Wealthy Now

Chapter 47

The speed at which people could acquire wealth was truly staggering.

When the two of them first arrived, a bowl of wontons for one yuan was enough to make the young couple feel truly rich.

Back then, the couple knew nothing about the pagers¹ the city people carried. Seeing the goods in the department store, they felt these were things they might never be able to afford in this lifetime.

But now, Wu Jie had already bought pagers for everyone in his family. He wore a watch and leather shoes, looking quite grand.

“You should go buy some fashionable dresses and clothes too,” Wu Jie told her.

Li Qingqing was reluctant. Seeing how arrogant Wu Jie had become with just this bit of money, she couldn’t help but think of Ming Wen and Sha Niu.

Previously, when the Village Chief found out Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, he returned all the income from the clinic he had confiscated.

It filled several boxes with loose change.

Ming Wen hadn’t given it a second glance. It seemed that to her, money was just money. She divided it between Li Qingqing and Sha Niu.

Li Qingqing preferred that attitude toward money and was naturally unwilling to mingle with Wu Jie’s crowd.

Wu Jie didn’t notice the change in Li Qingqing. He was too busy, going out every day to drink and treat people to dinner, associating only with big bosses.

Soon, Wu Jie opened two more branch stores. It had to be said that he was indeed socially savvy and bold. His business was truly booming.

Consequently, he felt even more superior, becoming increasingly arrogant in his speech and actions.

Every time Li Qingqing watched him, she just observed, thinking to herself that if she ever earned money in the future, she must never have such a face, because it was truly undignified.

In the spring of the second year, Li Qingqing still hadn’t found a steady job. She took on some odd jobs gluing Beaded Flowers. Although the pay was meager and the Wu family looked down on it, she continued to do it.

“Is there something wrong with your head? You ignore the chance to make real money and insist on suffering like this.”

Her parents had been released from prison that year and came to visit her. They were initially happy that their son-in-law was wealthy, but when they saw Li Qingqing, they couldn’t help but scold her.

“If you don’t secure your hold on him, what will you do if he finds someone else outside?”

Li Qingqing couldn’t explain it clearly. She didn’t support Wu Jie’s business style, but she certainly had feelings for him as a person.

Not only had they grown up together, but back when she was burned, her own mother had watched her nearly die and hadn’t given a single cent. She heard later from others that Wu Jie had no money at the time either. He had taken an axe and gone to find two families: the one that splashed her with boiling water and the family of the child who hit her.

He slammed the axe down at their homes and said if Qingqing died, no one would live.

Because he said that, everyone rushed to persuade them, and the two families finally scraped together the medical fees for him.

Afterward, people told her that although Wu Jie usually seemed honest and simple, he actually had capability.

She was grateful in her heart, but many things were complicated. She had feelings for Wu Jie, but as soon as they met and she saw that “I’m the greatest” look on his face, Li Qingqing… she just wanted to punch him twice.

Truly, staying together every day was worse than their current arrangement of doing their own things.

Wu Jie didn’t mind either. In his view, Li Qingqing was too fond of pulling a long face. He couldn’t stand being together every day either.

But he wasn’t willing to truly separate. After all, they grew up together. So they simply maintained this state, with him waiting for Li Qingqing to come around.

Thus, Li Qingqing went out every day to find work, occasionally helping another dual-income family in the building buy groceries and such.

At the vegetable market, some people from the countryside came down to sell. If you went late, there would be no vegetables left.

Li Qingqing met a few women in similar situations. These women were much like her, unable to find formal jobs and usually taking on work like gluing Beaded Flowers.

“It feels like money can be made everywhere in Guangcheng. Everyone is making big money except for us few,” one older sister said.

The group went out to buy groceries together, and Li Qingqing listened to them talk.

“Isn’t that the truth? Look at these people selling vegetables and eggs; they can make quite a bit.”

This time, while buying vegetables, Li Qingqing couldn’t help but ask a few more questions, inquiring where the sellers were from.

She discovered they were from the outskirts of Guangcheng. It made sense; only those living nearby could come to sell. For those slightly further away, just walking would take too much time. So it wasn’t that the vegetables in the mountains weren’t valuable; they just never made it to market, just like in her hometown.

As the group walked back with their groceries, Li Qingqing looked at the vegetables she had bought for others and suddenly had an idea.

Actually, it was just a thought. She didn’t think it would make much money.

Li Qingqing didn’t dare go alone, so she called out to the few women she usually knew: “I have a business idea. Do you want to try it with me?”

They all looked at her.

“Let’s try going to the surrounding villages to collect eggs and bring them down to sell.”

“That won’t work. It’s not safe for us women to go to those places.”

As soon as she said it, Li Qingqing also thought of certain things and shrank back.

Li Qingqing actually wanted to ask the Wu family to go with her, but she knew she would be mocked if she said it aloud.

The next day, when they went to pick up the materials for the Beaded Flowers, two women pulled Li Qingqing aside.

The two women were an older one around sixty and a younger one in her twenties or thirties. Li Qingqing was slightly more familiar with them; they were mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The younger one was named Chunyan.

Chunyan said, “About what you said last time, collecting eggs in the countryside. We want to do it.”

Li Qingqing said, “It’s not safe.”

“Our family has no choice. If we don’t do it, all three of us will starve.”

Li Qingqing knew their family situation. The man had been in an accident, and the child was sick.

“Are you going?” Chunyan had no experience and hoped to bring Li Qingqing along. Primarily, in their eyes, Li Qingqing was smart and steady. With her there, they would have a leader.

Li Qingqing felt fear in her heart. The two of them were prepared to go, yet Li Qingqing didn’t seem to have a reason as desperate as theirs.

But looking at her own home, was she really going to live like this forever?

Li Qingqing made a bold move and decided to give it a try first.

“There are three of us. Let’s go and come back quickly. Don’t wander off alone, and everyone bring something for self-defense.”

The village the three of them were heading to was not far from the city, making it relatively safe.

“I feel like we won’t be able to collect much.”

Li Qingqing remained emotionally stable and said, “We shouldn’t expect to make big money right from the start.”

The three of them went from house to house, asking if they could buy eggs and vegetables.

In truth, the three of them had misunderstood a few things. At this time, information did not flow freely between the city and the countryside. Since they lived in the city, they took it for granted that rural people would surely sell their eggs in town. In reality, the food and oil stamp systems² had only been abolished two years prior, and many people’s mindsets had not yet shifted. For most villagers, if they wanted to keep their families from starving, they had to work hard in the fields. Going to the city to sell vegetables and eggs was still an unexplored path.

Many years later, when Li Qingqing recalled her “first pot of gold” on television, she couldn’t help but sigh. The fact that a small figure like her could achieve such success later on was inseparable from the way the era had shoved that first mouthful of food into her mouth at that very moment.

At this moment, however, she knew nothing of that.

At the first house, the three of them collected thirteen eggs. They placed them in their back-baskets³. Although it was only thirteen eggs, it was considered a good start.

Soon, they collected forty eggs at the second house. Not only that, but the owner was particularly happy: “If you come back later, I’ll make sure to save more for you.”

Then came the third house, and the fourth. For the rural folk, as long as someone came to their doorstep to buy eggs and they had some at home, they would bring them out. Some even asked if they were buying chickens.

In the end, the three of them ran out of rice husks⁴ used for packing the eggs, so they stopped collecting and hurried back to figure out how to sell them.

Because the people in her own family always liked to meddle and criticize, Li Qingqing did not carry the eggs back to her house. Instead, she left them at Chunyan’s place.

“We’ll go to the market to sell them tomorrow too.”

The eggs cost ten cents each when they bought them and could be sold for twenty cents each. These eggs would earn them a decent sum of money.

The next day, as expected, their eggs sold out very quickly. Li Qingqing did a rough calculation; after setting aside the cost of the eggs and the bus fare, each person still had twenty yuan.

While it couldn’t compare to the money Wu Jie and the others were making, it was still a good income.

Li Qingqing finally had money in her hands. The money Wu Jie had earned previously never reached her, and she hadn’t asked for it. All she had ever had was the little bit of money she earned from gluing Beaded Flowers. It was fortunate that she hadn’t looked down on that small income and stopped doing it, otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the capital to buy the eggs.

Her family still thought she was out looking for work or gluing Beaded Flowers. No one noticed what Li Qingqing was actually doing.

After a month, Li Qingqing had over five hundred yuan in her hands. Later on, they began helping customers who had pre-ordered chickens to buy them. The profit from selling chickens was even greater, but live chickens were difficult to handle if they didn’t sell out in the city, so they only accepted pre-orders.

When Li Qingqing returned home, she remained quiet as usual. She didn’t show off the money she had earned. She saw things very clearly now; if she spoke up, the Wu family would only find other ways to suppress her. It was better to say nothing and allow herself to develop slowly.

The next day, Li Qingqing went out again with her back-basket to collect eggs with the others, walking with a newfound energy in her step.

There were five of them now.

When the five of them grew tired, they rested on the mountainside. Looking back, they could see the dense clusters of city buildings.

Seeing it from this perspective for the first time, Li Qingqing felt like a bamboo shoot growing out of a rock. This city, which had once seemed like an impenetrable iron barrel, finally felt like a place where she had gained a foothold.

Gradually, they were no longer satisfied with just buying eggs. They began selling chickens, ducks, medicinal herbs, and more. As time went on, more and more people joined them.

After only three months, their scale grew larger and larger.

What was even more surreal was that the Wu family members even mentioned the “Egg-selling Women⁵” at home, yet no one suspected that she was one of them, let alone one of the founding members.

Li Qingqing sat nearby, still saying nothing.

By the end of the year, a newspaper even came to interview them.

–

Yun Song had always felt there were two keys to this case: first, Ming Qingfu’s identity, and second, why she would transfer money to the family of three at the Scrap Recycling Station.

After watching Ming Qingfu’s interview, she looked up information regarding the Egg-selling Women.

The profession of “Egg-selling Women” was more common in Shanghai during the 1980s. At that time, egg merchants provided the eggs, and the women were responsible for selling them, taking a commission from the sales.

This profession gradually disappeared as the market developed. However, the Egg-selling Women mentioned by Ming Qingfu did not follow this model; instead, they went to the villages themselves to buy eggs and then sold them in the city.

Yun Song remembered that the person who knew Ming Qingfu before was from Guangcheng. She began searching for any news related to Egg-selling Women in Guangcheng.

She actually found a news report in an old copy of the Guangcheng Women’s Daily.

“Guangcheng Women Develop a New Horizon: Walking Tens of Thousands of Steps Daily to Support Their Families.”

The old newspaper showed a line of women carrying back-baskets, telling the story of how they relied on selling eggs to relieve their family’s financial pressure.

Their model was exactly the same as what Ming Qingfu had described.

Yun Song noted down the names of the three women interviewed in the article.

–

“Sister Qing, the reporter wants an interview. Aren’t you going? I heard we can even have our pictures taken for the newspaper.” Chunyan found it very strange.

Chunyan knew very little about Li Qingqing. It was mainly because Li Qingqing was too quiet; she rarely spoke. Everyone only knew that her family seemed to be short on money. As for who was in her family or why they were short on money, she never said.

Li Qingqing was currently in their shop, holding a literacy book used by primary school children in the city. Li Qingqing had realized that one had to be literate to get by. With so many pre-ordering customers, relying solely on memory was no longer enough.

“If you all like it, you can go.”

Li Qingqing didn’t want to go, largely because she liked her current life. If she went, the Wu family would definitely find out.

She always felt there was no need to let them know about her personal affairs.

She began to feel that she was becoming more and more like Ming Wen, and this realization brought her a wave of relief.

It was as if, in this state, she was no longer afraid of anything.

As she watched the others being interviewed at the end, a flicker of envy still rose in her heart.

She comforted herself, telling herself it was fine, and that there would be many more opportunities in the future.

Translator’s Notes