Chapter 20

Chapter 21

As far as I knew, mainland China's tea beverage market only gradually took shape after 1995, growing faster and more explosively than the bottled water market before it and the fruit juice market after it. By 1997, China's annual tea beverage production stood at 200,000 tons. In 1998, it immediately jumped to 800,000, then to 1.85 million the following year. Even so, tea beverages accounted for less than 40% of the everyday beverage market, which showed how much potential the entire beverage market had.

That one word from Zhang Xiaotong-tea-reminded me of a tea beverage market worth over four billion yuan a year. How could I not get excited?

More importantly, this stuff was cheap to produce. If we scraped together our spare cash, we could definitely afford it. If I remembered correctly, Sunrise Group's tea beverages hadn't hit the market until 1994, and their first-year sales had amounted to a mere few million yuan. I wasn't afraid of competing with them head-on. Damn it, the recipes I knew were cheaper and tasted better than theirs. I had personally tried dozens of tea beverages, from black tea and green tea to iced tea, floral tea, honey jujube tea, and American ginseng tea. I had read the ingredients on most of those bottles. As long as I took my time tasting and testing, I could eventually make new drinks that tasted much like those tea beverages but cost less.

That remark from Zhang Xiaotong reminded me that we didn't need to keep too much cash on hand right now. It would be better to reinvest it sooner.

As luck would have it, Dong Qinghua called just then. He said Yu Chunrong wasn't particularly happy working for Sui Yunfei and asked whether Zhang Xiaotong had a position for him. Taking her cue from my look, Zhang Xiaotong quickly agreed. Since Yu Chunrong had also dealt with the beverage market while managing the cake shop, we could say we had picked up a bargain talent.

I left Zhang Xiaotong to get Yu Chunrong settled. Things wouldn't be so easy for me from here on, though. The initial recipes depended entirely on me.

Generally, I spent class thinking about recipes and mixing methods for various beverages, then dragged Guo Zhen, Yang Yuanzhe, and the others home after school to taste the drinks I mixed. I started by experimenting with black tea bags, but found that without fruit flavoring, it still wasn't quite refreshing enough. I wasn't very confident about fruit-flavored products yet, either. After repeated rounds of torment, I started trying green tea instead. I also asked the employees heading to Taiwan to discuss the chip business to bring back some products from Uni-President and Ting Hsin Group. After all, Taiwan's tea beverages had nearly thirty years of history, and there was still plenty we could learn from them.

I kept at it until late October, when a few bottles of Ting Hsin International and Uni-President products arrived, and only then did my research make a little progress. By then, Yu Chunrong had secured the production line and factory premises through sheer spending power, and brought in technical staff too. Once he roughly understood what Zhang Xiaotong intended to do, he was incredibly impressed. People with ideas like that were vanishingly rare at the time. With him running around so diligently, things became much easier for us.

An engineer who had handled technical work at the former soda factory was brought over to us. He was a professional, after all. A few glances at our recipe were enough for him to understand how to adjust the proportions. The brows Guo Zhen and the others had kept knitted for three weeks finally relaxed thanks to the new recipe. Though it bruised my pride somewhat, I still told Zhang Xiaotong excitedly, "The era when carbonated drinks rule supreme is just about over."

Zhang Xiaotong nodded and said meaningfully, "Your era has arrived."

I scratched my head and smiled sheepishly. "Our era."

I had been terribly busy lately. When I finally had time to sit down, catch my breath, and play a couple of games with Yang Yuanzhe, I couldn't help wondering whether I should seek out the friends I had only met after 1998. After thinking it over, I decided to give up on the idea for now. First, I was too young. Second, I didn't know all their current circumstances, and if I messed things up, it would be hard to fix. Better to wait until the time was naturally right. Then it would be easy enough to get to know them one by one.

Guo Zhen hadn't been used to this sort of idle life at first. He had always kept busy learning things, reading, or meeting all sorts of people at the arcade. Now, under our influence, he had come to enjoy it too. In truth, the main reason was that he could always learn something new from me. With his, Yang Yuanzhe's, and Ge Jinqiu's intelligence, saying they could infer three things from one would be an insult. Five would be more like it. Every time I chatted with them, my forehead broke out in sweat. If I hadn't crammed so much knowledge into my head since I was three, with my old abilities, wouldn't I have made a complete fool of myself in front of you in no time?

I had always felt I wasn't very good at stirring other people's emotions. By comparison, all three of my friends were very capable at it, and I had unconsciously learned a great deal from them. In fact, when we played together, I often thought of the days we had spent laughing together during those twenty years before. Having that frame of reference and comparison made me happy. After all, most things were still heading in a good direction now.

In early November, I took Guo Zhen and the others to visit the production line for our new tea beverage, Sun Red Tea. I told them, "Whenever you want some, just call me. My sister's advertising this brand. You can have as much as you want."

The guys were awestruck by the long production line. Of them, only Guo Zhen had ever visited a small soda factory, so he remained relatively composed. The other two marveled, "How much must this have cost..."

"About five million yuan," I said.

Their eyes nearly popped out. "Five million?!"

"That's just the production line," I said casually. "It doesn't include anything else."

They fell silent. I looked at them and said, "Actually, as long as we're willing to work hard, we can all be even richer in the future. What do you think?"

Guo Zhen was the first to recover. He smiled and nodded.

Yang Yuanzhe said firmly, "People earn money. If others can do it, so can I."

Ge Jinqiu said, "Make a place for yourself in life."

I smiled and let out a long breath. It was wonderful that they already had such drive and ideas at this age. This was exactly what I wanted. What a person needed to fear wasn't a lack of ability or resources, but a lack of willingness to work for what they wanted. Hadn't even Stephen Chow said that anyone could be a God of Cookery if they put their heart into it? In my view, anyone could become strong, and anyone could accomplish great things, as long as they put their heart into it.

For a while after that, the three of them asked me out to play noticeably less often. I went to see them separately and discovered that all three had actually signed themselves up for extracurricular classes. Guo Zhen had enrolled in night classes in low-voltage electrical technology, while Yang Yuanzhe and Ge Jinqiu had joined English tutoring classes. These choices were essentially in line with their later development.

In late November, after nearly three weeks of publicity within the province, our new-generation tea beverage, Sun Red Tea, went on sale to a fairly good reception. Many domestic media outlets showed tremendous interest in the appearance of this tea beverage. Yu Chunrong handled the launch single-handedly, and countless calls came his way. He couldn't resist complaining to Zhang Xiaotong, "I've gone through three phones already. Shouldn't the company consider compensating me a little?"

Zhang Xiaotong answered with a grin, "We'll talk after New Year. The company has no money right now."

I muttered under my breath, "No money... we're practically raking it in every day, and she says there's no money..."

By contrast, the chicken bouillon had already gone on sale without a sound. Xu Jun's earlier predicament had simply been due to a genuine lack of money, and the MSG factory had reached the point where no one would lend them another cent. The moment we injected a large sum, it sprang back to life. Zhang Xiaotong told Xu Jun not to abandon MSG production yet, but to let the two products coexist for a while and only shut down the MSG line once the publicity had gradually permeated public opinion. Xu Jun understood her meaning, registered a new MSG brand, and went back into the fray.

China had no more than three well-known MSG brands. The two most famous had barely changed their packaging in ten years, and had never even proposed any conceptual marketing plans. Under those circumstances, the fact that those two or three MSG brands had monopolized the domestic market for nearly ten years struck many people as rather incredible. We spent some time changing the packaging, running publicity campaigns, and paying journalists to write planted articles before getting the new MSG brand into major stores nationwide. It sold fairly well.

Next came playing the youth card, with chicken bouillon making a powerful entrance.

By now, most parts of the country knew of a Sun Group whose products were either green, environmentally friendly foods or inexpensive computers for young people. In any case, the company's letterhead carried a row of large characters: "Caring for young people's growth." We had established the beginnings of a corporate culture. Launching the chicken bouillon was relatively much easier.

First came a full-page advertisement in Crimson Youth.

Then, with every Young Dreamer computer Sun Electronics sold, it gave away a promotional booklet. It contained reports from several large-scale sampling studies worldwide on MSG toxicity, along with some related planted articles. The latter half contained selections from the 1993 edition of Guinness World Records.

Next, Sun Red Tea came with small packets of chicken bouillon. Buy one, get one free-an incredible bargain.

Calculated at current tea market prices, the profit on our tea beverage at the factory gate could reach nearly 100%, while retailers could make over 50%. Who wouldn't want to try selling a drink like that?

Yu Chunrong had originally spent a few days idle and grown a little lax, but ever since returning to work under Zhang Xiaotong, he had practically been run off his feet. Countless calls came every day. Stores in different places shared information, and when one learned that another had stocked it, ten more followed with orders. Only a few days after complaining about the phones, he came to complain again. "Supply can't keep up with demand..."

Zhang Xiaotong smiled. "Add another production line, then. No need to hesitate."

Adding a production line just one month after a product launch was unprecedented. We invested on the basis of making over ten million yuan in profit in the first year, yet supply still couldn't keep up with demand.

Looking at the faxes and figures that changed day by day, I told Zhang Xiaotong, "Everything really is taking off at once..."

Zhang Xiaotong held her head in mock agony. "I'm in my final year of middle school, you know. Aren't you ruining me..."

I grinned. "Tell me, ma'am, apart from the things you need to memorize, what do you still need to learn? I'll teach you..."

Zhang Xiaotong smiled without answering.

I patted her hand. "Actually, I have a better idea. Talk to your teachers after winter break. Wouldn't guaranteed admission to No. 1 High School solve it?"

Zhang Xiaotong shook her head. "I'm not confident I can get guaranteed admission. Not every teacher likes me."

"That was before, wasn't it?" I said. "Talk directly to your homeroom teacher. I don't believe she'd let such a good opportunity slip by. After the floods in eastern China, your public image is already outstanding. I think they ought to be approaching you about something like this."

As if to prove my words, a week later, Zhang Xiaotong's homeroom teacher called her in for a talk and asked whether she would be willing to accept guaranteed admission to an experimental class at No. 1 High School. My advice to Zhang Xiaotong was to go to a regular class. Those so-called experimental classes merely made adjustments like increasing the workload, which would do her more harm than good. Her teacher had expected her to reject guaranteed admission because of the pressure. Instead, Zhang Xiaotong readily agreed, and the teacher left thoroughly satisfied.

Without the pressure of entrance exams, Zhang Xiaotong threw herself into work with even fewer restraints.

At the end of December, on Christmas Day, I invited Zhang Xiaotong out for a walk. Every year, this day filled me with emotion. Time flew. Things were no longer as they had been.