Chapter 40: The Chance To Become A Dragon

At nine the next morning was a mandatory and ridiculously boring class by the fiercest female teacher in the university. Ms Lin, in her fifties, was short in stature, her short hair neatly tucked behind her ears. She spoke and acted with extraordinary seriousness, and countless students had flunked her classes.

The classroom was again packed—partly because everyone feared that Ms Lin would suddenly decide to take attendance, and partly because they had come to see the school belle.

Li Luoran did not disappoint: in a black shirt paired with fitted black pants, she was dazzling beyond words.

A sharp-eyed boy spotted the ring on her ring finger—the sign of a relationship. Whispers spread and the classroom erupted.

A tousle-haired, tall and thin boy who resembled Takuya Kimura, stopped Li Luoran as soon as class ended.

“Luoran, your ring is beautiful.”

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Li Luoran raised her right hand and flashed it boastfully. “My boyfriend gave it to me—I love it.”

As they watched that beautiful figure walk away, every boy in the classroom could practically hear their heart break into pieces.

As Li Luoran went down the stairs, she saw Su Pingnan standing quietly in a black coat, a smile on his face.

While Su Pingnan was caught up in his little romance, Jinxiu Pavilion in Wucheng opened with great fanfare—and its opening shocked the whole city.

The lavish decor stunned the people of Wucheng, forcing them to rethink what the phrase ‘resplendent and ornate’ truly meant.

Well-trained, high-quality servers made those country bumpkins understand what the concept of ‘customer is king’ really meant.

It was packed that day and the word-of-mouth was off the charts. Jinxiu Pavilion quickly became the first choice for Wucheng’s relatively well-off and influential people to host dinners. The sixth floor’s twenty-four top-end private rooms, with a minimum spend of 888 yuan, were unexpectedly in short supply—Su Pingnan was stunned. This was the end of 1992, yet the spending power of people could be so high.

Three days after opening, 310,000 yuan flowed in. Admiration of Su Pingnan from people like Zhang Lihua and Li Mingyi grew by leaps and bounds.

Su Pingnan set up those private rooms partly to raise standards and partly to make connections. It wasn’t part of his plan, but whether you could book a top-floor room at Jinxiu Pavilion soon became a measure of how well you were doing in Wucheng.

Before its opening, several leading figures in Wucheng’s elite had already had salesmen deliver gold cards. The buzz around Jinxiu Pavilion made Su Pingnan known to the city’s upper echelons for the first time.

Managers at Jinxiu Group—people like Su Wenwen and Zhang Lihua—could have three signing opportunities a month, while deputy managers had only one. This was a means for Su Pingnan to secure loyalty. He would gradually begin building his own kingdom, creating a comfort zone belonging only to Jinxiu Group, which would make the cost of betrayal enormous.

Su Pingnan felt relaxed. For the first time in his life he was enjoying the feeling of being in love—until the game boards were finally cracked and Jinxiu Electronics was about to take shape, requiring him to return to oversee the important matters, at which point he hurried back.

Jinxiu Electronics was currently in rented premises, not far from the Electronics University. Three bungalows and two rundown warehouses made up the entire company.

Zhang Hanping, with a few of his students, nervously watched Su Pingnan expressionlessly test several newly assembled pirated arcade machines. Su Pingnan had promised that if they succeeded, he would hire Zhang as the manager of Jinxiu Electronics’ factory, with profit shares and an annual salary as high as 30,000 yuan—far better than sitting on the cold bench at the school. Of everyone there, he was the most anxious.

The machines were still crude and unpainted, with most of the wiring was exposed—they were only playable prototypes.

A few students had already tried playing and were utterly obsessed. These things were already all the rage in Japan, though in Xia Country they hadn’t yet spread beyond a few coastal areas. Su Pingnan didn’t know he had changed history. What awaited him was a dizzying wealth.

With skilled control, he had won the Street Fighter game. Su Pingnan smiled in satisfaction.

“Not bad—what’s the cost of making this?”

Zhang Hanping glanced at the motherboards piled in the corner that they’d violently cracked and broken, and said sheepishly, “Mr. Su, to speed things up we damaged over a dozen boards—are you referring to that cost?”

Su Pingnan glanced at him coldly. “That doesn’t count. Remember, rules are most important at Jinxiu. I can be both generous and stingy—let’s just be upfront.”

Zhang Hanping wiped the sweat from his brow. A scholar at heart, he knew exactly what sort of person stood before him and immediately answered honestly, “607 yuan.”

Su Pingnan was shocked—technology truly was where the huge profits lay. He nodded, “And the speed? How long does it take you to burn one board?”

Zhang Hanping thought for a moment, “If all five of us are working at the same time, we can produce two boards per hour.”

Su Pingnan frowned. “Too slow. Is it difficult to hire large numbers of technicians?”

“No. We can use an assembly-line model—we just handle the burning, and output will rise quickly,” Zhang replied.

Zhang Hanping had responded very promptly.

Though Su Pingnan didn’t realize he had accidentally hit on the most crucial step, he had a premonition: a venture slowed by limited capital could speed up dramatically because of this.

“Good. Draw up a list immediately of what equipment and personnel are needed to scale production to 1,000 units a day—I’ll fully back it.”

After speaking, he patted Zhang Hanping on the shoulder. “I know life hasn’t been too good for you. Now I’m giving you the chance—let me see you become a dragon.”