Su Zelin carried his packed luggage back home, and Zhao Lixia cooked a lavish dinner to reward her son.
After dinner, Su Zelin smoked two cigarettes with his dad in the living room, had some tea, flattered him a bit, got two hundred yuan for pocket money, and quickly went out.
After the college entrance exam, it's time to do something, and his parents probably wouldn't manage him too much anymore.
The money in the bank card is like a hen; it must be used well to lay more eggs in the next two months.
The ways to make money, summarizing them, are actually quite simple.
If it were the 1980s, at the beginning of the reform and opening up, when the market economy started to prosper, the physical economy was king. All you had to do was blindly buy and sell, as they say, making missiles wasn't as good as selling tea eggs.
During that time, information was blocked. Don't mention two neighboring cities, even two neighboring small counties or towns could have significant product price differences. By using this to buy in bulk, setting up a stall anywhere could earn you a lot of money.
Su Zelin's parents ventured into business in the late 1980s and made their first pot of gold by running a street stall, and then they became wealthy.
There was another even more lucrative but extremely niche field, which was collecting various rare stamps and old currencies, such as the "Gengshen Monkey Stamp," "Da Hei Ten," "Back Green One Jiao," buying as many as you could.
Especially the "Gengshen Monkey Stamp," which soared 400,000 times in value in later years. Now, aren't you afraid!
Even if you just held onto this stuff until the 1990s to sell, a whole sheet of 80 "Gengshen Monkey Stamps" could sell for 100,000, and with a few more sets, you'd practically achieve financial freedom.
By the 1990s, things became a bit different.
Whether in big cities or small counties, people adapted to the commodity economy market. With a wave of business adventurers, entry-level businesses were almost entirely divided up in the market.
With great competition, it wasn't that easy to make money by buying and selling or setting up stalls anymore.
However, there was a new opportunity in this era: the original stock of enterprises.
Actually, in 1988, the ordinary shares of Shenzhen Development Bank were listed for trading at Shenzhen Securities Company, which opened the precedent for the Shenzhen stock market.
However, due to the public's insufficient understanding of stocks at that time, it made progress during the initial capitalization period of Shenzhen Development very difficult, making it extremely hard to allot shareholder certificates to depositors.
During that time, the Shenzhen government, in order to support the issuance of stocks, even had party members and cadres take the lead in buying shares and assigned tasks to employees of certain units, making these early shareholders "forced to make money."
But the real stock market fever didn't arise until the 1990s, starting with the five old stocks of Shenzhen, then the eight old stocks of Shenghai and fortune certificates. Those early adopters who were sensitive enough finally realized that this new thing called stocks could actually make people rich overnight!
Besides the original stock of enterprises, you could also trade small appliances, which was also very profitable. If you didn't have enough funds, you could get a loan. Back then, money was easy to lend; you just needed to treat bank personnel to a meal.
As for the 2000s now, everyone knows about the real estate fever. You could buy property with your eyes closed, or wait until 2003 to buy Maotai stocks, which appreciated 500 times in the future, turning a 40,000 investment into 20 million.
But the waiting period for real estate appreciation or Maotai stock cycles was too long. As someone reborn, with an unparalleled foresight, there were many money-making avenues, and Su Zelin naturally didn't have the patience for this.
Not only did he have to utilize this 40,000 yuan to make money, but he also had to earn quick money in the shortest possible cycle, which was quite challenging.
Information was crucial because Su Zelin couldn't possibly remember everything that happened this year accurately and which of those could present a good opportunity. So, he directly headed to the internet cafe.
At that time, many families still couldn't afford computers, and household broadband was a luxury. With internet cafes just emerging and being the holiday season, business was very booming.
The 15-inch old-fashioned CRT monitors were rough and bulky, with deplorable display effects, and the CPU and memory performance were extremely poor, but it didn't stop people in internet cafes from playing with great enthusiasm.
There were both guys and girls, mostly young people, including bespectacled and refined student types and also some with yellow-dyed hair, arm tattoos, and seemingly gang-affiliated types.
Most were gamers, playing "Chinese Paladin," "StarCraft," "Red Alert 2," "Worms," "Ragnarok," "Diablo," "Monopoly 4," "China Games," and so on.
Others were watching movies, surfing the web, or chatting on QQ. Nowadays, QQ was something new, and many people found it exciting, especially those who rarely spoke to the opposite sex in real life; they could easily make female friends through QQ, getting as excited as Columbus discovering a new continent.
Fortunately, he came early, or else there would be no computers available in the internet cafe.
"Network manager, charge ten bucks and get me a pack of Liqun!"
Su Zelin tossed a twenty-yuan note.
Internet usage in 2000 wasn't cheap. The internet cafe he was in charged three yuan per hour, which was relatively decent compared to before.
In 1998, when a few sporadic internet bars first opened in the country, the internet fee was as high as 40 yuan an hour, crazier than future generations!
You know, during that era people's monthly salary was only around four to five hundred yuan!
Three yuan per hour was still quite painful, so many people opted for overnight sessions, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., eight hours for only ten yuan.
But Su Zelin didn't choose the overnight option. He wasn't short of cash, and he thought he could find the information he needed within three hours. Staying out all night would also worry his parents, and he'd likely face a scolding when he got home.
In his past life, he often spent nights at internet cafes, but in this life, the novelty of going online had already worn off.
His internet card was quickly set up. Su Zelin wandered around the internet cafe and found his computer.
The spot was a bit secluded, right at the corner of the wall. The person next to him was a bespectacled gentleman with shifty eyes, occasionally looking up warily to observe his surroundings, displaying a lewd smile while staring at the screen. Su Zelin didn't need to guess to know he was browsing those types of websites because he had done so in his past life.
Sitting down in front of the computer, he pressed the power button on the ATX case, lit a cigarette during the wait, and after a long time, it finally sluggishly displayed the login screen.
The keyboard was from A4Tech, feeling stiff and not particularly great, and the mouse was of the same brand, not too responsive either. It wasn't that the brand was bad, but the keyboard and mouse technology of that era was just like that.
Inputting the account and password from the internet card, he successfully accessed the classic Windows 98 desktop.
Putting on the headphones, opening Winamp, which had popular songs downloaded by the internet café staff. The first one was Zhang Bozhi's "Star Wish."
...
I want to control myself
Won't let anyone see me crying
Pretend to be indifferent to you, unwilling to think of you
Blame myself for lacking courage
...
Listening to the sad music, he opened the web browser. Baidu had just been established this year, and Google hadn't exited the Xia Country market, still the most commonly used search engine.
He logged on to Yahoo and casually browsed through a series of news articles.
After about fifteen minutes, his eyes suddenly lit up.
The information he needed had been found!
It was a piece of stock-related news—Shenghai Mei Lin!
Seeing its name brought a rush of memories back to Su Zelin.
This stock was the leading electronic commerce concept share of the emerging market, a legend often talked about by stock investors in the year 2000.
It had a period of extremely successful short-term investment in the secondary market, producing impressive results, rapidly rising from 8.78 yuan per share to 33.26 yuan in just over a month, with a gain of 278%!
This legend was written in the annals of stock history. Su Zelin wasn't a professional or seasoned investor but had heard of it.
His dad even bought Shenghai Mei Lin back then, but he got in a bit late and only managed to get a taste of it, not the meat. Later, when Su Zelin dabbled in stocks, Su Jianjun talked about it with regret.
Seeing this news related to Shenghai Mei Lin instantly sparked Su Zelin's memory.
And the time for this stock to start its surge was mid of this month, just about a week left!
As a fast-paced investment, it was almost perfect, requiring little time and effort. Just make a trip to Shenghai, open an account, buy in, and sell it a month later!
Suppressing his excitement, Su Zelin browsed for another half-hour. Although there were other channels for quick money, none were as fast and comfortable as Shenghai Mei Lin.
After buying it all, just lay back and relax.
Decided, it was it!
Without thinking long, Su Zelin made up his mind.
The hen he had would be used to hatch the golden egg of Shenghai Mei Lin!