Chapter 8 of 10
Chapter 8
15 min read3,642 words
On July 7, 1997, the college entrance examination arrived...
Wang Qinan, braving the scorching sun, rushed to the examination room. A banner celebrating Hong Kong's return to China hung across the room.
Many candidates were whispering to each other before the exam. Wang Qinan looked around the examination room; he didn't know many people. The only classmate he recognized was a girl weighing 120 kilograms. With no one to talk to, he calmly gazed out the window, waiting for the exam to begin.
Finally...
The exam started!
The moment the test papers were distributed, Wang Qinan adjusted his glasses, which gleamed with a cold light, and began answering the questions...
For the Chinese exam, unlike many other candidates who started with the multiple-choice questions, Wang Qinan preferred to write the essay first and then return to the earlier sections.
The essay topic consisted of three passages, all about being helpful. The first passage described a classmate who carried a disabled classmate to and from school for three years. The second passage was an interview by a magazine, asking students what the most valuable quality was, and the answer was being helpful. The third passage was an anonymous survey asking how people would react if they encountered someone in trouble, and many answered that they would "quietly walk away."
These three passages essentially posed a moral dilemma similar to the later question of whether to help an elderly person who has fallen. However, the incident of helping the elderly in later years caused greater social shock and reflection.
After reading the three passages, Wang Qinan had a sudden idea and decided to write a short story based on the "Helping the Elderly" incident from the future. He briefly described an elderly person who fell, and a good Samaritan helped the elderly person to the hospital but was falsely accused of causing the fall and forced to pay until he went bankrupt. After the story was widely reported by the media, many elderly people began to mimic the behavior, leading to numerous cases of fraud, and good Samaritans no longer dared to help others.
In the story, it didn't matter who was wronged, the elderly person or the good Samaritan. The key was that such incidents led to a significant moral regression in society.
Who should be blamed? The elderly, the good Samaritan, the media, the judges, or the human heart?!
After finishing the essay, Wang Qinan broke out in a cold sweat, not because of the topic or the quality, but because his experience as a web writer in his previous life made him good at writing long pieces, and he almost forgot to control the length. If he wasn't careful, it might have been 3,000 words instead of 800.
Fortunately, this was just a draft, not the final exam paper.
Wang Qinan calmed down and began to compress the content, spending 20 minutes reducing the essay to about 800 words. After the edits, the quality of the essay improved, and it stayed on topic while being concise.
After finishing the essay, Wang Qinan returned to the other questions.
...
After completing the Chinese exam, he moved on to English, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Politics. Politics, although a humanities subject, was required for both science and humanities students in 1997.
Unlike later exams, where the politics section was removed from the science exam, with China's economic rise and increased confidence, English was also being considered for removal from the college entrance exam, changing from a mandatory subject to a less important one.
After a few days of exams, Wang Qinan didn't seem as anxious as other candidates. Instead, he went to help at his parents' small supermarket.
"Little Prince Supermarket" was much smaller than many large supermarkets, with only 50 square meters, making it more of a convenience store.
The products sold were mostly low-priced but high-margin items like alcohol, cigarettes, beverages, snacks, condiments, tissues, and toothpaste...
Each item had a profit margin of a few cents to a few dollars, and the store relied on high volume sales to achieve higher profits.
The store's popularity increased significantly on July 1, the day Hong Kong returned to China, when Wang Qinan suggested a 7.1% discount on all daily necessities. Although this reduced the profit margin and even caused some losses, the effect was clear—60,000 yuan worth of inventory that would normally take a month to sell was cleared in just one week. During that week, they also earned a profit of over 5,000 yuan, equivalent to the profit of the previous 20 days. More importantly, the promotion on July 1st boosted the store's reputation and attracted many repeat customers who frequently bought daily necessities.
As a result, his parents praised Wang Qinan for his business acumen.
At the store, Wang Qinan didn't help much with the daily operations. His main task was to go to the bank to deposit the large amount of loose change received each day into a savings account.
To his surprise, the interest rate on the savings account was 1.96% per year. When he asked the bank counter about fixed deposits, the interest rate for a one-year fixed deposit was as high as 7.47%, and for a five-year fixed deposit, it was even higher at 9%!
Such risk-free interest rates were almost on par with the returns of risky financial products in the future.
Wang Qinan suggested, "The supermarket currently has a monthly profit of about 10,000 yuan. Before expanding the business, we don't need much cash, so it's best to put the money into fixed deposits. The interest on fixed deposits is higher, and even if you withdraw it early, it will still be calculated at the savings rate. If you keep it in a savings account, you'll lose a lot of interest without realizing it. Plus, with high inflation, fixed deposits can preserve and increase value, while savings accounts will devalue your wealth."
His parents readily accepted Wang Qinan's advice.
Next, Wang Qinan suggested that they first save money from the business and use fixed deposits to increase its value. In the future, they could consider buying the shop to reduce rent and increase profits. As property prices rise, they would also gain additional income.
In reality, Wang Qinan's true thought was that his parents' ability to earn money might not keep up with the rate of property price increases. If they didn't buy the shop soon, they might never be able to afford it.
If they didn't buy the shop soon, the rent would increase faster than the store's profit, and most retail stores would close due to their inability to keep up with rising rents.
Running a store was still quite profitable now.
However, in a few years, running a store would no longer be profitable, and the landlords would be the real winners. They would be the hidden "true bosses," not needing to worry about improving efficiency, just raising the rent annually to outpace the store owners' profit growth.
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