You Dare Use Me, I Dare Spend

"Selling retail, you can barely move ten, maybe eight pounds a day, earning a measly seven or eight yuan, and you still have to deal with local thugs.

Wholesale starts at a hundred pounds, and if you find the right person, you can settle the deal in five minutes."

Li Ye was giving Hao Jian a crash course in business, and within minutes, Hao Jian's eyes were shining with excitement.

The various wholesale markets that sprang up in the Great Celestial Empire in the late eighties gave birth to countless "wealthy families," with the story's setting in "Fei Shang Tian" being a prime example.

These wholesale markets remained vibrant for many years, proving that wholesale was a relatively accessible way to make money.

The provincial capital was only forty kilometers from Qingshui County, with a large population and a sufficient number of middle to high-income earners, making it a treasure trove waiting to be tapped.

Although malt candy was an unremarkable snack, it met all the requirements for opening up market channels and initial capital accumulation, which was why Li Ye chose Hao Jian to test the waters for him.

Hao Jian was already tempted, but he didn't blindly agree to Li Ye. Instead, he voiced his difficulties.

"Brother, to be honest, my family is in dire need of money, and I'm willing to go to the provincial capital to try my luck, but I don't have the capital!"

Hao Jian usually only dealt with a basin of malt candy, twenty pounds at most, with a capital of five or six yuan and a turnover of a dozen yuan. To engage in a wholesale business of a hundred pounds, he couldn't come up with that much money.

Li Ye thought for a moment and asked, "How much capital do you need?"

Hao Jian gritted his teeth and said, "At least fifty yuan, and I'll need a bicycle too."

After stating these two requirements, Hao Jian felt uneasy, fearing that Li Ye might get angry and leave.

After all, considering the cost of over a hundred pounds of malt candy, Hao Jian's two requests essentially meant he wasn't contributing a single cent himself.

But Li Ye said, "Then hurry up and go to the provincial capital! If you think it's feasible, come find me at County Second High School."

Hao Jian watched Li Ye leave after saying that, and he was stunned for a long time.

Did he agree?

Hao Jian still couldn't quite believe it.

If an hour ago, Hao Jian had considered Li Ye an easily fooled "child," then now he had not a shred of contempt for him.

Li Ye first took Hao Jian to retrieve the malt candy, then explained the concept of "wholesale," and finally gave Hao Jian five yuan as "activity funds."

This series of decisive, resolute, and efficient actions made Hao Jian feel as if he were facing not an eighteen or nineteen-year-old youth, but the village chief, whose word was law.

After a long moment of daze, Hao Jian finally came to his senses and headed towards the county hospital against the cold wind.

He needed to get medicine for his child, and since he had money in hand, he decided to get a few more bottles, spending a yuan or two.

Hao Jian was never a rigid person. Although he still didn't quite understand why Li Ye trusted him so much, he had a vague guess that Li Ye must need something from him, that he had some value worth Li Ye's exploitation.

If you dare to use me, I dare to spend. When you have too many lice, they don't bite; when you have too many debts, you don't worry. What more can you do to me? Anyway, I'm not at a loss.

While Hao Jian felt he wasn't at a loss, Li Ye was also satisfied.

Hao Jian had only calculated the financial costs, feeling that Li Ye was at a disadvantage in this collaboration.

But Li Ye had a more comprehensive calculation of labor costs and, more importantly, risk costs.

Engaging in private business was risky in those days. He planned to groom Hao Jian into an agent, remaining in the background himself. If anything went wrong, there would be room for maneuver.

Li Ye knew Hao Jian was a "shrewd businessman," but their "startup" business didn't need honest and upright loyal oxen; rather, it needed ambitious and daring shock troops.

In those days, it wasn't a fear of ambition, but a fear of not daring to act. As long as you "acted," you took the most crucial first step.

Whether Hao Jian could be controlled by Li Ye in the future was another matter. To earn the first pot of gold, one had to take the leap and try, right?

Returning to County Second High School, Li Ye went straight to his dormitory.

Upon reaching the dormitory, he took out a stack of bills from the cotton padding inside his pillow and counted them. There were a total of one hundred and five yuan.

This was all the funds Li Ye could access at the moment, most of which he had saved over the past few months.

After all, with Lu Jingyao around before, he couldn't save much money.

His family now gave him thirty to forty yuan a month. Meals with two dishes cost only a dozen yuan a month, and two packs of Da Qianmen a day cost only six or seven yuan a month.

There were no pay-to-win games back then, so no matter how he spent it, he couldn't spend it all.

But if he were to start the plan to make money in the provincial capital with Hao Jian, this "huge sum" of over a hundred yuan wouldn't be enough.

The initial capital for small-scale operations should be sufficient, but if he wanted to diversify later or even send Hao Jian south to ride the waves, it would take tens of thousands of yuan to get started.

I'll leave it at that for now. Earning some pocket money isn't bad.

Li Ye thought about it and didn't rush. His basic requirement was to earn enough money to live comfortably before he got into university next year.

With ten thousand taels of wealth, riding a crane to Yangzhou – the difference between a wealthy university life and a poor one, he had experienced enough in his previous life.

In the afternoon, as Li Ye entered the classroom, he saw a crowd gathered around Xia Yue, including many from other classes. They all looked excited and envious, behaving abnormally.

Li Ye glanced at them but didn't pay much attention. However, after he sat down at his seat, Xia Yue said something pointedly.

"As educated youths of the new era, we must use our knowledge to create a beautiful life. Ten years of hard study have condensed our fighting spirit and given us the strength of pride."

"We absolutely cannot be like parasites, relying on our parents and families, enjoying superior material wealth yet still not satisfied, and looking down on our classmates spiritually."

Li Ye coldly raised his eyelids, his gaze meeting Xia Yue's provocative stare. He immediately understood she was using veiled insults.

Perhaps it was Li Ye's sharp gaze, or perhaps Xia Yue had recently been intimidated by Li Ye, but after only a fraction of a second of eye contact, she turned her head away.

It was like a small Teddy bear, with a rope around its neck, barking excitedly, suddenly seeing a "docile" native mongrel and instantly feeling suppressed.

However, Xia Yue's words resonated with many people around them. They chimed in with their own opinions, making Li Ye find it somewhat amusing.

Ten years of arduous study were indeed commendable, but family circumstances shouldn't be a reason for disdain.

Countless students from humble backgrounds achieved success through their own efforts, becoming first-generation rich. So, shouldn't their descendants spend their fathers' money with a clear conscience?

To view problems rationally and continuously improve one's weaknesses is the way to surpass those who came before and leave them stranded on the beach.

Poverty doesn't diminish ambition; the key lies in "ambition," not in poverty.

Li Ye wasn't in the mood for a verbal spat. Xia Yue and the others hadn't named anyone specifically, so why bother stepping in that pile of shit?

Still, he wanted to know the whole story, so he asked his deskmate, Wen Leyu, what was going on.

Wen Leyu pouted and said, "Lu Jingyao wrote a letter to Xia Yue, bragging about publishing a poem and earning five yuan and fifty cents in royalties. She's spent your money so much before that now she feels liberated and noble for earning money this one time."

"Royalties?" Li Ye felt a sudden flash of inspiration.

"Yeah, only five yuan and fifty cents?" Wen Leyu said softly, sounding rather comforting.

But Li Ye's mood was different.

Right, I can earn royalties!

Is the trope of plagiarism cliché?

Yes, extremely cliché.

Is the model of earning royalties terrible?

Yes, utterly terrible.

But undeniably, earning royalties in this era was the most direct, simplest, most effective, and risk-free way to make money.

No need to run errands, no need to go out, no need to bow and scrape to clients. Just a piece of paper, a pen, and a story in your head could be exchanged for money.

Li Ye felt it was reliable, especially now that the country had just clarified its royalty standards.

Actually, if one were to discuss it seriously, royalty fees in China have always been declining.

Forget about the era of Lu Xun, who became famous through royalties. Even after '77, authors who lived on royalties experienced a very prosperous spring.

In '77, the State Administration of Publishing issued the "Notice on Trial Implementation of Publishing and Subsidy Measures for Manuscripts," stipulating author royalties at 2-7 yuan per thousand characters.

In '80, the State Publishing Bureau D Group formulated new royalty standards, raising them to 3-10 yuan per thousand characters. For the next decade or more, author royalties followed the method of "basic royalties + printing royalties."

And by '84, this standard was raised again, reaching 6-20 yuan per thousand characters.

In an era when a pound of pork was less than a dollar and rice was just over twenty cents a pound, this royalty standard was extremely high.

Just think! A worker's monthly salary was only thirty to forty yuan, which was comparable to an author's royalties for a few thousand characters.

How rare were the "ten-thousand-yuan households" in the 1980s? Compared to later generations, they were at least middle-class, right?

But many authors reached this standard with just two books.

However, in later generations, "author" was almost synonymous with "poor," which shows how big the gap was.

Of course, the number of publications and book publication numbers were limited in this era, making it difficult for authors to publish articles and novels.

But this difficulty was, at most, only a "slight" difficulty for Li Ye.

In his previous life, Li Ye had written web novels in his spare time and earned royalties. His writing techniques and accumulated reading were more than sufficient.

In this era where second-rate Wuxia from Hong Kong and Taiwan could dominate, wouldn't the novel web novels with fresh tropes from later generations utterly crush them?

Don't look down on web novels. Web novels and Wuxia are both popular literature. Web novels even developed from the basis of Wuxia "cool" novels.

Those excellent web novel authors might not be as good as Gu Long and Jin Yong, but they could definitely compare with other Wuxia authors.

Moreover, when "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" emerged, wasn't Wuxia not yet recognized by mainstream literature? But didn't it still sweep across the country?

Hmm, how many words was "Battle Through the Heavens"? Is it a bit ahead of its time? "A Step into the Past"? Or is that also ahead of its time?

What about "Lurk"? Is that in line with the era's background?

Li Ye pulled out a stack of stationery and began to list and analyze the works that best fit this era.