

Zhou Yan thought that it would be best to take over the electronics factory and then transform it based on the original foundation.

In his opinion, the electronics factory will go bankrupt sooner or later, but at this stage Li Xiuhai would definitely not sell the factory to the studio, and Li Xiuhai did not have the right to do so.

After thinking for a while, Zhou Yan said, "The building in the northwest is also vacant. Why don't you rent it to us as well? We can package the three buildings together. I won't take advantage of your company. I will add 20% to the previous rent of Building No. 3."

Zhou Yan is not doing charity. The reason why he is willing to increase the rent by 20% is because the northwest building is far away from their current warehouse, and there is a large open space in the middle. By renting that building and connecting it with several other buildings, they can cover this large open space.

As long as we take up this vacant space, there will be space to do anything else later.

Li Xuhai could actually guess what Zhou Yan was thinking, but the conditions Zhou Yan proposed were too tempting, and the factory had no other options at this stage, so being able to rent another building was what he wanted.

Therefore, Li Xiuhai nodded without much thought, "No problem, as long as you are willing, Mr. Zhou, we can rent the northwest building to you, and also the open space in the middle."

Li Xiuhai understood that after the building in the northwest was rented out, their own factory would not be able to use the vacant land in the middle, so it would be better to do a favor and talk to the studio directly.

Seeing that Li Xiuhai was so understanding, Zhou Yan nodded and said, "Thank you, Director Li. We don't want this land for nothing. I won't add 20% to the rent. We will just count the three buildings as four. The rent of the extra building will be counted as the rent of this vacant land."

Li Xuhai was naturally very happy to hear Zhou Yan say this. Originally, with a 3.6% increase, the rent of the three buildings was only equal to 0.4 buildings. Now it is equal to four buildings, which means there are more buildings. This is a considerable amount of money.

"Okay, then I'll go back today and hold a meeting to vote and make this matter a decision."

Holding a meeting is a natural procedure. Now everyone in the factory is waiting for money to come in. The rent given by Zhou Yan has solved their urgent needs and allowed the factory to survive for a while.

However, in Zhou Yan's opinion, renting these buildings would not only fail to save the factory, but might accelerate its closure.

Originally, if Zhou Yan had not intervened, the electronics factory would have been similar to other state-owned factories, laying off workers step by step and then dying a slow death.

However, with the rent provided by Zhou Yan, the electronics factory basically did not lay off any employees.

Zhou Yan cannot afford to support so many people with the rent he pays. When the rent is used up and the factory's efficiency is basically zero, all problems will erupt. It will be too late to lay off people by then.

It is like saying that when a person is dying and suddenly given a strong drug, he can recover for a while, but he will die faster. (End of this chapter)