Insufficient balance
On a night in April 2013, on the surface of the Yellow Sea off China's coast, about 300 nautical miles east of Weihai Port, an oceangoing fishing boat was speeding east with its navigation lights on. The ship had no hull number and flew no national flag; anyone who knew what to look for could tell at a glance that something was wrong with this vessel.
The problem is not on the boat, but with the people on it. There are 12 people in total on the boat, and the tallest one is the protagonist of this book - Liu Xiangyang, a 39-year-old from Beijing. This is his first time smuggling goods by boat, and their destination is Nampo Port in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Liu Xiangyang is a native Beijinger, 39 years old and married. His childhood was happy until he entered junior high school with excellent grades. However, after entering high school, his parents started arguing and eventually got divorced. Liu Xiangyang followed his father, moved away from the home where he had lived for over a decade, and changed schools, resulting in a drastic decline in his grades, making it impossible for him to attend university.
After graduating from high school, the father of his girlfriend (who was considered to be in a puppy love relationship at that time) helped him find a job as a warehouse manager in a commercial company. For the first half year, Liu Xiangyang performed well and was excited about the new environment. His colleagues, mostly over 40 years old, took care of him like he was their own child. However, after receiving his salary for several months, Liu Xiangyang's excitement wore off. With a monthly salary of over 90 yuan, he would spend it all after going out with his girlfriend a few times. Although there were no temptations from cars or mobile phones at that time, having no money to spend was always difficult to bear. Under the suggestion of a business personnel from another unit who frequently came to pick up goods, Liu Xiangyang stretched out his sinful hand - issuing fake warehouse receipts, and together with that business personnel, they embezzled several batches of goods from their unit.
The subsequent ending was very uncreative, holding the cash in hand, taking his girlfriend to major shopping malls, cinemas and amusement parks in Beijing (actually there were not many entertainment options at that time). Then it was a case of being caught red-handed, thrown into prison, and sentenced to one and a half years.
After a year and a half of prison life, Liu Xiangyang changed. Although his personality was still very casual, he became more stable in doing things and gained a deeper understanding of society and life. He began to look for work everywhere, preparing to live a down-to-earth life. His wishes were beautiful, but reality was cruel. Nowadays, young people may not fully understand the difficulties faced by those who have been released from prison: basically, there are no suitable jobs available for them. After countless rejections, Liu Xiangyang knew that finding a decent job was out of the question, but he didn't get angry or lose hope; instead, he decided to start his own business.
With tens of thousands of yuan borrowed from relatives, Liu Xiangyang first opened a beauty salon. The first two years were not bad, but as the reform and opening-up deepened, many people from southern coastal cities came to Beijing to make a fortune. These southerners had new ideas, new management concepts, new craftsmanship, and new styles, which Liu Xiangyang couldn't compete with those more cunning bosses, resulting in declining income, and eventually had to close down the shop.
In the summer of 1998, with less than 100,000 yuan in savings from years of running a store, Liu Xiangyang opened an internet cafe with only 10 computers based on his hobby at the time (playing computer games). At that time, Beijing had only one internet cafe, located outside the east wall of the Capital Gymnasium, called "Yanghaiwei", which was opened by a well-known access provider and was the first commercial internet cafe.
When it first opened, the internet cafe was packed with people, whether they were curious to try it out or computer enthusiasts who came to have fun. As long as you opened for business, it was crowded and the price was high: 10 yuan per hour.
Good times didn't last for a few years, with the arrival of the infamous Blue Speed Internet Cafe arson case in 2002, internet cafes suffered a severe blow and were all shut down for rectification.
After hanging out at home for over a year, I finally received the good news that internet cafes can apply to reopen. Comrade Liu Xiangyang rushed to the relevant department and asked, only to be stunned: new internet cafe applications are allowed, but they require more than 80 machines, a business area of more than 200 square meters, and a registered capital of 500,000 yuan. Old Liu quickly did some mental math: opening an internet cafe would cost at least 1 million yuan as a base investment. He discussed it with a friend who had connections and decided to open one anyway! Even if it costs 1 million, so what? It's still profitable, why not?!
So, the two of them managed to scrape together over a million yuan, pulled some strings, and found a suitable location to reopen the internet cafe. However, this time around, Liu Xiangyang was under a lot of pressure. Not only had he borrowed over 100,000 yuan in debt, but the daily expenses such as rent, broadband fees, employee salaries, and electricity bills were also substantial. Moreover, the management of internet cafes was becoming increasingly strict, starting with prohibiting minors from entering, then requiring ID checks, and finally banning smoking.
So, despite the pressure, Liu Xiangyang still spent 9 years relatively smoothly, repaid the loan and the internet cafe didn't make money anymore. Watching the company that accompanied him through his youth (the internet cafe was also a limited liability company with registered capital more than many companies) close down, Liu Xiangyang felt very helpless, what would he do in the future?
At this time, an old customer of the internet cafe gave Comrade Liu a suggestion. This old customer surnamed Sun, named Sun Guangfu, from Qingdao, often came to Beijing on business and lived in the hotel opposite the internet cafe, basically coming to the internet cafe every day to play games, and was very familiar with Liu Xiangyang. He told Liu Xiangyang that his business was "delivering goods" to North Korea, of course not by himself, he also had a small organization, with hard connections in the background. If Old Liu was interested, he could put up some money to get a batch of goods and join as a shareholder.
Liu Xiangyang didn't think much of it at the time, and after staying home for more than half a year, the economy was getting worse and worse, and all kinds of small businesses were becoming increasingly difficult to do. If he blindly invested the little money in his hands, he probably wouldn't even see any returns. But if he didn't invest, he had to do something, besides earning a living, staying at home every day was also quite unbearable. One day, Old Liu changed to a new mobile phone, and when sorting out the address book, he suddenly saw Sun Guangfu's phone number, and remembered the "business" he mentioned to him at the time, and couldn't help but feel a little excited.
Thinking is not as good as action, after thinking for a few days, Old Liu couldn't help but call Sun Guangfu, and got a definite promise: the business is still being done, and it's doing well, if you want to invest, hurry up, if we hadn't been together in the internet cafe for several years, I wouldn't even let you play! Liu Xiangyang gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, took out 100,000 yuan and arrived at Weihai with the money.
