Saturday was spent entirely on eating, drinking and enjoying themselves.
When they got back to the hotel that evening, Xu Ye and Qin Zhiwei collapsed onto the beds in unison, faces empty of any will to live.
Qin Zhiwei said feebly, “Xu Ye, tomorrow let’s just stay in the hotel. Whatever we do, let’s not go out — they can keep going forever.”
“Great minds think alike.”
“Did you leave the high school group?”
“Ages ago. Why?”
Qin Zhiwei laughed. “Nothing much. Somebody mentioned you in there, said you’d forgotten your old classmates. And there’s another thing.”
Xu Ye: “Say it all in one go.”
Qin Zhiwei said, “Gu Mengyao seems to have found herself a rich kid for a boyfriend. She hasn’t brought it up in the group herself — it’s Liu Qian who keeps mentioning it.”
“What the hell has that got to do with me?”
Qin Zhiwei went on quickly, “And… Shen Xinyi suddenly asked me today whether you’d ever been in a relationship.”
Xu Ye sat up on the bed, perfectly serious. “What did you tell her?”
“I said you hadn’t. You chased Gu Mengyao in high school and never got anywhere.”
“Good man.”
“Somebody’s been stirring up the idea of a class reunion in there again lately. Xie Hong and Jiang Lei are leading it — those two dipshits. Neither of them got into university, so one went and trained as a mechanic and the other got his license and drives a heavy truck with his father now. They’ve got nothing better to do all day than yap in the group.”
Xu Ye laughed. “Just ignore them. Three or five friends is plenty. Haven’t you heard the line — you’re the average of the six people closest to you?”
“The average?”
“It means that if your friends are all doing well, chances are you are too, and if your friends are useless, then you’re definitely useless as well. That’s why so many people fight so hard to squeeze into higher circles once they’re out in the world.”
Xu Ye paused, then said, “That reminds me — there’s something I forgot to tell you. I’ve already transferred the fruit shop.”
Hearing that, Qin Zhiwei sat up on the bed too.
“Why transfer it? Wasn’t it making money the whole time?”
“After the summer break there’s another fruit shop opening on the food street, and the owner has real weight behind him. He’d have hurt our business for certain. I transferred it at a high price while nobody else knew about it yet.”
Qin Zhiwei nodded. “So from now on you’re concentrating on the vending machine business?”
“No.”
Xu Ye laughed. “I’m planning to move into investment.”
“Damn!” Investment was a very high-end word as far as Qin Zhiwei was concerned, the kind of thing ordinary people never came near, so hearing that, he leaned straight in and asked, “How much money have you actually got now?”
Xu Ye shrugged and said it lightly. “Close to ten million. At the start of the month I bought a stock called Leikai New Materials. It’s gone limit-up more than twenty days running and the price is up nearly twentyfold.”
“Christ!”
“Christ!”
“Christ!”
Qin Zhiwei grabbed hold of his hand, excited. “Bro. You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“You’re the only person I’ve told so far. Don’t pass it around.”
“I’ll keep it quiet, definitely.”
“Once I’ve got a foothold in investment, I’ll bring you in with me.”
Qin Zhiwei let out a thoroughly cheesy “Bro,” then butted his head into Xu Ye’s chest and nuzzled at him, over and over.
Xu Ye rolled his eyes, pushed him off, took a change of clothes and went straight into the bathroom to shower.
Qin Zhiwei lay back down on the bed. He got his phone out and opened Tencent, and sure enough the handful of active members in the high school group were chatting again.
Xie Hong: “Serviced a Land Rover today and the customer gave me a two-hundred tip on the spot, hahahaha.”
Jiang Lei: “I ran a load down to Shantou.”
Jiang Lei: “Only fifteen hundred for two days.”
Zheng Yong: “You two have it far too easy. If I’d known I’d never have bothered with this lousy vocational college.”
Liu Qian: “Gu Mengyao’s boyfriend took me out to eat yesterday and spent seven hundred on it.”
Xie Hong: “What does Gu Mengyao’s boyfriend’s family do?”
Liu Qian: “KTV chain.”
Liu Qian: “Two of them in Jiangzhou alone.”
Xie Hong: “@Gu Mengyao — when are you going to take us out for a night?”
Jiang Lei: “+1”
Gu Mengyao: “I’ll see whether I’ve got time over the summer.”
Qin Zhiwei scrolled back through the chat history. Watching them show off in the group, he might once have felt a small twinge of envy — but reading the same messages now, he found himself curling his lip at them.
Who do you people think you are, coming out here to show off?
My brother Ye’s already a multi-millionaire.
…
Jiangzhou.
Inside the Youwei garment factory on the industrial park.
The workers had begun clocking off at six.
The Taobao store had only just started up, so there was no need for much stock, but the team upstairs were still working late with Pei Youwei. Zhang Xiaonuan, who had found the trade shameful at first, had stayed on too; after some time at the factory she had gradually settled into the place.
“Beep beep~”
In an office where the only sound was keystrokes, a run of beeping suddenly started up, and the operations staff, the designer and the customer service people all turned to look at the machine making the noise.
Beside the operations computer, an order printer was pushing out new orders without stopping. Zhang Pingping, who ran the store, checked them and said in immediate excitement, “I think… I think we’ve had a spike!”
Several of them hurried over, and while the printer was still pushing orders out, Zhang Xiaonuan ran next door and burst in without even knocking, her face alight. “Boss, our Taobao store’s had a spike.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, just now. A whole lot of orders came in all at once. Come look.”
Pei Youwei got up at once and went through to the office next door, where the printer was still going and had already produced a thick stack of order labels.
Delighted and baffled at the same time, she asked, “Pingping, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know either. It just spiked. Probably the algorithm pushed our products onto the front page and a lot of people saw them all at once.”
Pei Youwei looked at the orders still printing and said, in high excitement, “What are you all standing there for? Go get the stock ready. Try to have it all shipped first thing tomorrow. Xiaonuan, we’ll help too.”
“Right away.”
They worked until three in the morning before all the orders were packed. By then the warehouse was piled with packages to go out the next morning, and although it was well past midnight Pei Youwei was still exhilarated and not remotely sleepy.
She had meant to take Xiaonuan and the others out for a late-night snack, but seeing the state of them — every one of them barely awake — she sent them home instead.
Once they had gone she sat alone in the warehouse, looking at the shelves piled with packages, and a happy smile came over her face without her meaning it to.
Pei Youwei knew perfectly well that tonight was only a beginning. It was as Xu Ye had said: once the sales figures came up, lingerie as a category brought its own traffic with it, and after that there would be no worry at all about selling.
Everything was moving in the right direction.
Pei Youwei badly wanted to share the good news, but it was so late she was afraid of disturbing anyone, so she only took a photograph of the warehouse and sent it to Xu Ye, then added a voice message. “Xu Ye, we had a spike today!”
Xu Ye didn’t see the two messages until after eight the next morning. He sent a voice message straight back. “Congratulations. Looks like we’re about to get rich.”
Pei Youwei, who had not fallen asleep until after four, was fast asleep face down on her bed. On the nightstand stood a photograph of two people and a glass of wine she hadn’t finished. Wind came in at the window and set the curtains swinging, and a shaft of sunlight lay across the bed like a warm quilt drawn over her.
(End of Chapter 236)