Again, he took it—two more stacks, “This is from your Uncle Lao Zhou. He hasn’t been doing as well these past few years as before. Running a construction crew is easy work, but hard to get paid. So he just gave these twenty thousand.”

This Lao Zhou, David Brooks knew as well. He was an old comrade of Dad’s—they’d rolled through the trenches together. But he didn’t get promoted in the army, and retired in ’77. Later, he gathered a group and started a contracting team. At first, they built houses all over the county, then as they grew, they started taking on subcontracted factory construction. In the surrounding area, he was considered a respectable figure—the two-story house at home was built by his crew.

“Go get the cash box!”

Dad gave the order, so Mom got up and brought out the small locked box from under their bed. She opened it, and Dad carefully took out the award certificates, military medals, discharge papers, the Red Quotations, and so on, then took out the stack of cash at the very bottom—some hundred-yuan bills, some tens—a handful, and put it on the table.

“This is a little over four thousand. This is all the money our family has right now. In a bit, I’ll go to your grandpa’s place and get his bankbook too. Altogether, that’ll be… about eighty-five thousand!”

He stared at his son with piercing eyes, his gaze full of pressure. “If you lose it, you’ll be paying it back for the rest of your life! Still want to borrow it?”

David Brooks suddenly smiled and nodded firmly. “Yes!”

…………

In the course of a morning, Dad made the rounds and brought back seventy-five thousand. David Brooks took four thousand from home, the rest was returned to Mom. Grandpa’s side had another five thousand. When the grandson needed it, and the son came to ask, the old couple didn’t say a word—they just handed over the bankbook.

They scraped together eighty-four thousand yuan.

In a way, this was basically the sum total of the Cao family’s current assets and credit.

David Brooks wrapped the eighty thousand in newspaper and put it in his backpack. The next morning, after breakfast, he slung on the bag and rode out on his motorcycle.

As usual, after dropping Dad off at Xuguan Township, he headed straight for the Shimen Beverage Factory.

His father-in-law, Henry Carter, had built the beverage factory for his brother-in-law, Charles Carter. The factory was right next to his own Shimen Distillery—by the national highway running through Shimen Township. More importantly, both factories were right by the Shimen River.

Everyone said that the reason Shimen liquor tasted so good was inseparable from the river’s pure water quality.

If the water was good enough for brewing liquor, it was certainly good enough for making beverages.

The two factories looked about the same size, though Shimen Distillery probably occupied a bit more land. But one had a deserted entrance, while the other had big trucks coming and going all the time—the difference was obvious at a glance.

Last year, Shimen Distillery paid over three million in taxes and profits. This year would likely be even more. But last year, Shimen Beverage Factory paid less than three hundred thousand in taxes.

And that was only because, apparently, taxes were based on output value these days—regardless of whether you made a profit. If taxes were tied to profits, the government would have to pay them instead.

Arriving at the gate of Shimen Beverage Factory, David Brooks got off his bike, handed out two cigarettes to the gate guard, and said he had an appointment with Director Carter. The guard made a call to check, and sure enough, let him in.

So David Brooks rode his motorcycle straight to the office building of Shimen Beverage Factory.

He took out the key, got off, tightened the backpack on his shoulder, and took a deep breath, exhaling forcefully—he knew he was actually very nervous right now.

In the past thirty-odd years, he’d never done anything like this.

Back then, all he knew was to study hard, take exams seriously, work diligently, learn to live within his means and save money. He even knew to get along with classmates and colleagues, and to flatter the boss at the right time—but he’d never learned, let alone practiced, how to negotiate with people, how to sway hearts, or how to entice with profit.

Scheming, maneuvering, controlling people’s minds.

Yesterday and the day before, he’d been rehearsing and planning in his mind over and over.

And today, it was finally time for the real thing.

Almost subconsciously, he wanted to take out a cigarette to calm his nerves, but then he remembered that Charles Carter already knew he was coming. If he was late, it would look bad. If, out of curiosity, Charles Carter looked out the window and saw him smoking downstairs…

So, no smoking.

He adjusted his backpack and walked straight up the steps into the office building.

The office was on the third floor—easy to find.

Overall, the atmosphere in the building felt rather lifeless.

He went up and knocked on the door of the “General Manager’s Office.” Soon, a voice came from inside, “Come in!”

David Brooks pushed the door open. “Director Carter, hello!”

Charles Carter, with his scholarly look, glanced up, put down his pen, sat up straight, and looked at David Brooks. Who knows what he was thinking—his face was expressionless. After a moment, he said, “Have a seat. If you have something to say, just say it. Didn’t you say you wanted to work with me?”