Volume 1: Laying the Foundation Chapter 4: The Gloomy Years

  "Gaoyuan Fang poked his finger at his forehead and scolded, "You good-for-nothing! You're scared off by such a small amount of money? When you came, you boasted about making a fortune! How much is this? It's not even enough for a young master to eat a meal! You've been in Qingdao for a year now, how can you still be like a country bumpkin who's never seen the world? Hmm? Just do as I say, don't go wrong, remember, it's that French-owned clothing store on Second Avenue, don't get it mixed up!"

  As soon as he heard that he had to do business with foreigners, his legs turned even softer and his whole body began to tremble, as if he would lose half his life in one trip. Gao Zhai Fang let out a long sigh and said: "What can I say to you? Those people are just like us, two hands, two feet, one nose, and two eyes, what's there to be afraid of? Besides, do you think they'll entertain you when you get there? Dream on! The sales clerks are all short-term workers hired by the foreigners, just like you. Remember, tell them you're Chen Zhanggui from Dahua Dye Factory... Hmm, no, just say you're a friend of Mr. Lu Jiaju, that Mr. Lu is a returned overseas student and knows all the foreigners in Qingdao, the sales clerks won't dare to fool around with you, don't worry."

  The young man nodded repeatedly, and upon hearing that he didn't have to meet a foreigner, but rather deal with a Chinese person just like him, he immediately stopped trembling. He took a cloth bag from the counter, wrapped up the silver dollars, and stuffed it into his chest pocket. With a "thud thud thud" sound, he ran out of there.

  "Alas! You're all in your teens, how can you be so troublesome? Look at that young master Chen's demeanor... What's wrong with me, comparing them is like apples and oranges! Forget it!"

  Don't blame that young man for being useless, in this era, an ordinary young man's job doesn't come with a salary. At most, the master of the house provides food and lodging, plus a set of work clothes. During festivals, they might give him a few dollars, which is just a small amount of money. But don't underestimate that small amount of money! The purchasing power in this era is terrifying - one dollar can buy over a hundred copper coins, and one copper coin can buy two baked buns. One dime is already a huge sum, let alone twenty big silver coins, which would be equivalent to 2,000 yuan in the 21st century!

  Shaking his head and sighing, he entered the counter, picked up an abacus with one hand, and started playing a lively "ding-dong" tune. The sound of the beads colliding was crisp and loud, forming a pleasant melody like pearls falling onto a jade plate.

  Chen Xiaoqi was in the guest room, wearing only a bath towel around his waist. He ate a few mouthfuls of hot water and then sat down at the desk, picking up a copy of the Shanghai Daily from a few days ago and forcing himself to read it.

  Newspapers in this era were all traditional characters, and most of the content was printed vertically. The printing quality was not good either, so Chen Xiaoqi looked like he was guessing, if it weren't for the fact that when he was a kid learning calligraphy, he had spent some time copying Wang Xizhi's running script, he would have really struggled to understand those complicated and awkward texts with mixed fonts.

  To put it simply, before the simplification of Chinese characters, people in the Qing dynasty could understand articles from the Western Han dynasty 2,000 years ago. However, just a few decades later, the vast majority of people were unable to read the original articles written by their revolutionary predecessors.

  What the newspapers say is mostly about current politics. In this era, the vast majority of readers are enthusiastic about new learning and revolution, especially those scholars who take the world as their own responsibility, and they can't wait to take on the rise and fall of the country and the nation's prosperity and decline. Therefore, the articles written mainly focus on how to strengthen the country, save the country, how to govern, and how to make a revolution.

  The Northern Warlords were happily dividing the spoils, fighting each other for territory and power across China, while on the surface they set up a so-called parliament, with various factions taking turns to make a big show. After watching for half a day, Chen Xiaoqi finally figured out what the student and civilian parade he saw yesterday was all about - it wasn't the beginning of the "May Fourth Movement" as he had guessed, but rather several months after the first wave, when Beijing students and progressive figures were arrested by the Northern Government, and now the whole nation was coming together to protest against the atrocities committed by the Northern Government.

  Arriving in this chaotic world, Chen Xiaoqi was at a loss for what to do. With his postgraduate education and over a decade of internet experience, he should have been able to make a fortune with ease, without worrying about financial problems. However, there was one crucial prerequisite - his personal safety. This was an era where the government and warlords colluded, and the lawless reigned supreme. An honest and upright person could hardly survive, unless they were content with living in poverty and constantly on guard against being conscripted or becoming a bandit.

  It's not difficult to be a rich man, there are opportunities everywhere in the chaotic world, but crises that coexist with it also grow exponentially. Don't expect those wolves to ignore the money in your pocket, and don't expect people with guns to protect your interests, which is almost impossible. Justice? At this time, it's just talk, or perhaps the only possibility is that you have the ability to uphold justice yourself?

  Chen Xiaoqi had no choice, he didn't want to be conscripted, nor did he want to be sold as a piglet, and even less did he want to become a bandit. Participating in political movements? Don't joke around! This is an era of great upheaval where heroes emerge one after another, and the number of people who can leave their mark on history books is more than the total of the past two thousand years. Any one of them would be qualified to be his ancestor. And yet, this 21st-century little white brain of his had been passed from hand to hand eight times without even knowing where he went wrong.

  So, to avoid this big dye vat, big whirlpool, and battlefield, go live in the United States? This seems like a pretty good way out. Throughout the 20th century, the United States, except for a few economic crises and terrorist attacks, was not plagued by war, even during the most severe period of the 1929 economic crisis, the wealthy still lived very well, Wall Street continued to build skyscrapers like the Empire State Building to show off their wealth.

  In the past, I tried not to think about what to do after graduation while in school. In the year nearing graduation, I was running around everywhere for a job and finally became desperate. It was a time when the actual employment rate of new college graduates was less than 1%. They could only sigh helplessly and continue to pursue further studies under certain conditions, waiting for an opportunity during better economic times. However, deep down, they all understood that in the face of hundreds of millions of unemployed people, every opportunity seemed so distant. Almost all employers chose not to hire inexperienced new graduates. You can protest against this unfairness, but this is reality. Universities did not teach you how to work, how to treat your job and colleagues, or even how to be a useful member of society. They only took money, money, money!

  Why should companies, especially enterprises, spend their own money, time and energy to teach you things that you didn't even learn in school when you spent your own money? Do they have an obligation to do these things? No! So everything can only rely on yourself! Therefore, Chen Xiaoqi and hundreds of millions - every year, hundreds of millions of graduates, apart from having a good grasp of eating, drinking and playing, a considerable number are trying to make themselves qualified practitioners before graduation day arrives.

  They studied Chen Anzhi's eighth-generation successor's "Horse Riding Success Study", Robin's "Potential Success Study", Amway's direct sales eloquence, insurance company's customer visitation, Jin Zhengkun's "Social Etiquette", N-type management marketing, "Office Battlefield", "Socializing and Eloquence", the rules of the wine table, the subtleties of tea ceremony, implicit rules, studying, studying, studying!!!

  They seem to have never been so busy in their lives, after playing for more than three years, they finally realized that this day is inevitable. They are fighting for the limited employment resources from their predecessors who have become refined, in order not to be "啃老族" (a term used to describe young people who rely on their parents for financial support), to stand out, and to prepare for a house, car, wife, children, and everything else.

  Is this life? Chen Xiaoqi was once a member of this army, but he was happier than some people. During his senior year internship, his old man made a decision - to continue studying for a master's degree, no need to worry about work. So he could wander around Qilu Petrochemical for half a year and then continue to mix days in Qingdao, a city by the sea. Anyway, his old man didn't expect him to learn anything, as long as he didn't make trouble, it was thanks to heaven.

  It is said that most of the smart people in the world are lazy, and Chen Xiaoqi doesn't know if this is a theorem or not. However, he has categorized himself as one of them, because when it comes to his studies, he spends much less time than others. He truly practices the philosophy of not working hard during regular days and relying on cramming for exams, and with his excellent memory that hasn't deteriorated since childhood, he can always muddle through. With most of his free time, apart from wandering around with the hiking club, spending weekends roaming around Lao Mountain, Kunyu Mountain, Wulian Mountain, and other places with friends, learning a bunch of miscellaneous things, or hanging out on online forums bragging about big things, over the years he has become a pseudo-military enthusiast, pseudo-soccer fan, pseudo-knife enthusiast, pseudo-Han culture enthusiast, pseudo-qigong enthusiast, and many more unrelated fields of knowledge.

  He participated in CQB confrontation - with paintball guns, of course, and also CS real-life confrontation; He is a key player on the school football team, including basketball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, tennis, bowling, and billiards; He started making knives with machine tools in junior high school, and online, he has tried almost all popular knife brands such as BT, MT, D9, M9, Steel Eagle, Atlanta, Smith & Wesson series, Butterfly, Spider, Dog Leg, etc. However, now only one of his own knives remains, the others were either given away or destroyed; He also participated in two Mid-Autumn Festival ceremonies of the Hanfu Club and even made a set for himself; He even went to Qing Palace on Laoshan Mountain to find the legendary Taoist master to learn Taoist qigong, an old man who seemed to have a celestial aura but still ate meat and drank wine taught him a set of seemingly authentic yet fake techniques, which made him treat the old man to meals for two months. Later, he found those so-called secret oral transmissions online! However, it wasn't a waste of money, at least he learned how to meditate, and occasionally could even enter a state of deep concentration once or twice... Hmm, that's just how it is, can't be said.

  Chen Xiaoqi really likes to do things with his hands, in fact, compared to chemistry and chemical engineering, he prefers machinery and machine tools, but because of an accident, under the threat of his father "breaking both hands", he reluctantly transferred this manual ability to chemical experiments. For example, making "**" explosives himself, then making nitrocellulose, or adding silica gel to make safe explosives? Or manufacturing yellow explosives?

  After being discovered by the counselor and teacher, he had to stop and then started researching in the lab how to dye a piece of silk and cloth with particularly bright colors, what the legendary sky blue looks like, and then took out his best work to give to the MM he was pursuing.

  He even took the nylon he made in the polymer reaction engineering lab and spun it into yarn, then ran to the popular "handicraft house" at that time and used their looms to make a pair of silk stockings. This was extremely romantic in the eyes of that beautiful MM. Compared to others who were clumsy and awkward at knitting sweaters, his technique was much higher.

  This is actually all leisure. During the internship, his father found someone to let him intern at Qilu Petrochemical, and in various companies under this super-large enterprise, others were busy learning how to quickly integrate into work, but he spent every day studying the composition of chemical equipment, such as what type of steel was used to produce the reactor, what welding technology could make the huge pressure tank not collapse, what precision valve processing was qualified, and so on. In short, it's all about not doing his job.

  Now, finally have a place to use, this is an era of rubble and broken walls everywhere, this is a truly poor and white era, this is the darkest era before dawn, this is an era where heroes emerge in large numbers, this is an era where having a special skill can make one stand out, even a lazy bum can be successful in this era, a graduate student - not graduated yet - no reason to fail!

  He no longer has to keep drawing those things that can only stay on paper, he can make them directly! His parents finally don't have to worry about him anymore, this is the end of it, thoroughly, no more worries.

  Chen Xiaoqi forcibly cut off his thoughts, put down the newspaper and turned to see an antique - a record player. Yes, it was that kind of scene often seen in Republic of China movies and TV shows - a square, regular, painted shell with a lotus-shaped horn on top of a black vinyl record player.

  He had seen this thing at a fellow car enthusiast's home, of course not the later improved version, but even though it was already a gramophone record, the basic shape hadn't changed much. That guy boasted that it was something passed down from his grandfather's generation, and amazingly it still worked, the sound coming out although somewhat monotonous, had a natural smoothness that modern CDs or high-fidelity systems didn't have, the old Shanghai songstress's bright, gentle and ambiguous voice flowing out of the copper horn gave people an indescribable feeling.

  Chen Xiaoqi familiarly opened, lifted the needle and carefully placed it at the starting position. Under the noisy background noise, the authentic and unpretentious warm and harmonious live recording came out through that horn... Hmm!!! Chen Xiaoqi had just caught a glimpse of the flavor when the music suddenly stopped! Gone!

  He almost jumped up in a rage, only to find that the record had already finished playing in just three minutes. This is too short! He was about to curse the fake and inferior quality when he suddenly remembered what his friend had told him when he first introduced him to vinyl records - the earliest records were only three minutes long, and it wasn't until later, with the advent of LPs, that they became longer.

  When watching movies and TV dramas of the Republic of China, the scene where a record is played for half a day is actually impossible. This situation could only occur after the invention of 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records after World War II. Zhou Xuan, Bai Guang, Li Xianglan and other legendary beauties were not even born yet! (They were all born around 1920, known as the Seven Great Singing Stars and Five Great Queens of Song. Later famous singers like Xu Xiao Feng and Cai Qin basically rose to fame by covering their songs. They grew up performing in Shanghai's Great World during the war!)