1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 2: Start making money tomorrow

The bell rang for the end of get out of class, but there were few people on the playground.

As students, they usually just relax, smoke, and chat with girls during breaks.

At Sau Mau Ping Secondary School, apart from draining the water outside, everything else is done in the classroom.

Zhai Yuan walked aimlessly in the playground.

In the gatehouse not far away, an elderly man was leisurely smoking and reading a newspaper.

"Uncle, give me a cigarette." When in Rome, do as the Romans do and Zhai Yuan also speaks Cantonese.

The doorman raised his eyelids and opened the drawer, which was filled with a dazzling array of cigarette boxes:
"Weihao 15, Lucky 18, Camel 22, Red Wan without beads 25, with beads 30, which one do you want?"

Zhai Yuan pinched his pocket and asked, "How much is the Shuangxi in the corner?"

It’s not that I can’t afford Hongwan, but Shuangxi is more cost-effective.

The old man rolled his eyes and slammed the pack of Nanyang Double Happiness on the windowsill: "Five dollars, give me the money."

Zhai Yuan took out a five-yuan coin and while the old man was collecting the money, he quietly put his lighter into his pocket.

Squatting on the edge of the playground, Zhai Yuan lit a cigarette, puffed out a cloud of white smoke, and stared at the clouds in the sky in a trance.

I still can't understand how, as a northern man in the 21st century, I ended up in Hong Kong?
He suddenly wanted to recite two lines of poetry, but quickly dismissed the idea.

Because he saw several students in fancy clothes walking towards him with their arms around each other.

The leader was Feizaijun, a well-known gangster in the school.

"Hey, Zhai Yuan!" Fei Zaijun walked quickly to Zhai Yuan with an exaggerated expression: "Fuck that! You have money to smoke, but no money to give me? This month's protection fee is fifty yuan, hand it over quickly!"

The doorman in the sentry box heard the noise, stuck his head out to take a look, and then closed the window with a swish.

Zhai Yuan stared at them, his expression complicated as he recalled the Young and Dangerous movie in his previous life that led many ignorant young people astray.

Art indeed comes from life.

When Feizaijun saw that Zhai Yuan didn't say anything, he thought he was scared silly. He looked impatient and nodded at his companions.

Two students held Zhai Yuan up, and the third student reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of small and even bills from him.

"Brother Jun, it's only forty-five dollars."

"Forget it, just put it on his account for next month. Let's go out and play games!"

After Fei Zaijun finished speaking, he snatched the packet of Red Double Happiness from Zhai Yuan's hand without even looking at him again.

The group swaggered towards the school gate.

Zhai Yuan smiled and touched his nose, thinking that these little brats were quite interesting.

Holding a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, Zhai Yuan flexed his wrist and followed Fei Zaijun and his companions at a leisurely pace.

As he passed the gatehouse, he caught a glimpse of a folding stool leaning against the corner and bent down to pick it up.

Sneak attack!

A hint of cruelty flashed in Zhai Yuan's eyes. He raised the folding stool and smashed it hard on Fei Zaijun's back!

"oops!"

With a heart-pounding thud, the folding stool broke in the middle, sending wood chips flying!
Fei Zaijun screamed and fell to the ground.

"Fuck off! You're courting death!"

The other three hooligans reacted and stared at Zhai Yuan in shock, which then turned into anger as they pounced on him.

"Puff!" Zhai Yuan spat out half of the cigarette butt, hitting the nose of the nearest scoundrel.

While the other party was covering his face, he gave him a fatal kick, causing him to fall to the ground with his hands covering the ancestral hall.

Blackmail me?
In the past, those who came to me for debts were at least business celebrities. You scumbags are nothing but a bunch of useless people!

It is simply contrary to Tiangang!

After knocking down two people in succession, Zhai Yuan did not stop. The half-broken folding stool in his hand flew out and hit another gangster in the face.

"Come on!" With a low shout, Zhai Yuan glared fiercely at the last bastard still standing.

The opponent was a head taller than him and had a stronger build, so he might not be his match with bare hands.

Zhai Yuan thought that if he couldn't scare him, he would rush out of the school gate and find the police!
The two men, one tall and one short, stared at each other for a few seconds. Just when Zhai Yuan was about to give up, the tall scoundrel's knees suddenly weakened. "Brother Yuan, I was wrong!"

Zhai Yuan wiped his forehead calmly and patted the other person's cheek gently: "I gave you a chance but you didn't use it! Where's my money?"

The tall rascal quickly took out a stack of banknotes, at least two or three hundred yuan.

He was actually counting them one by one without any knowledge!

Zhai Yuan grabbed them all and said, "The rest is a fine!"

Putting the money in his pocket, Zhai Yuan took two tentative steps forward and saw that the tall bad boy was still kneeling on the ground, unable to get up, and Fei Zaijun and the other two were still lying on the ground groaning.

He turned back, knocked on the doorman's window, and handed out three ten-dollar Hong Kong dollars, saying, "Give me a red envelope with pearls!"

The doorman watched Zhai Yuan's back disappear at the school gate and glanced at the four hooligans outside the window.

After a light cough, the old man said earnestly: "No fighting in school."

……

The streets are busy with traffic.

The roadside shop was playing Xun Ni's melodious song "Every Time Things Change".

"Reminiscing about the past often makes me intoxicated. Thinking of the past, I often burst into tears. Dreams are like life. Who could have predicted that a stone would turn into jade in the future..."

Standing on the street, Zhai Yuan experienced for the first time what it meant to be in another world.

My thoughts are all over the place, and an inexplicable feeling comes to my mind.

The most precious thing for a person is life. We only have one life. We should spend our life like this:
When he recalls the past, he will not feel regret for wasting his youth, nor will he feel ashamed for doing nothing...

drip-

The shrill sound of the horn startled Zhai Yuan.

The cars on the street have formed a long line.

"Hey! Pretty boy, you are not watching when you go out. Are you a ghost or a chicken blind? Don't stand in the middle of the road. Get out of here!"

A driver wearing glasses leaned half of his body out of the car window and shouted at Zhai Yuan.

Zhai Yuan snorted and strode with his head held high: "Get lost if you want!"

If I hadn't heard you call me handsome, I would have punched your glasses to pieces!
There was no conversation along the way. Zhai Yuan relied on his memory to find where he lived now.

Dozens of twin-tower public housing blocks more than 20 stories high, covering an area of less than five hectares, form the congested Sau Mau Ping housing estate, which is home to no less than 12,000 households.

The housing estate is built on a mountain, the top of which is covered by a cloud of mist. Above it is the Anderson Mine, where workers and mine carts can be vaguely seen working.

Zhai Yuan arrived downstairs at his public housing estate and looked up. The surrounding steel and concrete looked like a deep well, leaving him with only a palm-sized piece of sky.

And he was at the bottom of the well.

There is no elevator in the more than 20-story public housing complex. There are more than 30 households on each floor, and each household has less than seven square meters of land.

"It's so depressing. Our fellow Hong Kong people are in dire straits."

After taking a few deep breaths, Zhai Yuan rushed up to the 16th floor in one breath, panting like a cow and his legs trembling with exhaustion.

He lay on the balcony, gasping for breath like a dead dog.

The impulse I felt when I saw the celebrity magazine at school disappeared without a trace, and I entered a sage state.

"I still have to make some money first, at least to move to a decent place to live. I'm here to enjoy life, not to suffer."

As for how to make money? Zhai Yuan hadn't figured it out yet, but he wasn't panicking.

Hong Kong in the 1980s was in a period of economic boom, and there were many ways to make money.

Even if he is really useless and can't do anything, Zhai Yuan still has a way out given his current age.

The young man always works hard and becomes a security guard in a high-end residential complex!

"It's better not to go that far. There are wolves at the very beginning and tigers at the very end. Some things are so fundamentally damaged that you can't repair them even if you want to."

Taking a deep breath, Zhai Yuan walked along the corridor towards home, secretly setting a goal in his mind:

For your future health and happiness, start making money starting tomorrow!

(End of this chapter)