Chapter 032: Internet Café

Tan Mingxia was overjoyed and loosened her grip on the alcohol restrictions; Zhang Quanshun truly drank several bottles of beer, and Zhang Tan didn’t hold back either.

Now, with his status as a writer, Zhang Tan was finally able to take part in family matters and voice his own opinions. What he wanted to talk about was what would happen after his father was laid off.

“Mom, after Dad gets laid off, what do you plan for him to do?”

At the mention of the layoff, Tan Mingxia also lost her sense of direction. “Oh! Who could have known? He’s been a state worker his whole life, and now, just like that, they’re laying him off. The grain station wasn’t even behind on wages. I even heard from Accountant Xia’s family recently that the grain station over-fulfilled this year’s procurement quota and there’d be extra bonuses at the end of the year. Yet now, they say laid off and it’s done.”

Zhang Quanshun tried to defend himself. “It might not be certain yet. The private contractor still needs people. I’ll try and see if I can stay on.”

“Can you stay? Tao Laosan and Wei Laowu have been going to the station manager’s house every day recently. They have connections, so they might get to stay, but you don’t know anyone. Why would they keep you?” Tan Mingxia looked at Zhang Quanshun with a mix of frustration and disappointment.

At this, Zhang Quanshun fell silent.

He wanted to reach for his pocket to take out a cigarette, but caught himself in time and withdrew his hand.

Tan Mingxia’s complaints were not over; after blaming Zhang Quanshun, she turned on herself. “Back when you were demobilized, Zhang Ping went into business. Why did I stop you? If I’d known, I would have let you go into business with him. Just look at Zhang Ping now—running a big restaurant in Hefei, driving a car when he comes home. And here we are, still at the grain station, facing layoffs.”

The more she spoke, the angrier she became; her eyes reddened with frustration. “Now Swallow is studying at Anhui Medical University, Yangyang is in high school—everywhere we turn, we need money. Even giving a hundred yuan as a gift feels out of reach, and now you’re about to be laid off. How are we supposed to get by? We can’t just rely on the little bit of land at home.”

Seeing his parents so worried, Zhang Tan quickly coughed to get their attention. “Mom, Dad, don’t worry. You have me, don’t you? If the family needs money in the future, just tell me. I write novels; I won’t say I make a fortune every month, but I can earn several thousand yuan.”

At the mention of Zhang Tan making money from writing, Tan Mingxia’s eyes lit up, and she finally shook off her gloom.

Still, she found it hard to believe that in just a month, Zhang Tan had received seven or eight thousand yuan in manuscript fees. “Is writing novels really that profitable?”

“Well, it depends on who’s writing. If the quality’s not good, the publishing house won’t accept it. Most people can barely write something that pleases an editor.”

“And your novels? How’s the quality?”

Zhang Tan smiled. “Of course my work’s good. The manuscript fee from ‘Legends Old and New’ is paid per thousand words. Normally, it’s a hundred yuan per thousand, but because my writing is good, they pay me two hundred per thousand. If the readers respond well, the price will go up.”

With his writing speed, Zhang Tan could crank out fifty or sixty thousand words a month. At two hundred per thousand words, that meant at least ten thousand yuan a month. The novels he wrote were all proven classics by history, so he wasn’t afraid of being rejected. And now was the time to build his reputation—once he became well-known and earned the approval of readers, there might be a chance to publish a collection and earn another round of royalties.

And if a film company took interest and adapted his work for TV or film, the copyright fees would be another income. If it was adapted into games or comics, that would mean even more money.

Many writers, in fact, wrote just one book and lived off it for a lifetime.

In short, Zhang Tan’s earnings from writing novels were enough to cover all the family’s expenses.

Tan Mingxia and Zhang Quanshun were greatly relieved by the bright future Zhang Tan painted for them, feeling that their son had truly achieved something. Still, they couldn’t bring themselves to place the whole burden of the household on a boy not yet fifteen. In their eyes, his manuscript fee was like winning the lottery—a windfall, not a regular income.

Being a writer sounded noble enough, but was it a steady job?

In this, Zhang Tan’s parents were still behind the times, or perhaps just conservative.

Without a steady stream of hard cash, Zhang Tan’s identity as a writer was, to his parents, more a source of pride than true security.

Zhang Tan found it all a bit exasperating. Apart from his grandfather, who had once been a secretary at the commune—and could barely be called an official—everyone in the family was an ordinary person. Ordinary people put their faith in solid things, in iron rice bowls, not in the seemingly “unreal” profession of writer.

Of course, he wasn’t in a hurry to argue about whether he could make big money. In time, his parents would come to see just how much a writer could earn.

...

“Mom, the way I see it, Dad getting laid off is already inevitable. Rather than waiting around, why not prepare for it and secure a backup plan before his service is bought out? Isn’t his severance supposed to be thirty thousand yuan? Why don’t you use that money to open an internet café? Right now, there are only two internet cafés in Gangji Town, and neither is up to standard—one only has a dozen or so computers.”

“Open an internet café?” Zhang Quanshun and Tan Mingxia looked puzzled.

The term “internet café” was still quite new and trendy. Although the wave of internet cafés was sweeping the country, Changfeng County was nothing like Hefei when it came to keeping up with trends. This was a national-level poverty-stricken county—even Hefei was still rundown, so one could imagine what kind of modern elements a small town like Changfeng could have.

Currently, Gangji Town only had two internet cafés: one on Front Street, a former typing and photocopy shop whose owner had bought thirteen or fourteen computers to run a café; the other was an arcade on Back Street, whose owner had about fifteen or sixteen computers and, as far as Zhang Tan remembered, was too stingy to even spend money on a proper license.

Internet café licenses would be worth money in the future!

“Yes, open an internet café. They’re getting more and more popular. Hefei already has many, and Shuangdun Town has several as well. They’re always packed, with no free seats during peak hours. An internet café will be a sure-fire business for the next ten years.”

Tan Mingxia hesitated. “But your dad and I don’t know anything about computers. Besides, opening an internet café must cost a lot, right?”

“It’s fine, I can teach you. Opening one isn’t hard at all. First, you need to get a license. If you go now, it’ll only cost a few thousand yuan. If you wait until next year, the government will probably ban new licenses, and by then you won’t be able to get one for less than ten or twenty thousand yuan. Wait a few more years, and each license could sell for forty or fifty thousand.”

Zhang Tan knew the internet café license market very well—one of his classmates’ families had run an internet café in his past life.

“So, as long as you have a license, you basically can’t lose money; you two can rest assured on that point,” Zhang Tan continued confidently. “Next, the location is important. The best place is near a school, followed by the town center or near factories—those have a good customer base. I recommend opening across from the Jianghuai Factory, which is right next to Gangji Middle School.”

In fact, if his family didn’t open one, there would eventually be an internet café called “New Era” in that spot. Every time Zhang Tan went home to get online, it was packed to the brim, especially during the New Year, when it was nearly impossible to get a seat for half a day.

Business was always booming.

After a pause, Zhang Tan continued to lay out his vision. “If we pick the right location, we won’t need to worry about customers. As long as we keep the tax, public security, and business administration offices happy, the rest is pure profit. My plan is, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it properly—not like those tiny, makeshift cafés. Let’s start with fifty computers, offer excellent service, and outpace all the competition.”

“Is that possible? I heard computers are expensive. Opening a café with fifty computers will cost a fortune. Where would we get the money? If we don’t make a profit, we’ll lose everything,” Tan Mingxia objected, shaking her head at the thought of fifty computers.