Chapter 38: Future Wealth

After leaving the hospital, Wang Ying and Sister Hong firmly disagreed with Feng Kuang’s suggestion of escorting them home. The public security in the small county town was fairly good, and since the weather was hot, many people were cooling off under the streetlights along the road, so safety wasn’t a concern.

“Sister Yingying, Sister Hong, come visit our house another time.” After waving goodbye to the two newly acquainted sisters, Feng Kuang rode his bike with Ye Tian back toward the Recycling Station.

“Ye Tian, what should we say about these three yuan when we get back?”

Pedaling the bicycle, Feng Kuang made a worried face. Although the medical visit wasn’t very expensive, it still cost three yuan for medicine. In a time when the average monthly wage was only thirty or forty yuan, three yuan was no small amount.

After hearing Feng Kuang’s words, Ye Tian thought for a long moment before saying, “Brother Fengzi, just tell my dad honestly when we get back. He won’t blame you.”

Ye Tian had always been like this since he was little—he wouldn’t admit to small mistakes, but for big mistakes, he always confessed on his own. And for the things Ye Tian confessed himself, Ye Dongping had never punished him.

Like last year, when Ye Tian, Fatty Dun, and a few others stole blasting powder and firecrackers used for quarrying to go blast fish at the reservoir. The unlucky Fatty Dun was caught on the spot by the reservoir keeper. Knowing he couldn’t hide from it, Ye Tian went home and confessed everything.

Afterwards, even though they were fined twenty yuan by the reservoir, Ye Dongping didn’t say much. He just made Ye Tian write a self-criticism. But it was precisely this light-handed handling that made Ye Tian feel even worse inside. After that incident, he became much more well-behaved.

“Is… is this really okay?” Feng Kuang asked hesitantly. He was only a few years older than Ye Tian; he also got scared when he did something wrong.

“It’s fine. I know my dad. He won’t say anything to you.”

Only after Ye Tian gave his assurance did Feng Kuang relax. He knew very well that, although this shop was nominally run by him, its actual owners were still this father and son pair.

After returning to the Recycling Station, Feng Kuang told Ye Dongping about the dispute at the cinema that day. Just as Ye Tian had said, Ye Dongping didn’t say much. The money spent on Ye Tian’s medical treatment was also recorded in the station’s public accounts.

Early the next morning, the several waste pickers Feng Kuang had contacted all pulled their handcarts to the Recycling Station. In just one short day, various kinds of scrap filled the station’s courtyard, costing over two thousand yuan in total.

This left both Ye Dongping and Feng Kuang shocked and overjoyed; they could hardly believe the day’s haul.

One had to realize that, although they had spent over two thousand yuan, after reselling these items to the state-owned collection station, they could make a profit of at least four or five hundred yuan.

And today, it was only waste pickers from around the Recycling Station who came. If they could gather all the scrap collectors from the entire county town, even with a conservative estimate, they could earn tens of thousands of yuan a year.

Not only Feng Kuang, a country kid, but even Ye Dongping, who was from Beijing, was startled by this number.

In this era of increasing transition from a planned economy to a market economy, Ye Dongping fully realized that in the future society, it might be the Self-Employed Businessperson—currently looked down upon but flush with cash—who would become the new elite.

Just as the saying goes about mocking the poor but not the prostitute, in the future, as long as one had money, status and position would follow. As for whether one was a Self-Employed Businessperson or had an “iron rice bowl” job, probably no one would care anymore.

…

Life only has drive when there’s a goal. After seeing this bright “future wealth,” both Feng Kuang and Ye Dongping became incredibly busy, working non-stop.

Feng Kuang was responsible for delivering the scrap to the state-owned collection station, while Ye Dongping stayed at the Recycling Station, sorting and categorizing the scrap brought in by the waste pickers.

However, the good times only lasted for two days. The amount of scrap brought by the waste pickers greatly decreased. The combined total was only slightly more than what Feng Kuang could collect by himself. This caught both Feng Kuang and Ye Dongping by surprise.

After waiting a day, the scrap brought by those few waste pickers wasn’t even enough to fill one handcart. Feng Kuang didn’t go to the state-owned collection station today; such a small amount wasn’t worth the trip.

“Uncle Ye, what’s going on?”

By evening, Feng Kuang’s mood had become somewhat downcast. As the saying goes, “It’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury back to frugality.” The gains from the previous two days had made Feng Kuang look down on the current meager income.

“Feng Zi, we were a bit too optimistic before.”

Ye Dongping took a deep drag from the low-quality cigarette in his hand and said, “Think about it. People’s lives aren’t very comfortable right now; they don’t just throw away useless things. I figure the large amount of scrap they brought in the past few days was probably accumulated from before. Once it’s all sold, naturally it becomes less.”

The reasoning was actually very simple, and Ye Dongping’s guess was pretty close. Those scrap collectors rarely spent money to buy scrap; they mostly picked it up. And now, people were used to selling their scrap, so what they could obtain was becoming less and less.

“Then what should we do? Uncle Ye, you’re an educated man. You must have an idea!”

Hearing Ye Dongping’s words, Feng Kuang immediately became anxious. His dream of getting rich, which had only lasted a couple of days, couldn’t shatter so quickly, could it?

“Feng Zi, it’s not that there’s no way…”

After thinking for a moment, Ye Dongping spoke up: “Alright, let’s do this. For the scrap that comes in now, let’s not rush to sell it to the state-owned station. And you shouldn’t stay at the Recycling Station either. Go to East City and see if you can persuade the scrap collectors over there to bring their stuff to us?”

This was what they had previously discussed. It was just that the enormous amount of scrap delivered in the past few days had kept them too busy to deal with it. Now that a break had appeared in the scrap collection chain, Ye Dongping brought it up again.

Although the county town wasn’t large, hundreds of thousands of people lived there. The amount of leftover scrap from daily consumption and what was thrown away was certainly not small. If they could really integrate it all, the quantity would likely far exceed what they had collected in the previous few days.

“Ah, yes! Uncle Ye, you’re right. I’ll go find those people today.”

After hearing Ye Dongping’s words, Feng Kuang slapped his thigh. He didn’t even bother with dinner anymore; he pushed his bicycle and headed straight for East City. Most scrap collectors were at home in the evening; if he went during the daytime, he probably wouldn’t find many people.

“Dad, where is Brother Fengzi going?”

Ye Tian, who had just passed Feng Kuang face-to-face, walked into the Recycling Station with a puzzled look. With no one keeping an eye on him these past few days, he didn’t come home until mealtimes. Ye Dongping had no idea what his son was doing all day.

“You rascal, I never see a trace of you all day. What exactly have you been doing? School starts in a few days; you need to settle down.”

These past few days, Ye Dongping really hadn’t had time to look after Ye Tian. After taking him to meet his homeroom teacher once, he had let him run wild. To be fair, he bore some responsibility for that.

“Dad, don’t worry. I’ve pretty much read through all the junior high textbooks; there’s no difficulty…” Ye Tian grinned, bringing up the food Ye Dongping had prepared.

For the past few days, Ye Tian had been squatting on a street in East City, a place filled with a murky atmosphere and all sorts of people, watching the fortune-tellers and face-readers set up their stalls. He didn’t dare tell his dad, or he’d surely get another lecture.

“Oh, right, Dad, where exactly did Brother Fengzi go? I saw he didn’t look too good. I hope nothing happens while he’s out…” Having just seen him, Ye Tian noticed some hidden worry on Feng Kuang’s face and couldn’t help but ask again.