Chapter Four: The First Pot of Gold

Half past one in the morning. Torrential rain poured down.

Zhao Zejun lay on the bed in his small room, his eyes wide open, gazing at the faint flashes of lightning hidden in the pitch-dark sky outside the window.

After leaving the internet café, he already had a goal. If he handled things properly, he could absolutely make enough money in a few months to buy a house!

Internet café licenses.

Before 2001, the state’s oversight of internet cafés was lax. As long as you had money, you could open one; obtaining the various required permits was simple—a single form was enough to get a stamp.

The ease of registration meant these permits weren’t worth much, and, ironically, very few people bothered to get them. That period coincided with the rise of the internet economy and a massive wave of layoffs. The government was vigorously developing the tertiary sector, and local administrations supported laid-off workers in opening internet cafés, which both stimulated the economy and created jobs. Most officials turned a blind eye to the details.

Internet cafés sprang up everywhere like bamboo shoots after rain, including many unlicensed ones, which led to frequent safety incidents and rampant underage patronage.

From 2000 onward, the government issued regulations to begin standardizing the licensing of internet cafés.

After that, the approval process for internet café licenses became increasingly stringent.

Zhao Zejun guessed that the Cultural Bureau wasn’t intentionally making things difficult for Da Xiang; rather, after new policies came down, the process had genuinely become more complicated.

A single sentence from above, when implemented locally, would often be carried out to an even greater extreme. In the year or two after the new regulations, cities across the country tightened controls and began suspending approval for new internet café licenses.

Yijiang City was among the first to halt such approvals.

After the New Year in 2002, without warning, the relevant departments of Yijiang’s municipal government stopped issuing business licenses for internet cafés. They followed up with a large-scale crackdown, shutting down a huge number of cafés that lacked proper documentation or operated illegally.

The moment the new policy hit, the price of transferring existing licenses skyrocketed—rising daily. In just a month or two, those few slips of paper surged to terrifying prices, and even so, there simply weren’t any to buy.

Those who had licenses were mostly café owners. Now, with new licenses banned and demand for internet access soaring, the number of cafés actually shrank. It was the golden age for raking in money—who would be willing to sell?

Over the next few years, the value of internet café licenses continued to climb. At its peak in 2006, prices in major cities reached as high as 800,000 yuan for a single license!

And that was just for the license transfer, not including premises or equipment.

In theory, privately transferring a license skirted the edge of legality, but many engaged in such deals, and no one seemed to get into trouble for it.

Zhao Zejun remembered clearly: after New Year’s, when he and Jiang Xuan went to play at Storm, the doors were already sealed shut.

Da Xiang squatted in front of the Storm Internet Café, wailing like a mourner: “If I’d known it would come to this, I would’ve sold my car to buy a license!”

From 2002 to 2006, a café of Storm’s size and location could easily make at least 300,000 yuan a year. Swapping a car to keep the business running would have been more than worth it.

With his course set, Zhao Zejun took the trouble to investigate the licensing process and its requirements.

It was indeed much more regulated now.

The so-called “internet café license” was no longer a single document, but a collection of permits needing approval from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce, the Cultural Bureau, the network provider, the fire department, and others.

The core requirements were the business license from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the “Internet Culture Business Permit” from the Cultural Bureau.

One was controlled by the Bureau of Industry and Commerce, the other issued by the Cultural Bureau. With these two, the government officially recognized the business; everything else was secondary.

Da Xiang had hit a wall at the Cultural Bureau.

Zhao Zejun calculated his own situation and realized that, theoretically, he couldn’t obtain any of those permits.

First, his identification card wouldn’t be ready for another two months. Granted, that wasn’t the critical issue—he could wait, or in a pinch, use Jiang Xuan’s ID and reward her afterward.

The real problem was that, following the formal procedures, the various departments would conduct on-site inspections of the premises, equipment, staff, and more. He’d also need to sign a contract with the telecom provider first.

Renting a space, buying equipment, hiring staff—without at least a hundred or two hundred thousand yuan, it was impossible. If he had that kind of money, he’d buy a house outright and spare himself the trouble.

Of course, this was only “theoretically” impossible. His two lifetimes’ experience told him that theory and practice often diverged in the real world.

Zhao Zejun might not be able to do it, but someone else could.

His next move was to get that someone to handle it for him.

Late at night, Zhao Zejun lay on his narrow bed, his mind racing, replaying and refining his plan step by step.

The person who could help was Yu Zhe, a classmate of his.

Friendships in secondary school were relatively straightforward. Most students didn’t choose friends based on wealth or their parents’ official rank. More often, it was personal qualities that attracted them—good looks, athletic skill, common interests, mutual dislikes, or shared idols could all form the basis of close bonds.

Superficial, perhaps, but not self-serving.

Ironically, students from especially wealthy or privileged families were harder to accept and often ended up isolated.

Yu Zhe was one such person.

Unremarkable in appearance, he wore thick glasses, was skinny to the point of frailty, and had a rather sleazy-looking smile. His grades were at the bottom, he rarely participated in class activities, and he was mediocre at both the arts and sports. Among his peers, he barely registered.

Yet this underachiever was curiously favored by their homeroom teacher, Old He. His seat was always in the front three rows, and the teacher rarely gave him a hard time.

There was, of course, a reason for this. Yu Zhe was hopeless in every respect—except for one talent second only to “reincarnation”: the art of “being born into the right family.”

His father was the deputy director of Yijiang City’s Bureau of Industry and Commerce, a senior member of the Party committee.

Old He’s wife worked at the Bureau of Industry and Commerce as well. She’d been a gate guard in the security division and, six months after Yu Zhe started school, was transferred to the Market Inspection Department.

Zhao Zejun’s plan hinged on Yu Zhe.

In the economic boom following 1990, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce wielded immense power—choking or enabling businesses at will. One approval could open a lucrative path; one denial could close it.

Yu Zhe’s father had him late in life, treating his only son like a precious treasure. Indulged to the point of excess, Yu Zhe reportedly had a Motorola pager worth over a thousand yuan in junior high, and by high school, he was upgraded to a Motorola cellphone.

In the adult world, Yu Zhe would have been the center of attention, but in high school, most of the class looked down on him.

There was a reason: at the very start of their first year, Yu Zhe had done something guaranteed to annoy everyone—he fastened the latest cellphone to his belt and swaggered into class.

In 1999, cellphones were rare; most adults couldn’t afford one. At first, the other students were curious and followed him around, but within a week, the mood shifted.

“So what if your family has some money? Big deal. Corrupt officials!”

Coupled with Old He’s special treatment, Yu Zhe quickly became isolated by his classmates.

In their second year, Yu Zhe developed a crush on a girl in Class 2 and wrote her a love letter, which was promptly tossed back at the doorway of Class 1 for all to see.

From then on, Yu Zhe became the laughingstock of the entire grade. His classmates’ attitude shifted from isolation to outright contempt. The boys thought hanging out with him was embarrassing; the girls avoided him like the plague.

Ten years later, that girl worked as a temp on a community committee. After a dispute with a street vendor, she slapped someone, the incident was caught on video, circulated online, and she was dismissed.

Yu Zhe, on the other hand, owned seven or eight properties, drove his BMW to the tobacco company just before noon, enjoyed half the year off, and traveled the country with his beautiful wife.

Back in high school, only Old He truly understood Yu Zhe’s real “value.”

Now, Zhao Zejun did as well.

In his previous life, Zhao Zejun and Yu Zhe were merely nodding acquaintances, exchanging a few words during cleaning duty, sharing a drink at the graduation party. No conflicts, but not exactly friends.

For several days in a row, Zhao Zejun made a point of observing Yu Zhe.

Yu Zhe didn’t talk much, but he wasn’t antisocial. In fact, he seemed eager to interact with classmates. In less than a week, Zhao Zejun saw him twice pay for a large group of boys to go play Counter-Strike at the internet café.

That day after school, a bunch of boys clamored to go play CS again.

Third-year students were under immense pressure and needed an outlet. Some underachievers simply gave up and indulged themselves in a last bout of recklessness. As long as trips to the internet café weren’t too frequent, both families and school turned a blind eye.

These boys were all part of the basketball team’s inner circle, laughing and chatting together. Yu Zhe followed behind, pushing his bike, trying hard to find a moment to join in. Finally, he seized a chance and said, “Take me with you!”

The ringleader grinned, “Not today. There are just six of us—three on three. It’d be awkward if you came.”

Yu Zhe persisted, “Why would it be awkward? Whichever team’s weaker, I’ll help them out, how about that?”

He added, “I’ll buy everyone Coke!”

The boys all laughed but said nothing. One, with a sharp nose and monkey-like face, said, “Yu Zhe, your skills are so bad, you’d only drag us down.”

Yu Zhe gave a sheepish grin and mumbled, “I’m only bad because I need more practice…”

“Yu Zhe, let’s skip it this time. When the holidays come, we’ll invite you—and you can treat us to hot pot. That’s it, we’re off.” The leader’s tone was perfunctory.

The group pushed their bikes away, joking and laughing, leaving Yu Zhe standing awkwardly at the school gate, dejected.

“Yu Zhe, still here?” Zhao Zejun wheeled his bike past.

In his previous life, Zhao Zejun was much like Yu Zhe in class—quiet, unnoticed, almost invisible.

To be precise, Zhao Zejun was even less present than Yu Zhe. At least Yu Zhe was a known figure; Zhao Zejun spent all three years in complete obscurity. It wasn’t until the final exams, when he scraped into the provincial capital’s university, that everyone realized their class had harbored a hidden prodigy—but by then, high school was over and everyone went their separate ways.

Because both were “invisible,” Yu Zhe didn’t greet Zhao Zejun with the same forced friendliness he used with the “popular” classmates, but he wasn’t cold either. He smiled politely and said, “Yeah, I was just about to head home.”

“Why go home so early? I’m off to the internet café for a bit of gaming. You play CS, right? Want to join me for a few rounds?” Zhao Zejun asked.