Chapter 45: One Can Never Earn Money Beyond Their Understanding

Since the 1980s, when the island nation signed the Plaza Accord, the appreciation of the Japanese yen fueled the final economic frenzy of the islanders.

What followed was the "lost decade," or rather, two or three decades.

The island nation's economy slumped indefinitely, economic globalization advanced, and China joined the WTO.

Countless amounts of hot money and investment poured into the fertile soil of China's five-thousand-year-old civilization.

Especially after the 2008 Olympics, China's entire economy seemed to hit the accelerator. Propelled by the entire world, it skyrocketed all the way to the throne of the world's second-largest GDP.

During this period, goodness knows how many people made their fortunes, transforming from poverty-stricken nobodies into multi-millionaires.

On television and in the media, cases of achieving wealth through such "diligent labor" were praised to the heavens.

The lives of the people at the bottom also improved; at least not everyone had to face the yellow earth with their backs to the sky, relying entirely on the mercy of the heavens for their annual meals.

Countless young men and women who hadn't even finished junior high or high school strapped simple backpacks to their backs and rushed off to factories in the coastal regions of Lingnan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang to work and earn money.

Among the peers who grew up with Huo Qitai and Xue Xiaoshan in the village, quite a few had already been working for three or four years, earning over a hundred thousand yuan to send back home to build houses.

Working in electronics and textile factories meant fighting for glory on the assembly line. Through month-long overtime, making five or six thousand yuan was not a problem. Occasionally, by pushing themselves to the limit, making ten thousand yuan could become a talking point for boasting over the next few years.

The wave of migration for work grew increasingly intense in the village. An aunt next door even urged her daughter, an exemplary student in the second year of junior high, to drop out of school and go to Lingnan to sell real estate.

That was because a cousin of hers had reportedly made fifty thousand yuan in a single month selling houses in Dongguan.

The mismatch between spiritual civilization and the level of material development,

coupled with the growing prevalence of money worship,

caused the notion that education is useless to run rampant.

Huo Qitai even remembered when he was admitted to the First High School and his family hosted a banquet in the village; his parents were ridiculed and mocked by a bunch of uncultured locals.

They were flaunting and rejoicing that their children couldn't study and could head out to work early, sending back twenty to thirty thousand yuan every year to fund their smoking, drinking, and card-playing, and even laying foundations to build brand-new brick-and-tile houses.

Meanwhile, the Huo parents still had to shoulder several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan in tuition and living expenses every year. To raise a college student, they had emptied their family savings and borrowed a significant amount of money from relatives.

In their view, getting into college meant studying for another four years, and tuition and living expenses in a big city would total at least over a hundred thousand yuan over those four years.

By the time of graduation, what kind of good job could one possibly find?

The college-educated managers at several enterprises in the town only made four to five thousand yuan a month—not even close to what their own children made on the coastal assembly lines.

Huo Qitai remembered very clearly that at that graduation banquet, his father went from being all smiles at the beginning to drinking heavily in silence afterward.

Perhaps, through countless arduous days of carrying timber, his father had been holding on to a single breath: to raise a genuine college student for the Huo family.

Perhaps, through countless sleepless nights, his father would use his rudimentary elementary-school math to calculate repeatedly...

How much money had been spent on his son's education so far, how much more would be needed once he actually entered university, whether he himself could possibly earn that money, and if he couldn't, how much he would need to borrow, who to ask, who would lend it to him, and how he would pay it back in the future...

All of these things were beyond the comprehension of the youthful Huo Qitai.

In fact, there were many times when he, too, would lie awake through countless sleepless nights, frequently complaining about having been born into the wrong circumstances, blaming his parents for not trying hard enough or striving enough. Why couldn't they be like Chang Lu's father, starting a business, becoming a big boss?

Or at the very least, why couldn't they learn from Xue Xiaogou, the father of Xue Xiaoshan—who also came from a humble, mud-footed background, yet managed to rely on his own skills to keep his wife and children well-fed and warmly clothed?

Yet Huo Qitai now, having weathered the baptism of time, returned still a youth at heart.

He understood all too well the helplessness and dilemmas of a middle-aged man, and could read every single sigh and subtle facial expression of his father's even more profoundly.

Just like right now, upon hearing that his son had earned tens of millions, Huo Changsheng truly could not hold it together anymore.

His status as the head of the household and the economic pillar of the family suffered a devastating blow of apocalyptic proportions.

"Xiaotai, th-this must be fake, right? Are you colluding with someone to play a prank, messing with your mom and dad?"

Huo Changsheng swallowed hard, forcing a smile onto his face and pretending to remain calm, but his heart was pounding uncontrollably.

Xue Xiaoshan, standing nearby, looked immensely proud and raised his chin. "Uncle Huo, that was the voice of Boss Chang, the richest man in our city. It's not like you've never heard it before, right? We've been hanging out with Eldest Miss Chang for so many years; she wouldn't joke about something like this."

"Th-then it's real! Xiaotai, you made over ten million in just a single day? Goodness gracious. Mom feels like she's dreaming, why is my head spinning?"

Mother Huo also felt her throat go dry, having never experienced such a sensation before.

"With so much money, Xiaotai, how can a child like you hold onto so much? What if you spend it recklessly? Shouldn't you let Dad..."

After confirming that it was true, Huo Changsheng was both pleasantly surprised and terrified. Reaching this point, he quickly waved his hand and said, "No, that won't do either! That won't do! Dad has never seen that much money in his life either. If I kept it, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to sleep a wink every night."

"Old Huo, you country bumpkin, the cash in your pocket has never exceeded five hundred yuan, yet you want to manage your son's tens of millions?"

Mother Huo sneered at her flustered husband, but immediately fell into a similar state of worry.

She looked at her calm son with considerable confusion and asked:

"Xiaotai, your father and I were scared half to death hearing about this much money. Why do you act as if it's no big deal?

Do you even realize how much ten million is? Just how many people could that support? Our family couldn't spend that much money in a lifetime."

It was only after letting his parents' emotions calm down slightly that Huo Qitai began to explain:

"Mom, Dad, this sum of money is indeed a lot for us right now. Ordinary people might not earn this much in a lifetime, but if we look across the city, the province, the country, or even the entire world—

to those billionaires and entrepreneurs whose wealth rivals nations, ten million is merely a drop in the ocean.

I am working hard to make money so that you won't have to work so hard.

I am also working hard to make money to realize some of my ideals and visions.

I know you're afraid that if I suddenly make this much money, I'll become arrogant, turn to drinking, gambling, and carousing, ruin my studies, and ultimately wreck my life.

Indeed, a person cannot earn money that exceeds their level of cognitive awareness. Many poor people who suddenly strike it rich—relying on demolition compensation, luck, or a temporary market trend—make money.

Yet this is not wealth they are truly capable of mastering. Instead, it turns them into slaves to money, blinding them until, ultimately, all that money flows back into society due to their insufficient understanding.

So, please rest assured, no matter how much money I make—whether it's one hundred million, one billion, or even tens or hundreds of billions—I will never become a slave to money.

Wealth is merely a tool I use to bring my inner visions to life; I am the one who controls it, and I will never be controlled by it..."