Chapter 77: No Need to Pick a Day When Today Will Do
“Then why wait for another day? If Secretary Wang and Director Liang are both free at noon, let’s have a quick drink together,” Xiao Liang said lightly, settling onto the sofa by the window in Wang Xingmin’s office. “Otherwise, once I head back to Xijiang for work, I might not make it back for half a month—and Director Liang will end up missing me for another half a month.”
He spoke casually as he went over the past month’s sales work in Xijiang and outlined his plans moving forward.
“Mmm,” Wang Xingmin nodded approvingly. “Your ideas are solid. The Xiao Yujun case is complicated, but that doesn’t mean everything else has to grind to a halt.”
Before the case was fully resolved, no one could clearly determine how much was left of Nanting Lake Juice Factory’s assets. That meant there was no way to push forward equity transfers or asset-based restructuring.
But contracting out part of the business operations—or having individuals from within the factory branch out independently and then cooperate with the factory—would face far fewer restrictions.
The broader national climate at the time also encouraged bold steps and economic vitality.
Now that Wang Xingmin considered both Gu Peijun and Xiao Liang to be his own people, there was no way he would obstruct them.
“You’ve already taken unpaid leave, and Nanting Lake Juice Factory is a village-run enterprise,” Wang Xingmin said. “As long as whatever decisions they make are legal and compliant, the township will respect the decisions of the Nanting Village committees. That said, I do have one request.”
“Go ahead, Secretary Wang,” Xiao Liang replied.
“Yunshe doesn’t have many proper enterprises to begin with, and the county is now urging townships to focus on economic development,” Wang Xingmin said. “Can your new company be set up here in Yunshe?”
Xiao Liang had mentioned the company was registered in his own name. Wang Xingmin assumed that since Gu Peijun had to handle both village affairs and serve as factory director, he couldn’t openly invest—but still saw the company as belonging to “your group.”
Xiao Liang didn’t bother correcting him.
“The factory’s only accountant is currently in Xijiang, so for convenience, the company will be registered there,” Xiao Liang explained. “But actual operations will definitely be based in Yunshe. Once preparations are further along, we’ll report back to you and Director Liang. We’re also planning to find an office space in town.”
Originally, aside from registration in Xijiang, Xiao Liang hadn’t planned to place the company’s operational base in Yunshe.
But after Yuan Wenhai’s attitude yesterday—and the straightforward support from Wang Xingmin and Liang Chaobin today—it was clear that Gu Peijun’s work over the past month had been effective. That changed Xiao Liang’s thinking.
Yunshe might be a township, but it was only eleven or twelve kilometers from Dongzhou city—not remote at all. The distance was comparable to that between the city center and its development zone, and there were buses running morning and evening.
More importantly, while the juice factory as a production base couldn’t be relocated, the sales team Xiao Liang planned to build would be much larger than originally expected.
With limited funds in the early stages, he needed to cut costs wherever possible—and Yunshe was a practical choice.
Setting up headquarters in the city would be more convenient and make hiring easier, but rent, staffing costs, and countless hidden expenses—fire safety, security management, and more—would skyrocket.
The business environment in 1994 was nothing like what it would be decades later. It wasn’t as simple as renting a space and running operations smoothly.
Otherwise, someone like Xiao Yujun wouldn’t have been able to dominate the scene for so long.
And Dongzhou had far more than just one Xiao Yujun.
“You still need a separate office in town?” Wang Xingmin asked, slightly surprised.
“In the current market environment, focusing solely on production isn’t enough—you have to hustle for business,” Xiao Liang said, feigning frustration. “Once the new company is established, we’ll likely recruit quite a large number of sales staff.”
The juice factory already had a three-story office building by Nanting Lake. Conditions were basic, but it could easily hold a hundred employees.
The problem was that it would blur the lines.
Whether the new company and the juice factory were truly separate entities wouldn’t be determined solely by registration or ownership. If their operations were mixed, things could get murky.
Better to keep the operations physically separate, even if it meant higher costs.
Hearing that the new company wouldn’t be sharing space with the factory, Wang Xingmin thought for a moment before speaking.
“The Cultural Center building has been up for two or three years now, and we’ve never managed to fill it,” he said. “I think it would suit your company perfectly. Director Liang can speak to Station Chief Qian—he’ll give you a favorable rent.”
The Cultural Center building stood directly across from the township police station. It faced the main road to the south, bordered Meiwou Old Street to the east, and overlooked the Yanxi River to the west.
It was the largest standalone building constructed in Yunshe in recent years—a five-story structure with over three thousand square meters of floor space.
The first three floors were the largest. Aside from public cultural and recreational rooms on the third floor, the southern halves of the first and second floors were rented out for businesses like billiard halls and video parlors. The northern halves were allocated to the township guesthouse, which had been contracted out privately for dining and lodging.
Nearby stood the supply and marketing cooperative, the materials station, the credit union, and the local branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank.
If the township government compound was Yunshe’s political center, the Cultural Center area was its economic, commercial, and entertainment hub.
The fourth and fifth floors were smaller—about eight hundred square meters in total—and currently served as office space for the Cultural Center staff.
But with only six or seven employees, the space was largely empty.
Among all the township’s available properties, only the upper floors of the Cultural Center could accommodate a sizable workforce. Other locations were either too old or too cramped.
The Cultural Center had been a major investment for Yunshe. Although it was a public facility with no strict requirement to generate profit, the financial strain on the township had grown severe.
Several township-owned enterprises had seen their performance plummet in recent years, while government expenditures remained high.
Now that the Xiao Yujun case had temporarily weakened figures like Fan Chunjiang and Zhou Jianqi, Wang Xingmin finally had room to maneuver—and he was eager to explore new revenue sources.
Prices had been rising steadily over the past two years. Cutting expenses wasn’t an option anymore; everything cost more.
Even with government allocations, the township struggled to pay the salaries of nearly a thousand teachers and public employees.
If Xiao Liang’s company set up its operations in Yunshe—even if it was registered in Xijiang—it would still count as a local enterprise in practical terms.
And for the township’s annual report, that alone would be a bright new highlight.
