Courtyard House: A Prosperous and Joyful Life

Follow Xu Weibiao's pen and embark on an adventure in "Siheyuan: Living a Prosperous Life" on Kele Novels.

Yan Jiecheng squatted by the stove, his head pressed against the cold tiles, his forehead steaming with worry. Opening this hot pot restaurant had emptied his savings. If it failed too, wouldn't he become the "three-nothing youth" everyone in the courtyard would talk about behind his back? No savings, no business, not even a girlfriend. If he ever bumped into Aunt Zhang at the alley entrance while taking a walk, she'd surely hear her sneer, "Oh, has young Yan even lost his underwear?"

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He slapped his thigh: "That girl Yu Li has opened nine stores already, and she's doing incredibly well! And me, a grown man, I can't even keep up with this little shabby shop?" The thought of having to cower in front of Yu Li made his teeth itch: "No way, I have to find a way to boost our business!"

After circling around twice, he gritted his teeth and made a decision: 40% off! The few teenagers who had tried to buy it at 50% off before had turned around and left. This time, he was determined to sell it at a loss, and he didn't believe no one would come!

Without further ado, he pulled out a piece of red paper, quickly wrote "40% off," and pasted it onto the door frame with glue. The moment the paper was firmly on, the neighbors' eyes swarmed around like radar: "Hey? This hot pot restaurant is having a 40% off sale?" "Let's go, let's grab a bargain!" Groups of three or five poured into the shop, shouting as they entered, "Boss, is everything really 40% off?" "Are you kidding us?"

Yan Jiecheng was overjoyed and nodded eagerly, "Of course it's true! The broth and dipping sauce contain meat, so it'll all be charged at 40% off!"

Everyone chuckled as they looked at the menu: "40% off lamb slices? Okay, two pounds, please!" "It's freezing cold, let's have a whole fish for hot pot!" "Is there enough pork offal? Give me five plates first!"

A group of people sat down and started eating, the pots bubbling and steaming, shouts rising and falling. Yan Jiecheng busied himself serving dishes, taking a moment to pull out his calculator and fiddle with it for a bit. His fingers froze. Five or six yuan loss per table? So, if ten tables come, he'll lose almost sixty yuan?

"My goodness!" His hand trembled, nearly dropping the calculator. "Isn't a 40% discount supposed to attract customers? Why are we jumping into this trap?" The thought of losing even more money the more customers came made him want to duct tape the door shut: "God, please have mercy, stop sending customers to my door! Any more and I'll break my belt!"

Just then, a dozen or so teenagers rushed in, their eyes lighting up at the sight of the red paper: "Boss, we all saw it's 40% off! You have to give us a discount even if you tear it up, otherwise..." they said, rolling up their sleeves. The leader, Huang Laosan, slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "Today I'm going to eat meat until I'm stuffed!" The group burst into their seats, laughing and ordering food as if it were free.

Yan Jiecheng stood behind the cashier, wringing his hands as he watched the twenty tables nearly fill up. At this rate, he'd lose seven or eight yuan per table, which would amount to almost two hundred yuan for twenty tables? Two hundred and sixty yuan a day for nothing? What kind of business was this!

He crouched down and slipped to the door to tear off a piece of red paper. He had just torn off a corner when he bumped into a few young people loitering around: "Hey? This store is having a 40% discount? Come on, let's go in and have some!" Yan Jie's legs trembled, and he didn't dare to reach out.

As the sun began to set, the last group of customers left, burping contentedly. Yan Jiecheng slumped in his chair and sifted through the accounts: 36 tables brought in 565, but the cost of ingredients was 874, resulting in a net loss of 309!

"What sins have I committed?" He slammed the account book on the table, his back teeth grinding together. "I had no experience and messed things up, I lost so much money, I'm practically broke!" The thought of the gossipy people in the courtyard making fun of him tomorrow made him want to crawl into a hole in the ground.

But the shop was already up and running; he couldn't just pack up and leave. He rubbed his throbbing temples and sighed, "Fine, I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it. I can't let Yu Li's friend laugh at me!"

.....................

Zhou Rong and Li Xiaoyu exchanged a glance, and without the slightest hesitation, they picked up their pens and signed their names on the confidentiality agreement.

Wang Jun carefully put away the agreement, picked up a booklet from the table, and pushed it in front of the two men: "The design drafts are here, take a look."

The two took the booklet and glanced at the cover first.

Five large characters immediately catch the eye: Handheld Game Console Design Draft.

Turning to the first page, a small, exquisite game console came into view. The two of them only glanced at it before freezing in place, as if struck by lightning.

"This... a game console can be made this small? You can hold it in one hand? That's ridiculously small!"

"No wonder it's called a handheld game console..."

Both of them had studied abroad and played a lot of video games. In their minds, video game consoles were either arcade machines that were half a person tall or Famicom consoles that had to be connected to a TV. Either way, they were quite large and heavy to move, let alone take out.

But Wang Jun's handheld game console can be held in one hand, just slipped into a pocket and you're good to go! Play a game while on the toilet, play another before bed, this is a real game console!

But is it really possible to make it that small?

The two quickly scrolled down, becoming more and more engrossed in their reading, and increasingly alarmed as they read.

"That's ingenious...it's a genius design!"

"All the electronic components used are commercially available; this design is absolutely brilliant!"

Their eyes lit up, and they spent a full half hour flipping through the booklet before finally closing it.

Zhou Rong gave a thumbs up, his voice rising eight octaves with excitement: "A genius design! A groundbreaking product! Boss, once this is produced, it will be an absolute sensation! All the arcade machines and game consoles on the market will be like trash in front of it, utterly helpless! Boss, you're amazing..."

At this moment, Zhou Rong had become a die-hard fan of Wang Jun, showering him with endless flattery that was impossible to stop.

Li Xiaoyu, standing nearby, also gave a thumbs up: "Boss, this product is amazing! Once it hits the market, the whole world will be scrambling to buy it!"

At this moment, Li Xiaoyu was truly impressed by Wang Jun. Back when everyone was still playing arcade games and Famicom, the boss had quietly designed a handheld game console. What else could he be but a genius?

Wang Jun wasn't surprised by their comments. This handheld game console was one of the most amazing electronic products of the 1980s, with a cumulative sales volume of 120 million units worldwide, making it a pinnacle of industrial design in the 1980s.

At this moment, Zhou Rong suddenly thought of a crucial issue: patents.

This ingenious design must be patented immediately! If someone else gets it first, the loss will be enormous.

Zhou Rong hurriedly asked, "Boss, have you applied for a patent for this handheld game console?"

Wang Jun nodded: "I've already received it."

The system had already processed all the patent applications for him worldwide, including the domestic one. China's Patent Law was only enacted in 1984, and this year is 1985—perfect timing. For things like clothing, obtaining a patent is quite difficult; even design patents are challenging. But electronic products are different; patent applications are relatively easier to obtain.

Zhou Rong and Li Xiaoyu both breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that the patent had been secured.

Zhou Rong gave a thumbs-up and said, "Boss, you're awesome! With the patent in hand, this handheld game console is ours, and nobody can take it away. By the way, boss, when are we going to start building the electronics factory?"

Zhou Rong couldn't wait any longer; he wished he could build the factory tomorrow and produce the game console the day after.

Although Li Xiaoyu was a girl, she was just as anxious and chimed in, "Boss, hurry up and build the factory so we can produce the game consoles as soon as possible!"

Wang Jun also wanted to start production as soon as possible, and immediately decided: "We have sufficient funds and can start anytime. Zhou Rong, you go and handle the paperwork tomorrow. While you're handling the paperwork, we'll simultaneously purchase the production line and various electronic components and materials. We'll take a multi-pronged approach to get the factory up and running as quickly as possible."

The biggest headache in setting up an electronics factory is the production line. There are no readily available domestic ones; they have to be imported. Shipping by sea can take anywhere from a month and a half to two or three months.

To save time, Wang Jun planned to spend a million yuan to "spend heavily" and see if he could fish up an existing electronics factory production line. However, spending money didn't guarantee success, so he had to prepare two plans: ordering from abroad on one hand, and trying his luck with fishing on the other.

Wang Jun's goal was clear: to build the electronics factory and manufacture handheld game consoles before the Canton Fair.

The Canton Fair is held twice a year, in spring and autumn. The spring fair opens on April 25th, less than two months from now. Time is extremely tight for launching products at the Canton Fair; not a single day can be wasted.

Zhou Rong was even more anxious than Wang Jun at this moment. After listening, he immediately stated, "Boss, let's start today! I'll organize the documents later and go through the formalities today. As for the production line, I can call my friends overseas to help smooth things over and get the line delivered within a month!"

Wang Jun laughed: "Sure, I'll just pay for it, you can handle everything else."

Zhou Rong, his face radiating confidence, patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, boss, I'll handle it perfectly! The electronics factory will definitely be built and operational in a month and a half at most!"

At this moment, Zhou Rong could already picture the scene of the handheld game console's launch, with the world going crazy for it and orders pouring in like snowflakes...

.....

After leaving the cosmetics factory, Wang Jun saw a large farmers' market in front of him and decided to go in and take a look, hoping to buy some seafood to cook with in a hot pot.

These days, freezing technology isn't widespread, refrigerated trucks are rare, and seafood is even rarer; whether you can find it depends entirely on luck.

After wandering around for a while without catching any seafood, I was drawn to a small stall. Hanging in front of the stall was a piece of wrapping paper with three large, crooked characters written on it: "Tiger Bone Wine".

"Holy crap!"

Wang Jun was stunned. Tigers are protected animals, yet someone is openly selling tiger bone wine?

But then he thought about it again and felt relieved.

In the early days after liberation, tigers were rampant in China. When the tigers in the mountains were not full, they would come down to eat people. The situation was most extreme in Nanhu Province, where there were so many tigers that 32 people were eaten in a single day. From 1952 to 1962, tigers ate more than 2,000 people in ten years, not to mention countless cattle and sheep.

The most outrageous incident occurred in 1957 when the infamous "Hundred Tigers Surrounding the Village" incident took place, causing everyone to turn pale at the mention of tigers.

Later, the state organized tiger-hunting teams to carry out a tiger extermination campaign. From 1950 to 1960, at least 3000 tigers were eliminated nationwide, most of them South China tigers. Among them, the most famous tiger-hunting hero was Chen Qifang, who hated tigers to the bone because his grandson was eaten by a tiger. He killed 138 tigers in 7 years, including a tiger king weighing more than 600 kilograms.

After this campaign, tigers could no longer be so arrogant. The extermination efforts continued into the 1970s, almost turning tigers into a rare species. The government finally took action, listing the Siberian tiger as a protected animal in 1962 and the South China tiger as a Class III protected animal in 1973.

From then on, tigers were protected by the state and could no longer be hunted at will. But the key point is that—at this time, buying and selling tiger bones was not illegal.

Wang Jun remembers clearly that it wasn't until 1993, after China joined the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), that a formal ban was issued, prohibiting all trade in tiger bones, banning the use of tiger bones in medicine, and strictly forbidding the sale of tiger bone wine. Before that, tiger bone wine was a legal commodity.

In fact, many wineries and pharmaceutical companies openly produced tiger bone wine in the 1980s. Tongrentang, a long-established brand in Beijing, had a tiger bone medicinal wine that was said to be made by soaking tiger bones.

This medicinal wine has a long history, first recorded in Sun Simiao's "Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold" during the Tang Dynasty. It was improved by Li Shizhen during the Ming Dynasty, who soaked tiger bones for 8 years and then added snake essence and herbs.

It's only 1985 now, buying tiger bone wine is perfectly legal.

Wang Jun became interested and stepped closer to examine it.

The stall owner, an elderly man in his sixties, immediately began enthusiastically promoting his product upon seeing someone inquire about the price: "Comrade, this is tiger bone wine made with a secret recipe, absolutely authentic! Drink a little before bed, and I guarantee you'll be as strong as a dragon and as powerful as a tiger!"

Wang Jun was skeptical: "Old man, tigers are protected animals. Where did you get this tiger bone? It's not fake, is it?"

The old man chuckled: "Young man, don't worry, my tiger bones are absolutely genuine! When I was young, I personally killed three tigers, and I used the bones to make medicinal wine—it's incredibly effective!"

Wang Jun was tempted. Tiger bone wine was a rare commodity; buying some to enjoy a cup when he had some free time would be nice.

He said, "Old man, could you pour me a little to smell? If I'm satisfied, I'll buy you all your tiger bone wine."

The old man's eyes lit up. His tiger bone wine was priced too high, and no one had bought it after four or five days. If he could sell it all, he wouldn't have to sit here every day.

"Alright!" The old man quickly poured a small cup and handed it over.

Wang Jun took the wine glass. The wine was golden yellow, and he wondered what secret recipe it contained. He brought it closer and took a sniff. A rich medicinal aroma wafted up, and his blood seemed to surge.

The old man beside him said, "This tiger bone wine is very effective in replenishing yang energy and blood. You're young, so drink no more than half a sip a day. Don't drink too much, or you'll get nosebleeds!"

Wang Jun nodded. Just by smelling it, he knew it was genuine. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that tiger bone has the effects of strengthening muscles and bones, dispelling wind and dampness, and relieving pain. After being soaked in medicinal wine, its medicinal properties can be better dissolved into the wine to exert their effects.

"The wine is good. How much is it per pound? Name your price, and I'll buy it if it's reasonable."

The old man looked pained: "Besides tiger bone, my wine contains more than twenty kinds of precious medicinal herbs, making it very expensive. I'll charge 20 yuan per jin (500g)."

After hearing this, Wang Jun turned to leave.

20 yuan per jin? The ex-factory price of Moutai is only 8.4 yuan now! This old man is more expensive than Moutai, they're really treating him like a fat sheep to be slaughtered.

"Ten yuan a pound, take it all if you want, otherwise I'm leaving."

The old man said with a bitter face, "Young man, your price is too high! My wine is made with top-quality medicinal herbs. I've added two 30-year-old wild ginseng roots and three tiger penises! I wouldn't sell it unless I urgently needed the money. Could you add a little more?"

Wang Jun thought for a moment: "Ten yuan and fifty cents, that's the most I can offer."

In the end, Wang Jun spent more than 2,000 yuan to buy more than 200 kilograms of tiger bone wine.

This price was considered exorbitant in the 1980s, but decades later, it seems like dirt cheap. After tiger bone wine was banned, its price skyrocketed, from about 400 RMB per bottle when cross-strait relations opened up to the point where it cost 10,000 to 20,000 RMB per bottle.

The bone-strengthening wine from the Northeast Tiger Forest Park in Heilongjiang Province is openly priced at 780 yuan per jin (500 grams), while the secret version containing tiger bones commands a price as high as 2800 yuan per jin. Meanwhile, the bone-strengthening wine from the Xiong Hu Mountain Villa in Guangxi Province—which is actually tiger bone wine—is priced at over 480 yuan after three years of aging, 960 yuan after six years, and reaches 1800 yuan after eight years.

Wang Jun made a fortune from this deal.

……

No sooner had Wang Jun left than Bang Geng rushed over in a great hurry.

He received a message that tiger bone wine was being sold here, and rushed over immediately. But when he got there, the stall had been cleared away, and the old man was nowhere to be seen.

Banggeng walked around the market and asked around before confirming that all the tiger bone wine had been bought up.

"hateful!"

"A step too late!"

"I was hoping to use tiger bone wine to improve my health..."

"They actually booked the whole thing!"

"Without tiger bone wine, when will all my ailments ever get better..."

Banggeng stood dejectedly in front of the empty stall, his face full of bitterness, wishing he could drag out the person who bought the wine.

Little did he know that the person who bought all the tiger bone wine was none other than Wang Jun. And the value of those two hundred-plus kilograms of tiger bone wine would far exceed anyone's imagination—after the ban in 1993, tiger bone wine almost disappeared from the market, and the remaining stock became a rare and precious commodity with a price but no market.

In some places, tiger bone wine, traded clandestinely, has been driven to astonishing prices.