Chapter 49 Scammer Decides to Be a Good Person 24 – As the Year-End Approached

That night, Shi Lan made the rounds of all the stores, and everything was running smoothly. But after being away for several days, quite a few matters had piled up, and people came to her one after another to ask for instructions and discuss work.

There was no way she could deal with everything today anyway, and she really did not have the energy for it, so she simply had Li Wei notify all the store managers to attend a morning meeting first thing the next day.

There were more and more stores now, and more and more employees.

The office set up in the first store was far too cramped and nowhere near enough anymore.

Shi Lan contacted Liu Haifeng and asked him to keep an eye out for office buildings.

Given the current pace of growth and scale, it was no longer suitable to keep operating like a makeshift outfit, muddling along on a small scale.

Shi Lan planned to register a catering company, then hire a group of professionals to help manage personnel, finance, marketing, operations, and other matters.

Li Wei was currently her assistant. He was quick-witted and could handle a bit of just about everything. Shi Lan kept him by her side because she intended to groom him.

As he looked over the talent recruitment plan Shi Lan had drafted, along with the job requirements, he felt a little uneasy.

Some positions explicitly required at least a junior college diploma.

Li Wei had always considered himself the boss’s most capable right-hand man, and after being promoted to assistant, he had been proud of himself for quite a while. He would even dare say his monthly salary was higher than those of his classmates who had become officials.

But as the boss’s business kept growing and the operation kept expanding, especially after he had made several mistakes, thinking back on his earlier pride made his face burn with embarrassment. The boss had not criticized him. Instead, she had patiently guided him, breaking everything down and explaining the ins and outs in detail.

He was grateful and full of admiration… his boss was clearly even younger than he was.

Li Wei himself had only graduated from a vocational secondary school. Seeing that they were about to hire people with qualifications higher than his, he was panicking.

Shi Lan noticed her subordinate’s insecurity and offered a few words of reassurance. “Just work hard. Education doesn’t equal ability.”

She did not completely put Li Wei’s mind at ease. This assistant still needed polishing. She hoped he would keep a certain amount of anxiety and use it to improve himself.

Du Heng was about to join another production crew again.

This time, Shi Lan had experience. She prepared a whole pile of food for him to take along in advance.

Making friends by sharing food had a certain effect no matter the era.

Before leaving, Du Heng asked her, “How do you want to handle the wedding banquet?”

“The wedding banquet?” Shi Lan paused for a moment before realizing he was talking about the wedding.

She had never thought about it before. To her, weddings were troublesome, meaningless, and all too easy to offend people over.

But judging by Du Heng’s expression, he seemed to be looking forward to it quite a bit. Had their roles somehow been reversed?

“I’m swamped this year, and you’re busy filming too. Let’s talk about it later.”

Normally, given Du Heng’s personality, he probably would have just said “Oh” and let the subject drop.

But today she heard him say, “If we don’t hold a banquet, it just feels like I don’t have any proper standing.”

That counted as a tiny little complaint, didn’t it?

Shi Lan found it novel. Was this because getting the marriage certificate had given him a greater sense of security?

She teased him on purpose. “Once you’ve got the certificate, you’re married. Whether you hold a wedding or not is basically the same.”

“It’s completely different. How can we not have one?” Du Heng rarely insisted on his own view in front of her. “And it has to be grand, with lots of guests. That’s what makes it lively.”

“So that means the wedding clothes, supplies, and everything else all have to be newly bought and specially made, and every detail has to be as refined as possible?”

Du Heng said, “Naturally. You only get one chance in a lifetime, so it has to be done beautifully.”

Shi Lan: “…”

It was clear now. When it came to weddings, the two of them really had picked up each other’s script.

At this moment, Shi Lan looked at Du Heng the same way she used to look at friends who had been absurdly picky while planning their weddings.

It was actually kind of cute.

“Then when you’re not so busy, you can handle it. I might not be as meticulous as you.”

Du Heng said, “As I should.”

It really did seem like he could not trust anyone else with the job.

Shi Lan: “…”

That worked too. She was more than happy to be a hands-off boss. As long as he was happy. Besides, if he stayed busy, he would be less likely to overthink things.

Still, this was not something that could be arranged in a day or two. Right now, both of them had more important things to do.

Shi Lan was registering the company, running around to deal with business permits and procedures, renovating the office, planning the company’s functional structure and staffing, and gradually opening new stores in other parts of the city…

She was so busy she was practically spinning like a top.

She had not made any fuss over the company’s opening, but some regular customers and friends still sent flowers to congratulate her.

Among them were Liu Haifeng, the real estate agent she often worked with, and Qin Xiaohui, an old regular.

These two could be said to have watched Shi Lan make her way here step by step.

Qin Xiaohui even came by to look around her office. “How long has it even been? Your business is already this big. Unlike me, stuck in the factory year after year without any change. For all I know, I might spend the next few decades just like this. I really envy you.”

Who could have imagined it? A young girl selling boxed meals on the street had, in the blink of an eye, become the owner of a catering company with multiple restaurants and over a hundred employees under her.

As for age, Qin Xiaohui was quite a bit older than Shi Lan. It really made people admit that some people were simply different from others.

Shi Lan said, “If you want to, you can do it too.”

Qin Xiaohui waved her hand. “No, I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to.”

Only after getting familiar with her did Shi Lan learn that Qin Xiaohui was absolutely a rich second-generation kid. Her father belonged to the first wave of people who got rich after Reform and Opening Up¹, and the factory where she worked was her family’s.

It was just that this girl had no real ambition of her own. She loved nothing more than eating, and these days she was basically just drifting through life at her family’s factory.

Shi Lan even knew her daily routine almost by heart. It hardly ever changed.

At work, she killed time like a dead fish, ate and ate during lunch break, and went out to have fun after work. Oh, and recently she had picked up a new hobby: going home to play on the computer.

She had even recommended it to Shi Lan. “You really should buy one and try it. Computers are so much fun. You can make friends with people all over the country, and you can do so many things on them. It’s like a whole new world.”

Shi Lan had not bought one for the time being. They were too expensive, and the specs were not that good.

At that moment, she suggested to Qin Xiaohui, “Since you like computers so much, why don’t you open an internet cafe? Then your job every day would be playing on computers. Wouldn’t that be great?”

“An internet cafe? What’s that?”

Shi Lan gave her a rough introduction to what an internet cafe was.

“If you want to open a business, an internet cafe actually suits you pretty well. You basically wouldn’t need to do much management. You could just sit there and wait for customers to come in. You could also stock some instant noodles and drinks to sell on the side. Computer prices are high right now, and even in the secondhand market they haven’t depreciated much. If one day you don’t want to run the shop anymore, you can sell the computers off and you won’t lose much.”

“Would anyone come?”

“That’s the one thing you don’t need to worry about. Honestly, I think your biggest obstacle is that you won’t get up in the morning to open the place on time. Forget everything else, the ability of games alone to draw in customers would exceed your imagination.” As Shi Lan spoke, she almost started wanting to open an internet cafe herself.

Qin Xiaohui was still a little dazed. “Games?”

Oh, right. Shi Lan remembered. For someone who could spend an entire day playing Minesweeper and Solitaire, online games were a bit too far ahead of the times.

“There should already be internet cafes in Haidu by now. If you’re interested, you can go take a look.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.” Qin Xiaohui clung to Shi Lan’s arm, full of admiration. “How does your brain even work? It’s full of business ideas.”

Uh… not exactly. I’m just ahead of the times.

Of course, she could not say that out loud.

After seeing Qin Xiaohui off, Shi Lan found herself wondering whether she should open an internet cafe too. Going by the logic that even pigs can fly when the wind is right², she could recover her costs in a few months at most.

The next second, she rejected the idea. She still preferred working in catering. Seeing customers eat happily made her happy too.

But maybe she could get a few computers for the company to use for office work?

As soon as she decided on it, Shi Lan put Li Wei on the task that very afternoon and sent him to buy a computer. After that, he would have to learn how to use it. Not just him, everyone who joined the company in the future would have to know how to use a computer too.

At this point in time, computers were still high-end items for ordinary people, the very definition of high-tech.

Listening to his boss’s ever-changing ideas, Li Wei felt a tremendous amount of pressure.

Shi Lan patted him on the shoulder. “We’re keeping up with the times.”

Since the company was hiring, Shi Lan also hired herself a new female assistant. There were some things Li Wei wasn’t well suited to handle.

The assistant’s name was Qin Luo, and she was five years older than Shi Lan.

She was already used to it. None of the employees were younger than she was.

Qin Luo was not only decisive and capable, she was also a university graduate. Logically speaking, a small temple like Shi Lan’s could hardly afford to keep talent like her, especially not in an assistant role.

But Qin Luo had been a little unlucky. Before she had even graduated from university, the state introduced a policy that would gradually abolish guaranteed job assignments³ for college students. Some would still be assigned positions by the state, while the rest would have to find work on their own.

Qin Luo had neither money nor connections, so she fell into the self-employment group.

Still, she was a university graduate, and in this era that made her highly sought after. Finding work wasn’t hard for her, but every time she joined a company, the company went under. Even she had started to wonder if she was cursed when it came to bosses. She had finally found one place that lasted, and she’d worked there for two straight years without it collapsing, only to run into workplace sexual harassment…

She chose Shi Lan because Shi Lan was a woman, and the pay was high.

You could say Shi Lan had picked up a little bargain.

When Qin Luo first arrived, Li Wei seemed a bit inclined to compete with her.

Shi Lan watched for a while and saw that it wasn’t anything too excessive. He was just more attentive toward her and worked harder on the tasks she assigned him. So she left it alone and let them engage in some healthy competition.

In the blink of an eye, it was the end of the year.

Du Heng called Shi Lan in low spirits and told her the film crew wasn’t giving anyone time off, nor were they allowing leave, so he wouldn’t be able to come back and spend the New Year with her.

Shi Lan was pretty downcast too. What was wrong with this director? Du Heng had been with the production team for two or three months without coming back even once, and now they weren’t even giving him New Year’s off. She had stocked up on all kinds of holiday goods to celebrate with him. This was supposed to be their first New Year after getting married. It was one thing not to spend New Year’s Day together, but not even letting him off on New Year’s Eve⁴ was too much.

The two of them spent half an hour complaining about the director together.

Fortunately, when Du Heng left this time, Shi Lan had him take a cell phone with him, so the two of them could talk every day. It wasn’t like before, when once he joined the production it felt as if he’d been cut off from the world.

After reluctantly hanging up, a burning thought suddenly sprang into Shi Lan’s mind.

Du Heng couldn’t get time off to come back, but she could go visit the set. Even if he had scenes to film every day, he’d still have time to eat and sleep, right?

Once the idea took hold, she couldn’t put it aside.

Ten minutes later, Shi Lan had already decided to visit the set. She wouldn’t tell him for now. She’d give him a surprise when she arrived.

Actually, the shop was pretty busy during the New Year period too. They had already taken a lot of orders in advance for New Year’s Eve and the first day of the new year. She had already informed all the employees beforehand that the holiday schedule would be staggered. Unless there were special circumstances, everyone’s leave would be postponed.

Correspondingly, anyone working during the New Year would be paid triple wages.

Later, HR reported that not a single employee had asked for leave, all because they wanted the triple pay.

Well then, people in this era really did have a strong fighting spirit. In her time, young people wouldn’t care about that little bit of overtime pay. Nobody could stop them from clocking out and resting when it was time.

If she was going to visit the set, Shi Lan had to arrange everything at the shop in advance.

The limited Spring Festival⁵ menu, promotional events, contingency plans…

---

Translator’s Notes

---

1. Reform and Opening Up: The ‘Gaige Kaifang’ policy initiated in 1978. It shifted China from a planned economy to a market-oriented one, allowing for private entrepreneurship and creating the first wave of ‘nouveau riche’ (like Qin Xiaohui’s father). ↩
2. even pigs can fly when the wind is right: A famous business proverb attributed to Xiaomi founder Lei Jun. It suggests that in a booming market or ‘trend’ (wind), even those with little natural talent (pigs) can achieve massive success by simply being in the right place at the right time. ↩
3. guaranteed job assignments: Refers to the ‘baofenpei’ (包分配) system where the Chinese government historically guaranteed and assigned jobs to all university graduates. The abolition of this system in the mid-to-late 90s forced graduates to compete in the open market for the first time. ↩
4. New Year’s Eve: Known as ‘Chuxi’, this is the night of the most important meal of the year, the Reunion Dinner. Working or being away from family on this night is considered a major sacrifice in Chinese culture. ↩
5. Spring Festival: The Lunar New Year, China’s most important traditional holiday. It is a time for family reunions (Chunyun), making Du Heng’s inability to return home a significant emotional blow to the couple. ↩