Chapter 7: Awaiting the Roar of Spring Thunder

In the countryside nights of 1991, there was none of the grand construction that would later sweep the land. The sky was thick with stars. From outside the clay house came the chorus of frogs and insects, carried in on the night breeze mingled with the sweet scent of straw and earth.

Lying in bed with his hands behind his head, Chai Jin stared silently at the bright moon beyond the tattered window. Little Shan, his sister, had her small head resting on his chest, drool spreading everywhere.

Chai Jin felt no trace of sleepiness. The matter of the debt had been resolved, but the fate of his family still hung in the balance. He needed to do something—something that would move his family out of this cramped clay house, out of this village where warmth among people had long since faded.

So, through the night, Chai Jin pondered deeply.

During the late rice harvest, farming families typically rose before dawn to work the fields. Chai Mingguo had taken his two daughters out early, leaving Chai Jin to sleep in. When he finally awoke, the sun was already high—past ten in the morning.

In the kitchen, Chai Fang had made rice balls fried in pork lard—the most delicious taste imaginable. The lard came from the pork Chai Jin had bought the day before. He ate with great satisfaction.

Afterwards, he left the house. Ten minutes later, he stopped in front of a neighbor’s home.

This was Liu Qingwen, his childhood friend from the village—one of the few remaining families still willing to associate with theirs. In a previous life, they’d both left home at twenty to work in the city of Shenshi. Later, Qingwen, unwilling to live an ordinary life, heard rumors from the north about a secret national project: invest a thousand yuan and reap millions in years to come.

Without hesitation, he took his hard-earned thousand yuan and threw himself, full of zeal, into the great cause of the nation’s modernization. Chai Jin couldn’t dissuade him; it was nothing but a pyramid scheme. Yet, curiously enough, years later Chai Jin saw him on the news. Though shackled and standing in court, he was the head of a certain pyramid scheme.

Not long after, Chai Jin received a remittance slip: twenty thousand yuan, left for him by Liu Qingwen before he was imprisoned. Qingwen claimed the money was clean, urging him to find Chai Fang and Little Shan. The key clues had also come from him. For this, Chai Jin was always grateful.

Now, reborn in this era, with the tide of change about to surge, Chai Jin was determined to carve out a new path for his old brother.

Liu Qingwen was in the yard, beating dried soybeans with a bamboo board. When he saw Chai Jin approaching, he hurried inside. When he returned, he pressed a ten-yuan bill into Chai Jin’s hand.

“I’ve been lucky lately,” he said. “The eel traps have been overflowing. This is the money I made selling eels this past month. Take it—pay off your family’s debt.”

Still the same old brother—though he had a reputation for sneaking peeks at widows bathing, and could be a rascal, he had always treated Chai Jin with true loyalty.

Chai Jin pushed the money back, smiling, refusing politely. Looking at his friend’s messy hair, his frame thin as a monkey’s, a wave of nostalgia washed over him, as if reuniting with an old comrade after many years.

Snapping out of it, he asked, “Is the village distillery still running?”

Liu Qingwen put a hand on his forehead. “You don’t have a fever, do you?”

“What do you mean, still running? It’s always been there, barely kept alive by a bunch of old-timers.”

He stuffed the money into Chai Jin’s pocket again. “Between brothers, don’t be so polite. Use it to pay your debt. Honestly, your skills with the eel trap aren’t even as good as Fang’s. At this rate, you’ll be repaying your father’s debts for decades.”

“Focus on perfecting your eel trapping—now that’s the road to prosperity!”

With that, he picked up the bamboo board and kept beating the soybean husks.

Memory was a hazy thing. Even after being reborn, Chai Jin wasn’t sure the distillery still existed. He had to ask—this was key to the business plan he’d spent all night devising.

If it still existed, all would be well.

He grabbed Liu Qingwen. “Forget that for now. Come talk with me a bit.”

“What’s up?” Liu Qingwen was curious; something about his brother felt different today, though he couldn’t say what.

Chai Jin pulled him aside and quickly outlined his plan.

When he finished, Liu Qingwen was unsettled. “Jin, even if you take over the distillery, who’s to say you’ll make money? And would the powers that be even allow it? Isn’t that capitalism?”

The winds of reform were sweeping the country, and everywhere people debated whether the restructuring of state enterprises was socialist or capitalist in nature. In a small mountain village like this, people held conservative views—workers were workers, farmers were farmers, and attitudes didn’t change easily.

Chai Jin replied, “Leave that to me. I’ll sort things out with the village. You just need to answer one question—are you with me or not?”

Still uneasy, Liu Qingwen asked, “Even if the authorities let you do this, where will you get the money to buy the distillery?”

“Don’t worry about the money. Just answer me—will you do this with me?”

“After the New Year, we’ll head to Shenshi together.”

That was Chai Jin’s plan.

Acquiring the distillery would give Chai Mingguo a stable livelihood at home, freeing him from endless toil in the fields. Once Mingguo was settled, Chai Jin would head to Shenshi. Next February, the elder statesman would make his southern tour—a turning point in the nation’s economic history. Afterward, that city of less than a million would become a sea of opportunity. The possibilities were endless.

Liu Qingwen grew ever more anxious, bombarding Chai Jin with questions. In the end, the dream of a fortune exceeding one hundred million left him so stunned he nearly wet himself. His latent pyramid-scheme instincts began to stir and boil over.

At last, he smashed his bamboo board to pieces on the ground.

“Let’s do it, Jin! When do we start?”

Chai Jin cast him a look of disdain. “Try not to be so reckless.”

“Tonight, come with me to Old Zhang’s place. Do you still have any field frogs at home?”

“About two or three jin. Caught them last night.”

“Good. Clean them and bring them along. Old Zhang likes that with his drinks.”

The two then discussed matters in more detail.

Old Zhang’s ancestors were said to have been royal brewers. In the fifties and sixties, his family’s spirits were famous in the region. Later, as the commune system took hold, the county established a state-owned distillery in the village. Old Zhang, full of revolutionary zeal, contributed his family’s secret recipe and became the factory director.

However, lacking marketing and branding, the unique taste of his family’s liquor was drowned out by all manner of competitors, each boasting supposed health benefits and miracle cures. Now, the factory teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

Chai Jin remembered the distillery’s liquor well—it had a unique, mellow fragrance, like the scent of rice in the fields. With the right packaging, it could certainly succeed. That was his plan.

A day of farm work passed quickly. Chai Jin left a note at home saying he wouldn’t be back for dinner. He waited a long time at the village entrance before Liu Qingwen finally appeared.

Looking at the bruises and blotches on his friend’s face, he couldn’t help but ask, “Who on earth beat you up?”