Chapter Seventy-Nine: Like Picking Up Something for Free

"You could be holding it and I wouldn't notice. I'll step out first; you change into these clothes and let me see." Hong Tao darted into his aunt’s room, glanced at the two pairs of trousers and a shirt lying on the bed, and then stepped back out.

"Alright, you can come in now!" After a moment, just as Hong Tao finished preparing food for the crickets, his aunt’s voice called from inside, this time only from within the room—she didn’t dare open the door.

"Hey, Aunt, you’ve got quite the skill! Come here, give me a turn… Hmm… The hips and thighs could still be slimmer—you want to see the outline of your underwear for the full effect." Hong Tao entered his aunt’s room and was immediately dazzled. His aunt was now wearing a pair of indigo flared pants, the waist and thighs tailored close to the body, then opening dramatically from the knees down, just like a morning glory in bloom.

People say clothes make the person, just as gold makes the Buddha; it’s absolutely true. Normally his aunt looked quite ordinary, but with these flared pants, she suddenly seemed tall and elegant. Still, Hong Tao wasn’t fully satisfied—the crotch and thigh areas weren’t tight enough. This kind of pants needed to be so fitted that you couldn’t squat in them; if you tried, they’d become split-crotch pants.

"Hey! Where are you reaching? Skinnier? If they’re any tighter, I couldn’t wear them!" His aunt batted away Hong Tao’s hand as he reached for her thigh, her face flushed red. Girls at this time were still very conservative—holding hands with a male classmate was already scandalous.

"Come on, it’s not you who’ll wear them. Few who like these trousers are doing manual labor. Just follow my advice: adjust the pattern, make the legs even wider—at least half a yard across. The pants should be an inch longer, must cover the shoes entirely, even trail on the ground." Hong Tao withdrew his mischievous hand; he genuinely had no intention of taking advantage.

"I wouldn’t dare wear these out. How could I show myself dressed like this?" Wearing the pants made his aunt feel as exposed as if she were naked—she couldn’t even stand up straight.

"Hey, we’re not wearing them ourselves; we’re selling them. Stand up straight, let me see the shirt." Hong Tao stepped back, eyeing the batwing top she wore.

"I cut everything according to your patterns—is this how the sleeves are supposed to look?" His aunt, summoning her courage, stood straight and stretched out her arms, showing off the batwing shape.

"Yes, that’s right. But the fabric is a bit stiff, doesn’t drape well. And did you lengthen the shirt? It can’t be this long—if the shirt covers the hips, the effect of the skinny pants is lost. The top should be short, just past the waist." Hong Tao was pleased with her craftsmanship, but dissatisfied with her design choices—she’d lengthened the shirt.

"Alright, I understand. Now get out, I need to change!" His aunt had reached her limit, even with only her nephew present. Listening to Hong Tao talk so freely about hips and thighs made her blush as she pushed him out.

"Hey! That’s burning bridges! I haven’t finished—your waistband is too high. These pants shouldn't sit at the waist, but at the hips…" Before Hong Tao could finish, his aunt shoved him out and locked the door with a click.

"Ah… I forgot something: clothes aren’t enough. Without a model to showcase them, the effect won’t be the same!" Suddenly, Hong Tao realized the problem. Once the tailor shop opened, his aunt and cousin definitely wouldn’t have the nerve to wear these flashy clothes outside as advertisement. He’d need a bold girl, unafraid of gossip, to be the model—but who could he ask?

In this era, let alone female models, even male models were impossible to find. 'Model' itself was a derogatory term; if you told the neighbors you were a model, you might as well say you were a prostitute—it saved them the trouble of imagining worse. This wasn’t a trivial issue; it was a matter of reputation. Once accused of improper conduct, your job, life, even marriage would be seriously affected.

"Hong Tao, what are you mumbling about in the kitchen? Oh, what’s that smell? Who’s boiling herbal medicine, who’s sick?" Hong Tao was pondering the model dilemma with his hands behind his back when his uncle entered from the yard. He was about to head into the main house, but seeing Hong Tao in the kitchen, he joined him there instead.

"No one’s sick—I’m cooking for the crickets. Is that a business license in your hand?" Hong Tao replied casually, then suddenly noticed the familiar white cardboard tube in his uncle’s hand.

"Heh heh heh… It is the business license. I’d planned to tease you, but how did you guess?" His uncle was a bit disappointed; he’d prepared a speech all the way home, but never got to use it.

"Aunt! Come out! Your license is here! If you don’t come, I’ll take it away!" Hong Tao grabbed it, opened it, and sure enough, it was a business license—though not a corporate one, but for an individual proprietorship.

"Coming! Give it to me, you’re not allowed to take it!" His aunt must have just changed her shirt, not yet the pants, as she rushed out of her room and snatched the license from Hong Tao’s hands, examining it word by word.

"Yu Mei, what kind of pants are you wearing? They look awful—the legs are like brooms. Did Hong Tao teach you this?" Her uncle immediately noticed the flared pants and couldn’t help but frown and grimace, despite trying to hold back.

"Hong Tao says it’s the latest trend on TV—in 'Chasing Dreams' and 'The Man from Atlantis.' Mom… our license is here!" Her aunt had no time to be shy, shouting as she ran to the main house. They say daughters are a mother’s little jacket—nothing could be truer. The first person she thought to show was her grandmother.

"Uncle, you really work efficiently! With this, can we open for business now?" Hong Tao wasn’t sure about the rules in this era, so he checked with his uncle.

"Yes, this afternoon I’ll take her to the commerce office, meet the local administrator, and then it’ll be fine." His uncle replied cheerfully.

"No need to trouble you—let Aunt go herself. These will be her affairs from now on; she and Cousin need to learn gradually." Hong Tao felt his aunt was too naive, too inexperienced, and needed to get out and practice.

"I’ll take her to get familiar with the place, mainly because we need to set the management fee. If your aunt goes alone, she won’t manage it. If they set it too high, we’ll be paying more than we should. I have to go—I know them well." His uncle explained his reason for going in person.

"Oh, right, the management fee. Then you should go. After lunch, let’s check out the shop—I haven’t been inside yet." Hong Tao’s interest was piqued; after all, this was a big family event, and he wanted to be involved from the start.

"Alright, after lunch we’ll take your grandmother and go together! She’s the real owner—the license is in her name. She needs to know where her shop is, haha!" His uncle was delighted, not just for his aunt but also for his own daughters.

Outside the east wall of Yonghe Temple Street, south of the main gate, there would one day be a shop selling Buddhist items. But in the early 1980s, it was an industrial arts factory run by the street committee, specializing in cloisonné enamelware. A row of street-facing bungalows, with workshops up front and storerooms in back. In his previous life, Hong Tao used to cause trouble here, making a hook from bamboo and wire to sneak through the iron gate and steal scrap copper from the waste pile. He’d sell it at the scrap yard—this stuff was valuable. Scrap iron fetched only a few cents per pound, but scrap copper—divided into brass and red copper—was used by the enamel factory, and the best red copper sold for over thirty cents a pound!

Now, though, Hong Tao no longer cared for the eighty cents or so, nor did he need to steal. The two corner rooms on the street now belonged to the family. Opening the back window looked out on the factory yard—the waste pile was right under their noses.

The two rooms faced east and west, had a double spring-loaded wooden door and a large window. Each room was about thirty square meters, with high ceilings at least three and a half meters, and even had a ceiling fan.

"These are worth at least half a million a year!" Hong Tao looked around the spacious rooms, sighing with emotion. In this era, street-facing properties were worthless; no one wanted to live there. But by the twenty-first century, with Yonghe Temple’s incense booming, all the nearby storefronts became astronomically expensive, mainly selling items for burning incense and worship. A ten-square-meter shop could rent for over a hundred thousand a year.

"What half a million?" His uncle was startled—such a sum was unheard of in those days.

"Oh, not money—I meant fifty square meters." Hong Tao realized he’d slipped and quickly corrected himself.

"More than that… at least sixty square meters, no mistake!" His uncle, being a bricklayer, didn’t need a tape measure; a walk around the room was enough for him to estimate the area accurately.

"Did you sign a contract with the office for this property? For how many years?" Hong Tao suddenly thought of a crucial issue.

"What contract?" His uncle was puzzled.

"A lease contract! What if the office stops renting to us and takes the property back?" Hong Tao’s eyes nearly popped.

"Take it back? Why would they do that? Director Zhou already assured me we could use it freely—utilities are free too!" His uncle still didn’t grasp Hong Tao’s meaning; even with a business mind, in this closed era he had no concept of contracts.