Chapter 151: The Arrival of the Cousin

Whether or not a reputation can be sustained ultimately depends on the quality of the Kunlun coal stove. On this front, Chen Huajiang had no concerns whatsoever; at the very least, neither the Red Flag Factory nor the Coal Stove Factory’s products were any match for his Kunlun stoves.

What Chen Huajiang found most contemptuous was that half a month had passed, and yet those two factories had shown absolutely no reaction. They had neither followed suit with product iterations nor kept pace with the marketing tactics being employed.

As the Kunlun brand grew, many small kiosks and neighborhood shops began to show interest in acting as distributors. Chen Huajiang offered them a wholesale price of 1.6 yuan, with a retail price ranging from 1.8 to 2 yuan. For every stove sold, the shopkeeper earned a profit of 20 cents. This was significantly better than the 5-cent margin offered by the other factories. Under these circumstances, how could these shopkeepers not help "tout" the Kunlun stoves? They had to do it to make money, and they even went so far as to fiercely disparage the rival products.

A month flew by, the end of the year was drawing near, and the Kunlun coal stove had firmly established a foothold in the Nanming city market, with sales figures steadily climbing. However, the dominant players in the market remained the stoves from the Red Flag and Coal Stove factories. This was largely because, in this era, people were far more price-sensitive than in the future, and also because the production capacity of the Kunlun factory did not yet match that of the other two. Chen Huajiang was already arranging for Liang Long to scout for talent, train new workers, and increase production, while also providing the craftsmen with higher wages and bonuses.

Today, Chen Huajiang met his cousin who had just arrived in the city—Chen Sangou, whose formal name was Chen Huashan. "Sangou" was a childhood nickname; rural folks believed that giving a child a "cheap" or "lowly" name made them easier to raise, as it would supposedly deter the King of Hell from taking them away. Chen Huajiang had been named similarly—there were three cousins in their family: the eldest was Dagou, he was Ergou, and the youngest was Sangou. As for his female cousins, they were Big Duck and Duck Egg.

"I have to ask, how did you manage to get here? Where are Third Uncle and Third Aunt? You didn't come all by yourself, did you?" Chen Huajiang asked, feeling curious. His cousin was only fourteen, still just a boy; he wondered how his aunt and uncle could have felt comfortable letting him travel alone.

Chen Huashan had found his way to the Red Flag Factory. Seeing that the boy was Chen Huajiang’s cousin, Liang Long had settled him in and sent for Chen Huajiang.

"Mom and Dad are busy. Some guy named Laipizi is fighting with us over our land boundary, and Dad can’t just walk away from that. Last time, those people even pushed over our boundary marker," Chen Huashan said, his expression filled with indignation as soon as he saw Chen Huajiang.

The Laipizi family were their neighbors. Because their farmland shared a border, they were constantly bickering over all sorts of trivial matters. This was a common occurrence in the countryside at the time; who had encroached on whose land or who got to irrigate first were the core points of conflict. Usually, these disputes turned into physical confrontations, and the family with more men would often hold the upper hand. This situation wouldn't truly be resolved until the future, when the rural landscape withered and few were left to farm. Back then, however, land represented the core interest of the villagers; no one could afford to back down.

Chen Huajiang’s thoughts drifted. To his cousin, he had only been away from the village for a few years, but to him, those memories felt like they belonged to a lifetime ago. He couldn't even clearly recall the face of Laipizi—it was like a blurred, pixelated image in his mind.

The Laipizi family also shared the surname Chen; their given name was Chen Jianjun. To be precise, most people in Hedong Village were surnamed Chen. During the late Qing Dynasty, it had been known as Chen Family Village, founded by ancestors who had fled the wars at the end of the Song Dynasty. Chen Jianjun had two brothers, making three in total. Unlike the cousin relationship in Chen Huajiang's family, they were biological brothers, which gave them more cohesion.

As soon as he saw Chen Huajiang, Chen Huashan began to vent his frustrations. Laipizi—the nickname for the youngest brother, Chen Jianbing—was the most mischievous of the lot. Because his older brother, Chen Jianjun, had clashed with Chen Huajiang several times and lost, Chen Jianbing was quite afraid of Chen Huajiang and didn't dare to act out in his presence. But after Chen Huajiang moved to the city, Chen Jianbing had no one to keep him in check and naturally began bullying Chen Huashan.

"Alright, alright. I'll go back and have a little 'chat' with them," Chen Huajiang said, ruffling his cousin's hair with a smile.

Hearing this, Chen Huashan nodded vigorously. Perhaps imagining the scene of Chen Huajiang getting revenge for him, he even let out a sly, devious chuckle. Watching him, Chen Huajiang felt speechless—the boy looked incredibly shifty.

In his past life, Chen Huashan had been truly exasperating, constantly pulling off one ridiculous stunt after another. After Chen Huajiang had made his own fortune, he had tried to help his cousin repeatedly, but it was all in vain. One of his most infamous antics involved dropping out of high school, only for their Third Uncle to pull strings to get him into the military. After he returned, they arranged for him to work at a detention center, but within a month, he was caught taking a group of prisoners out to play cards. The scandal was massive; he was fired and spent over a month in jail.

Later, no matter what job Chen Huajiang helped him secure—whether it was about the long hours, the hard labor, or the low pay—he never lasted more than two months in any position. Eventually, Chen Huajiang gave up on him, realizing he was like "mud that couldn't be plastered onto a wall."

Yet, life is full of ironies. In the years before Chen Huajiang traveled back in time, Chen Huashan had actually made a name for himself. When live-streaming became a massive trend, he leveraged his "entrepreneurial" failures and absurd personality to become a well-known internet celebrity. He would attempt to raise bamboo rats, only to end up roasting them one by one on camera, turning a business venture into a cooking show. He tried running a fish pond, where the fish died off in droves, and then tried pig farming, which resulted in a net loss. The netizens eventually dubbed him the "Entrepreneurship Guru."