Investment Life

Chapter 13

　　The little yard was just slightly smaller than the yard they used to store goods. There was only a simple parking shed by the side of the yard, there wasn't even a warehouse. After parking the truck, the scarface didn't get Chen Yuanming to unload the goods, but instead called him down from the car and dragged him by the shoulders to the building on the north side of the courtyard.

　　This was a makeshift brick house that was only around ten square meters in size. The furnishings inside the room were quite simple, with a small round table, a wooden bed, and some toiletries. At this time, a large bowl full of rice was sitting on the table, and there were also two hot dishes, one meat and one vegetable. They had probably been kept warm in the pot the entire time, and were still giving off steam. The scarface pressed Chen Yuanming down onto a small wooden stool, smiled and pointed to the insulating pot on the table, "Eat first! There's only plain water today, you'll have to continue driving tomorrow, so there's no alcohol for now."

　　"I don't drink alcohol." Looking at the lone pair of chopsticks and bowl on the table, Chen Yuanming only responded back lightly and sat down to eat. After ten or more hours of continuous driving, his mental state had already become very tense and strained. Coupled with the cold lunch they had at noon that even a dog would find shabby, he was really exhausted now, and it was great to finally have a hot meal.

　　Looking at Chen Yuanming's calm attitude, the scarface smiled and patted the boy's shoulder. Doesn't get curious, doesn't talk much, doesn't meddle, there's no partner who's less troublesome than this one.

　　"I have to head out and handle some things first. If you get tired later on then just go to sleep early." The scarface pointed to the simple and crude bed at the side, "I won't come back tonight, tomorrow morning we'll hit the road at 7 o'clock."

　　Chen Yuanming's mouth was stuffed full of food, seeming like he was really hungry, but he wasted no time and nodded his head, expressing that he understood. The scarface smiled slightly, patted the other person's shoulder again, turned around and walked out the door.

　　When the scarface's retreating back disappeared outside the door, Chen Yuanming slowed down the speed at which he was eating the food, and squinted slightly, his eyes sweeping around the entire room. It was still early at this time, and it appeared to be only 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, but the room was quite dim. The only window in the room was opened underneath the roof beam, it was only around the width of a ruler, and it didn't let through much light at all. The door to the room faced the courtyard wall, so there was no way to spy on anything happening inside the courtyard. On the drive here, Chen Yuanming had also chatted intermittently with the scarface a few times. Although that man seemed like he'd be talkative and liked to brag, he never casually talked about the really important things. He had carefully probed a few times but still didn't manage to get any hints.

　　However, after these two days of observation, he realized that this smuggling band wasn't exactly the same as what he had heard from that Fujianese man in his previous life. Recalling his vague impressions of the past, right now it wasn't the prime time for smuggling TVs. The consumption tax reform of TV sales in the late 1980s and the upcoming abolition of the two-pricing system in the early 1990s would liberalize the market economy [2], and it would also cause the TV reselling industry to hit its lowest point. He remembered that a book he had read in his past life had given a relevant introduction to this, telling the story of a well-known entrepreneur who had wanted to make a fortune by reselling TVs but ended up losing a lot of money instead. Now that he thought about it, it's in these two years that the TV-related industries will undergo some major changes.

　　At this time, the two Ma Lei brothers only had three trucks in total. Like for this trip, they had only filled up the truck with around 200-300 color TV sets and a few dozen sets of stereos, all of which were Japanese-manufactured products. At most, each set would only be worth a few hundred dollars in profit, and if an entire truckful of goods were to be smoothly sold out, in the best-case scenario, they'd make around 100,000 dollars in earnings. He had also heard that on another trip of theirs, it also involved the color-TV business, but it was for a well-known domestic brand. By relying on the two-pricing system to catch a price difference, and evading some other TV retail taxes, after going back and forth like this, there was a total profit of 2-300 000.