Chapter 21

The two exchanged a glance, neither of them speaking.

Chapter 21

Nothing happened that night.

At eight the next morning, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan first paid a visit to the local industrial and commercial office and tax bureau.

As expected, two children whose household registrations listed them as only sixteen could not apply for business licenses.

"...So we should've registered ourselves as eighteen from the start!" Huo Baichuan sighed and complained, "Without being adults on our ID cards, there are so many procedures we can't handle ourselves. It's such a hassle."

"Then why don't you show us your ID cards? Or give this policeman your parents' contact information, and I'll notify them to come pick you up. Once you're home, you can use your parents' identification documents to apply for the relevant licenses!" the staff member said with a smile.

Jiangzhou was a small place, and the major human trafficking case cracked by Lianhua District Police Station had been a particularly serious one. Even television stations and news outlets had followed up with reports. Naturally, civil servants had all heard about such a sensational case. Seeing Huo Baichuan's troubled expression, one of them could not resist teasing him. "Tell Auntie, where exactly did you two come from? Where do you live? Is it far from Jiangzhou?"

It was not exactly far; by plane, it would take at most two hours. The real issue was the time difference—thirty years apart!

"So what do we do now? We can't exactly keep operating without a license, can we?" Huo Baichuan looked at the staff member expectantly.

Everyone in the office laughed when they heard that. "At most, you two are just using your summer vacation to earn some pocket money. Why are you taking it so seriously?"

Someone even offered the two children an idea. "If you really want to handle the paperwork, find a trustworthy acquaintance and figure out a way to operate under another company's name."

Tao Yan shook his head. "We still want to apply for a private company license." Having lived through it once already, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan were clearly more concerned with the issue of corporate ownership.

The civil servants looked at one another, evidently unable to understand Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan's persistence.

To them, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan's desire to start a company was like their own children playing house—not something that counted as serious business.

Of course, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan knew that they could not obtain the relevant licenses using only their two minor household registrations under the orphanage's name. They had only come this time to put themselves on record and, incidentally, ask about a suitable solution.

The procedures thirty years ago differed in many ways from those thirty years later. Besides, even thirty years later, matters like running through procedures and obtaining approvals would not require Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan to do everything personally. There would always be subordinates running themselves ragged over it.

"We've only just arrived in Jiangzhou. We don't know anyone here, and we can't find someone trustworthy to serve as the company's legal representative." As they left the industrial and commercial office, Huo Baichuan said to Tao Yan, "Looks like we'll have to put off starting our own company for now."

Tao Yan neither agreed nor disagreed. The two then wandered next door to the tax bureau to file their taxes. The personal income tax threshold in this era was only 800 yuan. After paying, Huo Baichuan and Tao Yan put away the tax receipts, which carried a strong flavor of the times.

Huo Baichuan joked, "We need to keep these things safe. Thirty years from now, when we've both become heads of conglomerates worth hundreds of billions, these two receipts will be the best proof of how we conquered the stars and the seas."

Tao Yan shot Huo Baichuan a sidelong glance. "Didn't you say a fortune of hundreds of millions would be enough?"

Huo Baichuan waved a hand and said shamelessly, "Ambition rises with the tide."

He had not expected making money thirty years ago to be such an easy thing. No wonder everyone wanted to be a pig standing in the path of the wind.

Tao Yan smiled without saying anything.

After all that running around, it was already noon. They casually entered a small roadside restaurant and ordered two bowls of scallion oil noodles. Tao Yan was still thinking about the collection and disposal of used frying oil. After lunch, the two made another trip to the health bureau, only to find that in 1990, people across the country had no real concept of healthy or green eating. As for Tao Yan's claim that used frying oil could cause cancer, the health bureau staff could not find any scientific basis for it.

"Of course, we encourage all business owners in the food service industry to give greater consideration to food safety and consumers' dietary health. It is very good that you two, at such a young age, already have this awareness. It proves that you truly have consumers' rights and interests at heart." After some thought, the health bureau staff member said, "But at present, we really cannot find any legal basis for forbidding business owners from using oil that has been used for frying multiple times. If you are truly worried that consuming repeatedly used frying oil may harm the body, you can tell consumers about your concerns. Consumers have the right to know and the right to choose. They can decide for themselves whether to buy the food you make."

As for Tao Yan's request for contact information for a professional company that collected used restaurant oil, the health bureau staff could only say they were powerless to help—they had never even heard of such an industry.

"Actually, most ordinary people's living conditions are still generally rather... constrained," the health bureau staff member continued after thinking for a moment. "Although the market has begun to circulate, most households still receive grain, oil, rice, and meat by ration coupons. There are only a few jin allotted each month. We have to admit that material shortages are an objective reality. Under such circumstances, asking business owners to throw away half a barrel of oil every day for food safety's sake is indeed something many people would find difficult to understand."

What Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan did not know was that China's Urban Residents' Grain Supply System, commonly known in later generations as the Unified Purchase and Sale System, which had been in place for decades, would not end until 1993. Having never experienced an era of such material scarcity, Tao Yan and Huo Baichuan found it difficult to understand why the volunteer aunties were so reluctant to throw away half a barrel of oil.

Yet the two of them truly felt the generation gap and estrangement created by the accumulation of society's material living conditions and decades of rapid economic development.

Thirty years earlier, this was indeed an era of simple customs, friendly and warm neighbors, but it was also an era with no concept of rules, one of wild and untamed growth.