Getting in Touch with Old Friends

Zhou Qi had no intention of pulling some limited-supply price-hike stunt. That kind of tactic was too low-level.

Besides, if he sold it too expensively, the World Government had Vegapunk. He refused to believe that once the medicine reached the Navy, they would not send it to him for research.

With Vegapunk's abilities, it should not be difficult for him to reverse-engineer the ingredients and production costs of this medicine.

And this world did not have much in the way of patent protection laws. If the World Government truly decided to be shameless, figured out the formula, and started manufacturing it to compete with Zhou Qi, there would be little he could do.

So Zhou Qi not only could not limit supply, but also could not set the price too high. He needed to make buying it cheaper than producing it for the World Government.

Fortunately, China had the most complete industrial system. When it came to controlling costs, even ten World Governments could not compare to one China.

The medicine cost Vegapunk calculated based on the World Government's production capabilities would probably be three to five times the actual cost, perhaps even more than ten times.

Even if he lowered the price, he could still sell it for far more than it cost on Earth.

The profits would definitely not be small.

"Hmm, if I ever get the chance to meet Vegapunk, that would be great. I could agree on a price with him, work together from the inside and outside, and fleece the World Government..."

Considering that Vegapunk had not reported Kuma's true identity to the World Government, Zhou Qi did not think Vegapunk could be all that loyal to them.

"Mom, what is my third brother doing now? Is he still in the military?" After returning home, Zhou Qi contacted his hometown again.

"Yes. Why are you looking for him?" Sun Yanping asked.

"Uh, is there any chance he could leave the military?" Zhou Qi asked.

"How could that be possible? He's already a battalion commander. He's doing well, so why would he leave the military?" Sun Yanping asked.

"Oh..." Zhou Qi nodded.

His third brother was not his biological brother. He only had one younger brother.

His grandmother had given birth to five sons and two daughters.

His eldest brother and third brother were his eldest uncle's sons, while his second brother was his second uncle's son. His third and fourth uncles each had two daughters, while his father was the fifth child.

The Zhou family had not produced many college students, but quite a few of them had joined the military.

His eldest, second, and third brothers had all served in the military. Even Zhou Qi himself would have been sent to enlist if he had not gotten into high school back then.

His eldest and second brothers had both already left the military.

His eldest brother, Zhou Guodong, grew peaches at home, while his second brother, Zhou Huaqiang, worked as a store manager for a famous chain supermarket in the Central Plains.

His third brother had distinguished himself during disaster relief in a disaster in 2008 and was recommended for military academy. Zhou Qi did not understand the rules of the military, but somehow his third brother stayed in the service, and fourteen years had passed just like that.

The reason Zhou Qi wanted his third brother to leave the military was naturally because the Zhou family did not have much talent to spare. If he opened a pharmaceutical factory, someone had to manage it.

His father was definitely not suitable. He was a traditional farmer with a bad temper and limited knowledge. He would be fine as a gatekeeper.

"Then are there any other Zhous who have left the military? Or anyone in college?" Zhou Qi asked again.

"Why are you suddenly asking about this?" Sun Yanping asked.

"Didn't I say I was working with someone on trade? I was thinking that rather than buying goods from other businesses, it would be better to produce them ourselves. The costs would be lower, and we could help our own family earn some money..." Zhou Qi said.

For an industry involving cross-world business, a family business was definitely more reassuring. The Zhou family did not have any strange relatives, either.

When he had gone to college and his family built their house, they had received plenty of help from relatives. Later, when he had not done so well, some relatives had still kept thinking about him and wanted to lend him a hand.

And despite all those novels talking about professional managers, based on Zhou Qi's observations from years of working, most small and medium-sized companies had the father as factory director, the wife handling finances, and the son managing personnel.

If the son was not managing personnel, it was probably because he was not old enough. They would have nephews or maternal nephews take the position instead.

Back when Zhou Qi worked at companies, he had encountered plenty of superiors like that. Whether they were capable or not was beside the point; their loyalty was certainly not a problem.

If they could do things that way, Zhou Qi naturally could too.

Actually, even if he wanted professionals, he could not recruit them. And even if he did, many of his businesses involved cross-world matters, so he would not dare use them.

"There are quite a few who have left the military. As for college students, there really are a few..." Sun Yanping thought for a moment, then said, "You remember Zhou Yibing, right? He was your classmate. He got into college too, Xianyang Foreign Language University. Zhou Yining did even better—Shanghai Jiaotong University. You probably don't know Zhou Xiaobo. He's your eleventh grandfather's grandson, nearly ten years younger than you. He got into Guilin Normal University last year..."

"Zhou Yining?" Zhou Qi froze. A little girl with a runny nose trailing behind him immediately appeared in his mind. A few years later, that little girl had grown into a pretty, graceful young woman.

Zhou Yibing had been his best buddy when they were children. Their grades had been about the same, but they did not enter the same high school, and little by little, they lost contact.

Zhou Yining was Zhou Yibing's younger sister. She had not interacted much with Zhou Qi, but she had left a deep impression on him.

The main reason was that Zhou Yining was extremely beautiful. Calling her the number one beauty of the Zhou family would not be an exaggeration.

However, the last time he had seen her was six or seven years ago. An elder had passed away, and a group of children had gathered to play table tennis. Zhou Yining had been quite skilled.

He had not expected that she was not only good at table tennis, but also a good student?

"Help me ask them, or just get me their contact information!" Zhou Qi said. "I'll speak to them myself!"

"Alright!" Sun Yanping hung up, then opened the Loving Family Group and started asking around.

Naturally, Zhou Yibing and Zhou Yining were not in the group, because they were not part of Zhou Qi's grandfather's branch.

Thinking of this, Zhou Qi suddenly felt very grateful to Chairman Mao. His call for strength in numbers had resulted in Zhou Qi's grandfather's generation having a full eleven brothers!

Those eleven brothers had gone on to have forty-three sons. Then those sons had children of their own, and over time, they had created a fairly sizable Zhou clan.

And this clan could provide Zhou Qi with quite a few managers!

If they also counted the daughters who had married out and their husbands, gathering one or two thousand people would not be a problem!

Although, as everyone found work and developed their own lives, they no longer lived in the same places, and their relationships had gradually grown more distant.

But Zhou Qi believed that as he developed, turning the Zhou clan into the Zhou family, or even the Zhou immortal clan, was only a matter of time.

Based on the examples of Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang, conquering a vast country had only required the talent from a single village. With so many people surnamed Zhou, managing a massive conglomerate would be more than manageable.

Before long, with a ding, a friend request notification sounded on WeChat.

The note read: Zhou Yibing.

He tapped accept, and a message quickly arrived from the other side.

"Is this Hukou?"

"Why are you calling me Hukou too?" Zhou Qi was speechless. "Wasn't that a nickname that only became popular in the last couple of years?"

"The Wandering Earth!" Zhou Yibing said. "Looks like a lot of people thought the same thing I did..."

Zhou Qi was speechless, but then Zhou Yibing sent another message. "Why did you suddenly want to find me? What's up, do you need to borrow money?"

"Actually, I understand. You ran into trouble and didn't want to bother your family. You couldn't borrow from friends either. But I'm having a hard time too. I just got a girlfriend. The bride price isn't much, but buying a marital home is a huge headache..."

Zhou Qi's gaze flickered.

Another line of text appeared. "I can only scrape together 20,000 on my end..."

Zhou Qi fell silent, and his eyes unexpectedly grew a little moist.

"We haven't talked in all these years, and the first thing I do is ask to borrow money. Yet you're still willing to lend it to me?"

"Why wouldn't I be willing?" Zhou Yibing said. "We're brothers, aren't we? I don't know if you still remember: The moon sets, crows cry, frost fills the sky; by riverside maples and fishing lights, I lie awake in sorrow..."

"Beyond Gusu City, at Cold Mountain Temple, the midnight bell reaches the passenger boat..."

Zhou Qi let out a long breath. This poem had been mandatory memorization in third grade, but his family had bought a copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems when he was in second grade, and it had included this poem.

He had brought the book to school, and when the Chinese teacher saw it, the teacher said they could memorize this poem now and save themselves the trouble next year.

Then Zhou Yibing snatched the book away and memorized the poem first, leaving Zhou Qi utterly aggrieved at the time. I was the one who found it first...

He had planned to regain face with the next poem, but the next day, his father moved the family away for work.

That had also been his last memory of Zhou Yibing. He had not expected Zhou Yibing to still remember after so long.

"I remember. Of course I remember. That book is still with you!" Zhou Qi said.

"No, I gave it to my sister..." Zhou Yibing said. "If you want it, you'll have to ask her for it..."

Zhou Qi smiled and said, "Perfect. I wanted to talk to her anyway. Make a group chat, just the three of us..."

"Isn't 20,000 enough?" Zhou Yibing asked. "Yining only graduated last year, and her job still isn't stable. You won't be able to borrow money from her..."

"No, I'm not borrowing money. It's something else..." Zhou Qi hurriedly said. It was fine to talk to Zhou Yibing about borrowing money, but how could he bring it up with Zhou Yining?

Although he had no particular feelings for Zhou Yining, he still needed some dignity in front of a beautiful girl!

"Not borrowing money?" Zhou Yibing paused, then thought of his younger sister, who had grown prettier and prettier.

"Wait, don't tell me—good for you, Zhou Hukou. I treat you like a brother, but you want to become my brother-in-law?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? How could anything happen between me and your sister? That would be close-relative marriage!" Zhou Qi was speechless. "It's really business!"

"..."

A moment later, he was pulled into a WeChat group.

"Great Demon King joined the group chat..."

"Great Demon King?" Zhou Qi was stunned. Then he looked at the profile picture and saw that it was the Great Demon King of women's table tennis.

Oh, right. Yining and that name sounded quite similar.

"Brother Qi?" Zhou Yining asked. "We haven't seen each other in quite a while, have we? Why did you suddenly think of finding me? Need to borrow money?"

"You really are siblings..." Zhou Qi was speechless. He casually sent a document to the group. "Take a look at this..."

"Amoxicillin Production Process Regulations?" Zhou Yining read the document title aloud, looking a little dazed. "Brother Qi, are you planning to produce amoxicillin? Wouldn't this be hard to sell..."

"Do you have connections?" Zhou Yibing had a different view. After all, he knew this childhood friend's intelligence was probably the second highest among everyone their age in the village.

As for first place?

Obviously, it was Zhou Yibing himself.

Since Zhou Qi was not stupid, he would not have brought out such a document for no reason.

"I do have connections!" Zhou Qi replied. "And they're in Africa. You know how chaotic things are over there, so as long as we can produce amoxicillin, they'll take as much as we can make!"

"This..." Zhou Yibing paused, then asked, "Is it reliable?"

Zhou Qi sent over a screenshot of the photo, showing the transfer record for the 460,000 yuan he had received earlier.

"The funding for the first batch has already arrived. I also bought two production lines. Once the procedures, permits, factory, and raw materials are in place, we can start production!"

He had wanted to buy more production lines, but the guns alone had cost 150,000 yuan. He had haggled for ages over the two production lines, bringing the price down from 130,000 to 110,000...

After buying various other odds and ends, he now only had a little over 20,000 yuan left in his account.

"This..." Zhou Yibing had thought Zhou Qi was not borrowing money because he wanted investment or something. He had not expected Zhou Qi to have already secured the funding.

"You aren't short on money, so why are you looking for the two of us..."

"I'm not short on money. I'm short on people to manage things!" Zhou Qi said. "I wouldn't feel at ease having outsiders manage the factory. I asked my mom, and among the Zhou family, only the three of us graduated from college. If I don't ask you two, who should I ask?"

"Uh..." Zhou Yibing scratched his head. He had never imagined that Zhou Qi had contacted him for this reason.

"But I already have a job!" Zhou Yibing said.

"Where? What do you do? How much do you make?" Zhou Qi asked.

"Uh, I'm a programmer. I make 24,000 a month..." Zhou Yibing replied. "I'm in Nanhai City now..."

What a coincidence. Zhou Qi was in Nanhai City too...

"How about this? I'll pay you 50,000 a month, and you can be the Factory Director!" Zhou Qi said. "Fifteen months' salary per year, eight hours a day, five days a week. Labor Day and National Day get seven days each, Spring Festival gets thirty days, and all other holidays get three days. No make-up workdays."

"Brother, don't mess with me. Are you opening a factory or running a charity? Won't you go bankrupt like that?" Zhou Yibing said. "And I've never seen a factory run eight-hour days. Even if you don't do two shifts, shouldn't it be three shifts?"

"The market isn't that big yet, so demand is low, but the profit margin is substantial!" Zhou Qi said. "When demand rises later, we'll expand the scale. Anyway, I'm definitely sticking to five days and eight hours. Or do you actually enjoy 996?"

"..." He truly did not enjoy it. Who would enjoy 996?

Was 24,000 yuan a month a lot?

It was, but his base salary was only a little over 7,000. The 24,000 was earned through staying up late and working overtime.

He could handle it when he was younger, but now that he was twenty-seven, he was starting to feel worn out.

And he had lived like this for more than four years.

If possible, he did not want to keep doing it, but what else could he do?

He had majored in english, but who did not know english these days? He could not find work based on his major at all!

If his brother truly had a good opportunity, going over was not impossible. But the salary Zhou Qi offered...

It was so high that he did not quite dare believe it.

After thinking for a moment, he privately sent his sister a few messages, then replied, "How about this? I'll discuss it with my girlfriend first..."

"Fine!" Zhou Qi nodded, then asked, "Yining, what about you? What are you doing now?"

"Me? I'm a kindergarten teacher!" Zhou Yining said. "My monthly salary is 3,500..."

"Didn't you graduate from Shanghai Jiaotong University? You became a kindergarten teacher after graduation?"

"I wanted to teach at a primary school, but primary schools require a graduate degree..." Zhou Yining said.

"Brother Qi, if I come work for you, what kind of treatment will you give me?" Zhou Yining asked.

"You can manage personnel..." Zhou Qi said. "As for compensation, it'll be the same as your brother's. How about it?"

"Okay, then I'll go over right now!" Zhou Yining immediately said.

"Huh?" Zhou Qi froze. "You don't want to think it over some more?"

"What is there to think about? The coworkers here are disgusting, and so are those disgusting parents. I've wanted to quit for a long time!" Zhou Yining hurriedly said. "Where are you? I'll resign in the next couple of days and go over!"

"Uh, you don't need to come over. I plan to put the factory in our hometown..." Zhou Qi said. "If you're willing to come, just go home. Once I get the factory set up, you can report for work!"

"Go home?" Zhou Yining paused, then hurriedly messaged her brother privately. "It doesn't seem like a scam. That kind of thing isn't popular around our hometown either..."

"Could he be serious?" Zhou Yibing was also stunned. Naturally, he did not believe Zhou Qi's explanation, and neither had Zhou Yining. She had merely been testing him, to see if Zhou Qi had been tricked by a scam operation or wanted to harvest their kidneys or something.

"How about this? Since you're quitting anyway, go back and see whether it's real. Treat it like a vacation. If it is real, even if the salary isn't that high, you can still work for 5,000 yuan first..."

"Alright..." Zhou Yining nodded. Home was much safer than this place. They had so many relatives, and her family also had people who had enlisted and left the military. Like Zhou Qi's branch, they were full of martial spirit and were not afraid of being bullied.

"I'll resign and head back in the next couple of days. Hurry up with the factory stuff. I'm waiting to start work!"

"No problem!" Zhou Qi nodded. "I'll get it sorted out as soon as possible!"

After putting down WeChat, he had not only found management for the factory, but also reconnected with old friends he had lost touch with. Zhou Qi was in an excellent mood.

When poor, one cultivates oneself; when successful, one helps the world.

He did not yet have such great ability, but he could start with the people around him and make changes little by little.