Chapter 8

"Xiaohai, you said you have a way to raise the funds needed to start a company?"

Bai Shi looked at Hu Wenhai with some doubt, though he had long heard that Xiao Yeqin's son was a genius, he still instinctively saw him as a child.

At eighteen, one is neither too old nor too young, but to interfere or even decide someone's fate, without a prominent family background, one lacks the necessary persuasiveness.

"More precisely, I have an idea that can help us raise the money needed to start the company. I want to ask Uncle Bai first, do you have any ideas about what kind of business you want to start?"

"Well, it should be a tech company, helping others develop products," Bai Shi replied hesitantly.

"Providing technical support to other companies is a good direction. But Uncle Bai, how do you plan to recruit people and find business opportunities? Or do you already have a client in mind?"

Bai Shi glanced at Xiao Yeqin, the questions Hu Wenhai asked were actually quite sensitive. In twenty years, these would be considered trade secrets. Although Bai Shi didn't know this term, he still had a sense of confidentiality.

"Uncle Bai, you don't need to look at my mom. She has to listen to me on this." Hu Wenhai interjected firmly, "To be honest, it's normal that you don't trust me, because I don't trust you either. If my method can raise the funds to start the company, would you go it alone after hearing it?"

"You're overthinking this, I and your mom..."

Hu Wenhai interrupted him, "This is between us. Your relationship with my mom is a separate matter. I hope Uncle Bai can approach this with a professional attitude."

Bai Shi, stung by Hu Wenhai's words, finally put aside his previous condescension. He realized that no matter how old the person in front of him was, at this moment, their positions were indeed equal.

He thought for a moment and finally nodded, "Yes, I have a client who wants me to develop an industrial laser rangefinder."

"How much research funding does Uncle Bai estimate is needed for this device?"

"Five, no, three thousand yuan." Bai Shi bit his lip and cut the budget by almost half. For some reason, facing Hu Wenhai, a child, he felt a sense of guilt as if he were facing an investor.

"Alright, let's say three thousand yuan." Hu Wenhai didn't mind and accepted his estimate, "Have you considered, Uncle Bai, if the project succeeds, what your profit will be? Where will the follow-up business come from? If the project fails, how will you make up for the three thousand yuan loss, and will it affect the company's development?"

"In business, you can't think about everything. There's always a way when you reach the mountain," Bai Shi said, trying to sound casual, but his expression betrayed him.

He was a man who had reached a dead end and was preparing to make a last-ditch effort. "There's always a way when you reach the mountain" was just a way of saying that failure and the status quo were almost the same for him. If so, why not break free and fight for success?

The large medical expenses for Bai's youngest daughter were something Bai Shi could absolutely not afford. Without assets, becoming a negative asset would have the same result. Doing nothing would not save his daughter's life.

Hu Wenhai looked at him deeply, a respectable father. But precisely because of this, he had to make him understand a principle: in business, one must talk about business.

This social norm that would be self-evident twenty years later was still extremely awkward for Chinese people in the 1980s. In this era, a society based on personal relationships was the norm. People were ashamed to talk about money and profit, and those with such thoughts were the majority in reality.

"Uncle Bai, please forgive me for being frank. There's a saying, 'We only see the thief eating meat, not the thief getting beaten.' You are that kind of person. Starting a business is indeed a fast way to get rich, but if you choose the wrong direction from the start, your plan will fail, no matter what."

To his surprise, Bai Shi not only didn't get angry or argue, but he lowered his head deeply.

"Ha, am I useless?" Hu Wenhai couldn't see Bai Shi's face, but he could hear the deep sense of defeat in his voice: "Even a child knows, I can't do anything right. I know that doing business this way won't work, but what can I do? I've spent my whole life studying and doing experiments, I have no idea how to do business. But with the salary from the institute, we can't even afford meat anymore..."

Hu Wenhai didn't know if Bai Shi was crying, but it was clear that the burden of life had pushed this man to the brink of collapse. Normally, such a loss of composure in front of a first meeting would be impossible for an adult.

"There's no need to blame yourself, Uncle Bai. Haven't you achieved what many people can only dream of in the field of science?" Hu Wenhai patted his shoulder and sighed, "Doing business is difficult, but it can also be easy. Ultimately, Uncle Bai, you're not any less smart or foolish than anyone else, right? The most important thing for you now is to change your mindset."

"Mindset?" Bai Shi repeated, shaking his head, "What mindset? I'm already ready to quit my stable job and start a business. Isn't that a big enough change in mindset?"

Hu Wenhai sternly rebuked, "If you think that, it just shows that you're only doing this out of desperation. Deep down, you still look down on starting a business."

Bai Shi was taken aback, and after a moment, he nodded and smiled bitterly, "You're right. Only now do I realize that I was indeed resisting it."

"So you're still thinking about doing business in terms of selling your labor. Your resistance makes you unwilling to think carefully about how to do business well. For you, as long as selling your labor and intellect can support your family and pay for medical expenses, that's enough."

Bai Shi looked up and carefully re-evaluated Hu Wenhai, shaking his head silently, "You're right, you're not like a child at all. You see through people's hearts like a mirror."

Hu Wenhai smiled. It wasn't that he had a deep understanding of human nature, but in the 1980s, there were indeed very few Chinese people who really knew how to do business. Most Chinese people were hardworking and believed that hard work would bring rewards. Just like our school education, which teaches students that as long as they study hard, they will achieve good results—some students, however, don't study hard but still achieve good results, while others study until they bleed and still don't get good results.

The reason is actually very simple. When everyone's intelligence levels are similar, attitude is everything.

If you view learning as a pleasure, you will learn well without effort. If you view learning as a burden, even if you do a hundred test papers every day, you'll just be a test-taking machine.

"Let's get back to the point. Do you really think you're suitable for starting a business, Uncle Bai? And can your family allow you to take such a big risk?"

"That—"

Hu Wenhai pursed his lips and said straightforwardly, "Give me a job."

"Huh?"

"Son, you—"

"Mom, you said you would listen to me on this." Hu Wenhai cut off Xiao Yeqin and then turned to Bai Shi, "You want to start a business to make money, but to be honest, your abilities and mindset won't take you far in the business world. Business is about making a profit. Being a boss is different from being a worker. A worker just needs to sell their labor, whether physical or mental, and will naturally earn money. But a boss needs to find business opportunities and identify directions that can create value in society. Are you sure you can do that, Uncle Bai?"

"I understand, let's do it your way." Bai Shi was straightforward. He looked up and said seriously, "But first, you need to prove that you are more suitable to be a boss than I am."

If there was a way to earn a high salary without taking risks, that would be ideal. Hu Wenhai's words were true. Bai Shi knew he wasn't cut out for business. But on the other hand, was Hu Wenhai, at just eighteen, really more suitable? If he quit his job at the 64th Institute and ended up playing a game of pretend, and the company still failed, it would have been better to do it himself from the start.

Hu Wenhai needed to show Bai Shi what he was really made of. Bai Shi was no longer a young man, and he was past the age where a few passionate words would make him throw everything away and follow someone.

Hu Wenhai smiled, nodded in satisfaction, and said, "Alright, let me tell you my idea."

He pulled a notebook from his bookshelf, flipped through it for a moment, and placed the open notebook in front of Bai Shi.

"Uncle Bai, you do optical research at the 64th Institute, right?" Hu Wenhai asked.

"The 64th Institute is an optoelectronics research institute, and I have some expertise in optics," Bai Shi said modestly, looking down at the content in the notebook and asking, "What is this?"

Hu Wenhai didn't answer directly but pointed to the sun outside the window, "Uncle Bai, you should know why, no matter where humans are on Earth, the position of the sun is only related to longitude and time."

"Because the sun is too far from Earth and too large. The light from the sun can be considered parallel to the human eye," Bai Shi answered familiarly. "In other words, if the longitude and time are the same, the position of the sun in the sky will be the same."

"Right, simply put, as long as the light is parallel to the human eye, changes in the observation angle won't affect the position of the image, right?"

Bai Shi thought for a moment and nodded, "Yes, that's correct."

"Exactly." Hu Wenhai smiled and said, "If we use refraction to make a light point parallel to the human eye, and this light point is also parallel to the bullet trajectory of a rifle, would the shooter be able to aim from other angles without aligning the three points in a straight line?"

(What is meant by light being parallel to the human eye is that when the human eye moves left, the light moves right, and vice versa. When the human eye moves up, the light moves down, and vice versa. Of course, the light itself doesn't move; it's just that through refraction, the virtual image of the light point entering the eye appears to be at an infinite distance, mimicking the effect of the sun's position. No matter how you observe the sun, changes in angle don't affect its position in the sky.)

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