Budget

Zhao Dannian and Feng Yun returned to Xibao Town as quickly as they could. Although it was not far as the crow flew, they still spent an entire day on the road, making three transfers before they arrived.

Once there, Feng Yun insisted on going to the school despite the exhausting journey.

Zhao Dannian had no choice but to accompany Feng Yun up the mountain.

It had already been dinnertime when they reached the bus station. They hurried up the mountain, but by then the sun was setting, and the low school buildings were slowly disappearing into the darkness, like a giant beast with its mouth wide open.

"Come rest at my place first. There's only one bed, so I hope you don't mind." Zhao Dannian had a single room at the school that served as his bedroom.

Feng Yun nodded. "I was too impatient. I'll sleep on the floor. It's summer, anyway."

"You're our guest. I can't let you sleep on the floor... So bright..." A blaze of light appeared ahead of Zhao Dannian as the lights came on in several classrooms facing them.

Yet unlike the dim lighting Zhao Dannian was used to, several large lamps were shining in each of these classrooms.

"You have pretty good facilities here." Feng Yun counted as he walked. "Six big lamps in one classroom. Do you need that many?"

"No, and I can't afford the electricity, either." Furious, Zhao Dannian charged into the school.

Feng Yun hurried after him.

Bang!

Zhao Dannian shoved open the classroom's wooden door with a force that hardly seemed possible for an old man nearing retirement.

"You certainly know how to spend!"

Besides the classroom's original two lights, two yellow lamps hung on each side wall, radiating light and heat beneath enormous shades.

The desks and chairs, originally arranged in parallel rows, had also been formed into a circle. Students sat in alternate seats, more than a dozen in all, holding steel styluses and copying onto stencil paper.

The extra desks and benches had been piled at the back, where several other students were operating mimeograph machines, churning out test papers in large quantities.

At a rough estimate, the six large lamps drew at least 600 watts, meaning they consumed more than half a kilowatt-hour every hour. Four classrooms meant two kilowatt-hours.

Zhao Dannian was so distressed by the expense that he could barely stand. He pointed a trembling finger at the students in the classroom. "A son feels no pain selling his father's land! I work myself to the bone begging for funding everywhere, and look at you, turning on all these lights at once! Are you all blind?"

"The writing on the stencils is smaller than normal. We couldn't see clearly with the old hanging lights, so Brother Rui had the big lamps installed," Huang Ren, who was helping in this classroom, hurriedly explained.

"Who's Brother Rui?" Zhao Dannian demanded fiercely, waiting only for a target for his thunderous wrath.

Huang Ren said cautiously, "It's Yang Rui. He teaches us how to solve problems, so everyone calls him Brother Rui..."

Of course, the actual situation was not that simple, but Huang Ren thought that was enough to say.

At the name Yang Rui, Feng Yun stepped forward as though seared by a branding iron. "Yang Rui? Which Yang Rui?"

The question left Huang Ren bewildered. After a moment, he said, "Yang Rui from the remedial class."

"Yang written with the wood radical and yi, and Rui with the metal radical and dui?" Afraid of another mistake, Feng Yun asked very carefully.

Huang Ren traced the characters on his palm before saying, "Yes."

Feng Yun immediately followed up. "How does he teach you to solve problems?"

"If there's a problem we don't know how to do, we can ask him..."

"Is he good at solving them?"

"Of course he is." Huang Ren's answer was utterly certain.

Zhao Dannian's attention was drawn to this as well. Leaving the other students alone for the moment, he turned and asked, "Are there any questions he can't answer?"

"Of course not," Huang Ren said earnestly. "He wrote all the questions. How could there be any he can't answer?"

"Is this the test paper?" Feng Yun took the paper the principal had given him out of his imitation-leather briefcase.

Huang Ren glanced at it and confirmed, "Yes."

"Look carefully!" Zhao Dannian roared.

Huang Ren was a wiry young man, with a lean body, a lean face, and lean hands-the sort who was all sinew and no fat. Frightened by the principal, he shrank back, took the paper, and examined it as he said timidly, "I've seen this paper so many times that I recognize it."

"Seen it many times?" Feng Yun was puzzled.

Huang Ren froze, then lowered his head, afraid to speak.

"What's going on?" Zhao Dannian asked as well.

He was the principal, which immediately put Huang Ren in a bind. Answering was no good, but neither was refusing to answer.

Fortunately, Yang Rui came in from outside after hearing the news.

He had heard their questions and volunteered, "We've printed a lot of sets of this paper, so we know what it looks like by heart. We can identify it at a glance from the diagrams and things."

Knowing what they would ask, he pointed to the desks arranged in a circle. "As a work-study effort, we printed some extra copies of the papers we use ourselves for people who need them, to save a little on study costs."

Feng Yun was shrewd with age and saw straight through Yang Rui's simple explanation without having to think. "You're selling test papers?"

"We give them to people who need them in exchange for some paper and ink." Yang Rui admitted nothing he could avoid admitting. He said earnestly, "A lot of students at school come from poor families. Even buying test papers and school supplies is difficult for them. Annual tuition and fees, along with living expenses at school, are all major expenditures. We want to save as much money as possible so more students can reduce their burden, until they can study without any financial burden at all."

Unmoved, Zhao Dannian asked, "Did you buy these lamps too?"

"They were bought with group funds." Yang Rui glanced at Feng Yun and deliberately explained, "I haven't taken a single cent. We discuss all expenditures together, too. Buying the lights was decided at a meeting, and the electricity costs have already been paid in advance. There are meeting minutes, everyone's signatures, and complete accounts."

Yang Rui planned to hold a budget meeting once a week to determine all expenditures for the following week. Only the budget meetings had minutes, and they were very brief, often lasting no more than five minutes. Most of the items were decided by Yang Rui.

This answer was entirely unexpected to both men. Feng Yun could not help asking, "How many sets of test papers have you sold?"

"Five hundred sets a day." Once Shi Gui began visiting the surrounding counties and towns, total demand had increased as well.

Feng Yun was startled by the figure. "How could there be so many?"

Yang Rui spread his hands. He had no need to answer that question.

Zhao Dannian went further. "How much money have you taken in?"

While Yang Rui was still hesitating, Feng Yun coughed hard. "We can chat later. Yang Rui, come here a moment. I have something to ask you."

He deliberately interrupted Zhao Dannian's question, lest the figure Yang Rui gave prove too shocking.

Feng Yun did not know how much Yang Rui charged for his test papers, but five hundred sets was already a large number in itself. Learning the sales revenue as well would not help his conversation with Yang Rui.

Yang Rui was happy to oblige. After all, the profit from five hundred sets was considerable, around fifty yuan a day. Even excluding holidays unsuitable for sales, more than a thousand yuan in profit remained each month.

That was a very large sum.

However, this money also depended on the cheap labor of students working part-time. If they had been paid ordinary workers' wages and benefits, the operation would probably have ended up in debt.

While Zhao Dannian was still thinking, Feng Yun had already begun asking about the test papers and publication in periodicals.

The Middle School Student Herald was a provincial periodical. At a time when core journals had yet to proliferate and publishing papers overseas was still very difficult, it was about the most academic magazine accessible to nonprofessional researchers. No one in the city's education system had yet achieved such a publication.

Having anticipated this, Yang Rui parried his questions and soon gave him an understanding of the Rui Study Group's basic structure. Anything beyond that, however, remained out of Feng Yun's reach.

"I have a few test papers here. Could you do them?" Because of Yang Rui's youth, Feng Yun still decided to test him.

At the same time, he gave Zhao Dannian the extra copies he had prepared, asking him to find several people to take the tests simultaneously for comparison.

After a little thought, Yang Rui tacitly agreed.

Blending into the crowd was not what he wanted, at any level.