Returning to '97, creating a new life

After more than four months of development, even with a batch of discs confiscated, Xu Kai still had plenty of discs to his name, leaving him without any pressure.

There was a single bed set up in the garage, but he had no interest in watching the movie with a bunch of rough men in a tense atmosphere.

The heavy breathing, the slightly awkward sitting posture, the bathroom that was almost constantly bustling with people coming and going—all proclaimed one thing: excitement!

After receiving payment for the overnight stay, Xu Kai slept fully clothed. He didn't need to manage the place at all. Ma Xin and his gang were frequent visitors here. They would change the discs after a movie ended. Even without them, Xu Kai wouldn't get up in the middle of the night, take out a few discs, and tell them to choose and change them themselves.

I didn't sleep well. People were coming and going. I came out from inside, went around the front bar area, and walked through a passage a few meters to the far corner of the toilet.

Xu Kai admitted that running the stall here was a very hard job, otherwise he wouldn't have given Song Jun an extra 800 yuan every month starting from the third month.

Unable to sleep past 3 a.m., he got up and went to the inner room to take a look. The scene was filled with heavy artillery from Europe and America, completely devoid of any plot. He called out to Ma Xin, who was staring wide-eyed, "Brother Ma, come out for a bit, I have something to tell you."

For a while?

Yes, in a little while.

We need to give Ma Xin time to calm down. If we ask him to stand up now, he will definitely not get up. That would be too embarrassing, and everyone would see him raising the flag.

"Xu Kai, is something wrong?"

A few minutes later, Ma Xin came out. Xu Kai handed him a cigarette, lit it, and then spoke: "Brother Ma, nothing's been going on lately, right? I heard your family's looking for a job for you?"

Ma Xin paused for a moment: "Yeah, I'm waiting for that. I'll try to get into the railway crew section. I heard it's for boiler operators on trains."

"Is there any definite answer?"

"No. I doubt it can even be done. Damn it, these days even money doesn't guarantee anything."

"Then come and help me out. I'm still in school, and Brother Song is out too. This shop can't be left unattended for a moment. It only costs five hundred yuan a month..."

Ma Xin was more than willing. He was just hanging around here every day without being paid, and he had no autonomy. If he became a staff member of the store, he could not only earn money, but also watch movies whenever he wanted.

"OK."

Xu Kai smiled and said, "Brother Ma, let me finish."

"you say."

"This money isn't just for what happened before; it also means doing more work."

Ma Xin looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Xu Kai continued, "It's like this, you see a lot of people staying here all night, and some even watch over things all day. I was thinking of adding some more services, especially at night. We close the door and don't let anyone go out, and a lot of people get hungry late at night. I'm planning to get an induction cooker and buy a lot of instant noodles. At night, you can see who needs them. Two yuan a bag of instant noodles, three yuan with an egg and a sausage. I won't let you work for free; I'll give you an extra fifty cents per serving..."

Seeing a smile appear on Ma Xin's face, Xu Kai changed the subject: "You need to make sure you wash the pots and dishes thoroughly every time. I don't want people to criticize us. I know it can be tiring with so many people. We have quite a few brothers who come over to do all-nighters. You can arrange it as needed. If someone wants to earn this money but you're tired, you can temporarily hand it over to them. If you do it well in one night, earning ten or eight yuan shouldn't be a problem. What do you think?"

"No problem, I can do this, don't worry."

Xu Kai offered a little something extra: "You get one day off a week. Every morning, you just need to clean up and tidy up, go home to change clothes and have a meal, and then you can open the shop at nine o'clock."

It's not about exploiting people to work 24 hours a day; it's about not having to stay up all night here. There's plenty of time for you to sleep. Ma Xin used to stay up all night just because he was freeloading, but now that he's an employee, he can't just hang around all night anymore.

Five hundred yuan is a bit higher than the normal wage for this type of work. The extra wages and commissions are what Ma Xin pays for working here for six days straight.

Xu Kai is not Song Jun; he wouldn't stay here just to earn a little more money.

Ma Xin lost interest in watching the video, and Xu Kai couldn't sleep either, so they taught each other how to keep accounts and all the rules.

How should rental transactions be recorded and how should payments be collected?

How is the video recorded, and how is payment collected?

It's very simple. Anyone can do it well if they are a little careful. Five hundred yuan is a lot for an unemployed person like Ma Xin. Restaurant waiters work themselves to the bone and only earn a little over three hundred yuan a month at most. Here, you can stay out of the wind and rain and are willing to do the job. This job is so awesome.

Xu Kai compared his choice to the job that young people would like most in a few years – internet cafe manager.

How much you earn is one thing, but the important thing is that you can play for free while also having something to play with.

Ma Xin helped Xu Kai clean up early in the morning and went straight to work, telling Xu Kai to go to school and come over in the evening to relieve him for a while while he went home to get some clothes and toiletries.

Xu Kai skipped his afternoon classes and went to buy an induction cooker, some small aluminum basins and spoons that are resistant to bumps and drops and easy to clean. He also went to a small commodity wholesale market and bought several large bundles of disposable chopsticks.

I bought several large boxes of Yanjing brand spicy instant noodles, eggs, and small sausages (five for one yuan each, a classic dog sausage for a while).

He didn't choose to sell cigarettes or water. He would buy cigarettes in advance; the shop at the top of the building was just a small store. As for water, he would buy drinks and other beverages in advance if he had the money. Nowadays, most people just drink directly from the tap when they're thirsty and run out of water; buying bottled water is not currently a daily expense for those who are short on cash.

At night, especially in the middle of the night, when people are hungry, most people can't resist eating a delicious bowl of instant noodles when someone in the house is eating it.

A bowl of spicy instant noodles costs two yuan, which is the wholesale price. Even after accounting for electricity and water usage, the net profit is still more than one yuan.

The higher-end version includes eggs and sausages, which earns even more.

If you do the math, Ma Xin's salary can be recouped by this additional business, and he'll also get a staff member working for him for a month.

During the day, Ma Xin kept clear accounts. At night, Xu Kai took away the day's earnings, leaving a few dozen yuan for temporary change or to return the disc deposit. He stayed with Ma Xin until the early hours of the morning. On the first day, Xu Kai gave Ma Xin a complete demonstration of the additional services.

The price is within an acceptable range, and it's prepared and served to you. It's two yuan a bowl. You either won't eat it, or you won't complain about the price. Instead, you all agree. After watching videos all night, you get hungry in the middle of the night and eat some fragrant instant noodles. After smoking too much, a sip of hot soup makes you feel comfortable all over.

There were forty people in the inner and outer rooms. Even the young people who were really broke often came and went. One of them bought a bowl on credit and sold it for 100 yuan. Xu Kai silently calculated the cost in his mind. With the extra commission he would give to Ma Xin in the future, he could still earn more than 30 yuan.

It takes time—cooking several bags at a time, plus washing the dishes—it takes over an hour. But earning an extra ten or twenty yuan in that hour gives Ma Xin plenty of motivation. Even the laziest body is willing to put in this tedious but not tiring effort to earn money. If he does this for a long time, he might earn a thousand yuan a month. Thinking about this, he feels that Xu Kai shouldn't have been there tonight, hindering his performance.

………………

Every afternoon after school, Xu Kai would go home for dinner, and around 6 p.m., he would go to the store to let Ma Xin go home for dinner.

Ma Xin's home isn't too far away, and the shop can't provide meals, so he goes home every morning, brings some food to eat at noon, and then comes back after having dinner at home.

Xu Kai usually stays at the shop until 9 or 10 pm, collecting the money for the overnight stay before leaving. Sometimes, when he makes plans to go out with Yunshang, he calls the shop in advance and asks her to take three yuan from the shop to a small restaurant in the nearby market to order fried noodles or a small portion of stir-fried green peppers and dried tofu, or other vegetarian dishes.

He was relieved. Seven days later, Song Jun returned and could understand the matter of hiring Ma Xin. However, when he saw the extra meal service in the evening, his eyes widened.

All the money he earned in the past four months went into his newly started "underground video arcade." It still wasn't enough, so he borrowed nearly 10,000 yuan from his family to cover the fines and ransom payments.

This money was his parents' life savings. If it were the old Song Jun, his parents wouldn't have dared to lend it to him, fearing it would be like throwing good money after bad. But these past few months, their son has been earning money and has his own business. His parents have gained confidence in him and are no longer worried that he'll squander the money; they're just someone who genuinely needs it.

So when Song Jun returned, he was incredibly "thirsty" for money. He couldn't let Ma Xin earn that money, so on his very first day back, he deprived Ma Xin of the opportunity to earn that commission.

Xu Kai couldn't control how dissatisfied and angry Ma Xin was, nor would he care. He had no long-term plans or arrangements for the "garage" audio rental business, and he was too lazy to resolve conflicts between staff.

There was no disappointment in Song Jun, nor had there ever been any high hopes. He had simply missed the chance to get on the bus, and once he missed it, Xu Kai would never give him another one.

The twilight industry can only greedily absorb the last rays of the setting sun, making as much money as possible and for as long as possible. Before, I might have considered whether or not to, but now I don't. From the moment Song Jun started his own business and secretly made money, it was already destined that he would become the scapegoat and take over the twilight industry.

There was another purpose to hiring Ma Xin.

Xu Kai had imagined that the "extremely hungry" Song Jun would unleash his inner greed, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly. He had misjudged the moral bottom line of this bastard.

With Ma Xin around, there's an extra pair of eyes watching the accounts. Even though Song Jun often stays in the shop, after all, he's already paid someone to hire him, and he's embarrassed to be accused of being unprofessional and fire Ma Xin. Besides assigning Ma Xin more work, he also feels more relaxed.

Because the revenue from late-night snacks stopped, at first they would give him a few dollars, then a box of Life Source, but later they didn't give him a single penny and instead made him cook instant noodles and wash dishes and pots.

When there is no conflict of interest, they address each other as brothers.

When I went to the movies with someone else, Brother Song was like an older brother to me.

Now, with his pent-up anger and resentment building up, Song Jun asked Ma Xin several times over three consecutive days when his family would get the job sorted out. Even without much social experience, Ma Xin understood what he meant. They were both bosses, yet the difference between them was so vast. Song Jun, you don't even have the same perspective as a student like Xu Kai.