Rui Study Secret Compendium

With or without the internet, gossip could spread at the speed of light.

The next day, Yang Rui entered the classroom and had only answered a few people's questions when Cao Baoming rushed in from outside, drenched from head to toe. "Senior Brother, they said your novel was published in Science Pictorial. Is that true?"

"Senior Brother, they said you earned several thousand yuan. Is that true?" Xu Jing entered the classroom with a similar question.

Yang Rui nodded to confirm each one.

Everyone who came in after that looked at Yang Rui as though he were a tycoon, and all sorts of questions kept coming.

Yang Rui handled them with ease. They were just another bunch of curious secondary school students. Although some of the students in the repeat-year class were a little older, overall, they were still secondary school students, no different from those Yang Rui regularly dealt with at the tutoring school.

The minor commotion in the classroom only ended when Teacher Lu came in.

Yet Teacher Lu himself could not help looking toward Yang Rui during class.

A manuscript fee of 2,000 yuan was an astronomical sum. An ordinary dual-income family might scrape together that much to buy a television or refrigerator after saving their wages for several years, but it would be extremely difficult for a single-income family.

Still, in the early eighties, a large manuscript fee really was the safest kind of substantial income. Neither society nor the school would, or could, attack income of this kind.

Yang Rui did not care what anyone else thought, as long as his income was clean. At least locally, he could not suffer any negative consequences because of it.

His hands-off attitude let the gossip spread like wildfire. Yet such thin gossip inevitably became boring, and by evening, the students had no new information left to spread.

Yang Rui continued gathering the study group members for lessons, exercises, and, finally, homework checks.

Only when it was nearly time to rest did he clap his hands and smile. "Let's have a meeting."

Everyone applauded, and Cao Baoming even shouted, "It's about time we had a meeting."

The group, now calling itself the Rui Study Group, had grown to thirty-two members, fourteen more than a week earlier, though the newcomers were all still provisional members. As they learned more about Yang Rui and the group, they would naturally develop a sense of belonging. For everyone, holding a meeting was something that gave them a strong sense of belonging.

Yang Rui shook his head with a smile, then brought up the part-time mimeographing work. "This is voluntary. Not everyone has to participate, and those who want to take part will receive some compensation. Finally, if there's any money left after selling the papers, it will go into our Rui Study Group's funds, to cover necessary expenses related to studying and research."

He deliberately left out words such as "profit."

The moment he finished speaking, the students launched into a heated discussion.

With so many people arguing, it was as loud as a private karaoke room. But Yang Rui sat quietly, letting them discuss it to their hearts' content first. He was still not familiar enough with this era, and danger often lurked in unfamiliar corners.

1982 was not a particularly suitable year for starting a business. From a cautious, safety-conscious perspective, it would be better to wait until at least 1983 to conduct commercial activities as a Chinese citizen, and at least 1984 to establish a private company.

1982 was a year of economic crackdowns in China. The State Council issued documents twice, calling for criminals who seriously damaged the economy to be held accountable. In reality, there was no strict definition of what counted as "serious," and that was the truly serious problem. By the end of 1982, 164,000 economic cases had been filed nationwide, 84,000 had been closed, and 30,000 people had been sentenced to prison. Of Liu City's famous "Eight Kings," who would be regarded today as outstanding township entrepreneurs, the unluckiest spent four years in prison, while the one who remained on the run longest spent three years rummaging through garbage bins. Ultimately, the Eight Kings' cases were overturned for political reasons, with the conclusion that "apart from minor tax evasion, their activities conformed to the central leadership's guiding principles."

Viewed another way, even if you thoroughly understood the central leadership's guiding principles, you could still fall victim to the economic crackdown of 1982 if you lacked connections and luck. Moreover, the more famous you were, the faster you fell. With even worse luck, if no one overturned your case, it would be nothing unusual to remain in prison into the nineties or even the twenty-first century.

Thus, although Yang Rui had discussed shares with Shi Gui, he had not so much as mentioned setting up a company.

As for the profits from mimeographing exam papers, he had no intention of pocketing them. Instead, they would be deposited and withdrawn as "group funds," to purchase teaching and research equipment, chemical and biological reagents, or even to award scholarships to Rui Study Group members, help students from struggling families, collect existing research materials, conduct verification experiments, and so on.

In short, Yang Rui would not take a single cent of this money. Ideally, they would spend whatever they received. Not only that, he would make absolutely sure the accounts were clear, lest they "contaminate" his perfectly clean manuscript fees.

This was not groundless worry on his part. The term "planned commodity economy" would not be proposed until 1984. In an era when even this term, more conservative than "market economy," had yet to appear, conducting business lawfully had absolutely nothing to do with enjoying peace and security.

There were clearly cautious students in the Rui Study Group as well, shouting out their objections. However, they did not know the scale of the teaching materials Yang Rui was planning. Some were discussing whether it would take up too much time, some whether they could recoup their investment, and others worried whether the school would object...

Huang Ren, Yang Rui's young fellow townsman and classmate, thought for a while, then came over to him, cupped his hands around his mouth, and asked loudly, "Under what name are we going to mimeograph and sell the teaching materials?"

"Under the Rui Study Group's name. If there's money left over, it'll go into the Rui Study Group's funds. If we lose money, I'll cover it." As Yang Rui spoke, those around him naturally fell silent, allowing everyone to hear him clearly. This, too, came from the authority he had built up recently.

"That won't do. If we lose money, shouldn't everyone cover it?" Wang Guohua quickly stepped forward. His father was the head of a postal office. His family was neither poor nor rich, but they were not short of money.

However, not every student at Township Middle School had money to spare. Especially for those with several children or someone ill in the family, simply continuing through high school was already difficult enough. Coming up with more money would be extremely hard.

At least a third of them looked troubled.

It was only because they were all around the same age that none felt comfortable speaking up.

Yang Rui waved his hand decisively. "Everyone knows I have income from manuscript fees. For now, I don't have much I need to spend money on. The Rui Study Group was organized to help everyone study. It can't turn around and add to everyone's burden. So if we lose money, I'll still cover it. But I think we'll have a little left over."

"Then what does that make us... a small collective?" a student asked, raising his hand.

"Nothing of the sort. We're just a group of students working to support our studies," Yang Rui said firmly. "We want to study better while helping other students from our area, so when we print papers for ourselves, we'll print some extra and charge enough to cover costs. Of course, since many costs aren't easy to calculate, we'll allow a little extra margin when calculating them. That way, if there's money left over, we'll use it to buy study supplies, help our classmates, and so on... Everyone, remember: any surplus won't be used to expand production, nor will any individual enjoy it alone."

Students these days were highly politically sensitive, and they nodded at his explanation. Still, some looked doubtful.

Yang Rui rubbed his chin. "This benefits everyone. First, we'll have more questions to work on, and centralized mimeographing will save everyone a great deal of time. Second, feedback on the papers from students elsewhere will let us arrange our revision more sensibly. Third, the group funds can purchase essentials such as blackboards and chemical reagents. Fourth, students who help with the mimeographing can take money home to help support their families, easing everyone's financial pressure."

These thoroughly sufficient reasons immediately dispelled everyone's hesitation.

Yang Rui was someone who acted as soon as he decided to do something. That very evening, he organized people to begin cutting the wax stencils, the first and most time-consuming step in mimeographing.

The next day, Yang Rui went down to town and collected his remittance. He put away two full stacks totaling over two hundred ten-yuan notes, then bought a mimeograph machine, ink, paper, stencil styluses, and other necessities at the supply and marketing cooperative before returning to school.

By noon, they began mimeographing in the sports equipment room they had cleared out.

Over thirty people worked for a total of three hours and produced several thousand sheets, which they eventually bound into 180 sets of exercise booklets. After setting aside more than thirty sets, they added covers to the rest and titled them Rui Study Secret Compendium. Beneath that, Yang Rui deliberately added: For internal reference by the Rui Study Group only.

Looking at the stack of exercise booklets taller than a person, Yang Rui let out a soft breath of relief. The beginning was always the hardest. Once they established a reputation, he naturally had an endless supply of exercises. Spending a little time dictating each day would be no trouble at all.

Once payment for the first batch came in and the students received their compensation, finding students to work part-time in the future would be very easy. With that, there would be no more obstacles on the Rui Study Group's sprint toward the college entrance examination.