Rebirth 03: Starting a Business After Giving Up a Secure Job

Chapter 155 Rongping Station Construction Accelerates

The uncle not only helped Lin Feng find an office space, but also introduced him to a renovation team.

The renovation team started work on the same day the lease agreements for the three storefronts were signed.

The walls were repainted in the same light blue tone as the local life website, and the floor was covered with dark gray composite flooring. The partition between the three storefronts was removed to create a large, open space.

The innermost part is divided into a private office and a small meeting room. Outside, there is a reception desk made up of four long tables and two public computer ports. A stainless steel sign hangs at the door with white background and blue lettering that reads "Rongping Station of Tongcheng Life Network".

The day the sign was hung up, several neighbors gathered around to watch the spectacle.

Old Liu, the owner of the Limin Hardware Store next door, leaned over and asked what this was all about. Tan Zhao handed him a business card and said it was Tongcheng Life Network, which helps people find jobs, rent houses, and buy and sell second-hand items online for free.

Old Liu looked at the business card over and over again before stuffing it into his apron pocket.

Zhou Zhongcheng set up a recruitment booth at the entrance of the county's labor and employment center.

A folding table and a roll-up banner display stand, on which is printed the business introduction of the Rongcheng Station of Tongcheng Life Network and the four large characters "Rongping Station is Recruiting".

Director Ma specially arranged the booth in the most conspicuous position at the main entrance of the hall, so that everyone who came in to complete the procedures could see it at first glance.

After several days, Zhou Zhongcheng received dozens of resumes and narrowed them down to six people.

There were recent vocational school graduates, girls who had previously worked as salespeople in mobile phone stores, and young people who had returned to their hometowns from factories in Dongguan and didn't want to leave again.

They all have low levels of education, are locals from Rongping, and are familiar with every street and neighborhood in the county.

Sun Ke brought a skilled sales promoter named Xiao Liu from Rongcheng Station. Xiao Liu had been working in the recruitment sector in Rongcheng for several months and was very familiar with the door-to-door recruitment model.

Zhou Hai brought in Lao Zhou, and the veteran who was among the first batch of people to sweep the streets with Lin Xiaoqiang at Shenzhen Station was also temporarily transferred over to train the new recruits.

Last year, Lao Zhou campaigned in urban villages in Shenzhen, and this year he spent several months doing door-to-door promotions in Chengdu. He has combined his experience from the two cities and plans to do it all again in Rongping.

Lin Feng personally attended the first all-staff meeting at Rongping Station.

There weren't enough chairs in the meeting room, so the newly recruited sales representatives stood against the wall.

Lin Feng didn't mince words; he directly explained the location of Rongping Station.

Instead of expanding across all four sectors, we will focus on three core areas: recruitment, rentals, and secondhand goods. There's no rush to increase demand for domestic services in Jucheng; we'll add more once user habits are established.

The recruitment section focuses on industrial parks, the rental section covers the area around the main street of the county, and the second-hand section starts with agricultural machinery and motorcycles. Unlike big cities, the majority of second-hand transactions in county towns are not digital products but means of production.

That afternoon, Sun Ke took Xiao Liu to the industrial park.

The industrial park is a few kilometers from the main street of the county town. About twenty companies are located along a four-lane main road, with one at the far east end.

There's a factory that makes electronic components, a food processing plant in the middle, and two small factories that make hardware accessories at the far west end.

When the security guards saw two men in white shirts carrying briefcases approaching, they immediately asked if they were salespeople.

Sun Ke said it wasn't a sales pitch, but rather that the local online community was helping businesses recruit people for free.

The gatekeeper let him through, and Sun Ke went door-to-door leaving his business card.

Most HR managers have never heard of "online recruitment" and are used to posting job advertisements at the factory gate or setting up a table at the labor and employment center to collect resumes.

After explaining to them, Sun Ke helped several electronics factories enter their recruitment information into the platform, noting the job requirements, salary, and contact information for each entry.

Zhou Hai and Lao Zhou, along with the new members of the housing rental team, conducted a thorough survey of the residential areas and self-built houses on both sides of the main street in Rongping County.

There are no large, formal real estate agencies in the county town; housing information is scattered in the notebooks of small shop owners, on the bulletin boards of neighborhood committees, and on scraps of paper on utility poles.

Old Zhou adapted his street-sweeping experience in Shenzhen to a whole new local style: buy a bottle of water at a convenience store, chat with the owner for a bit, offer a cigarette to curry favor with Jin Ping; go to the neighborhood committee, find the aunt in charge, flip through the register, and ask if anyone has a house to rent out:

If you see a rental notice on a utility pole, take a picture first and then call to verify. If you can't get through by phone, write down the address and go directly to the door.

The second-hand market also launched simultaneously.

Old Zhou, accompanied by two local sales representatives, toured several towns around the county seat and discovered that the demand for agricultural machinery and motorcycles far exceeded expectations.

A farmer named Liu Desheng had an idle hand-held tractor that had been sitting in his yard for almost a year and was rusting. He had wanted to sell it for a long time but couldn't find a buyer.

Old Zhou helped him post the tractor information on a local life website, took photos and set a price. A few days later, a large grain grower from the next town called and took the tractor away with cash that same day.

After receiving the money, Liu Desheng gave Lao Zhou a sack of sweet potatoes he had grown himself. Lao Zhou refused to accept it, but Liu Desheng insisted on carrying it to a shop in the commercial street, putting it down, and leaving.

Lin Feng led Tan Zhao and Zhou Zhongcheng through every street and alley of Rongping.

They found that online information dissemination had limited effectiveness, and many middle-aged residents still had a very vague understanding of the internet.

Rongping is a typical community based on personal connections, where people trust recommendations from acquaintances more than strangers from the internet.

Lin Feng adjusted his strategy and asked his uncle, Lin Guodong, to help forward the news of Rongping Station's launch in the Industry and Commerce Bureau's retired cadre group.

My uncle said in the group, "My nephew did this, it's reliable," and several retired cadres forwarded the message to their friends that same day.

Uncle Lin Guoliang also promoted it verbally among his colleagues at the school, and the teachers then informed the students' parents.

With the help of Director Liu from the county TV station, a one-and-a-half-minute promotional video was inserted before and after Rongping News. The video showed the Rongping station's signboard, office facade, and street promoters helping residents register information on the street, accompanied by a voiceover: "The Rongping Station of Tongcheng Life Network is officially launched. Find jobs, rent houses, buy and sell second-hand goods, go to Tongcheng Life Network, post for free, manually verified, real and reliable."

With a multi-pronged approach, Rongping Station gradually gained recognition.

People started coming to my door to inquire. Some came to register their properties, some came to look for jobs, and some just came in out of curiosity to ask, "How do I use this website?"

Tan Zhao turned on his computer and taught those who didn't know how to use the internet how to operate it, while the sales representatives registered their needs.

One weekend, Sun Ke and Xiao Liu set up a temporary service point in the industrial park and helped a middle-aged man named Zhou Jianguo find an operator job at Rongping Food Processing Plant.

Zhou Jianguo used to work in Guangdong, but returned to Rongping this year to take care of his elderly parents. He has been looking for a job for several months but has not been able to find a suitable one.

He saw a job posting for a food processing plant on a local online marketplace and contacted Sun Ke on a whim.

Sun Ke helped him connect with the HR department of the food factory. On the day of the interview, Sun Ke even accompanied him to the factory and helped him organize his ID card copy and work experience to hand over to the HR manager.

Zhou Jianguo passed the interview smoothly. Although the monthly salary was not as high as in Guangdong, it only took him 15 minutes to get to home by bike.

That evening, a middle-aged woman named Chen Xiulan arrived at Rongping Station.

She has a small, vacant two-bedroom apartment on the north side of the main street in the county town. It has been empty for more than half a year and she has not been able to rent it out. She had posted a rental notice before, but it was torn down by the urban management officers. She asked around among her relatives and friends, but there was no follow-up.

She heard from Aunt Wang, who sells vegetables at the next stall in the market, that a new website had been launched in the county that could help people rent houses for free, and she came here with some skepticism.

Zhou Hai helped her enter the property information into the platform, took photos of the room, and marked the area, floor, orientation, and monthly rent.

Chen Xiulan looked at her house appearing on the computer screen and asked if anyone would come to rent it. Zhou Hai said yes.

A few days later, a young man who had been transferred from Chengdu to Rongping Industrial Park as a technician found Chen Xiulan's house through a local online marketplace, called to schedule a viewing, and signed a one-year lease that same day.

After collecting the rent, Chen Xiulan went to the vegetable market to find Aunt Wang and stood by the stall talking for a long time.

No need to find an agent, no need to spend a penny, and it will be rented out in just a few days.

Aunt Wang's stall was in the busiest spot in the market. As she weighed potatoes for someone, she told the story to the neighbors who were buying vegetables.

In the following days, seven or eight landlords came to the storefronts on the commercial street to register their properties.

Lin Feng instructed Zhou Hai to lead a few members of the housing rental team to set up a fixed service point at the vegetable market.

The farmers' market is where information flows fastest in Rongping. Each stall owner has dozens of regular customers. A piece of housing information can be spread by word of mouth in the farmers' market, reaching a much wider range than a bulletin board.

Zhou Hai set up a folding table at the entrance to help stall owners post various kinds of information for free.

When Aunt Wang heard that she could sell her old, unused sewing machine online for free, she immediately registered her information.

The day after the information went online, someone contacted her through a local life website and bought the sewing machine.

After receiving the money, Aunt Wang told everyone she met at the market, and in the following days, stall owners began to approach Zhou Hai to register their information.

Zhou Zhongcheng handed over the first phase of data from Rongping Station to Lin Feng.

The housing rental section has already listed hundreds of properties, covering several large residential communities and areas with a high concentration of self-built houses around the main street of the county.

The recruitment section has achieved initial coverage of industrial parks.

Although the transaction volume in the second-hand market is not large, user feedback is positive, especially for agricultural machinery and motorcycles. Farmers in several towns have been calling to request to register their information.

Most of the acquaintances introduced by my uncle have started posting or recommending various kinds of information on local life websites.

A retired teacher not only helped several old neighbors post rental listings, but also wrote a short review and published it on the bulletin board of the radio and television station.

The title is "Internet Platform Arrives in Rongping".

There's a sentence in the article that says, "I used to think that online platforms were something only big cities had, but now I realize that people in Rongping also have their own online platforms."

Lin Guodong forwarded the sample copy of the bulletin board to the retired cadres group of the Industry and Commerce Bureau, and also sent a copy to Director Zhong.

Director Zhong replied with a short message: Your nephew is a real man of action.

The list of seed users provided by my uncle still includes several retired teachers and individual business owners who haven't been reached yet.

Lin Feng spent another day visiting the remaining people on the list, along with Zhou Zhongcheng and Sun Ke.

At each location, Zhou Zhongcheng would first hand out a flyer for the local life website, Sun Ke would give a simple demonstration of how to use the website, and Lin Feng would add that Rongping Station was completely free for local residents and businesses and did not charge any information posting fees.

After hearing this, a retired teacher who had taught Chinese at Rongping No. 2 Middle School for many years immediately offered to sell the two vacant houses he and his wife owned.

The rental information was registered on the local life website.

There was also a middle-aged man who had worked in logistics at the industrial park management committee. He agreed to help Sun Ke connect with the heads of human resources departments of several companies in the park to facilitate the subsequent bulk collection of recruitment information.

With his work at Rongping Station finished, Lin Feng prepared to return to Chengdu the next day.

On the evening before he left, Lin Guofu bought a bundle of incense and a stack of paper money, saying he would go up the mountain to comfort his grandfather.

The cemetery is located on a hillside in the northern suburbs of the county town. The father and son walked up a small path covered with weeds and gravel.

Before the sun had set, the newly built gray factory buildings in the industrial park and the solar water heaters on the rooftops of Rongping Garden residential complex in the distance were bathed in the orange-red light of the setting sun.

Lin Guofu stopped in front of a gray-white stone tablet, squatted down, unscrewed the cap of the bottle of liquor he had brought, and poured half a bottle in front of the tombstone.

He then took out a lighter from his pocket, lit a few incense sticks, and placed them ten miles in front of the monument. The smoke rose in the beams of the setting sun and was dispersed by the wind. He said, "Dad, Xiaofeng has come to see you."

His voice was flat, as if he were reporting to someone.

"He's successful now. He opened a company in Chengdu, and hundreds of people work for him. Last year, he came back and told me he wanted to start his own business. I scolded him for being arrogant and almost ruined his career."

Now his local life services website has expanded to Shenzhen, Chengdu, Beijing, and Shanghai, with branches in many cities. This year, he came back and helped Rongping set up a website to help people in the county find jobs and rent apartments. People in his hometown praise him.

"If you are watching from beyond the grave, please bless your grandson Lin Feng with good health and success in his career."

Lin Feng knelt before the tombstone and kowtowed three times, then squatted down to pull out the weeds from the cracks in the base of the tombstone.

My grandfather's grave is an ordinary gray brick tomb. His name and birth and death dates are engraved on the tombstone. Several dandelions have grown in the gaps of the base of the tombstone and have already formed white fluff balls.

He pulled the dandelions out by the roots and then used the small shovel he had brought to scrape the moss out of the cracks in the base of the monument.

The mountain wind blew from the north slope, carrying the ashes of the burned paper money across the hillside.

The factory buildings in the industrial park at the foot of the mountain cast long shadows in the setting sun, and the streetlights of Jucheng began to light up one by one.

Lin Guofu put the lighter back in his pocket and poured the remaining half bottle of wine around the tombstone.

"Let's go down the mountain."

The father and son walked back along the dirt road they had come from.

Back at Rongping Garden, Li Huilan was heating up food in the kitchen when she heard the door open and immediately came out to open it for her husband and son.

Soon, the meal was ready. The family ate and chatted about the industrial park.

Lin Guofu said that Rongping is different from Shenzhen. Shenzhen is full of young people from other places, while the young people in Rongping go out. Most of those who stay are middle-aged people and those who have returned to their hometowns. They are not highly educated, but they are hardworking. What they need most is what Lin Feng is doing now.

Early the next morning, Lin Feng set off back to Chengdu.

Tan Zhao stayed in Rongping to oversee the follow-up work, while Sun Ke and Zhou Hai also stayed for a week until the local team could operate independently before returning to Rongchengkou.