Chapter 15

So Huo Baichuan began planning when to go out and perform again, to show everyone the musical foundation he had—thin though it was, yet enough to hold an entire crowd.

Tao Yan glanced at Huo Baichuan, who had suddenly become excited for some unknown reason, and felt that Young Master Huo seemed about to unlock a new skill.

After breakfast, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan asked the volunteer aunties where the computer market was. They then dug two battered straw hats with broken edges out of the storeroom before setting off at an unhurried pace.

Jiangzhou City in 1990 was nowhere near as prosperous or developed as it would be thirty years later. The entire city had only one computer market. Calling it a computer market was generous—it was really just Electronics Street, located in the busiest part of downtown. It did not only sell computers, either. It also sold electronic goods brought in from Hong Kong or Guangdong Province, such as digital watches, video game consoles, cassette players, and tapes.

When Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan arrived at Electronics Street by bus, it was exactly nine in the morning. The sun hung high in the sky, radiating heat without restraint. Even the air seemed to ripple.

The street was bustling, packed shoulder to shoulder, even livelier than Tao Yan had imagined.

"Why is everywhere packed with people?" Huo Baichuan complained as he fanned Tao Yan with his battered straw hat. "It's even more crowded than the market."

And they had wanted to wait for a rabbit to come to them? It would be a miracle if they did not get crushed to death by the rabbits first.

Forgive these two country bumpkins from thirty years in the future, but Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan rarely saw this many people in their usual lives. Not even the upscale department stores hit by e-commerce, much less the twenty-four-hour supermarket beside their residential complex, had ever gathered so many people.

Tao Yan sighed. Bracing himself, he squeezed into the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd and moved forward with the flow of people, paying special attention to the computers and accessories at every stall.

Computer cases, monitors, motherboards, CPUs, memory, graphics cards, hard drives, CD-ROM drives... Tao Yan carefully asked about the prices and configurations of computers from different brands, then asked about the prices of components as well, making a preliminary estimate of the current market conditions.

Huo Baichuan followed behind Tao Yan, fanning him as he asked, "So? Do you have any idea now?"

Tao Yan shook his head. He had still been thinking too simply. It was true that selling computers in the 1990s was a hugely profitable business, but when each computer cost over ten thousand yuan and the average salary was only four or five hundred yuan, not just anyone could afford one.

Although Electronics Street was crowded and looked bustling, most people were still willing to buy small items like cassette players, tapes, and digital watches. As for those big, bulky computers, selling ten a year already counted as booming business.

After all, this was the 1990s, when even households with ten thousand yuan were rare!

Tao Yan silently sighed, feeling that his idea had been far too naive.

As he pondered in silence, a commotion suddenly rose behind him.

"My bag!" Amid a woman's shrill cry, Tao Yan turned around. He saw Huo Baichuan wearing the battered straw hat, one hand gripping a skinny boy's wrist while the other casually smacked the back of his head. He scolded him bluntly, "You're so young, yet you've already come out to steal. Don't your parents discipline you?"

"Mind your own business!" The boy was all skin and bones, looking only fourteen or fifteen. He bared his teeth and glared at Huo Baichuan, cursing as he shouted, "Let me go! Do you know who my big brother is? My big brother is Blade Brother! You dare ruin my business? Believe it or not, I'll kill you—"

With a cry of pain, the boy's arm was already twisted behind his back by Huo Baichuan.

"Keep cursing." Huo Baichuan smiled pleasantly, but his grip showed no mercy. "You're talking about killing me. It's fine if I cripple both your arms, right?"

Sensing the viciousness in Huo Baichuan's words, the boy stiffened and suddenly stopped cursing.

At that moment, the security staff responsible for the street also rushed over. Seeing the boy Huo Baichuan had caught, one of them frowned. "Why is it you again? I'm telling you, Little Third, can't you learn to behave? Do you really want to end up in juvenile detention?"

Then he said to Huo Baichuan, "Leave this kid to us. Thank you for doing the right thing."

Huo Baichuan let him go. The boy took two steps forward, then suddenly turned around and viciously kicked at Huo Baichuan's knee. Huo Baichuan reacted quickly, grabbing the boy's lower leg and shoving it forward. With a scream, the boy staggered up from the ground, clutching his backside as he retreated several steps.

Huo Baichuan still wore that smiling expression as he asked, "Does it hurt?"

Without waiting for the boy to answer, Huo Baichuan went on, "Good. Let this teach you that if your center of gravity isn't stable, don't go around kicking people."

The security staff member glanced at Huo Baichuan but said nothing. The woman whose bag had nearly been stolen walked over to Huo Baichuan with a graceful young woman of seventeen or eighteen, smiling as she thanked him. "Young man, thank you so much just now. If you hadn't stepped in, Auntie's bag would have been stolen."

Huo Baichuan waved a hand casually. "It was nothing."

"It may have been nothing to you, but not to me." The woman hugged her bag, still shaken as she thought, This is several years' worth of savings for our family.

Huo Baichuan walked over to Tao Yan. Seeing the thoughtful look on his face, he raised a brow and asked, "What are you looking at?"

Chapter 15

Tao Yan withdrew his gaze and looked at Huo Baichuan. "His name is Little Third."

Huo Baichuan froze, then immediately understood. Muttering to himself, Could it really be such a coincidence? he looked at the boy being led away by the collar by the staff member. "What is Grandma Sun, who lives in that crowded courtyard beside Red Heart Orphanage in Lotus District, to you?"

The boy bared his teeth and glared furiously at Huo Baichuan, refusing to speak. Instead, the staff member holding him asked curiously, "You know Grandma Sun too?"

Before Huo Baichuan could answer, he sighed again. "He's Grandma Sun's grandson, all right."