Chapter 50 Human Greed
"A Ping, is what you said true?"
"Pearls aren't that real! Why would I lie to you? Yes, I'll bring you a copy of the flyer, you can take a look for yourself."
After saying that, Lu Yiping took out a leaflet from his bag and handed it to his parents.
"This...if we save tens of thousands of dollars, then it wouldn't be...A Ping, could this be a scam? Is it reliable?"
Lu Yiping said immediately, "What's unreliable about this? Lu Yiming's cousin has shares in the Internet cafe, and I heard that the storefronts of the Internet cafe were purchased directly for more than one million yuan. They are going to open five more branches soon. The monk can run away, but the temple cannot. Are you afraid that he will run away with our money?"
"That makes sense, mother of the child. What about us?"
"Charge one?"
"Charge!"
…
…
At ten o'clock in the morning, Lu Yiming was still sleeping soundly in bed. In the past few days, the renovation of the other five branches was completed one after another. He had to run back and forth to install computers and load the diskless system he had developed.
Because he was the only one tinkering with it, there were a lot of loopholes and bugs, and he had to correct, debug and improve it while using it. He was so busy that he hardly had time to eat, and he was almost exhausted.
As a result, just when Lu Yiming was sleeping soundly, he was awakened by the ringing of a cell phone.
He reached for his phone unhappily, pressed the answer button and muttered, "Who is it?"
Li Yiwen's urgent voice came from the phone: "Come to Tongxin Internet Cafe No. 1 quickly, something big has happened!"
Lu Yiming shivered suddenly, and all his sleepiness disappeared. He sat up with a somersault and said into the microphone, "Wait for me, I'll be there soon."
When Lu Yiming hurriedly took a taxi to store No. 1, he found that the door was blocked tightly. The store was crowded with people, and all kinds of noises mixed together, so noisy that it gave people a headache.
Lu Yiming’s first reaction was - Damn, is he going to run into some local bully looking for trouble?
The legal system back then was not as sound as it would be twenty years later. There were countless cases of gangs robbing each other of their own, collecting protection fees, etc. The so-called idle people in society would not disappear until at least after several severe crackdowns.
Fearing that something might happen, Lu Yiming quickly squeezed into the crowd. Later, he found that there was no looting or burning inside the Internet cafe. He breathed a sigh of relief and was secretly thankful.
He found Li Yiwen in a corner and asked him immediately: "What's going on? Why are there so many people suddenly?"
When Li Yiwen saw Lu Yiming, he immediately felt like he had found his backbone: "You're finally here. Now people are saying that the recharge discount posted by our Internet cafe was a mistake made in a hurry. The boss suffered a big loss and will modify and cancel it immediately. So people from several nearby blocks are like crazy and are bringing money to buy memberships."
Lu Yiming: “…”
Li Yiwen continued, "They also said that you are a patriotic overseas Chinese, a second-generation rich man from Hong Kong, and now you come to the mainland to start a business..."
Damn it, it’s easy to spread a rumor, but it takes a lot of effort to refute it.
Lu Yiming's worldview exploded after hearing this: "Who is the evil ghost who spread this? What is going on now?"
Li Yiwen pointed at the old men and women queuing at the cashier counter with snakeskin bags, and continued in a low voice: "Do you know what that is? Inside the snakeskin bags are bundles of hundred-yuan bills."
After hearing this, Lu Yiming was confused for a moment: "Where did these people come from? They brought money in sacks to recharge at the Internet cafe? They must be crazy! Do they know how to use a computer? It's obvious that they can't even turn it on."
Li Yiwen rolled his eyes and spread his hands: "What's the point of asking me? You set the rules yourself."
After Li Yiwen said this, Lu Yiming thought of a problem - he set these rules himself, and these people treated this place as a bank for financial management!
It doesn’t matter whether you can turn on the computer or not!
On the contrary, they don’t know how to use the computer, which means that the money recharged into the membership card will not be spent, which also means that the money must be returned to them as agreed after one hundred and eighty days!
"Fuck! This is outrageous!" Lu Yiming thought that someone would take advantage of this rule, but he didn't expect it to be so exaggerated as it is now.
Old men and women carried money in sacks and ran to the Internet cafe to buy membership - he had never seen such a thing, let alone heard of it!
After thinking about the reasons behind this, Lu Yiming couldn't help but take a breath.
When Li Yiwen saw Lu Yiming's expression, he felt both angry and amused.
"Is this outrageous? These people are all vegetable vendors in the market, especially the fish stalls and butcher shops. They are all very rich and can easily deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was also scared at the beginning."
Lu Yiming looked carefully and recognized a few familiar figures in the crowd, including Zhu Rourong who was buying vegetables at the vegetable market next door, and Lao Wang who was selling fish at a stall. They usually dressed sloppily and unkempt, but it turned out that they were all wealthy people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings.
This was the nineties!
When Lu Yiming was born, he was still bragging about being a millionaire!
But it is not surprising. Even twenty years later, many shop owners in the vegetable market are big savers in nearby bank branches. It is common for them to have deposits of several million yuan, and their income is much higher than many so-called white-collar workers.
Li Yiwen looked at these people queuing up to pay money, and instead of feeling a bit of joy in his heart, he felt shocked and scared.
Although this amount of money may seem high, it actually won’t be used for any consumption! People just use the Internet cafe as an ATM!
Not to mention a bank run, even if it is redeemed normally, I don’t know how much interest I will have to pay after half a year!
"What should we do now? Should we cancel the event?"
Li Yiwen is now terrified, fearing that he will have difficulty escaping afterwards.
Lu Yiming also rubbed his temples and began to sort out his thoughts.
Sure enough, I underestimated the greed of human nature.
No matter how good you are at math or whether you are illiterate or not, making money seems to be an innate instinct.
These old men and women can't walk anymore when they see a bargain. If anyone dares not to do what they want, who knows how big the trouble will be.
"The event is cancelled? If you announce the cancellation now, our Internet cafe will be destroyed before you even walk out of this door. Do you believe it?"
Lu Yiming rejected Li Yiwen's proposal without hesitation. The most important thing now was to quickly solve the current trouble before talking about other things.
Li Yiwen was silent for a while. He knew that the result Lu Yiming mentioned was very likely to happen.
"So what should we do now?"
This business is too exciting. It's only been open for a few days, but Li Yiwen has to be so nervous to prevent the business from capsizing. He's almost having a nervous breakdown because of it.
