Who Exactly Was the Client?

Li Ye got up in the morning, had breakfast with his little wife, took her to work, and only then drove straight to Fangshan.

Fangshan lay sixty kilometers southwest of Beijing. In 1986, it was still a county; only after 1987 would it merge with another Yanshan District to become Fangshan District.

If Li Ye had taken the bus, the sixty-kilometer trip would have taken two or three hours, but driving himself, he got there in just over an hour.

However, after arriving, Li Ye did not head straight for Fangshan Auto Parts Factory. Instead, he first parked outside Fenghua Apparel's Fangshan specialty store.

When Jin Peng had first arrived in Beijing, he had begun expanding sales channels around the city. Once Tian Hongshan and Older Sister Li Yue successively took over the surrounding outlets, they began gradually establishing specialty-store locations according to Li Ye's plan.

Although Fangshan County in this era was far less prosperous than it would be in later generations, Fenghua Apparel's specialty store was doing exceptionally well. Everyone trusted this "branded product."

After parking his car, Li Ye went inside to find the person in charge of the store.

The manager, Xiao Meng, was a local. After confirming Li Ye's identity, he gave him a detailed report. "Hello, Comrade Li. After I received Manager Li's call yesterday, I asked several friends at auto parts factories about it.

"Their factory's performance is no longer what it was two years ago. Those two newly built workshops have been sitting idle and haven't been put into use at all."

Li Ye had come today to investigate the factory's actual situation, so naturally he needed to find out as much inside information as possible. That was why he had first asked Older Sister Li Yue to help make inquiries.

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