Chapter 00025: Chen Fugui
# Chen Fugui
Chapter 25
Novel: 1979 Golden Age
Chapter 25: Chen Fugui
At the front gate, east of the arrow tower.
The tea stall hadn’t changed much.
There were still twelve people working there, and the flow of customers remained steady.
However, Huang Zhanying had been feeling troubled lately.
A while back, a newspaper article had brought sudden fame to the tea stall, and their profits had skyrocketed.
They were selling over 3,000 bowls of tea a day.
The popularity and the money attracted others to copy their idea.
Not long ago, another cooperative set up a tea stall on the west side of the arrow tower.
They had more people—twenty in total! This new stall had drawn away many customers.
Huang Zhanying kept track of the numbers, and lately, their sales had dropped to just over 2,000 bowls a day.
"The weather’s getting hotter… Hey, do you still sell tea in the summer?"
"In the summer, we cool it down. It’s refreshing and quenches thirst."
"Oh, that works too. But I still prefer eating ice pops. That’s what really cools you down."
"We’ll have those too! Once it gets really hot, we’ll stock ice pops. Come back then!"
Huang Zhanying sent the customer off and went back to wiping down the tables.
His worries eased a bit.
As the saying goes, "A good plan settles Liaodong."
Someone had already thought things through and even secured the supply chain.
"Warm up a bowl of wine and bring me a plate of fennel beans!"
A soft voice reached Huang Zhanying’s ears.
Without looking up, he replied, "Sorry, comrade, we’re a tea stall. If you want wine, there’s a small wine shop nearby."
"Lack of culture is also part of the revolutionary struggle, huh?"
Huh?
Huang Zhanying looked up and saw a familiar face leaning on a bicycle, smiling at him.
"Ah!"
"Comrade Chen Qi!"
"Comrade Zhanying! We’ve finally met at Jinggangshan!"
The two shook hands warmly.
"Chen Qi’s back!"
"Everyone, come quick! Chen Qi’s back!"
"Did you finish the script? Can they film it?"
"Does that mean we’ll get to see your work in the cinema?"
The group gathered around, and Chen Qi shook hands with each of them, saying things like "The cultural front is in dire straits" and "Making good films is serving the people."
Everyone laughed, and the atmosphere around the front gate was filled with joy.
After the commotion died down, everyone went back to work.
Huang Zhanying pulled Chen Qi to the back of the tea stall.
They no longer had to sit on the ground; there were small stools now.
"Not long after you left, the district leaders came. They showed up suddenly, without any notice, so I didn’t get a chance to tell you. They praised us and said they fully supported us, but there wasn’t any real action. Then they mentioned that city leaders might come, but the timing wasn’t set. I thought I’d wait until it was confirmed before reaching out to you."
"That’s fine. You did the right thing."
Chen Qi nodded.
District leaders weren’t his concern anyway.
It would have to be city leaders.
Meeting a provincial official was more his style…
"How’s business been lately?"
"Not great. Another tea stall opened on the west side. I heard there’s even one in Tiantan Park now. Tea stalls are all the rage these days."
"Did the sandals arrive?"
"Five hundred pairs are stored at the street office."
"Five hundred pairs? That’s not enough! Fifty thousand pairs wouldn’t be too many!"
"You’re really ambitious. Where would Plastic Factory No. 2 get fifty thousand pairs of sandals for us?"
After chatting for a while, Chen Qi stood up, clapped his hands, and called everyone over.
"Comrades, you’ve all worked hard. I feel a bit guilty, but I’m not a deserter. I’ve just been fighting on the cultural front. You know I went to revise the script, and now it’s been approved. I wanted to celebrate with everyone, but I don’t have any tickets. So here’s the deal: gather as many tickets as you can, and I’ll cover the cost. Let’s all go out for a meal!"
Everyone clapped and laughed.
"Writing scripts really changes you. You sound like a leader now!"
"Ha! Should we call you Director Chen from now on?"
"Hey, Director Chen has a nice ring to it!"
"I want meat! Fatty pork without the grease!"
After spending some time there, Chen Qi got on his bike and left.
He made a point to check out the tea stall on the west side of the arrow tower.
Sure enough, there was a new stall with about twenty people.
It was lively and full of energy.
The two stalls were about a hundred meters apart, and the noise from one could be heard at the other.
According to Huang Zhanying, the new stall hadn’t caused any trouble.
They were just running their business honestly.
The street office couldn’t say much since both were cooperatives.
Big bowl tea wasn’t a monopoly, after all.
"Twenty people is a lot. If we can absorb them, it’ll strengthen our own position. It’s all about building power."
Chen Qi rode off, swaying slightly on his bike, his mind already plotting.
Maybe it was time for a fierce business battle in 1979?
…………
"The Chen family’s kid is back!"
"Oh, he’s back? Did his script get rejected?"
"I wish! But no, it got approved. My kid graduated from high school, and he can barely write five words in two hours. How does that make sense?"
"Talent is just unfair like that!"
When Chen Qi returned to the compound, he was once again the center of attention, like a monkey in a zoo.
Working at the Xinhua Bookstore, even if you kept a low profile, you still read a lot.
And reading a lot meant thinking a lot.
Everyone fancied themselves a fallen angel, with a touch of bourgeois flair in their bones.
Books and movies were the two pillars of intellectual life in the compound.
And now, this ordinary kid from a colleague’s family had written a script that got approved? What, did he activate some kind of cheat code?
Envy, jealousy, eyes red with resentment—it was like they’d all been robbed by capitalism.
The compound had seven inner courtyards and over a hundred people.
The Chen family’s doorstep was nearly worn out from all the visitors.
Out of every ten people, three were there to gawk, three to make snide remarks, and the rest were there to introduce potential marriage partners.
"Xiuli, I’m telling you, your son’s nineteen. You should settle his marriage soon so you can stop worrying. My niece works at a clothing factory and makes forty yuan a month. She’s pretty, tall, just a tiny flaw on her face."
"Don’t listen to her nonsense! Her niece’s mole is bigger than a pot lid!"
"I’ve got a niece who’s even better. She looks just like Liu Xiaoqing…"
Chen Qi sat quietly in the corner, maintaining a polite smile and not offering any opinions.
Chen Jianjun chuckled occasionally, chiming in now and then, but this was Yu Xiuli’s show.
Yu Xiuli was in her element, holding court in their twenty-square-meter home.
At over forty years old, she was having the time of her life.
Better than her wedding day!
As the saying goes, "Returning home in wealth is like walking in brocade at night."
Chen Qi didn’t hide anything.
He came back openly, and after the neighbors left, he openly shared his earnings.
If his family had been full of toxic relatives, he might have kept it to himself.
But since they were good people, there was no need.
Besides, the eight hundred yuan wasn’t something he couldn’t earn again if he wanted to.
But the impact on his parents was huge.
"You… you earned that much from the script?"
"Did Beijing Film Studio make a mistake?"
His parents stared at the red-and-yellow savings passbook in disbelief.
The cover read "Passbook for Current Savings," with "People’s Bank of China" printed below.
The passbook was made of kraft paper, its coarse fibers clearly visible.
At the time, the Agricultural Bank, Construction Bank, and Bank of China were gradually resuming operations, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank would be established in 1984.
"Here’s what I’m thinking. We only have a radio at home. It’d be good to add something bigger."
"Let’s buy a TV, then a tape recorder so we can listen to music, and then another bicycle. That way, we’ll have two bikes, which should be enough. Oh, and—"
"Are you out of your mind?!"
Yu Xiuli slapped him and scolded, "A 9-inch black-and-white TV costs 400 yuan! A foreign-brand tape recorder is over 200! You only earned 800, and you want to spend it all at once? You spendthrift!"
(End of Chapter)