Chapter 0168: Ambitious Father Zhao

In fact, Zhao Fusheng had never doubted his father's ability. He could even be sure that if not for the burden of himself and his mother, his father might have, upon demobilization back then, dragged a few comrades to run off to Hong Kong to do something big.

This was something his father said before his death in his previous life. Only then did Zhao Fusheng learn that his old man had been a reconnaissance soldier, a man who had truly seen blood.

In other words, if not for his grandfather's obstruction back then, plus his mother's and his own ties, his father might have accidentally become a member of the Big Circle Gang, perhaps another Zhang Ziqiang.

This thought grew even stronger when he went with Li Yuan to Hanjia Lane to repay a debt and saw his father leading a few comrades out of a van.

At that time, Zhao Fusheng even felt that his father must have many secrets he didn't know about.

As a child, he never understood why his parents could get up so early. Only after growing up did he realize that what woke them was not an alarm clock, but life and responsibility.

"Dad, what exactly is the problem?" Zhao Fusheng asked his father seriously.

He hadn't paid attention to the matter of choosing a location for the mall before. He thought his father had bought that warehouse according to plan, but now he said he had rented a house. What exactly went wrong in between?

Father Zhao hesitated for a moment and said in a low voice, "It's like this..."

After a long while, Zhao Fusheng looked at his father in bewilderment: "Dad, are you saying you leased a floor of Hualian Department Store?"

Hualian Department Store was the tallest building in Ninghai at the time, fifteen stories high, just two stories taller than the Department Store. In his memory, even a dozen years later, with Ninghai's rapid development, Hualian Department Store remained one of the busiest areas in the city's commercial center.

Of course, now it had only been built for less than two months and was known as Ninghai's number one unfinished project.

That's right, it was a joke.

Speaking of Hualian Department Store, it was originally introduced by a certain city leader. But when the mall was mostly built, the developer ran away, and that city leader was jailed for economic issues. Finally, a local enterprise took over and completed the building, but later it was found that no one was willing to move in.

After all, Ninghai's economic development level was not high. With the Department Store as a comprehensive mall already there, plus the newly developed commercial city full of various small commodities, Hualian Department Store, in many people's eyes, was neither here nor there—doing small business there was completely pointless.

Just then, Father Zhao got the news. He scraped together some money from comrades and friends, added the family's entire savings, plus the money Zhao Fusheng had given him, and somehow managed to sign the rental contract for the first floor of Hualian Department Store.

Of course, due to limited funds, Father Zhao only got a two-year lease.

But the contract clearly stated that if he renewed, Father Zhao had the priority right to renew.

"At the time, I just thought that since it's in the city center, business couldn't be too bad. Even if I opened a supermarket, at least the customer traffic would be higher..."

Father Zhao looked at his son cautiously. Of course, he wouldn't tell Zhao Fusheng that deep down he also wanted to do something big. After all, his son, only a junior in college, was already bringing home tens of thousands of yuan. As a father, he couldn't let his son outshine him, could he?

"Dad, you're awesome! I'm in awe!" Zhao Fusheng said to Father Zhao sincerely.

"Huh?"

Chen Hai and Hou Liangping were both confused. They had always heard that Old Zhao's son was capable; Aunt Zhao had mentioned more than once that at least seventy or eighty thousand of the money for leasing the shopping mall this time came from what Zhao Fusheng had earned.

But now, why was this kid speaking so incoherently?

After saying that, Zhao Fusheng looked at Chen Hai and the others: "Uncle Chen, Uncle Hou, did you also invest money?"

The two nodded. Chen Hai replied, "I invested twenty thousand, and your Uncle Hou invested fifteen thousand."

Zhao's father explained to Zhao Fusheng, "There were over a dozen of us in total, and we pooled together six hundred thousand."

Six hundred thousand?

Zhao Fusheng was quite surprised; he hadn't expected his father's old comrades to have raised so much money.

Seeming to notice Zhao Fusheng's confusion, Chen Hai explained, "We chipped in three hundred thousand, and your family put up three hundred thousand."

Pfft!

Zhao Fusheng nearly choked on a mouthful of water. He stared wide-eyed at his father. If he remembered correctly, all the money his family had together was only a little over a hundred thousand. Where did the rest come from?

Zhao's father lowered his head and hesitated before saying, "Part of it came from your grandfather, and some from relatives. I also borrowed quite a bit from old colleagues..."

He paused, then smiled bitterly: "I heard that Uncle Jiang also tried to borrow money, but because everyone heard that I hadn't lent him any, they all refused. Now it turns out I've borrowed it all."

The first thing that flashed through Zhao Fusheng's mind was the word 'reincarnation.'

In his previous life, Jiang He had borrowed money from various households through old colleagues and friends to speculate in stocks, but in the end, he lost everything and became a target of public criticism.

Now, because of Zhao Fusheng's interference, Jiang He hadn't been able to borrow money from the Zhao family, and naturally, he hadn't borrowed from other colleagues either.

Instead, the money had gone to Zhao's father.

Taking a deep breath, Zhao Fusheng asked seriously, "Dad, so you're saying that the money you have now isn't enough for the renovation, right?"

"That's right. Out of the six hundred thousand, five hundred thousand is for the rent, and the remaining one hundred thousand is the deposit," Zhao's father explained. "Uncle Chen and I can handle the renovation work, but the problem is, as you said, for a supermarket, we can't expect the suppliers to pay for the shelves and such, can we?"

Zhao Fusheng finally understood. No wonder his parents and their comrades all looked so worried. They had stretched themselves too thin and were now caught in a dilemma.

With that in mind, he smiled and waved his hand: "It's fine. We'll just do what I said earlier—attract investment."

Attract investment?

The adults clearly didn't understand what Zhao Fusheng meant.

Zhao Fusheng smiled slightly: "Attracting merchants is simple. Like I said before, our supermarket requires that all goods be fresh. Merchants who join need to pay a franchise fee and a security deposit, and we also need to receive goods before payment. As for attracting investment, that's even simpler. First, we can use the lease contract to get a loan from the bank. After all, with a supermarket this big, we can provide nearly a thousand jobs for the city. Just based on that, I think Dad could even get a commendation banner. Additionally, we can absorb idle investments from the public. Let's set up a three-tier equity system and get the framework up first."

His words left Zhao's father, Chen Hai, and the others dumbfounded. They were completely lost. The earlier part was fine, but the last point—what Zhao Fusheng said—the adults simply couldn't understand...