Spring Breeze Twenty Years

Chapter 524 The Morning Market

Xiao Wei asked, "How much did my aunt say to get?"

Chen Hui said, "My mom didn't say anything specific. Let's talk about it when I get there tomorrow. I'll call you afterwards. I still need to find someone to make the blueprints, which might cost some money. I was just letting you know."

Xiao Wei asked, "What kind of drawings?"

Chen Hui said, "The land in Wanliu, the blueprints for the office building and factory, need to be reported as assets. Also, this restaurant, the food factory in Longcheng, and this store in Andong, can all be reported as assets now. Oh, and my mom said that the housing you bought through collective investment can be included as employee dormitory. They don't care about the specific owner here, as long as there are things there. It's a loophole."

Xiao Wei said, "Then let's report it. We can include the buildings in Xingcheng, register a company there, and also calculate the value of all the shops built there. Wow, it seems like quite a lot when you do this."

Chen Hui said, "It is indeed a lot. Don't be fooled by the fact that we didn't spend much money on the land. If you calculate it based on the planned shops, roads, and factories, it will be worth a lot. My mother said that with our current total assets, it shouldn't be difficult to get a loan of 200 million yuan."

Xiao Wei coughed suddenly, choking on his saliva, which was quite a shock.

But that's the truth. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, loans were quite out of reach for ordinary people, but they were actually quite easy to obtain. Sometimes, banks would even proactively help you increase your assets and expand your loan amount in order to meet their targets.

Let me tell you the truth. Back then, getting a piece of land didn't matter if it was yours or not, as long as you had the necessary permits, even if you rented it. If you wanted to build a house, all you needed was the permits, a foundation, and blueprints, and you could get a loan. Plus, the value of a house varied depending on its intended use.

Back in 1991, a guy of mine rented half an acre of land from the production team for 3,000 yuan by a dirt road at the foot of a mountain on the outskirts of the city. He said he wanted to build a gas station. The production team handled the building permits, he laid a foundation, built a half-meter wall, and then got 10 million yuan from the bank. 10 million yuan! And then that was it. That half-meter brick wall stood there at the foot of the mountain until 1995, when someone cleaned it up and used it to raise pigs.

In 95, a man from Hong Kong came to Xiaoshihu, saying he had returned to trace his roots and wanted to invest in tourism in his hometown. He made a big splash, signed an investment contract, and allocated the land he needed. The boss hired some people to plant a circle of red flags along the edge of the land allocated to him, and worshipped heaven and earth. That was considered the start of construction.

In 1996, a privately owned cement factory, with a total investment of 1.3 million yuan and a considerable production capacity, received a loan of 120 million yuan. The owner's daughter-in-law said that the bank included the mountain behind the cement factory as part of its assets. It was said that the mountain was full of quartz mines.

In Liaodong, mountains are all mines, that's absolutely true.

……

Xiao Wei said, "Okay, you can handle the rest. Just don't cause any trouble for Uncle Chen and Aunt Chen. We don't need to pay such a high price for development right now, understand? We can take it slow and it will take two or three years to get started."

Chen Hui said, "No, don't worry. It's just about making reasonable use of the rules. My parents aren't stupid; they know better than we do."

Xiao Wei rubbed his face and said, "Yeah, that's true. This was a bit too much of a shock, I'm a little flustered. Okay, let's leave it at that for now. I'll head back to Fengtian as soon as I'm done here."

After hanging up the phone and paying the money, Xiao Wei returned to his room in a daze. He lay on the bed and stared blankly into space, overwhelmed by a mix of emotions: excitement, agitation, and trepidation.

The next morning, Xiaowei left home with dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept well all night, dreaming of money flying everywhere or being arrested for not being able to repay his loans. He spent the whole night in a daze, his sheets soaked with sweat, and when he woke up at 5:30, he couldn't fall back asleep.

Xiao Wei took a basin to the bathroom and took a cold shower, which finally woke him up. He went back to his room, changed his clothes, and then went downstairs.

Old Xu and the other two were still asleep, and the canteen wasn't open yet. Xiao Wei left the guesthouse and wandered aimlessly along the road. After eating a bowl of beef noodles, he finally felt more energetic.

The streets were bustling with people, bicycle bells rang incessantly, and a light mist floated in the air, mingling with the morning haze and making everything look like an old photograph. Even the mottled walls around me now possessed a strange and inexplicable charm.

"Buzz, buzz!" A tricycle carrying honeycomb briquettes slowly rode up from the street, while deliverymen carrying heavy, steaming baskets to restaurants hurried past, their sour smell wafting through the air, carefully avoiding the even more hurried pedestrians.

The roadside snack stalls were all lit up, wafting out various tempting aromas, and the people inside were busy without looking up. As the saying goes, "You don't get up early to earn money," and making breakfast is the hardest work—small tasks, small goods, small sums of money—meaning they have to get up at four or five in the morning to struggle, regardless of the season. Whenever footsteps passed by the stall, the owner would always look up eagerly.

With a "sizzle," a large iron pot on a stove made of stacked gasoline drums placed by the sidewalk emitted white steam and made a soft sizzling sound as oil was poured in. The man skillfully used his thick, long chopsticks to stir it a few times, and a dark red fried dough stick floated to the surface, lazily turning over, with fine oil suds rolling around it.

The snow-white, fragrant soy milk was served in a thermos next to the stall. A woman with her hair wrapped in a floral cloth deftly ladled the soy milk into a bowl and quickly added a few spoonfuls of sugar. This stall was the busiest, with people queuing up with various containers they had brought from home—thermoses, milk pots, aluminum basins, large glass bottles—buying a few pounds of fried dough sticks and a few scoops of soy milk for a sweet breakfast for the whole family.

"Tofu pudding, freshly made tofu pudding, braised with egg and minced meat, it's so delicious it'll make your teeth fall out!" A middle-aged man with an apron with a money bag tied around his waist had two buckets at his feet. One bucket contained white tofu pudding, and the other contained braised tofu pudding with egg drop soup floating on top. He called out his sales pitch while looking enviously at the crowd queuing up to buy fried dough sticks and soy milk.

Every now and then, someone buying fried dough sticks would succumb to temptation and buy a bowl of tofu pudding to take away. The middle-aged man selling the tofu pudding would grin, revealing his white teeth, which would earn him a glare from the woman making soy milk. There were no shouts or arguments; everyone gathered together to sell breakfast and earn their own living.

"I want the freshly fried ones, why do you always fry the ones that are already fried?" a woman buying fried dough sticks complained.

The man frying the dough sticks glanced at them and then looked down again to continue turning them over in the oil. His wife, while deftly mixing the batter, said, "Sister, they're all freshly fried. Feel them, they're still hot. If you don't let them sit in the bag for a while after they come out of the oil, they'll burst open."

"Can't we install a few more layers?" the woman persisted.

(End of this chapter)