Chapter 57 Love

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978, breakthroughs in concepts have been the main driving force for the country's reform. Wherever the people are the first to break free from the shackles of the planned economy, they will rise rapidly, and wealth will flow to regions with open ideas.

In fact, many reforms start from the gray area. Those regulations that are inextricably linked to the old system become constraints on reform, and breaking through them often means progress.

For example, the merchants in Xinglong Electronic Digital City sold handheld game consoles, red and white game consoles, and single-player game consoles. These cheap copycat products were not compliant and they would certainly be held accountable in the future. However, compared to the expensive genuine products, these copycat products perfectly fit the national conditions at the time and were loved by the people. The merchants thus made huge fortunes.

This directly led to a generation's contempt for conventions. People began to become careless about institutional constraints and only cared about the efficiency and speed of development.

Zhang Yunqi has always felt that Charles Darwin’s classic statement about the “law of the jungle” in “The Origin of Species” is an axiom of China’s development history in the 1990s: “The species that survive are not the strongest, nor the most intelligent, but those that respond most actively to change.”

Among the group of people who responded most positively to the changes, some made money out of nothing, exchanging canned goods for airplanes; some had insight into the future and spent huge sums of money on the stock exchange.

Some of them became idea kings.

Some have become pioneers in fighting against counterfeiting.

Some people print the words "Special Prize" on the pull rings of Coke, and they are very popular at train stations.

Some of them opened the first sex health products store in the country in the capital. Amid the nationwide curses of gangsters, they enjoyed the sexual pleasure while counting piles of money.

In such an era, these pioneers who responded most positively to change did many things that were incomprehensible to the Chinese people. But whether good or bad, everything was subtly changing people's consciousness and stimulating material desires that had been suppressed for too long.

Yes.

This is an age of rampant materialism.

The surging flow of people in Xinglong Electronic Digital City is silently telling this point. This makes Zhang Yunqi more confident in his handheld business. As long as he can connect with wholesalers with large channels here, it will not be a problem to easily make hundreds of thousands of yuan a month.

However, Ji Ling wanted to buy a Walkman and insisted that he help her choose one she liked. So Zhang Yunqi put his own things aside and took Ji Ling to find a larger store.

This store has three large counters, filled with a wide variety of electronic products, with Walkman being the main item. The prices are very expensive, but none of them caught his eye.

After much selection, he finally chose a product from Sony's Walkman series for Ji Ling. It had a magnesium metal body and a champagne gold shell. It was lightweight and chic, had high-fidelity sound quality, and good resolution. It was very suitable for a girl like Ji Ling who liked simple things, but the price was particularly unfriendly, at 480, which was almost two months' salary for an ordinary worker.

Zhang Yunqi had never thought of asking Ji Ling to pay for such a large sum of money. It was unlikely that a girl like her would carry so much money on her. Besides, he had never given her any presentable gift. So he took money out of his pocket to pay the bill, and Ji Ling asked, "What are you doing?"

Zhang Yunqi laughed: "Pay the bill, no?"

Ji Ling rolled her eyes and said, "No, I'll buy it myself."

She opened her black and white Nike backpack, took out 500 yuan from it and handed it to the counter clerk.

Zhang Yunqi thought that this girl was really rich and inhumane. In this day and age, girls who could easily spend four or five hundred yuan were very rare.

After buying a Walkman, Zhang Yunqi and Ji Ling went shopping in the electronics city.

His main purpose of coming here today was to learn about the types and prices of game consoles in the mall. However, after visiting all the counters and stores, he did not see any merchant selling the Tetris handheld console he had. But there were many similar products, and the prices were not cheap, ranging from 80 to 400 yuan. Some genuine game consoles equipped with game cartridges were even more expensive, costing six or seven hundred yuan, and they should have been brought from Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou.

Zhang Yunqi felt relieved.

Compared with the various game consoles equipped with Tetris, our own handheld game consoles are quite competitive. But how can we get the merchants doing wholesale business in counties and towns here to sell our products?
Direct sales will definitely not work. This is a seller's market, and whoever has the goods is the boss. However, the bosses in Xinglong Electronics City are well-informed and well-off. If a teenager like me directly goes to them to sell handheld games, they may think I am crazy. Even if they believe that I can get the goods and want to do this business, I will lose the initiative in terms of price.

You can't do such stupid things.

We have to think of a way to make these businesses come to him.

Zhang Yunqi pondered over it for a long time, and after thinking about it, he came up with a preliminary idea.

He found a counter, took out a handheld device that he was selling from his pocket, and asked the counter attendant: "Do you have this handheld device for sale?"

The waiter took a look and said with a smile: "We don't have this model, but if you need to buy a handheld game console, we have a few good ones to recommend to you."

Zhang Yunqi waved his hand: "I've looked at all the handheld game consoles on the counter. They're too expensive, and they only have Tetris loaded on them."

The waiter explained: "Actually, except for GB, which is a bit more expensive, the prices of other domestic handhelds are similar. Our prices are already relatively low. If you don't believe me, you can go to other counters to find out."

Zhang Yunqi waved the handheld device in his hand and said, "That's really not the case. This handheld device I borrowed from a classmate, do you know how much he paid for it? 50, which is 30 yuan cheaper than your cheapest handheld device."

The waiter looked at Zhang Yunqi suspiciously and said, "I'm sorry, we don't have this handheld device for sale here."

Zhang Yunqi said with regret: "Forget it then. I thought Xinglong Electronic Digital City is so big that it must have this handheld device for sale."

After saying that, Zhang Yunqi turned and left under the waiter's gaze. He called out to Ji Ling, who was sitting on a swivel chair not far away and drinking a glass of juice, to get out.

The two walked to the entrance of the electronics city. Ji Ling looked at him with a strange expression and said, "You have so many handheld devices, why are you coming here to buy one?"

Zhang Yunqi smiled and said, "I'm not planning to buy anything, I just want to know the market situation of handheld games in the electronics city. I have nothing to do this afternoon, where do you want to go?"

Ji Ling thought for a moment, tilted his head and said, "How about going to Meihu Park to feed the fish? There are many delicious snacks there."

Zhang Yunqi agreed.

Ji Ling squinted his eyes and smiled.

The two came to the side of the road. Zhang Yunqi stretched out his hand to stop a taxi, but Ji Ling said they wanted to take the bus. Then she pulled Zhang Yunqi to the bus stop to wait for the bus.

After waiting for a while, the bus arrived. Zhang Yunqi and Ji Ling got on and sat in the last row. Ji Ling turned on the Sony Walkman and inserted a tape. She put on one earphone and put the other earphone into Zhang Yunqi's ear. Soon, the song "Love" by the Little Tigers sounded in his ears.

After listening for a while, Ji Ling turned around and asked him: "What do you think?"

Zhang Yunqi said: "Very good."

Ji Ling stuffed the Walkman into Zhang Yunqi's hand and said with a smile: "Comrade Zhang, this is for you. You can listen to it during evening self-study or when you are bored in the dormitory."

"Didn't you buy this for yourself?"

"My mom bought me one."

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(End of this chapter)