"Teacher, stop yelling at me, aren't you tired? I'm just not cut out for studying. Let me sleep. Studying isn't my path. When I turn eighteen, I'm going to start a business with my old man, I want to get into car smuggling. I'm only a few days away from eighteen."
Seeing Wang Xiao's unreasonable attitude, Teacher Yu, who was teaching history, said angrily, "Wang Xiao, a student like you, if I had said this to you five years ago, you'd be dead by now. Car smuggling? You little speculator and profiteer!"
Teacher Yu's words were not false.
At that time, people with an iron rice bowl still looked down on those who did business traveling around the country. To speak of car smuggling was a direct death sentence. This would be unthinkable thirty years later.
Before 1983, Huaxia strictly prohibited private individuals from buying cars for transportation.
...
To people working in the system, speculation and profiteering were considered shameful.
Who could have imagined their current prosperity?
As times changed, those who dared to be the first, the speculators and profiteers, were later fervently admired.
They marveled:
"They were so brave back then!"
They not only envied their first gains but also envied how they used their ill-gotten money to make more money.
Nowadays, due to the ten years lost during the Cultural Revolution, diplomas have swung back to an extreme, being amplified infinitely. The Gaokao is the only way out; if you get into university, you can join the system, become a person above others, and possess an enviable iron rice bowl.
To the extent that.
In many cities and regions at this time, working in a private factory was still a shameful thing, and opening a small shop to do a little business would be sarcastically called a 'private business owner,' essentially an 'unaffiliated person,' a wanderer outside the system with no protection.
It's better now; it was more severe before. 'Speculation and profiteering' was considered a very serious economic crime.
In the Jiāngzhè region, if you rode a bicycle from one village to another and had more than three live chickens or ducks in the basket on your back, you could be caught for speculation and profiteering, subjected to a struggle session, or even imprisoned.
Once in Wenzhou, a woman was sentenced to death for speculation and profiteering.
It wasn't until the late 1980s that selling what one doesn't own was still a vile term.
Therefore, for Lǐ Jūn to prepare to trade treasury bonds in different regions, it seemed like an extremely dishonorable act at this time.
...
But what is reform? It always starts with violations. It starts with dishonor.
Let them be discriminated against.
Everything will change.
After Dèng Gōng's southern tour.
People will discover that what was once called speculation and profiteering has been reclassified as normal business.
Later, those who had engaged in speculation and profiteering would be regarded as heroes.
However, this is still an era in transition, not yet completely transformed.
This is an era moving from seclusion to openness, because everything is starting from scratch.
In a large country with a population of nearly 1.3 billion, the ossified planned economy system is already disintegrating day by day. A group of ordinary people are turning China into a giant experiment, transitioning to a commercial society under everyone's watchful eyes in an irreversible manner.
Many people from Wenzhou represent this group.
As others' wealth grows, many people will transition from looking down on, to despising, then secretly envying, and finally to universally praising speculation and profiteering.
In the future.
Your wealth will be a measure of your ability.
That era is slowly arriving, it is an era of wealth.
Its arrival is unstoppable.
All things grow wantonly, dust and dawn rise, rivers converge into streams, nameless hills rise into peaks, and heaven and earth are, for a time, incredibly vast.
However, Teacher Yu did not know that the future would be such an era of free market and wealth determining heroes. He believed that the future would always be about getting high scores, entering university, and joining the system for an unlimited future.
"Hmph, a student like you, I think you're finished for life. You don't strive for improvement!" Old Yu pointed at Wang Xiao's nose and said.
"Now, I've wasted one minute criticizing you. For the whole class of sixty people, that's sixty minutes wasted. You are committing a crime against the lives of other students..."
"Tomorrow, bring your parents. I need to speak with your family in person; I can't teach a student like you."
At this moment, the bell rang for the end of class.
Teacher Yu left angrily, flicking his sleeves.
The teacher's outburst in the classroom did not bring any particular emotions to the others. They had heard so much scolding that they had become accustomed to it.
The classroom remained noisy during the break.
"Lǐ Jūn, the teacher said you were absent today to get glasses. Can I see them?" Fatty Girl Lín Jìyǐng, my new deskmate, asked with a bright smile.
Lǐ Jūn glanced at his new deskmate.
Thinking that she just wanted to see the glasses, Lǐ Jūn didn't refuse.
He took out the glasses. In fact, Lǐ Jūn was not nearsighted. The lenses were actually non-prescription.
He just wore them for looks, to appear mature. Later generations would call this 'posing.'
"Lǐ Jūn, your glasses look very..."
"Old-fashioned?"
"Yeah, these glasses look a bit like the ones Teacher Chén wears..."
Teacher Chén, whom Lín Jìyǐng mentioned, was in his fifties.
Lǐ Jūn laughed, "I like mature frames, I have a heavier taste, perhaps."
At this moment, Lín Jìyǐng secretly thought: 'Lǐ Jūn says he has a heavy taste, does he also like girls like me who are on the heavier side?!'
"Uh, maybe I'm overthinking it."
That evening, during self-study class.
It was Old Yu, the history teacher, on duty again.
"I can hear you from the office. Your class is the noisiest in the entire building!"
Old Yu walked angrily around the classroom. Passing by Wang Xiao, Wang Xiao stared at him.
Remembering the student's offense in the afternoon, and now he wasn't reading but staring at him: "What are you looking at me for? Is there something written on my face? Read your book!"
"Was it you who instigated the noise in the classroom just now? You are a menace, you are a... rat dropping in the pot!" Teacher Yu's scolding erupted again like firecrackers.
"Teacher Yu, you're targeting me, you're insulting me, do you even deserve to be a teacher!"
"Heh!"
Old Yu was enraged by the word 'deserve.'
"Slap!" Old Yu slapped Wang Xiao across the face.
"Bang!"
Wang Xiao hurled his stool at Old Yu, who had been targeting him all day, with lightning speed.
"I'm not studying anymore!"
He hit a teacher.
This was a big deal.
Lǐ Jūn felt he could help Wang Xiao once, but not a second time.
That troublemaker, that arch-rebel, Lǐ Jūn thought he was beyond saving. He didn't use firecrackers to retaliate against Old He, but now he'd gone after Old Yu.
He was going to repeat the path of his past life.
Expelled from school.
Lǐ Jūn had thought his butterfly effect could change some things, but it seemed Wang Xiao was destined not to avoid dropping out early. His nature was already set.
Youth is destined to be wild!
...
"Do you remember Wang Xiao's apology to Old He after that gathering? He sounded so sincere. Teacher He, I didn't listen to your guidance back then and used firecrackers to retaliate. I was young then, please forgive me. If I had followed your teachings that year and learned more, it wouldn't be so difficult for me to advance now. I deeply feel the poverty of my knowledge." At that gathering, Wang Xiao donated one million yuan to his alma mater to atone for his past mistakes.
This time, Wang Xiao hitting a teacher, alas, he was treading the old path again. In the future, he would deeply regret today's actions, and the apology would be directed at Teacher Yu.
The next day.
Wang Xiao was surprisingly optimistic, bidding farewell one by one to his classmates whom he usually got along with.
He already knew the consequences. Most importantly, he had absolutely no interest in studying anymore.
Wang Xiao and Lǐ Jūn didn't have a close relationship, but Lǐ Jūn had helped him once. When they met again.
Lǐ Jūn asked, "How did it feel to attack a teacher?"
Wang Xiao was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Why do you ask?"
"I want to know your state of mind at the time."
"Alright, honestly, it felt very exciting. But now I kind of regret it. After all, Old Yu is my teacher."
"Then your heart isn't completely bad. You just dislike the oppressive atmosphere of school. Yesterday it was Old Yu, the day before it was Old He. You'll always do something out of line, so the school can expel you, and then you can leave campus with a clear conscience."
"Are you a mind-reader? You understand me so well?" Wang Xiao frowned.
"When you leave school, there's a bigger world out there. I think you'll become a wealthy boss in the future, so I'm here in advance to congratulate you."
"Haha, brother, you speak much more pleasantly than those stinky, pedantic teachers. Even if I'm not at school anymore, we're friends from now on."
Wang Xiao's temper was hot, but his execution was extremely strong. He became a wealthy small business owner in his later years, but he always wanted to be a big boss. However, his knowledge was lacking, which was always his regret. At a reunion of former classmates in his later years, he exchanged contact information. When Lǐ Jūn's son fell ill, Lǐ Jūn called him to ask for a loan, and he readily agreed.
Lǐ Jūn doesn't know if Wang Xiao helped his wife and children after he was no longer in that world, but he knows Wang Xiao's loyal nature and that he would definitely help. Thus, in this life, helping him become a big boss is just an idea. Lǐ Jūn doesn't mind using his foresight to help him achieve his ambition and become a boss of a listed company.
Of course, it would be even better to recruit such a daring, fearless, and ambitious hotshot to expand his territory in the future.
However, he is still too young and wild now, and needs tempering in the melting pot of society...