I Have Three Plans

With enough nutrition now available, Yang Rui decided to step up his training. He then went on a treasure hunt, and after searching the school's entire sports equipment room, he was lucky enough to find a barbell.

The barbell was still quite new. Xibao Town had bought it for a weightlifting competition in response to a call to hold rural sports meets. Unfortunately, nobody in any of the surrounding villages knew how to lift weights. After the sports meet ended, it was allocated to Xibao Middle School as a cultural item. Whether it gathered dust or rust naturally meant nothing to the officials spending the state's money.

Yang Rui, however, was delighted. The barbell bench press was a staple exercise for building chest muscles. He had briefly practiced it at a gym before, with good results. But, as with many useful forms of exercise, he had eventually failed to keep it up for various reasons.

In this life, Yang Rui decided to see his physical training through to the end.

Having finally gotten an incredibly handsome face, it would be a terrible waste not to have a good physique to match. He was still growing, so neither exercise nor food could be neglected.

Besides, with relatively little on his plate right now, it was very necessary to build a healthy body. Falling ill before realizing their ambitions was probably the last thing modern entrepreneurs wanted to experience.

After enlisting his classmates' help, Yang Rui went on to find most of the matching weight plates in corners of certain teachers' rooms and offices.

That was part of the charm of treasure hunting in state-run institutions: you could always discover rare, valuable goods, and the important thing was that nobody else cared about them. Back when he was a graduate student, for instance, professors with ample funding who bought Apple MP3 players to use as flash drives and Alienware laptops to record experiments were everywhere. Some bought whatever was expensive rather than whatever was suitable; others simply did not care.

Using his last yuan and change to buy materials, Yang Rui asked the people at the agricultural machinery station to help make a barbell rack and a flat bench to lie on. Since he was the son of the neighboring township's Party secretary, they not only waived the labor charge but also used a tractor to deliver everything beneath the big locust tree outside the school dormitory, leveling the ground while they were at it.

Cao Baoming became Yang Rui's workout partner. While one of them bench-pressed, the other stood nearby to spot him, keeping him from hurting himself if his strength gave out.

This brand-new form of exercise naturally attracted plenty of student spectators. In just two days, the bench-pressing group grew to more than a dozen. Like inmates in an American prison, they ran onto the sports field during their exercise break every day and gathered around the simple equipment for monotonous workouts. Compared with studying, many actually preferred sweating on the sports field.

However, Chinese universities rarely admitted students for athletic talent, and bonus points for athletes would not begin for another two years. So even strong, athletic students had only one way out of the mountains: the college entrance examination.

Combined with the widespread lack of protein in their diets, this meant very few could keep up the bench presses.

Still, as old participants left and new ones arrived, the novel and unusual bench press continued to draw more than a dozen students. Especially when girls watched, there were always boys whose hormones surged, willing to strip off their shirts and show off their physiques.

If a girl gave a quiet gasp of admiration, the boy on the bench could feel pleased with himself for at least the rest of the day.

The bustle on the western side of the sports field inadvertently diminished the flourishing scene beneath the basketball hoop on the eastern side. Hu Yanshan, who had previously reigned there, discovered to his disappointment that more than half his audience had disappeared.

Occasionally, cheers came from the other end of the field, louder even than those when he sank a three-pointer.

"That kid's getting way too cocky. Third Brother, are we just going to watch?" The guard who often played basketball with Hu Yanshan was a sly, nasty fellow who styled himself a strategist. Some called him Dong Junshi, both to his face and behind his back.

Hu Yanshan bounced the basketball twice, made a throwing motion and sent it flying, then watched a follower sprint after it. Rather uncertainly, he asked, "What have you got in mind?"

"Same way we dealt with Blackie from Damentou. Wait until he comes back from evening study, throw a sack over his head, and beat him up. Who's he going to complain to?" Dong Junshi chuckled twice, thinking his idea absolutely brilliant.

A good beating would certainly vent his anger. But Hu Yanshan immediately recalled what Yang Rui had said that day. He could not help thinking it over a little longer before asking slowly, "What if Yang Rui insists we were the ones who beat him?"

"With a sack over his head, how could he see who did it?"

"He doesn't need to see. Yang Rui's different from Blackie. Blackie offended so many people he wouldn't know who beat him. If someone puts a sack over Yang Rui's head, we'll be the first people he suspects. Then he tells the police we did it. How would you explain yourself? Say, 'I had a sack over his head, so he definitely couldn't have seen me'?"

Another follower burst out laughing.

Dong Junshi was dumbfounded. "If he does that, he'd be breaking all the rules. Wouldn't everyone look down on him?"

"He doesn't run with the street crowd." Hu Yanshan let out a breath. "If my second aunt's husband were the police station chief, I'd do the same. Anyone who dared look down on me, I'd send them to jail."

Both followers lowered their heads, not daring to speak.

As Hu Yanshan talked, however, he only grew more disgruntled. He spat and called out, "Come on, guys. We're skipping this afternoon. Let's go down the mountain for some stir-fried dishes."

Tossing the basketball to the other students, several boys who usually hung around Hu Yanshan formed a line abreast and swaggered out like crabs.

At the school gate, the group happened to run into Shi Gui delivering food.

For over a week now, Shi Gui had kept their agreement, delivering a meal with one meat dish and one vegetable dish to the school gate promptly at twelve thirty every day for Yang Rui to collect.

Hu Yanshan had also asked Shi Gui about his delivery prices.

However, Shi Gui, who had only just started this business, had clearly mistaken Hu Yanshan, surrounded by his entourage, for another rich customer and quoted him three yuan fifty per beef meal.

Hu Yanshan had been stunned on the spot.

What did three yuan fifty mean? His father headed the power supply office, the most lucrative post around, and even adding up his legitimate, gray-area, and illicit income, he brought in only about a hundred yuan a month.

That was already more than a two-income household in town earned. Even so, it would only cover half a month of beef meals.

The comparison was even clearer in terms of cigarettes.

Hu Yanshan normally smoked nine-fen Flock cigarettes. To show off, he smoked twenty-six-fen Big Wild Goose Pagodas. The better-quality Great Front Gates, at thirty-six fen, were what his father used to show off.

Really, the Hu family's standard of living was among the very best in Xibao Town. But compared with Yang Rui, who ate the equivalent of a carton of Great Front Gates in a single meal, Hu Yanshan's fragile heart was practically shattered.

Although Shi Gui quickly realized his mistake and introduced cheaper meal deliveries, how could Hu Yanshan agree to order anything cheaper than Yang Rui's?

In fact, even if he had been willing, he could not have afforded it.

Freshly stir-fried dishes at every meal belonged to a communist society. The Hu family's standard of living simply fell short.

Spotting Shi Gui, Hu Yanshan paused and was about to circle around the other way.

His self-styled strategist's eyes lit up instead. "Tell me," he said quietly, "where does Yang Rui get the money for stir-fried dishes at every meal?"

"His dad embezzled it, obviously. Sooner or later, all corrupt officials will be caught and shot." Their companion's tone was growing impassioned.

Hu Yanshan stumbled and nearly fell. He glared irritably at the speaker. His own father, the power supply office chief, had been raking plenty of money into their home over the past two years too.

The strategist shook his head. "He hasn't just started going to school here. Have you ever seen him throwing money around before?"

"That's true..."

"I've heard the Yang family is very strict with their children." Showing off his information, the strategist continued slowly, "My guess is he's found a way to make money. Otherwise, even a rich family couldn't spend like that."

Even into the nineties, ordinary Chinese families considered meat at every meal extravagant. Beef at every meal seemed even more like wasteful excess.

Hu Yanshan nodded in agreement, then said, "Whatever nasty ideas you've got, squeeze them all out."

The strategist was immensely pleased with himself. "I have three plans: a best, a middling, and a worst."

"Three plans, no less! Come on, tell us." The uninhibited fellows began making a racket right outside the school gate.

"The worst plan is to confront Yang Rui. Ideally, we'd make it the talk of the town. He'd definitely suffer for it."

"No, no. Wouldn't that give him advance warning?" Hearing that it was the worst plan, Hu Yanshan immediately wanted to reject it. Storytelling programs were often broadcast on the radio, and generals and emperors who chose the worst plan usually came to grief.

The strategist nodded slowly. "The middling plan is to ask this food delivery guy. He must know something. Then we dig up more information, get something on that Yang fellow, and make him hand over money to us every day."

"What's the best plan?"

"We still gather information, but instead of getting something on him, we take over his way of making money and earn it ourselves."

"Good!" Hu Yanshan was thoroughly satisfied and finally made the correct decision as their lord. "I choose the best plan."

The strategist nodded emphatically. "All right. I'll go gather information."

He walked ahead, and the others followed in a grand procession. Everyone wanted to hear the news firsthand.

Seeing them approach, Shi Gui put on a businessman's smile. "Can I help you boys?"

"This... this thing of yours..." The strategist got stuck on his very first sentence.

"Meal delivery," Shi Gui supplied.

The strategist waved a hand. "That. You deliver meals up here every day. Do you know where Yang Rui gets the money to buy food every day? Let me warn you, that money comes from a shady source... You'd better be careful."

Shi Gui frowned. "His money's from writing fees, isn't it? How is that shady?"

"Writing fees?" Now it was the strategist's turn to be confused.

"Writing fees from magazines."

"How do you know it's writing fees? He told you, didn't he?" Hu Yanshan did not believe it. Writing fees were something sacred, earned only after publishing in newspapers and magazines, or publishing books. No matter what, Hu Yanshan could not believe that the boy who had lately been bench-pressing on the sports field every day could have anything to do with something so prestigious.

The others did not believe it either and plied him with questions.

The strategist went so far as to say outright, "He lied to you."

Shi Gui had little sense of confidentiality. Unhappily, he said, "I didn't just hear him say it. I saw it too."

"You saw it?"

"Yes, there was a remittance slip from a magazine. I even went with him to collect the money." Yang Rui's initial twenty-two yuan in writing fees had run out after just one week of meals. To keep supplementing his nutrition, he naturally had to keep paying Shi Gui deposits.

None of them said anything.

The strategist suddenly seized on Shi Gui's words. "You said there was one remittance slip from a magazine. Were there others?"

"Of course. I think there's one today. Ask the old man in the gatehouse... Oh, no need. Here comes Yang Rui." As he spoke, Shi Gui started waving and calling out loudly.