Reborn 92's Business Tycoon

Chapter 1: This Life, Next Life

On August 8th, Guangzhou was like a blazing furnace. The forecast said it would be 31 degrees, but it felt like it was at least 35 degrees.

This is the traditional off-season. In the electrical and mechanical market, the aisles that used to be filled with all kinds of vehicles are now empty. After lunch, the people in each shop either take a nap behind the counter or play games in front of the computer. Business will not start until later in the afternoon.

Feng Yiping has finished issuing the delivery orders. He takes two bottles of Baisha Shangpin Blue from the filing cabinet. These are to be given to the warehouse manager of that company. He puts them in a black plastic bag and stuffs them into his bag. He greeted his nephew Wenhui, who was playing 'Fight the Landlord' on the computer, and got into the silver-grey SRX parked in front of the store.

As soon as he started the car, Liu Yugui, a Taizhou native who bought accessories from the shop next door, came over and looked in through the passenger window. 'Wow, this new car is really something, it's diamond-cut, not bad!'

Feng Yiping leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and said with a smile, 'Not bad, right?'

Liu Yugui opened the car door, sat in the passenger seat, and said, 'The seat is comfortable too.'

'It's not as big as your brother's Q7, but it's much better than your pickup truck. Who told you not to change your car? With that pickup truck of yours, the monthly maintenance costs are not small! How about I give you the phone number of the salesperson at the 4S store first? She's pretty!'

'Pfft, if there was a pretty girl, you'd introduce her to me?'

The two neighbours have been neighbours for many years, and there is no competition in business, but rather complementarity, so the relationship is quite good. The two are also similar in age, both in their thirties, and they usually speak very casually.

Feng Yiping knows the reason for Liu Yugui's visit. 'I told Manager Wang of their company last time that as long as the price of the matching high-pressure pipes is right, they will definitely use ours. Anyway, the goods will be delivered to the warehouse today, and I will have to go to his office to say hello, so I will ask again. Besides, I'll have to invite him out for a drink when the payment arrives next week. You can come along, okay!'

This time, Feng Yiping finally got a big order: a group company's new factory project, all pneumatic tools will be purchased from him, a total of nearly 2,000 pneumatic tools of various types, an order of more than 800,000 yuan, the largest order in the off-season in recent years, so this year is also the best year for business in the off-season in recent years. After purchasing the pneumatic tools, the matching high-pressure pipes were of course indispensable, and Liu Yugui had been thinking about them ever since he heard the news.

Liu Yugui patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Thank you very much! You're busy today, so tomorrow you can bring Zhang Yan and Xiaocheng along, as well as your parents. I'll treat you to dinner.'

Feng Yiping shook his hand away and said, 'I'll go. Can you stop being so fake? You know I'm taking them to Shenzhen for fun tomorrow!'

Liu Yugui pretended to be enlightened, but Feng Yiping impatiently told him to get out of the car.

They walked around to the end of the market, then crossed a small bridge to the centrally located warehouses. At this time of day, not many people were shipping goods, and only a few warehouse doors were open.

In Zone A, No. 28, a long trailer with AH license plates was parked in the middle of the road. Several porters were unloading the truck, some directly onto the light truck next to it, and some directly into the warehouse. Feng Yiping looked over from afar and sure enough, his father, who was in his 70s, was standing behind the pickup truck, putting pneumatic tools into the truck one by one, wearing a big blue overcoat.

Feng Yiping hurried over, took off the overcoat from his father and put it on himself, saying, 'Dad, you'd better tell them how to arrange the goods in the warehouse, otherwise they won't be sorted properly and we'll have to spend a lot of effort sorting them out later.'

Feng Zhenchang was about to say something else when Feng Yiping pushed him into the warehouse. The warehouse did indeed need someone to give instructions. This time, there were more than 400 items in eight different specifications. If you didn't say anything, the porters wouldn't care and just pile them all together.

Over here, Feng Yiping's other nephew, Wen Hua, Wen Hui's older brother, was standing on the pickup truck, stacking the tools to be delivered one by one, at least three layers high, otherwise they wouldn't all fit in the truck.

Seeing that he was covered in sweat, Feng Yiping went up and took his place, saying, 'You go and take a break, I'll load the truck.'

It was like this in the summer. When the forecast said it was going to be 31 degrees, if you stayed in the shade, it might not even get to 30 degrees. But if you were carrying things in the sun like Feng Yiping was doing now, it felt like it was at least 35 or 40 degrees.

Usually, the manufacturer would find a truck to deliver the goods directly, and no matter how much the goods were, they would be delivered through the shipping department, which would bring its own movers and tell them to carry the goods wherever they were told. This time, because the company needed the goods urgently, it asked JS's supplier to find a truck to deliver the goods directly. Of course, the attitude of the movers hired at the last minute was not as good as those brought by the shipping department.

Seeing Feng Yiping standing on the truck, Feng Zhenchang gave him a towel, but it was of little use. Since the summer of junior high school, when he had pulled weeds in the soybean fields on the mountain, Feng Yiping had once again experienced what it meant to sweat like rain, so much that he could not even wipe it away in time. The sweat he had produced in such a short time was even more than the sweat he had produced at the tennis club in the past few months. Pneumatic tools were not considered heavy among the goods he handled, and this one was only about 30 kilograms, but it was still quite laborious to move a lot and quickly.

After more than twenty minutes, the last row can be loaded with one more item. Feng Yiping took the pneumatic wrench from Wenhua's hands and was about to put it on with all his strength when he felt a sharp pain in his chest. It was very short-lived, and he swayed a little. Just as he was about to steady himself, another wave of pain hit him, and he blacked out. He just collapsed, holding the box, and fell backwards.

After handing the box to his brother-in-law, Wenhua went straight to the cab and took out the hemp rope to prepare to tie the car. Suddenly, he heard a 'thud' sound from behind the car. The people unloading the goods there also ran towards this side. Feeling that something was wrong, he threw the rope away and ran towards the back of the car.

All I could see was the group of porters forming a circle, Feng Yiping lying on the ground with his eyes closed and a pale face, and a porter moving the boxes that were pressing down on him. Feng Zhenchang picked up his son's head and kept pressing his nose. He hurried over and shouted, 'Get out of the way!

Let there be some air in the middle!'

...

August 1992, at the foot of the Dabie Mountains, on the hill behind the Feng family's farm.

Feng Yiping was wearing a straw hat, a yellowed undershirt, blue polyester trousers, and a pair of old liberation shoes. He was sitting on a stone at the foot of a pine tree, with a piece of plastic paper under his bottom, staring at the yellow cow not far away.

He had been like this for several days. At first, Feng Zhenchang and Mei Qiuping thought he was sick. After the village barefoot doctor had taken a look, he said there was nothing wrong, so they told him to go about his business as usual.

As children in the countryside, they had things to do during the summer and winter vacations. Feng Yiping's family, together with two other families, raised a cow together. Apart from planting in the spring and autumn each year, each family had to take care of it for more than three months. Feng Yiping's family just moved the time of taking care of it to either the summer or winter vacation.

For children like Feng Yiping who have not yet grown up and have little strength in their hands and shoulders, gathering pigweed and grazing cattle and sheep, and returning home early to cook dinner are their part of the job, and relatively speaking, these tasks are very easy.

It's hot. Right now, he's staying in the shade, and every now and then a breeze sweeps through the mountains. Even so, it's still very hot, and he's sweating all over.

The key is that he's also feeling anxious and confused. Since waking up the day before, he's been very confused. He's seen Inception, and after waking up, he's been wondering if this is also a dream, a very deep dream? Is that why it feels like it's taking a long time?

It's not his fault. Although there are countless novels and TV series and movies about time travel, when you actually experience it yourself, who wouldn't doubt it?

It's been 22 years, from 2014 to 1992. In 2014, his son was already in the first grade, but now, he has just graduated from elementary school and will go to junior high after this summer.

More than 20 years have passed, and he has no recollection of many things. He often encounters people in the village now, and feels that he knows them very well, but he just can't remember their names.

On the opposite hill, his uncle is leading his cousin as they herd the cows and calves to one side. The two men cut down the thatch and shrubs on the hill, and leave them to dry there. In three or five days at most, they will be dry, and then they can be bundled up and carried back. This is much better for burning than straw or leaves.

His thoughts were scattered and quick-witted. In 1992, he was 12 years old, so if he was right, his wife Zhang Yan would have been 9 years old at this time, which means she would still be in primary school in the next county. Haha, Zhang Yan must have been very cute at this time. He knew that Zhang Yan stayed in junior high school and was still chubby. Oh, what would Zhang Yan be like now in 2014? And the naughty son Feng Cheng, and the parents? Oh, the parents are fine, they are just down the street. But what about the parents now, compared to then? Oh dear, it's a bit of a mess.

And the two brothers, Wen Hua and Wen Hui, who both help out in the shop, but this morning when he was herding the cows out of the corral, Wen Hua was holding Wen Hui's hand, and the two snotty-nosed kids were arguing about coming up to the mountains with him.

Now it's not clear what his situation is like in 2014. This should be a matter for the realm of time, perhaps Stephen Hawking can explain it? He just can't figure it out.

He definitely doesn't have a heart condition. He felt his first heart palpitations on a Sunday during his first year of junior high school. He had to go back to school in the afternoon, and he had to wait for his classmates to leave together. After he finished packing, he took a nap for a while, but after only a few minutes, he felt a sharp pain in his heart, so painful that he screamed out, which woke up his mother in the kitchen. In fact, the pain had already gone when he screamed, but his parents were still worried, so they went to the town hospital to have an X-ray taken, but they didn't see anything wrong. Later, after arriving in Guangzhou, the pain returned intermittently once or twice. He consulted a specialist, but nothing could be found. The diagnosis was that he was probably in a state of sub-health. When he attended the agricultural machinery exhibition in Shanghai, he went to Huashan Hospital at Fudan University for a check-up, and there was nothing wrong.

So he was very resistant. In August 14 years ago, there was a possibility that he might, probably, maybe, or...well, die.

If his 2014 self really had a stroke, or became a vegetable with no consciousness, what would his wife, children and parents do then?

Fortunately, his business was not doing well, but he was doing well in other aspects, mainly in terms of the house. In 2003, he decided to go to Guangzhou to do electromechanical business, and they both quit their jobs in Zhejiang. When they first moved from Zhejiang to Guangzhou, they didn't think about buying a house, as one had no money and the other felt that they couldn't afford it.

But when they went to rent a place, they saw that the listed properties for rent were less than 300,000 yuan for an 80-plus-square-meter apartment, and less than 4,000 yuan per square meter for 3,000-plus square meters. The price was lower than that of a town in Wenzhou!

You have to understand that the economy here is not worse than in ZJ, and it is after all the provincial capital. No matter what, the price should not be lower than that of a town in your hometown in the future, and the potential for appreciation is definitely good.

So he and Zhang Yan looked at properties together. Not far from the warehouse they were renting, there was a building under construction that would be ready to move into by the middle of the following year. It was on the edge of the city, not far from Foshan, but it was cheap! A big red banner on the outside wall said, '30,000 for two rooms.' They went in to have a look. The 82-square-meter two-bedroom apartment was less than 280,000 yuan. Although there were six households per floor, there were two balconies, both bedrooms had bay windows, and the lighting was quite good. It faced the right direction, so they bought it!

Who knew that the little saleswoman was so eloquent that she made Feng Yiping, a salesman who also makes a living with his tongue, feel inferior. They themselves also felt that the price of the house would definitely rise, just a matter of how much and how fast. And the electrical and mechanical business they were planning to do, the input and output really might not be as good as this. Okay, then buy two, 30% down payment, and spend nearly half of the start-up capital they had scraped together.

In hindsight, they were also fortunate to have benefited from SARS. After SARS, all walks of life were in a sorry state, especially in Guangzhou, the birthplace of the epidemic.

Property prices hit rock bottom in 2003. They were lucky that from 2004 onwards, Guangzhou's property prices entered an upward trajectory. At the beginning of 2004, at the first Guangzhou Real Estate Summit held in January, the eight major developers joined forces to push up property prices. One after the other, the real estate tycoons claimed at the summit that property prices were going to rise. After that, in 2004, Guangzhou's housing prices rose by nearly 20% year-on-year, and they continued to rise for seven years. It was only after the central government imposed strict purchase restrictions in 2010 that the upward trend gradually slowed.

However, this unplanned move had a very good effect. By 2014, the listed price of second-hand housing in the same community had reached more than 10,000 yuan, nearly quadrupling. It was really easier than his hard work in business.

Having tasted the sweetness, in 2007, after their son was born, they bought a larger one next to the electromechanical market, a 130-square-meter three-bedroom home for their own use, and rented out both here. In 2008, they took their parents to Yunnan for a vacation. Having tasted the sweetness, they did not forget to keep an eye on local real estate while sightseeing.

They went four times in total, and bought a villa next to the Kunming Expo Garden. This was currently the most profitable investment, and also allowed them to get through a few years of tight finances. But when it came time to sell in 2014, it was over 8 million yuan, more than doubled in value, otherwise he really couldn't afford to buy the 600,000-700,000 yuan SRX at the time.

After doing the sums, his savings, stocks, funds, wealth management products, and real estate were worth at least eight figures. His family's electrical and mechanical business, together with the two bakeries owned by Zhang Yankai, earned him several hundred thousand yuan a year. Of course, at that time, the business tycoons were betting billions, and he naturally couldn't compete with them. But it was enough to support his parents and raise his children.

Thinking about it like this made him feel better.

And then there was himself. He was still just a kid, skinny, barely 5'6', only a little taller than the cow. Oh no, if the cow raised its head, with those horns, he'd be even shorter than the cow.

But there were some things that money couldn't buy. Right now, he had no grey hair, no bags under his eyes, no pot belly... skinny, but full of energy.

He analysed the situation from a business perspective again. If he had really become anything, or if he had become a vegetable, he would have been in a dark place, with no hope of recovery.

But now, he had literally returned to childhood. This was a windfall, and it was more than a windfall – it was a miracle!

For someone with his experience of more than 30 years, youth is wealth; youth means infinite possibilities; youth means everything.

He used to be like this. If there were things he really couldn't understand or wasn't sure about, he could accept the worst possible consequences.

So why worry?

The cow was still behaving itself. It had been wandering around, eating grass in the valley, and now its belly was very round. Its cousin Dongming, who was on the opposite hill, called to it to come home.

He picks up the plastic sheet, puts on his straw hat, lets the cow walk in front of him, and slowly walks back.

For children in the countryside, this path is very common and easy to walk empty-handed. After going down the slope on this side, crossing the small river, there is a slope of seven or eight metres in front, which is a large rock. In the middle, there are some crevices for footholds, and next to the crevices, there should be some small pits that were chiselled out years ago as a supplement. These pits are not big, and an adult's foot can fit most of them.

The oxen, especially the old ones that were used to walking this path, were still a little afraid, and often in the middle of the path, they lifted their front hooves and hesitated to put them down. Erbo and Dongming put the two loads of firewood they had carried on the ground and pulled the two oxen from their family to prevent them from snatching it.

Erbo also told Feng Yiping, 'Don't push it, it knows how to walk.'

Feng Yiping was considered an experienced ox driver, so of course he knew.

After a while, the yellow cow finally climbed the large stone slope with ease. Once they reached the top, it was good, because although there was still a slope behind them, it was a dirt slope and very spacious.

After climbing over this slope, they arrived at the village. Now both sides of the road were vegetable gardens, and if they walked a little further, they would reach Fengjiachong.

Fengjiachong is the largest village in Fengjiawan, sandwiched between three mountains. All the households are surnamed Feng, hence the name Fengjiachong.

The entire village is built against the mountains, with houses next to houses, side by side. Most of the houses are made of adobe bricks and tiles, with a few being made of green bricks and tiles. There are also some carvings under the eaves and some murals, but they are now blurred.

Behind each house, the rooms were full of things, either pigsties, neatly stacked woodpiles, or farm tools left outside. Feng Yiping didn't know the official names of many of these tools.

It was already past 6 o'clock, and the chimneys of every house were smoking. As you walked past the houses, you could hear the sound of oil being poured into a pan, the sound of a spatula scraping against an iron wok, and then the aroma followed.

On the woodpile, some chickens refused to go into the cage and jumped up and down, cackling. Underneath the woodpile, children chased each other around, playing. In the pigsty next to them, the pigs, who always ate before people did, were shaking their tails and slurping their food, occasionally emitting contented grunts.

Feng Yiping drives the cow across the whole village. His family's cow pen is built by the side of a pond in front of the village. Along the way, he keeps repeating his greetings to the people he sees, always with the same few words: 'Uncle Xi, you're back.'

He says, 'You're back. Have you eaten yet?'

Yes, many people call him Uncle Xi. There's no way around it. In the countryside, people pay attention to hierarchy. In the whole village of Fengjiapan, there is only one small village with the surname Sun, and the rest are surnamed Feng. Feng Yiping's father and his brothers are the eldest in the family, and apart from his father and uncles, Feng Yiping's cousins are the second eldest. The eldest brother in the neighbouring family, who is over 70 years old, sometimes jokes and calls him 'younger uncle', so he always addresses adults as 'brother' or 'sister'. According to the family hierarchy, there are now many children in the village who are his great-grandchildren.

Feng Yiping is the youngest of his cousins. His second-youngest cousin is almost 10 years older than him. When someone in the village mentions this, they often joke that when Feng Yiping turns 80, he will be the living ancestor of the village. Indeed, by then, he will probably be the only one left in his generation. Now, according to the generation system, he is the great-grandson of someone, and by then, he will definitely have grandchildren too. So what else can he be but the living ancestor?

He is leading the cow to drink water under the telegraph pole by the pond. There are already quite a few people on the threshing floor by the pond, adults and children all carrying bowls, standing in the middle of the floor eating. While they eat, they chat about this and that, and there is also that loud-voiced old woman, standing in the doorway, shouting at her children, 'Where have you gone crazy? Why aren't you back for dinner?'

Many chickens were still not in their cages, pecking around on the field. After the rice had just been threshed, some grains had fallen inside, and there were also a few dogs, lying on the edge of the field, their tongues hanging out in the heat.

Looking at such a scene, Feng Yiping felt familiar yet distant. Such a lively scene would only be seen in these last few years. A few years later, when the young people all went out to work, the village would only be lively during the Spring Festival. But it was rare to see dozens of people gathering on the threshing floor every day, even during the Spring Festival.

Dongming's cow was electrocuted once by the wire on this telegraph pole on a rainy day, and since then, she has never dared to drink water here and goes to the other side on her own.

Dongming asked him, 'Are you still going to let the cow graze there tomorrow?'

Feng Yiping said, 'Yes, there is still quite a lot of grass there.'

'Then let's go together tomorrow.'

'Okay,'

after thinking for a moment, Feng Yiping said, "Dongming, I'll bring a knife tomorrow too, and learn from you and my uncle and chop some firewood.'

Feng Dongming laughed, "With the strength you have, how much can you chop?'

Feng Yiping also laughed, 'I'll chop as much as I can, and ask my father to carry it back when it's dry. In a month, there will be a few loads of firewood!'

He then remembered that his parents were busy with the fields, and in winter there was never enough firewood. Later, they always went to the back of the fields to collect chestnut leaves. A few loads of firewood wouldn't solve the big problem, but it was better than nothing.

After closing the cow shed door, he walked to Wenhua's house by the pond. The door was open, but the light was not on. His cousin Hua Fu was stooping down adding firewood to the stove, and did not see the two Wenhua brothers. 'Brother Hua Fu, where are Wenhua and his brother?

Feng Hua Fu turned his head and said, 'Oh, you're back. They're probably playing over at the threshing floor!'

'Oh, wait, they'll be coming to my house soon. You don't need to cook much for dinner.'

As soon as he finished speaking, two of the children ran out of the group, shouting, "Younger brother, you're back!'

He told them to walk in front of him, rather than in the middle of the group, and to walk along the side of the hill towards his house at the back of the group. "You'll be eating dinner at my house tonight.'

A carpenter was at his house these two days, making desks and chairs, and the food was good.

Yes, it was also from their generation that those attending the middle school in the countryside had to bring their own desks and chairs.

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