Chapter 2

"Vincent, you're back! Have the results come out? How did you do?"

Vincent is Li Xuan's English name. He had just returned to the company, and his colleagues were all asking him about his college entrance exam results.

"Thanks everyone for your concern, I did pretty well, three A's and two B's!" Li Xuan said with a smile, "I'll treat everyone to afternoon tea. I've already booked milk tea and pineapple buns at the tea restaurant downstairs, everyone's included!"

Oh! Oh! Oh! Someone was treating, and everyone cheered. They only calmed down when the boss, Huo Junming, came out of his office, and they all pretended to be working diligently.

"Xuan, you did well. It looks like our company is going to have a college student!" The boss smiled at Li Xuan and said kindly.

"Thank you, boss!" Li Xuan said humbly, "How did your trip to the mainland go? Did you finalize the contract?"

Hengtai Company had been established for less than two years and mainly engaged in re-export trade with the mainland. Previously, the company's focus was on selling second-hand textile machinery from Hong Kong factories to mainland enterprises. The Hong Kong textile industry had been affected by trade quotas and was not doing well, with many textile factories closing down and changing industries, leaving a lot of idle equipment.

Although most of this equipment was purchased during the peak of the Hong Kong textile industry a decade ago, it was still much more advanced than the old equipment from the 1950s and 1960s used by many state-owned textile factories on the mainland.

More importantly, this old equipment was cheap. Compared to importing the latest textile machinery from Japan or Germany, these second-hand machines could achieve expansion plans with only one-fifth of the foreign exchange. With Huo Junming's keen insight and skillful sales techniques, Hengtai Company had developed rapidly over the past two years, growing from a shell company to one with over twenty employees and a high-end office building. Boss Huo Junming had also achieved some success in his career.

But he was not satisfied. In May, Huo Junming met the director of a research institute in Beijing during the Guangzhou Trade Fair. The institute planned to import a batch of minicomputers, so the director asked him, as a Hong Kong businessman, to help collect some relevant information.

Huo Junming thought it was an opportunity and kept it in mind after returning to Hong Kong. Minicomputers were on the list of items restricted for export to China by the CoCom, although not as strictly controlled as mainframe computers. If the mainland directly imported from the United States, the application and approval process would be very complicated.

However, if a Hong Kong company handled the operation, importing from the United States to Hong Kong first and then exporting to the mainland, it would not require U.S. government approval. The policies of the Hong Kong British government were much more flexible, and for these non-core civilian technologies and products, they generally turned a blind eye. A little effort could secure the necessary permits.

Huo Junming saw the potential and began contacting the research institute in Beijing. Beijing required him to provide some mainstream computer information for reference. So Huo Junming obtained a large amount of product information from major computer manufacturers like DEC, IBM, and Wang. With a responsible attitude, he had his employees translate the information into Chinese and then send both the Chinese and English versions to the mainland clients.

At this point, a problem arose. While some of the employees at Hengtai Company had good English and could converse fluently with foreigners, they were at a loss when it came to translating these technical documents. Faced with a pile of technical terms and specifications, they could not get started and had to hire a professional translator who understood computers.

It was then that Li Xuan, who had just finished his college entrance exam, applied for this position. The person who interviewed him was the company's boss, Huo Junming. Li Xuan spent an hour roughly translating the user manual for the DEC PDP-11 minicomputer. Although it was a rough translation, Huo Junming was very satisfied, finding him more reliable than the other college graduates he had interviewed. He decided to hire him on the spot.

After Li Xuan started working, he not only translated various models of computers from different American companies but also provided a comparative analysis based on his own analysis. He could solve most of the technical questions faxed by the mainland research institute without having to contact the original American computer companies.

This undoubtedly saved a lot of time. Li Xuan not only completed the translation work well but also took on the role of a technical support specialist.

Due to his outstanding performance, the procurement trade contract between Hengtai and the mainland progressed quickly. Huo Junming's recent business trip to the mainland was to sign the final trade contract for three PDP-11 minicomputers with the research institute in Beijing.

"The contract has been signed. We've already arranged for DEC in the U.S. to ship the computers. They will arrive in Hong Kong next week," Huo Junming said enthusiastically about the deal, explaining the contract execution process to Li Xuan, the temporary employee, in detail.

Minicomputers were valuable items. The total price for the three PDP-11s was 1 million Hong Kong dollars. This deal would bring the company at least 200,000 Hong Kong dollars in net profit.

"Xuan, you did a great job this time. I'll have the finance department give you an extra 200 dollars as a bonus this month!" Huo Junming was very satisfied with Li Xuan's performance, "By the way, I also secured a new business opportunity in Beijing. The Ministry of Petroleum is interested in importing two computers. I've assigned Jin to follow up, and I want you to assist him during this period!"

"Understood, boss. I'll cooperate with Brother Jin!" Jin was one of the first employees hired when the company was established and was highly trusted by the boss.

"Boss, I fixed the Epson printer that wasn't working before!" Li Xuan suddenly remembered this and told his boss.

"Really?" Huo Junming was skeptical. He had bought this printer in Japan a few months ago. The salesperson said it was a new product from Epson, cheaper than other printers on the market and with lower printing costs.

However, after Huo Junming brought it back to Hong Kong, he found that it worked fine for English documents but often produced garbled text for Chinese documents. The company's logistics department called a repair technician, who said it was a problem with the printer's Chinese card.

The printer had a Japanese card installed, and it needed a Chinese card to print Chinese. Since this model of printer had not yet been released in Hong Kong, there were no compatible Chinese cards available, so the company had to buy a new printer. This incident made Huo Junming feel very embarrassed, and he was in a bad mood for several days.

"Boss, if you don't believe me, I can show you right now!"