Preparing to Expand

Ba Bi looked GS up and down. He wore a red suit with a shirt underneath and no tie, looking sharp, with a gold Rolex on his wrist.

He looked like he had some money, at least.

"Ba Bi, business is booming, and I need money to expand. I came to borrow some from you. The usual terms: ninety out, a hundred and thirty back." GS met him in his office.

Ba Bi wasn't particularly interested, but he asked anyway, "You're LS? How much do you want?"

Clearly, Teem-Kwan's phone call had helped somewhat.

"Ten million minimum. The more, the better."

"Fuck, ten million? Can you even pay that back? Are you worth ten million?" Ba Bi said scornfully.

"You can send someone over to check my books. I have five shops in Yuen Long, making two million in profit a month. I can definitely pay it back. Three months at most, principal and interest together," GS said with a smile.

"Who knows if your books are real or fake? Spare me those tricks. Pay me back in three months? Who the hell knows if someone will chop you to death before then!" Ba Bi scoffed, then thought it over and added:

"How about this? Three million at most, for one month. Ninety out, a hundred and thirty back."

GS didn't agree too quickly. He considered it for a while before nodding. "Fine."

"Kid, nobody's ever dared owe me, Ba Bi, money and not pay it back. You'd better remember that. Being with Hongxing won't save you!" Ba Bi pointed at GS as he threatened him.

"Relax. It's only a few million. Teem-Kwan called you personally, and you're still worried I can't pay?"

"Hmph!" Ba Bi snorted. If Teem-Kwan hadn't called, he wouldn't even have agreed to see Handsome Sheng.

"Draw up a contract for him." Lending wasn't Ba Bi's main business, but he certainly had people who knew how it worked.

Before long, GS signed the contract.

"Wait here." Ba Bi went out and returned twenty minutes later, carrying a bag that he tossed onto the desk.

Gu Sheng unzipped it and looked inside. It was full of bundles of five-hundred-dollar Hong Kong bills, fifty thousand per bundle. There were more than fifty bundles, totaling 2.7 million.

The contract, however, stated that he had borrowed three million and would repay 3.9 million in one month.

Gu Sheng pulled out two bundles at random and flipped through them, making sure everything was in order.

"Thanks, Ba Bi." Gu Sheng had no objection whatsoever to being friendly to a man who would soon be dead.

It wasn't as much as he'd hoped for, but over two million was hardly a small sum. Getting that much money for free... wasn't bad.

"Don't forget what I said! One month!" Ba Bi said, a cigarette between his lips.

"Relax. I'm off." Gu Sheng waved.

After going downstairs and getting into the car, Gu Sheng's first order of business was finding somewhere to buy a Big Brother Phone.

"Fuck, you call this a phone? You could bash someone to death with it!" Gu Sheng stared, somewhat dumbfounded, at the "behemoth" in front of him. Including the antenna, it was nearly half a meter long and weighed a kilo.

It was even bigger than the ones he'd seen in movies.

His inherited memories had told him these things existed, but he'd never seen one in person. Now he understood why nobody around him used one.

Wasn't this better for self-defense than a Nokia?

And it took ten hours to charge for thirty minutes of talk time. What a joke.

The DynaTAC 8000 was the world's first portable phone. Of course, "portable" needed quotation marks.

"Sir, this is the most advanced portable phone currently available. Wherever you are, all you need to do is enter a number, and you can speak to someone... You can even choose your own number now." The sales representative kept rattling off its features to Gu Sheng.

After all, the gold Rolex on Gu Sheng's wrist was eighteen-karat gold set with diamonds, worth 198,000. One look told anyone he was rich and could afford to spend.

Gu Sheng had taken that gold Rolex from Ah Sin's safe and put it on specifically for his visit to borrow money from Ba Bi.

Who would lend him money if he didn't show some wealth? He probably wouldn't have gotten even a million.

Gu Sheng had originally planned to buy two, but then he reconsidered. If Kong Sang walked down the street holding a Big Brother Phone, she'd probably get robbed before she made it a hundred meters.

These things cost more than cars right now. Including the connection fee, one cost over forty thousand.

He tried calling the flagship shop, but the reception wasn't great either. Unless he spoke loudly, the other end couldn't hear him at all.

No wonder people needed a pager in their left hand and a Big Brother Phone in their right.

It really wasn't convenient, but he had no choice. Having one was better than having none.

When Gu Sheng returned to the shop, everyone was hard at work. The employees were either making calls or organizing paperwork, all brimming with enthusiasm.

With a guaranteed base salary of a thousand plus a ten-percent commission, everyone could earn four or five thousand this month. That was unquestionably a high salary at the time.

The prospect of those earnings had everyone so fired up they could barely stop working.

Gu Sheng felt quite pleased at the sight.

Only if you lot work harder can I buy a Tiger-Head Benz!

The employees crowded around when they saw the Big Brother Phone Gu Sheng casually placed on the desk. "Wow, Sheng, you really splashed out! That thing costs tens of thousands!"

"That expensive?" Kong Sang was startled when she heard.

"It's not bad. So why aren't you getting back to making me money?" Halfway through his reply, Gu Sheng turned and roared at everyone around him.

They immediately scattered, laughing.

"Find a couple of people to scout Causeway Bay, Wan Chai, Mong Kok, Yau Ma Tei, and Tsim Sha Tsui. Pick some locations, rent streetfront shops, and open branches. We need Golden Harvest Properties signs in those busy areas. I want everyone in Hong Kong to know Golden Harvest Properties!"

"We're opening branches already? Isn't that a little rushed? We'd have a lot more money to work with if we waited a few months." Kong Sang knew how much was in the company account. Gu Sheng had just withdrawn a sum, leaving only a little over a hundred thousand.

Besides, she thought things were already going very well. They could do fine without expanding.

"Don't worry about the money." Gu Sheng nudged the bag by his feet. "Go deposit this later."

Someone dealing in No. 4 Drug like Ba Bi wouldn't dare put his money in a bank, but Gu Sheng didn't have to worry about that.

"This much?" Kong Sang unzipped the bag and was startled by the money inside.

Although all the shops' accounts had been coming through the main shop lately, and she knew those shops were raking it in every day, the sight of over two million still shocked her.

Kong Sang glanced around, then asked in a low, worried voice, "You didn't rob a bank, did you?"

She had absolutely no doubt that Gu Sheng was capable of it.

"Am I as stupid as you? Relax. It's clean money," Gu Sheng scoffed.

Ba Bi's money might not have come from particularly clean sources, but Gu Sheng had obtained it perfectly legitimately.

Kong Sang still looked worried. She couldn't imagine how Gu Sheng could go out for a short while and come back with over two million.

"What a pain. I borrowed it to expand the shops," Gu Sheng said impatiently when he saw her troubled expression.

Only then did Kong Sang relax a little. "How much is here?"

"2.2 million." Gu Sheng figured that even though money was tight, he still needed to spin the Wheel.

At the very least, he needed to unlock the level-two Wheel first.

"That bastard Ba Bi. He can't spend his money if he takes it into his coffin." The more Gu Sheng thought about it, the angrier he became, completely forgetting how happy he'd been when he first got the money.

The two-million-plus flowed out of his hands like water.

He was still fucking broke, and the Tiger-Head Benz was still a distant dream.

"Ba Bi?" Kong Sang asked in confusion.

"Nothing." After venting his temper, Gu Sheng added:

"It's not too early to expand. Those areas aren't my turf, so we can't do things the way we do here. Just building Golden Harvest Properties' reputation will take time. We also need to collect property information and train a batch of employees. All that will take at least a month."

"We've already established ourselves in Yuen Long. Sooner or later, the big property players will notice us.

"Once they enter the market, there won't even be scraps left for us. So before they turn their attention here, we need to get everything in place and make a name for ourselves.

"As long as we become the biggest player in the market, it won't be so easy for them to muscle in."

Gu Sheng explained to Kong Sang what he'd been thinking over for the past few days.

"Besides, once the company gets bigger, not even having an office would look ridiculous. I'll rent a floor in an office building for our headquarters, then move it to Central later."

Now that Gu Sheng saw how much money there was in rental brokerage, he had no intention of keeping things small-time.

This business didn't bring in money as quickly as robbery, but if he spread it across all of Hong Kong Island, it wouldn't be much slower.

"I'll send a batch of my boys over tomorrow. Train them first, then hire another batch of regular employees."

Meanwhile, Big B had just left Chiang Tin-sang's place.

Teem-Kwan's trafficking in No. 4 Drug had finally pushed Chiang Tin-sang past his limit, and he had decided to teach him a lesson.

That was why Chiang Tin-sang had summoned Big B.

To kill Teem-Kwan's sworn brother, Ba Bi.

Ba Bi wasn't just Teem-Kwan's sworn brother. He was also an important buyer who distributed Teem-Kwan's goods.