Chapter 17: The Generous Young Master

The basement of the villa in the northern suburbs had been renovated into a small, sixty-square-meter private screening room. While its equipment and ambience could not compare to a professional cinema, it was more than sufficient for family viewings, providing an excellent movie-watching experience.

After becoming thoroughly exasperated by Peach, Huang Guolun decided that out of sight was out of mind, and dragged his elder brother down to the basement to review some film footage.

“Don’t be so quick to get upset with the child,” said Huang Guokun, praising Peach with a smile as they headed downstairs. “Our Peach is adorable. When he grows up, he’ll surely amount to more than either of us.”

“What’s there to amount to? I’ll consider myself lucky if he doesn’t wind up creating a catastrophe,” retorted Huang Guolun. As Peach’s father, he spent every day with the boy and knew him better than anyone. This rascal—if you only interacted with him occasionally, you’d be charmed by his quick wit and inevitably come to like him. But living with Peach day in and day out, constantly on guard against the trouble he might cause, that cleverness became far less endearing.

It was love that bred such worry; Huang Guolun loved Peach more than anyone, and so he fretted over his son’s future more than anyone.

Lighting a thick cigar, Huang Guokun chuckled, “You worry too much. What child isn’t mischievous? I was even naughtier than him when I was little. If our father didn’t give me a good thrashing every three days, I’d be up on the roof pulling off tiles. And did I ever cause any real disasters? Once Peach is older and understands things better, he’ll be fine.”

“But you spoil him too much! Even Mom, who’s supposed to be an intellectual, keeps letting him eat all that nonsense. Look how fat he’s getting.”

“Fat? Peach is at his cutest right now—just the right amount of chubbiness. He’s the new generation’s Shaowen Hao! It’s only you, keeping such a tight rein, not letting him into show business. If he joined the industry, I guarantee he’d be more popular than Shaowen Hao ever was! There’d be countless fans doting on him to death.”

Huang Guolun cast a disdainful glance at his brother. “Could you stop mimicking the way he talks? It’s childish.”

“Haha! But isn’t he adorable?” Huang Guokun let out a hearty laugh.

Huang Guolun shot him a warning look. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll never let him into show business. He’s already not like other kids. If he enters your world, he can forget about any semblance of a normal childhood.”

“Our Peach was never meant to be ordinary—he’s a genius! A born star! Only a life in the spotlight would allow him to fully realize his talents. Of all the child stars I’ve seen in this industry, none are as clever and charming as Peach. The way you’re raising him only stifles his gifts and spirit. If he were my son, I’d have made him famous by now.”

Huang Guokun never tired of lobbying Huang Guolun to let Peach venture into film and television. Huang Guolun, however, was long since weary of this argument and replied irritably, “Enough boasting. Why don’t you focus on making your own company’s newcomers famous first?”

“Hey, you say that, but our company’s latest project is bound to make Marco-Polo a hit!”

Marco-Polo was the name of a duo under Huang Guokun’s company—Marco, the woman, and Roybo, the man—both his juniors from the Beijing Film Academy. After signing them, he’d formed them into a group called “Marco-Polo” and devoted considerable effort into promoting them, though they had yet to find real success.

This time, the company’s new online movie, “Biochemical Dictatorship,” starred this duo as the leads.

Placing a hand over his chest, Huang Guokun declared solemnly to his brother, “This film is my heart and soul for the latter half of the year. I’m putting everything into it—I must make a comeback!”

“I’ve been hearing you say that for years. Every time you shoot a film, it’s supposed to be your comeback.”

“This time is different—this time, it’s for real! No more talk—once you see the footage, you’ll understand.”

Huang Guokun’s inexplicable confidence over every new film project was something Huang Guolun had long grown accustomed to.

Huang Guolun didn’t know much about the internal workings of his brother’s company, but he was, in fact, its largest shareholder, owning fifty percent. Legally, Kunlun Cultural Media LLC was a fifty-fifty partnership between the brothers. Still, Huang Guolun never involved himself in its affairs, nor did he care for the industry. The company was entirely under Huang Guokun’s management.

By the end of this year, Kunlun Culture would mark its seventh anniversary. Over those seven years, its performance had remained consistent—losing money annually and kept afloat only by their father’s relentless investments. The reason their father poured so much money into this money-burning venture wasn’t primarily to let Huang Guokun chase his dreams—though that was part of it—but, more importantly, to use the company as a vessel for dispersing the family’s wealth and warding off misfortune.

The Huang family had built its fortune on the cemetery and mausoleum business—a unique trade, quite different from typical enterprises that earn “clear” money. Selling graves earns “dark” money. Helping the deceased rest in peace is, in itself, an act of accruing hidden virtue. But as the market for cemeteries was reformed and prices soared, the business changed character, becoming a way to profit off the dead—a highly inauspicious trade, believed to shorten one’s lifespan. Superstitious as it sounds, everyone in the industry believed it deeply.

Huang Senior, an intellectual by background, had initially scoffed at such beliefs. But events that later befell the family left him unable to dismiss their significance.

Unlike other families, the Huangs had never been especially fertile. In Huang Han’s father’s generation—Peach’s great-grandfather—there had only been one male heir. In Huang Han’s generation, there were just two sons. Huang Han’s elder brother, Hao, had been three years his senior.

It was Hao who had first ventured into the cemetery business; Huang Han had not been involved. Unlike bookish Huang Han, Hao had been a worker before resigning to become an entrepreneur—one of Beijing’s first. In June 1988, as the Xidan Shopping Arcade opened, Hao rented a booth to sell clothes, and his business took off. By 1992 or 1993, he was already a millionaire of some renown.

No longer satisfied with wholesaling clothes, Hao wanted to make bigger moves. Seeing friends make fortunes renting land to plant trees on the outskirts, he took a leap and leased a swath of forest near the Ming Tombs to try his hand at forestry. But the venture failed within two years. With his family’s fortune on the line, just as disaster loomed, fate offered Hao a lifeline.

In March 1994, the state issued new guidelines allowing private enterprises, under the supervision of funeral management offices, to cooperate with official departments in running cemeteries. Hao’s leased land near the Ming Tombs was prime real estate for a cemetery. The moment the policy came out, Hao saw his salvation—fate itself was helping him pivot. But lacking connections, he couldn’t get the land rezoned.

At that time, Huang Han was working for the Xicheng Education Bureau—a minor official, but one who could help certain leaders with school placements for their children. Among the people Huang Han knew was someone who could help Hao’s company break into the cemetery business.

So Hao offered Huang Han a thirty percent stake in the company and pleaded with his brother to save him, insisting it had to be done.

Previously, Huang Han was a scholarly type, uninterested in the “filthy” world of commerce, even looking down on it. But seeing Hao’s company on the brink, he had no choice but to step in and help. He took no shares or benefits, helping purely out of brotherly duty.

Thanks to Huang Han’s mediation, Hao’s company successfully entered the cemetery business. In less than two years, Hao became the biggest cemetery owner north of Beijing. As the market reforms deepened, cemetery prices soared, and the company’s assets quickly surpassed a hundred million yuan. Hao was at the height of his success.

It was then that a well-known blind fortune teller from the Ming Tombs region sought Hao out, urging him to renounce the business or face disaster. Hao, at the peak of his life, dismissed her as a crackpot and sent her away with a token sum.

Within a month, Hao died in a car accident.

The shock to the Huang family was immense. Word spread throughout the villages around the Ming Tombs—everyone spoke of the fortune teller’s uncanny accuracy.

Hao had never married or had children; with his passing, his vast business was left to Huang Han. But having lost a son to a business that harmed hidden virtue, the Huang parents forbade Huang Han from continuing in the trade—they did not want to bury another child before their own passing.

Huang Han himself had little enthusiasm for the business and considered donating the entire enterprise. But just then, the fortune teller returned. She told the family they must continue in the cemetery business; otherwise, calamity would befall them all. She said the family had to run this business for forty-nine years to accumulate enough hidden virtue—after that, they could do as they wished, but not before. Hao had only done three years; forty-six remained.

She explained that Hao was doomed by ill-gotten fortune—unable to withstand the luck or the misfortune—and so died before his time. But Huang Han, she said, had such fortune in his fate and had no choice but to accept it. Refusing it would bring even more suffering and endanger the whole family.

The family, shaken by Hao’s fate, dared not ignore her advice. Huang Han reluctantly resigned from the education bureau and took over the northern cemetery business. Because the fortune teller decreed that only a Huang family member could manage the site, all those coveting the land backed down. Even those intent on seizing it ultimately chose to cooperate with the Huangs.

Once Huang Han entered the business, everything prospered—fortune flowed in. But he always remembered the fortune teller’s warning: he must give away money to accumulate hidden virtue. She told him that while wealth was fated for him, the nature of the cemetery trade had changed; selling burial plots now prevented many from resting in peace, which greatly harmed hidden virtue. Therefore, Huang Han had to give away at least half of his profits, whether to charity or to be squandered—it could not be hoarded. Only by dispersing this wealth could his family remain safe.

Heeding her words, Huang Han donated over sixty percent of his profits each year to charity. He anonymously built over nine hundred Hope Schools and made countless anonymous donations to charitable foundations.

Huang Han was not like his brother Hao, who would risk life and limb for money. He did not seek great wealth, only a long life, and hoped to complete the forty-nine-year “destined service” himself so his sons would never have to continue in the trade.

The founding of Kunlun Cultural Media for the Kunlun brothers was also a way for the family to disperse wealth. In Huang Han’s eyes, Huang Guokun was a “wealth-scattering child”—the more money he wasted, the more at ease Huang Han felt.

But it was Huang Guokun himself who, after losing tens of millions for the family, began to hesitate—he was no longer willing to squander money recklessly. He also grew tired of being taken for a “rich fool” by others in the business.

In recent years, Kunlun Culture shifted away from extravagant film investments to smaller-budget online movies, hoping for success through unconventional means.

In truth, neither brother fully agreed with their father’s belief that only by squandering money could they ensure the family’s safety. With over sixty percent of the cemetery company’s profits going to charity, the family’s accumulated virtue was already immense—there was no need to continue wasting money.

They believed their father only indulged this because he was traumatized by Hao’s untimely death. But neither brother was truly inclined to waste money for its own sake.

Huang Guolun, for instance, was not born with the inclination to scatter wealth; even given money, he wouldn’t spend it frivolously. As for Huang Guokun, although he had burned through a fortune in the film industry, he saw it as spending on dreams, not mere money-wasting. If not for his dreams, he would never have spent so freely. After realizing that such spending could not fulfill his dreams, he stopped immediately.

Yet being regarded as the “wealth-scattering child” by their father always irked Huang Guokun. He dreamed of making a comeback, to prove to the world that he could not only spend money, but make it as well!

This time, Kunlun Culture’s online film “Biochemical Dictatorship” was one of the rare big-budget projects since the company had tightened its belt—a total investment of over eight million yuan! In an industry where the average online movie cost only one to two million, this was a staggering figure.

If this film failed, Huang Guokun would be branded a “super fool” in the industry—an object of ridicule among his peers.

Thus, he was determined to succeed. As he said himself, this time, he truly was staking everything on a single battle—he had to make a comeback.