The next morning, Fang Bai went to school for classes as usual.
It was March, and the weather was cool and pleasant.
The warm sunlight streamed through the windows into the classroom, illuminating the desks, filling the entire classroom with vitality.
On the stage, the Chinese teacher, full of vigor, sprayed his saliva, mixed with passionate voice and chalk dust, towards the students in the front rows below the podium.
Having to 'eat' saliva and chalk dust again, Fang Bai suddenly felt very fortunate to be sitting in the back row.
"Oh, Fang Bai is here, I didn't even notice. Please recite the fourth and fifth paragraphs of Zhu Ziqing's 'Moonlight Over the Lotus Pond'. I haven't heard your voice in a long time." The Chinese teacher's strange voice made the whole class burst into laughter.
Fang Bai was known throughout the school as the 'Prince of Skipping Classes', a nickname students had given him, which had been circulating on campus for one or two weeks.
However, 'Fang Shao' and 'Young Master Fang' had only just started circulating.
"What are you laughing at? This is important, it's going to be on the exam!" the Chinese teacher emphasized.
Fang Bai let out an "Oh" and stood up, reciting loudly: "Above the winding lotus pond, stretching as far as the eye could see, were the broad leaves..."
It had to be said, Fang Bai's voice was steady and rhythmic; every word was pronounced accurately by him, clear and powerful, penetrating the classroom and echoing outside the window. It was very captivating, and the teacher and students listened attentively.
A moment later, after Fang Bai finished reciting, the Chinese teacher told him to sit down, praising him: "You recited very well, with emotion and rhythm. It's just that your body language and facial expressions weren't fully utilized, but it's already very commendable.
Fang Bai, your scores in all subjects are excellent, except for Chinese, which is slightly weaker."
"Teacher, it's hard to improve my Chinese score," Fang Bai also worried. With a perfect score of 120, he scored 100 last time, feeling there was no room for improvement.
"Hmm, it is a bit difficult for you. Getting around 100 points consistently in the college entrance exam is fine, just don't write nonsense in the essay." The Chinese teacher felt it was a pity that such good speaking skills weren't used for public speaking.
The school had just announced the excellent teachers, and each teacher received many awards. Fang Bai's teachers were all on the list, and they looked more and more favorably upon Fang Bai.
After two Chinese classes, it was English class. Zhan Feng also greeted Fang Bai enthusiastically when she saw him; it could be said that he was the most satisfying student she had taught since she started teaching.
Teachers from other classes were very envious: "Oh, your class has a super student, Fang Bai. Every teacher who has taught him has received awards, I'm so envious."
There was still competition among teachers, especially among those teaching the same subject. If the average test score of the students in one's class was lower than that of other teachers, it was quite embarrassing.
A slight difference in average scores might not be a big deal, but if the difference was significant, teachers would lose confidence in their teaching and question if there was a problem with their methods.
Being a teacher was also very exhausting, not that easy.
Fang Bai attended classes for a full day. The next day was Sunday, but the students in the remedial class did not rest; they had a mock exam on Monday and continued to review.
In another week or two, the 100-day countdown to the battle would begin.
On Monday, a city-wide mock exam was held, using the same test paper.
Chinese and Math were each 120 points, English, Physics, Chemistry, and Politics were 100 points each, and Biology was 70 points, for a total score of 710 points, not 750 points.
The exam schedule was quite tight, with seven subjects scheduled over only two and a half days.
Time passed quickly, and two days went by.
Wednesday, March 20th, noon.
Fang Bai stretched his arms, stood up, and submitted his paper; he had finished his last subject today.
At ten o'clock in the morning, County Chief Gu called him, and Fang Shi answered the phone: "Fang Bai is taking a mock exam, he's taking his last subject this morning. Does the leader have any instructions?"
"Oh, Boss Fang, no rush then. Just have him call me back after he finishes his exam. It's about discussing the land."
"Okay, he'll finish his exam this morning and come back for lunch. I'll tell him then."
Gu Wen exchanged a few polite words and then hung up, feeling a bit strange.
Their group of leaders was waiting for a high school student to finish his exam before discussing an investment.
In the past, this would have been absurd!
But now that it was happening to him, he had no choice but to accept it.
In fact, if one didn't consider Fang Bai's identity as a re-taking student, just looking at his appearance, his steady words and actions showed no sign of him being a student; he just seemed young, but his face wasn't immature. Perhaps rural children who did a lot of farm work had a touch of world-weariness about them.
Alas, the waves behind push the waves in front; if the front waves don't work harder, they'll die on the beach.
...
Fang Bai left school and returned to the shopping mall for lunch.
Xinghai Company provided lunch for its employees, ordering boxed meals from a restaurant. Fang Bai's parents were busy with their business and didn't have time to make lunch, so they ate boxed meals with the employees.
Fang Bai had reminded his parents to ask the restaurant to use good oil and ingredients, especially the oil; it should not be oil that had been used for frying for many days, especially not gutter oil.
If they found that it wasn't new oil, they should cancel the order immediately.
Fang Bai felt that ordering lunch out all the time was unsafe, and it would be better to hire a full-time chef. Now that Xinghai Company had more employees, the money saved was enough to pay a chef's salary.
The problem now was that there was no place for a chef to cook; there was a lot of cash stored at home, so it was impossible to let outsiders cook there.
The management staff ate in the office. Fang Shi waited until his son finished eating before telling him that County Chief Gu had called him.
It wasn't until 2:30 PM that Fang Bai called Gu Wen's office. After chatting for a while, he roughly understood what it was about and scheduled a meeting for tomorrow morning to discuss it.
"Son, the bank has approved the loan."
Fang Shi reported after his son finished the call. These past two days were for exams, so he hadn't told him about these matters.
"Dad, let's go discuss the land tomorrow. After we finish this, I'll go find a design institute and a geological survey unit."
"Okay."
Fang Bai suddenly remembered the construction team and called Lu Dahai, asking him to come over.
About half an hour later, Lu Dahai arrived swiftly on his motorcycle. Fang Bai invited him into the office to sit down.
"Boss Lu, business must be booming, right?" Fang Bai shook his hand and immediately probed for information.
Lu Dahai frowned and sighed: "It is a bit busy, but Mr. Fang, you know, it's hard to collect payments. Some accounts from last year haven't been settled on-site yet. It's hard to find someone as straightforward as Mr. Fang in settling payments."
Lu Dahai had two bad debts; soft or hard approaches were useless. He really wanted to bury the Party A with concrete.
If pushed too far, the masons below could really do such a thing; talking about law with them was useless.
For those in construction, collecting debts was too difficult.
Fang Bai nodded, understanding the difficult situation of collecting debts in construction, and said: "I called you over because I want to discuss something with you and see what you think."
"Mr. Fang, please speak," Lu Dahai straightened his back, knowing the important part was coming.
Before he came, he had his eye on the large Xinghai Plaza project, wondering if he could get a piece of it.
"Since you trust me, I'll be direct with you.
Within five years, Xinghai Plaza plans to invest 200 million yuan, with no discounts on the investment;
Besides this, I plan to acquire hundreds of acres of land for investment in high-rise residential and commercial buildings," Fang Bai said calmly.
Lu Dahai felt as if he had heard astonishing good news; this was simply an endless supply of projects.
Looking at Fang Bai's serious expression, it didn't seem like he was trying to fool him. Could he be planning to give all these projects to him?
Lu Dahai knew his idea was wonderful, but he also knew it was unlikely; his construction team didn't have the capacity to undertake such large projects.
"Mr. Fang, what do you mean?"
Fang Bai said: "I plan to establish a construction engineering company and invite two or three technically competent construction teams to join.
Xinghai Company's orders are enough to keep our own construction team busy, and the project prices will be at market rates, so there's no need to worry about kickbacks or difficulties in collecting payments.
Therefore, I plan to invite you to invest, what are your thoughts?"
Lu Dahai smiled somewhat bitterly upon hearing this, rubbing his face with both hands; the surprise almost turned into a shock.
If it were anyone else, he would definitely curse them: 'Get lost, you want to swallow me up!'
But the other party was Fang Bai, with strong financial resources and connections. To him, Fang Bai was a big boss.
Moreover, the other party was inviting him, not forcing or threatening him.
Lu Dahai was grateful, but also slightly uneasy: "Thank you for your appreciation, Mr. Fang, this is too sudden!
However, I'm a very practical rough man. I'd like to hear what benefits there are for my construction team to join?"
Fang Bai didn't mind Lu Dahai's directness; if he were a hypocritical person, he would be more wary. He frankly stated: "The first point I just mentioned is that you won't lack orders anymore. When you do projects now, it seems like there's a lot of gross profit margin, but a lot of money can't be recovered, and you even have to advance funds. When you look for orders, you also need to give kickbacks and pull strings. To be blunt, could you earn 100,000 yuan last year?"
Lu Dahai smiled bitterly and shook his head: "I couldn't earn that much, at most 50,000 yuan."
What he didn't say was that more than half of it was earned from Xinghai Shopping Mall.
"Work with me, and in a year, you'll at least double it!"
"100,000 a year?"
"No, at least 200,000 a year!"
Lu Dahai swallowed, then composed himself and said: "It sounds very tempting, Mr. Fang, don't fool an honest man like me."
Fang Bai laughed heartily: "I'm an honest man too, aren't I? Your current equipment and materials as capital contribution, I estimate those things are worth about 50,000 yuan. I plan to raise one million yuan to establish the engineering company and give you 5% of the shares. You'll be responsible for construction management, equivalent to a project manager, and you'll receive a separate salary for your position.
I will also bring in one or two other construction teams to invest, and at the same time, I need to recruit technicians, quality inspectors, document controllers, safety officers, and other personnel. Your current team alone is not enough to undertake large projects.
I have a project here, with an initial investment of 22 million yuan. The estimated total cost for the main structure and decoration is also around 15 million yuan, with a one-year deadline. If it were outsourced to an external engineering company, it would be normal for them to take four or five million yuan in project fees, right? If payments are normal, a net profit of 15% of the total cost would be excellent."
The company had not yet been established, and Fang Bai didn't have time to bother with it. He should give others shares. A contractor investing equipment for 5% wasn't too much or too little.
The investment amount was not the main concern; it wasn't like Fang Bai was investing ten million while the other person only had 0.5%, which would make Lu Dahai's investment meaningless.
One million yuan was just right.
Orders were the core of an engineering company!
So Fang Bai would take the larger share, not based on investment capital.
Most private engineering companies were just starting out now, lacking qualifications, and it was hard to even recruit a technician. All matters had to be taken slowly. He planned to find a general manager, but currently, there wasn't one, so he would let Lu Dahai and other contractors build the framework first.
"Roughly so. To get such a project, you'd have to give several points in kickbacks to the referrer, and the quality guarantee deposit is highly unlikely to be recovered. Moreover, you'd most likely have to advance funds to get large projects, which carries a lot of risk. In reality, an average of ten percent profit on the total cost is already quite good." Lu Dahai replied with slight hesitation. Not to mention ten percent profit, he would be satisfied with five percent of the total cost.
The problem was, he couldn't get such projects; his family's equipment and personnel conditions didn't meet the requirements, and his construction team alone wouldn't be enough.
"Then that's it, isn't it? It's our own project, without the kickbacks, quality guarantee deposits, and advance payment issues you mentioned. After completing this project, based on a project cost of four to five million yuan, you could get around 200,000 yuan, with no risk."
Fang Bai said with a laugh. With a project cost of four to five million, using his own construction team, he could save more than half the money.
More importantly, quality could be guaranteed.
Fang Bai continued: "After the first phase is completed, there will be a second phase. Xinghai Company's projects are endless. As the company grows larger, earning 200,000 yuan a year is a very conservative estimate for you.
If you feel like you're losing money and want to go solo, you can also withdraw your shares. I'll buy them back at market value. We can part ways amicably. Only when both sides win can we cooperate long-term.
However, if you join and then engage in internal sabotage or abandoned projects, that's a different situation. I'm stating this upfront; I'm saying the bad things first.
That's the gist of it. Think about it carefully.
Even if we don't partner, if I didn't have a construction team, for some small projects, if you do well, I would still look for you. It's mainly because I trust you more."
Lu Dahai was moved after hearing this; the temptation was too great.
If it was truly as Fang Bai said, he would earn more and wouldn't have to beg people like a dog.
However, he still had some concerns: "Mr. Fang, the main thing is that I'm used to being undisciplined. It would be really hard for me to sit honestly in an office."
Fang Bai laughed heartily: "I have other investments, so I don't have time to manage your private affairs. As long as you don't do anything illegal that harms the company, just get the work done and done well. I'll give you enough autonomy, but there are some company rules that must be followed."
"Thank you for your trust, Mr. Fang. I am willing to join and will persuade my brothers to join as well. By the way, how will their salaries be calculated?" Lu Dahai no longer hesitated. To refuse now would be ungrateful.
Fang Bai had already given him what he could, helping him get rich and valuing him.
In other words, there were plenty of contractors who wanted to cling to a big boss but couldn't find a way.
"No less than their current income, at least reaching industry standards. Xinghai Company also has other benefits, and we definitely won't let employees suffer. You can ask my shopping mall employees about their salaries and benefits, and you'll know I'm not fooling you.
As for specific salaries, you and the other partners can set the standards for my review later." Fang Bai currently plans to form a construction team of about a hundred people, with each contractor responsible for about thirty workers.
"Okay, Boss, then I'll go back and tell them the news." Lu Dahai looked excited, wanting to start working immediately.
"Hmm, go ahead. After you finish your current projects, my projects will also start, so don't take on any more orders.
In a few days, Xinghai Construction Engineering Company will be established. I'll call you then, and you can bring your documents."
Lu Dahai respectfully nodded and exited the office, then quickly rode off on his motorcycle.