The second-floor bedroom.
Chen Yang took the towel the maid handed him and wiped his face. Just as he was about to rest for a while, there came a series of knocks at the door.
Hearing the sound, Chen Yang looked up and saw his second cousin, Lin Xueyi, peering furtively into the room.
“Second Brother, what are you doing?” Seeing him like this, Chen Yang could not help but find it strange.
Lin Xueyi cleared his throat and said to the maid, “Xiao Lan, you go down first. I have something to discuss with Young Master Cousin.”
“Yes, Second Young Master.” The maid carried the wash things out of the room and closed the door behind her.
“Second Brother, what exactly are you trying to do?”
“Chen Yang, sit. Second Brother came to discuss something with you.” As Lin Xueyi spoke, he sat down on his own.
“Second Brother, what do you want to say?” Chen Yang asked gently.
Lin Xueyi said with a grin, “Actually, it’s nothing major.”
“You know it too. My father, Eldest Brother, and the others—I’ve never seen eye to eye with them.”
“After Mother died, my father spent every day bringing Eldest Brother around, going on about some legitimate eldest son nonsense. He barely ever cared about me. Fuck, does he really think our Lin family has a throne to inherit?”
“In this family, I don’t have much status.”
“I’m not like you. You were clever since childhood, and you’re blessed with good fortune. My father treats you better than he treats me.”
“Not to mention Eldest Sister. Back then, Eldest Sister lent Gao Jianzhong’s pension to Father for business, and over time she took back the deeds to more than a dozen shops. Even if both her legs and arms were broken, she could still live comfortably for the rest of her life.”
“Second Brother, what exactly are you trying to say?” Chen Yang listened to him ramble on and on, all of it complaints.
“Uh, back to the main point.” Lin Xueyi cleared his throat and said, “You’ve just returned to Shanghai, so you still don’t understand the situation here.”
“After the war broke out last year, the powers in Shanghai changed somewhat. In the past, the biggest boss in the French Concession was Boss Du.”
“After the Japanese won, they kept wanting to invite him out to handle affairs for them, but he simply refused to pay them any mind. Later, he even took his whole family to Hong Kong.”
“Once he left, the biggest man in Shanghai became Boss Zhang. As for me, a few years ago I used some connections to enter under Boss Cao of the Qing Gang.”
“By seniority, I can also be considered of the same generation as Boss Zhang.”
“After Boss Du left, a vacancy opened up at the Sixteen Firms Wharf. Boss Cao stepped in and helped us take down a piece of territory.”
“You know what makes the most money after a war, don’t you? Of course it’s all kinds of supplies.”
“Second Brother, are you crazy? You want to imitate others and get into black-market trading?” Before Lin Xueyi could finish, Chen Yang already knew what he wanted to do.
“What do you mean, crazy? In all of Shanghai, is there any business more profitable than the black market?” Lin Xueyi said seriously. “I just want to make money.”
Chen Yang frowned and said, “Second Brother, I still want to advise you to think this through.”
“Black-market business isn’t something ordinary people can handle. Besides, where would you get the capital?”
“We don’t have capital, but don’t we still have you?” Lin Xueyi said with a smile. “You’re the future director of the Economic Department under the Ministry of Finance of the Jinling Reformed Government. You’ll be able to oversee the three provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian, plus the two regions of Nanjing and Shanghai.”
“As for supplies, wouldn’t that just be a matter of you approving a slip?”
Well now, he had set his sights on me.
Chen Yang shook his head and said, “Second Brother, it’s not that I won’t help you. I don’t even know what’s going on with that director position Uncle mentioned.”
“Besides, can you be certain whether my slips will actually be of any use?”
Lin Xueyi’s face immediately darkened. “Chen Yang, we all grew up under the same roof.”
“When the family was that poor when we were children, we never thought of driving you out. Now that you’ve made it, now that you’re getting promoted and making money, you don’t plan to give Second Brother a hand?”
Chen Yang frowned. “Second Brother, then let me ask you this. If I give you goods worth one hundred silver dollars, how much would you have to sell them for to make enough profit?”
Lin Xueyi sneered and said, “What? You want to test Second Brother? You’re looking down on your Second Brother too much.”
“I’ve already asked around. Even for grain, oil, canned goods, and cotton cloth—the goods with the thinnest profits on the market—if we run them once through the black market, goods worth one hundred silver dollars become two hundred silver dollars.”
“One hundred becomes two hundred, two hundred becomes four hundred. Isn’t that pure profiteering?”
Well now, this Lin Xueyi was truly adorably naive.
Chen Yang sighed and said, “Wrong. If you want to do this business, the profit has to be at least two hundred percent or more.”
“In other words, if I give you goods worth one hundred silver dollars, you’d have to sell them for at least three to four hundred silver dollars for it to count as acceptable.”
Lin Xueyi looked at Chen Yang in complete confusion.
Chen Yang said in a low voice, “Let me calculate it for you. Suppose you sell goods worth one hundred silver dollars for four hundred silver dollars. That first hundred silver dollars is the money you have to settle with me after selling the goods. Of what remains, you set aside another hundred as capital for the next transaction.”
“Apart from these two sums, right now you only have territory. You don’t have proper sales channels, you don’t have a mature transport and supply chain, and you don’t have any safeguards.”
“I know you want to say that you’re under the Qing Gang, so no one would dare set their sights on you, but don’t forget, this is Shanghai—a place where people devour people.”
“Black-market business can’t be brought out into the open to begin with. Even if someone sets you up, you can only swallow your broken teeth along with the blood.”
“So for maintaining all of this, you’ll have to give away at least thirty percent of the profit. Let’s count that as one hundred silver dollars. The remaining one hundred is your team’s profit.”
“I’ll use the simplest three-tier theory based on the structure between you people: the upper level takes seventy percent, the middle level twenty percent, and the lower level ten percent.”
“With your status, you definitely wouldn’t be the only one among the higher-ups. Let’s say you’re partnered with two others. Then you split those seventy silver dollars equally, and what you get in hand is only a little over twenty silver dollars.”
“You’ve taken such a huge risk and done so much, but in the end your profit is only twenty-three percent.”
“Do you think you can do a business like this?”
“No, no, that’s not how this account should be calculated.” Lin Xueyi shook his head repeatedly, but he could not come up with a reason to refute him.
Chen Yang patted Lin Xueyi on the shoulder. “Second Brother, listen to my advice. You’re not cut out for black-market business.”
“However, if you really want to do this business, I’ll give you a chance. Have the person in charge come see me.”
“Your status is too low. You can’t make this decision.”
Lin Xueyi opened his mouth, but after a long while, he still said nothing. He silently got to his feet. As he walked away, Lin Xueyi muttered, “Only twenty-three percent? No, that’s not right. There must be something wrong with this calculation. But where exactly is it wrong?”
Hearing Lin Xueyi muttering to himself, Chen Yang could not help laughing inwardly. “With a brain like that, he still wants to do black-market trading. He really wouldn’t even know how he died.”
In fact, this method of calculation was naturally wrong.
Because business was calculated by cumulative volume, not by fixed quantities the way Chen Yang had done.
Simply put, business was a process of constant accumulation, not a fixed model of dividing shares.