TPW – Chapter 72

“This batch of counterfeits probably isn’t from some small private workshop.”

Among the nine clothing shops on Baiyun Street, six of them had stocked this batch of goods, with inventory two to three times that of Xu Haizhou’s shop.

With such a huge production scale, a small workshop couldn’t possibly handle it. In 1984, it was unlikely that there were such large-scale small operations; it had to be at least a proper, legitimate factory.

That very day, Li Hongjun had someone buy a chiffon dress from the rival shop across the street. When he brought it back and examined it, the craftsmanship was no worse than theirs. The fabric was just the most common chiffon found in the market—nothing difficult to obtain.

For all these vendors to have gotten stock overnight, it was definitely not sourced from another city. That meant the “counterfeit factory” had to be within Lian City.

But since when did the factories in Lian start willingly selling to private vendors?

Watching their customers being poached, Li Hongjun couldn’t sit still. Before closing for the day, he went across the street to find out which factory their goods were coming from.

“Hey, buddy, how come your stuff looks exactly like ours? Where did you get it from?” He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe to get the man’s attention.

“From a factory, of course. Where else would we get it?” Meng Guoan was busy counting money and didn’t even look up.

“A factory?” Li Hongjun thought to himself—Lian was quite far from the Special Economic Zone; how could the style of these skirts have spread so quickly?

He asked again, “A factory in Lian?”

“Yeah.”

Li Hongjun pressed further: “Which factory?”

At that, Meng Guoan suddenly looked up and gave him a once-over. Stuffing a thick wad of bills into his pocket, he lazily stretched and replied, “That’s classified. How could I tell you?”

Li Hongjun: “……”

“What do you mean ‘classified’? I noticed several of your shops restocked overnight. You must’ve all gotten it from the same place. What’s the harm in letting me know too?” he said, a little agitated.

Mentioning that, Meng Guoan’s expression instantly darkened like coal. “What do you mean ‘what’s the harm’? You two already stole all our business. Are we supposed to just starve now?”

With that said, Li Hongjun understood—it turned out these people had long held a grudge against him and Haizhou, and now they were banding together to isolate them.

Putting himself in their shoes, he could understand their reasoning—but that didn’t mean he had to like it!

“Get lost, will you! You copy our clothing designs and won’t even give us the address? That’s messed up!”

“Screw you! So you’re allowed to make money, and we’re not?” Meng Guoan wasn’t scared of him. The two tall men glared at each other, refusing to back down.

They stared each other down for a good while. Seeing he wasn’t getting anything useful, Li Hongjun stormed off angrily.

For two days straight, Meng Guoan and the other “counterfeit vendors” used the gimmick of selling identical clothes for one yuan cheaper than Xu Haizhou’s shop and made a killing.

Looking at the sparse flow of customers in their shop and then at the calm and collected Xu Haizhou, Li Hongjun couldn’t bear it any longer.

Taking advantage of Xu Haizhou going home at noon to restock, he came up with an idea.

No one knew where he got the gong from, but with one heavy strike—CLANG!—the sound was so loud even Yu Fan’s side could hear it.

“Hey—come one, come all, take a look! Check out our genuine clothes! The same Spring Festival Gala edition—authentic! All the other shops are selling fakes!”

“Straight from the capital! Guaranteed authentic! The rest are all knockoffs!”

CLANG CLANG CLANG—CLANG CLANG CLANG—

“Come! Come and see, check out our genuine merchandise! Quality guaranteed! Hey—don’t get fooled by counterfeits, look for the real deal—!”

Sure enough, some customers were drawn over.

“Is it true? From the capital?”

“Absolutely genuine! Ours were the first Spring Festival Gala editions on Baiyun Street—only our shop sells the real ones! The rest are all fakes!”

Li Hongjun spoke with such conviction that the crowd that had gathered at Meng Guoan’s shop immediately swarmed over to theirs.

Meng Guoan was furious and cursed loudly: “Hey, hey, hey—what the hell are you doing? Who advertises like that?!”

He angrily threw a rag over.

Li Hongjun deftly caught it, tossed it to the ground, and banged the gong even harder.

CLANG CLANG CLANG—CLANG CLANG CLANG—

Within minutes, he had enraged everyone—not just Meng Guoan.

“What makes you think your shop is the real deal? Ours is legit too! As legit as it gets!”

“Yeah! Why is your shop the only authentic one? That makes us all counterfeiters?”

“I say you’re the fake one!”

Li Hongjun sneered in disdain: “If you don’t know how to use phrases properly, then don’t. ‘As legit as it gets’—that phrase isn’t even appropriate here!”

“Disgusting! You’re so cheap!” The others cursed him out.

Li Hongjun fired back angrily: “Ha! What do you all know? Business is war—ever heard of ‘all’s fair in war’? Besides, you did copy our designs. If that’s not counterfeiting, then what is? And now you’re making me out to be the villain?”

Hearing this, the other side was indignant: “You’re twisting the truth! The dress the Spring Festival host wore—by that logic, doesn’t that make your shop a counterfeiter too?”

“Pfft! You’re the counterfeit!”

“No, you are!”

“Get lost! You are!”

Both sides argued, each thinking they were in the right, like a classic case of “he said, she said.” There was no settling it.

When the snipe and the clam fight, it’s the fisherman who benefits. The two sides bickered and yelled, and in the end, neither won—what they did do was scare off the customers.

By the time Xu Haizhou came back with more stock, he was completely stunned to see how the day’s earnings had tanked.

“If I remember correctly, before we left, the shop was packed with customers.”

Li Hongjun felt a bit guilty and quickly came over to help him move the goods, rubbing his nose awkwardly.

“Haizhou, how come you don’t seem anxious at all?” After they finished moving the goods, Li Hongjun gulped down more than half a cup of water.

“What’s there to be anxious about?” Xu Haizhou took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. The handkerchief smelled nice—it carried Qiao Lu’s scent.

“Those knockoffs took away so much of our business! Today’s earnings aren’t even half of what we made in a single morning a few days ago. How are you not anxious? At least try to come up with a solution!”

Li Hongjun hadn’t thought much about buying a house before. But ever since the start of the year, after making over ten thousand yuan from hot-selling products, and hearing that Qiao Lu and her husband were planning to buy a home in Nanhu Garden, he too started to consider it.

Although he didn’t even have a girlfriend yet, a house would never be a bad investment. Who knows—maybe a girl would see he lives in Nanhu Garden and throw herself at him.

So, what started as simply trying to make ends meet had turned into a full-blown drive to buy property. Li Hongjun was now fully determined to make money.

He didn’t care about anything else—money-making was all he could see. Anyone who got in his way? “No mercy!”

That’s also why he was getting increasingly desperate, trying all kinds of “crazy tactics.”

He was counting on Xu Haizhou to come up with something, but the guy didn’t seem the least bit concerned—he was even smiling.

“How could all the benefits fall into our lap? We feasted last month. It’s only fair to have a lighter meal this time.”

As the saying goes, “Easy to go from frugal to lavish, hard to go back.” After last month’s explosive profits, the calmer pace this month couldn’t satisfy Li Hongjun.

“How can I go vegetarian? I’m a carnivore!” he roared in frustration.

“This market’s so big, how can just our shop dominate it?” Xu Haizhou chuckled.

Tall trees catch the wind. Extremes beget their opposites. The wisdom passed down by the ancestors still holds true—true happiness lies in contentment.

While slowly sorting through the goods, Xu Haizhou added, “Make what we can, and be content with it. Earning a bit less has its upsides too—at least Qiao Lu won’t be under so much pressure.”

He really knew how to care for his wife. Li Hongjun cursed in his heart—single dogs have no rights!

“Besides, once this wave dies down, we’ll have new styles. What’s the rush?” Xu Haizhou glanced lazily at him and continued tidying up.

Li Hongjun suddenly realized something and slapped his forehead. “Oh right! Sis-in-law has a whole stack of design drafts!”

That was basically a money printer! As long as the designs weren’t all used up, the money would keep rolling in.

Endless, endless flow of cash… so satisfying, so wonderful.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that sister-in-law was a literal “money tree!”

Cling to the big leg, and you’ll get your share of meat!

But just as he was starting to feel happy, Li Hongjun burst out again, “Damn! It still won’t work. Give it ten days to half a month and the copycats will be back. Who can stand that?!”

Xu Haizhou chuckled, “Alright, alright. You can’t become a fat man in one bite.”

Even as he said that, a new plan was already forming in his mind.

Li Hongjun’s “Capital City” marketing method was unexpectedly effective. People these days really bought into it. Just slapping “Capital City” on the label made the dresses seem a class above.

Vendors weren’t to be outdone. One by one, they started copying Li Hongjun’s approach.

Overnight, Baiyun Street became a hub for “Capital City goods.” You had them, I had them, he had them—and everyone claimed theirs were authentic.

If everyone had Capital City goods and they were all “authentic,” then what was the difference?

So, the “Capital City Defense War” gradually evolved into a price war, turning into a chaotic mess.

Xu Haizhou dropped prices by five yuan, and Li Hongjun wanted to go even lower and fight it out with other stores, but Xu Haizhou stopped him.

Li Hongjun thought Xu Haizhou was being too conservative and wasn’t very happy about it.

By the third day of the price war, things were still intense. Li Hongjun shouted his lungs out. Thanks to their location advantage, their business was still one of the best on the street.

Yu Fan’s silk business was slow, so she came by often to hang around Xu Haizhou’s store.

“You again? Don’t you have anything better to do?” Xu Haizhou finally had time to rest after packing the last skirt.

He plopped down comfortably onto a newly bought chair, feeling blissfully at ease.

“Tsk, not like you big shots who are so busy,” Yu Fan smiled as she glanced him over, then entered the store to browse through the clothes. “I heard you guys have been selling skirts like the one Malan wore. Is this it? It does look pretty good. How much?”

As soon as he heard she was here to make a purchase, Li Hongjun perked up.

“Twenty-seven yuan. Since we’re neighbors, I’ll knock off five for you.” He still had the authority to offer small discounts.

“Alright, I’ll take it.” There was no fitting room here, so customers couldn’t try things on.

But Yu Fan didn’t even hold it up for comparison—she just grabbed one off the rack, counted out twenty-two yuan from a wad of bills, and tossed it to him. Li Hongjun caught it happily and stuffed it in his pocket.

Yu Fan grabbed a plastic bag to wrap the clothes herself. These days, plastic bags were considered a luxury. Xu Haizhou’s store offered them for free with a purchase, which was another marketing strategy to attract customers.

“Where’s Xu Haizhou? Didn’t come today?” After buying her dress, Yu Fan didn’t leave but pulled out a stool and sat beside Li Hongjun.

“He’s at home with his wife.” Li Hongjun sighed dramatically. “Well, it’s fine. With him gone, I get a bigger cut of the profits.”

There’s always gain and loss. Sure, Xu Haizhou could stay home with his wife and kid—but he was missing out on money!

That’s how Li Hongjun comforted his lonely, single self.

Seeing his pitiful expression, Yu Fan couldn’t help but laugh.

“What, you’re making at least this much a day now, right?” She patted his arm and held up two fingers.

Li Hongjun raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms proudly. “About that. There were even a few days last month that were better than this.”

Yu Fan was shocked. She quickly calculated in her head—these two guys were making more in a day than she did in a month!

“Seeing how well you’re doing, I’m really tempted.” At this rate, they’d become ten-thousand-yuan earners in no time, right?

“You want to sell clothes too?” Li Hongjun sat up straight, stunned.