King of Technology: A Fresh Start in 1983

After an unknown amount of time, He Fan was awakened from his sleep by a series of loud banging sounds at the door.

He opened his eyes and saw a distorted face protruding from above the wooden board on his side.

She was furious and yelled at him, "You're sleeping like a log! Your snoring is deafening, even the front desk can hear it! You got me yelled at by the manager!"

After the man finished cursing, he jumped off the lid of the water tank next door.

At this moment, He Fan had already opened the door to the toilet stall.

A person who looked like a cleaner was standing in front of me.

He shouted angrily, "Get out! Get out!"

He Fan quickly took out three ten-yuan bills and handed them over, then stretched and yawned.

Then, with a smile, he said, "They insult you, you insult me, and I'll give you some money. We're even, right?"

The cleaner stared in disbelief as he took the money, muttering, "With so much money, why doesn't he go upstairs and get a room?"

"Where are the empty rooms up here? If there were empty rooms, I wouldn't be here smelling the toilet."

He Fan pointed back to the toilet and said with a smile.

He washed his face in front of the mirror, then asked the cleaning lady, "What time is it now?"

Five o'clock in the morning.

"What number?"

The cleaner looked at He Fan with confusion: "Today is the 7th."

He Fan was finally relieved.

It seems I only slept for a few hours and didn't cause any major problems.

He checked his belongings and then walked out.

Not far from the door is a branch of Guoxin Securities.

Before he even reached the sales office, He Fan froze! He was dumbfounded!

In the morning light, a row of benches and chairs could be seen, lined up one after another along the base of the wall.

...

No way!

He Fan quickly ran forward and asked the people at the front of the line, "What are you all queuing for?"

"Lottery form", "subscription certificate", "IPO lottery form"...

Several migrant workers answered in a haphazard manner.

He Fan exclaimed in shock, "Wasn't the announcement only released today? How did you all know about it beforehand?"

"What? Today? Didn't you watch TV? The TV station reported it last night, and we started lining up last night."

"Ah! This..."

He Fan had previously received information that an announcement would be published in newspapers such as the Pengcheng Business Daily on August 7th.

So he wanted to arrive a night earlier, so on the morning of the 7th he called Zhao Lin and asked her to help recruit migrant workers locally, and they started queuing up on the morning of the 8th.

To my surprise, Pengcheng TV broadcast the news ahead of schedule on the evening of the 6th.

He Fan glanced at the length of the line and then ran back.

He ran into the hotel he had just been in, picked up the public phone at the front desk, and dialed Zhao Lin's number.

"Zhao Lin, this is He Fan. I've arrived in Pengcheng. Immediately find some factory workers for me to line up; it's 100 yuan per person per day!"

"Queue? What queue? Where?" Zhao Lin exclaimed.

"I'm queuing up to buy subscription certificates at Guoxin Securities' branch."

"Ah! You came to Shenzhen to buy a subscription certificate?"

Zhao Lin was startled again, "But the workers here have to go to work every day, they simply can't leave..."

"Do you know where I can find someone to queue for me?"

Zhao Lin paused for a moment, then said, "He Fan, don't worry, I can find those workers and have their fellow villagers go over."

He Fan was overjoyed: "They don't have jobs?"

Zhao Lin continued, "Those people are all outside the pass; they can't find work."

"Outside the pass? How did they get in? Do they have border passes?"

"They don't have border passes. They can get in without them, so don't worry about it. They have ways of doing it."

"Great! Have them come over right away! I'll give you ten dollars as a commission for each person they bring."

"He Fan, stop giving me that nonsense! I'll go get them to find someone right now!"

Suddenly, Zhao Lin on the other end of the phone remembered something. "Hey He Fan, how many people do you need?"

"The more the better, fifty is not too many, ten is not too few."

After giving Zhao Lin the address of Guoxin Securities' business department, He Fan hung up the phone.

Then, he slapped his forehead and went to the Guoxin Securities branch again.

They started asking people one by one, from front to back: "Does anyone want to sell a seat? I'll pay fifty dollars for one!"

Unexpectedly, no one responded.

He Fan thought for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, "The seats before the tenth are 100 yuan each."

"Seats from the tenth to the twentieth are seventy-five yuan each."

"The seats after the twentieth are fifty yuan each."

Immediately, some people were tempted.

One of the young men at the front of the line said to He Fan, "Give me the money first, and then your people will come and replace me. I'll go back to the back of the line and start over."

He Fan was so grateful he didn't know what to say, but the young man smiled and said, "The boss told me to queue up for fifty yuan a day. I'm earning two salaries, so why not?"

After hearing what the young man said, many more migrant workers who were queuing up were willing to sell their spots.

He Fan thought to himself, it seems that the people in the special economic zone are indeed very clever. The boss's task for them was just to queue up, not to buy the forms.

What does it matter what position you're in the queue, or whether you can even buy one?

He Fan not only bought a good seat by spending money, but also gained an insight from it:

If I become a boss someday, I must look at the results and be results-oriented, rather than rewarding employees based on the process.

At this moment, the flow of people and vehicles on the street began to become noisy.

Around noon, I saw about a dozen migrant workers, drenched in sweat, running towards the business office.

He Fan immediately went to greet them, and the people announced Zhao Lin's name.

He Fan started by placing them into the team one by one, beginning with the leader.

Those who had already sold their seats went to the back of the line and started queuing again.

At this moment, He Fan suddenly noticed that among the people who had arrived was a girl who still looked very young.

He pulled her out and stood in line himself: "How old are you? You have to be over eighteen."

Upon hearing this, the little girl glanced disappointedly at a migrant worker standing nearby, and then at He Fan.

The migrant worker looked embarrassed: "Sorry, she's my sister, so she doesn't count."

He Fan thought for a moment: "Now that she's here, we can't just let her go back by herself, can we?"

Then he asked the little girl, "Do you know all the people who came with you?"

The little girl nodded vigorously.

He Fan then asked, "Do you know how to shop?"

The little girl nodded again.

He Fan said with satisfaction, "Alright! From now on, you'll stay with me, don't wander off, and do whatever I tell you to do, okay?"

Upon hearing this, both the little girl and the migrant worker were extremely grateful to He Fan, displaying a willingness to die for a friend.

An hour later, the people Zhao Lin had summoned had all arrived.

He Fan settled them all in their places, making a total of thirty people.

I spent over two thousand yuan just on the seats, and I was the last one to be in the ninety-fifth position.