A Secret Plot

Huang Zhanying was really something now. She was a famous model of educated-youth entrepreneurship in the capital region. She already had more than a hundred people under her, seven outlets, and a wholesale department. They had moved from beneath the Arrow Tower to a spacious stretch across the road. It was no longer a tumbledown shed, but proper wooden buildings that looked the part. A sign hung at the door: Headquarters of the Qianmen Dashilar Youth Refreshment Cooperative! Chen Qi looked the place over from outside. A row of wooden buildings, and the floor space was quite large. Cotton curtains hung in the doorways, and another sign read: refreshments, general goods, wontons, traditional folk performing arts. The wontons had a room to themselves. A stovepipe stuck out, gurgling white smoke. From inside came the drawn-out yi-ya of opera singing. "They're into a bit of everything now!" He lifted a curtain and went in. What met his eye were several big counters—this was where they sold general goods. Farther in were six or seven sets of tables and chairs. A small space had been left clear in front, with a crude stage put up on it. Curtains screened both sides, probably for makeup and changing clothes. Small as a sparrow, it had all its innards. Chen Qi was thoroughly pleased. "Hello, comrade. What would you like?" A girl came over and handed him a plain price list. On it were pastries, dried fruit, and the like. The most eye-catching item was undoubtedly the large-bowl tea, still two fen a bowl. He ordered a few things at random and said, "Where's your Director Huang?" "She's busy over on the wonton side!" "Call her over. Say a leader has come to inspect!" "Which leader are you?" The girl didn't know him. "A division-level leader, the one in charge of your Director Huang. Hurry and call her!" The girl left with doubt all over her face. Chen Qi sat down. Watching the opera-school students singing away in front of him, and every little arrangement of the place, he felt deeply gratified. All of it was something he himself had mentioned before, whether meaning to or not. He hadn't expected her to keep every bit of it in mind, and to let it branch out, flourish, and be passed down from generation to generation. "Ah, Comrade Chen Qi!" "Comrade Zhanying!" Chen Qi turned. Huang Zhanying came charging over—still tall, with neat short hair and a pair of big eyes, black and bright. Her hands were covered in flour, and her laugh rang as pleasing as a barbell. "Ha ha ha! I wondered who it was. So it's you, you rascal!" "Don't touch me, don't touch me. A director as grand as you still wraps wontons herself?" "Serve the people, and there's no high or low. You're the one who's lost touch with the masses. I heard from your mother you've been to Hong Kong and abroad again. Very foreign and fancy!" "I serve the people too. Just a different front!" Huang Zhanying washed her hands, dropped into the seat across from him, and said with pride, "You haven't come by in ages. Look at this place of mine! The plot I applied for a while back finally got approved—this very piece of land. The district leaders helped allocate some building materials, and we put up these few wooden rooms. "Too many workers. We couldn't hold them all, so I simply scattered them and set up seven outlets. You have no idea how well they're paid. On average they can earn over sixty yuan a month!" "That much?" "Base wage plus bonuses. I'm the one in charge now. What I say goes!" "My respects, my respects!" Chen Qi cupped his hands. "Let's talk business. I came today to deliver you a fortune. "I've started a magazine. The inaugural issue comes out in January. Nothing in the country today can match this magazine of mine. It'll be a hit, one hundred percent. If you're interested, toss in eight or ten thousand yuan, and I'll advertise you. The magazine comes out today, and tomorrow your cooperative is famous all over the country!" "Aiya, that's a fine thing!" "It is a fine thing, isn't it!" "And you still thought of me. That really wasn't easy!" "We grew up inseparable. Between the two of us, what's there to count?" "That's right. We're as close as one family!" "Exactly. So how much will you put in?" "I won't put in a thing!" Huang Zhanying wagged a finger and stressed, "I won't invest a single mao. You think I'm a fool? My cooperative is more famous than that shabby magazine of yours. Do I need you to advertise me? And eight or ten thousand yuan—that's all public money. How could I use public funds for private gain? You think far too little of how firm my stand is! "If you want me to place an ad, fine. I won't pay up front. We'll look at the results first. If you get results, then I'll pay. Settled once a year." "Who did you learn all this from?" "You taught me!" "Why did I have to go and run my mouth?!" Chen Qi was glum. The child had grown up and wasn't so easy to fool anymore. He went on, "Then how about this. I'll give you thirty copies of the magazine free. Put them at the outlets. Whether you give them away or sell them is none of my business. But if readers like them and you want more later, I'll let you have them at sixty percent of the price." "What's the list price?" "Two mao five!" Huang Zhanying reckoned it up. Sixty percent was one mao five—one mao earned on each copy. "The margin's there. All right!" "And one more thing. This is me asking you a favor. You're well connected in educated-youth circles, and Beijing has so many cooperatives. Ask around for me. Same terms: I'll send a few copies first for everyone to look at, and if they like them, they take the stock at sixty percent too." "No problem. Leave it to me!" Huang Zhanying patted her chest. Watching how seasoned and practiced she had become, Chen Qi said with feeling, "You've really been tempered. Back when you sold large-bowl tea, you didn't even dare call out your wares." "That was then, this is now. I haven't turned into Runtu, and I don't want you turning into the Master." Huang Zhanying said in earnest, "There's something I want to talk over with you too. A while back the Center issued a document, something about the contracting system. What do you think I should do?" "You want to contract this cooperative?" "Yes!" "Give it a rest. Impossible." Chen Qi shook his head. "Only enterprises that aren't doing well get contracted out. Yours is roaring. Who would you contract it from? The government won't agree. "And I'll warn you: the better your returns, the more likely you are to be transferred. Say they move you into a yamen, give you some little official post, and stop you running this operation. Then someone else comes in to take over. A smooth handover, the procedure all legal, and you won't even have anywhere to plead your case." "..." Huang Zhanying was silent. Then she asked, "Then what should I do?" "If you mean to hold this cooperative to the death, find someone powerful and cling tight. If you mean to keep building a career, you'll have to gather strength in secret and widen your connections. When the time comes, raise your arm and give a shout, set up a venture of your own, and with me helping from the side, the great affair can be accomplished! "You can also use an exchange and study visit as your reason and apply to go to Hong Kong and abroad. See what's popular over there, and think about whether you could do it yourself. Don't box yourself inside old Beijing. Your horizons have to open up too." "..." Huang Zhanying heard him out and said nothing, but she had clearly taken it in. She asked again, "And you? Your situation seems about the same as mine." "Film is different. Film is rather special. This work I do—nobody but me can do it." "Wah. Ambition like that—won't you be aiming at a ministry-level post someday?" "Ai. Who knows what the future holds!" The two of them hadn't sat talking together in a long time. Chen Qi stayed a while longer. He ate a bowl of her wontons, two saucers of dried fruit, and a bowl of large-bowl tea, and listened until the opera-school student had sung through a whole passage in that same drawn-out voice before he got up and left. That student was not Liu Bei. He hadn't seen Liu Bei in a long time either, though the two of them had never had much to do with each other to begin with. He knew too many people. Some slipped away through the gaps of his fingers like sand. Perhaps someday, if he thought of them, he would pick them up and put them to use again. Like Cai Caizi. This was the first star he had met after crossing over, and now he couldn't even be bothered to mention the name.