Chapter 33: A Money Tree in Your Head

Though Li Xian attended university away from his hometown, he lived in Bangye County until high school and had a deep understanding of the local situation.

Marriage customs in the forest area were notorious for being troublesome throughout the region. 

Before he traveled back in time, Li Xian had attended the wedding of a childhood friend. During that wedding, he learned that the groom had paid a staggering thirty thousand yuan in dowries alone. This did not include the cost of the house, the car, or gold and diamond jewelry. It was said that the total expenses for the wedding amounted to over one hundred twenty thousand yuan.

Such extravagance made the unmarried Li Xian shake his head in disbelief. But what was even more terrifying was that this was just the norm in the forest area, not an isolated case.

Even in 2018, the average income in the forest area was less than fifty thousand yuan a year. The cost of marrying off a son could almost empty out a family's lifetime savings.

At that time, there was a classic saying in the forest area: "Smashing the old man's bones to extract marrow oil" when referring to a son's marriage. It was common for a son to marry, depleting the family's savings by tens of thousands, while the father was left with debts of the same amount.

Ironically, young people from the Bangye Forestry Bureau were also infamous for their "three highs" in marriage—high dowries, high debts, and high divorce rates. Additionally, there was one more high: a high number of civil cases due to property disputes after divorce.

Although the marriage customs in the forest area had not yet reached the peak level of the later era, they were already quite terrible.

The forest area's relatively closed environment made it a breeding ground for vanity and comparison. This can be seen from Wang Feng's previous demand for a new house.

Currently, the standard configuration for a newlywed in the forest area was two large brick houses. However, this was just the basic requirement. According to current trends, nearly every family marrying off a daughter would require the groom to own at least three acres of farmland and a certain amount of dowry.

The dowry amount was quite variable; if the groom's family was wealthy, it could be as much as ten thousand yuan or as little as five thousand. For families with average conditions, it was at least two to three thousand yuan.

In short, it depended on the market.

Thus, even in the present age, every newlywed young couple was among the richest, highest spenders, and most prone to comparison in the forest.

Li Xian, who believed he did not have the power to change this custom, decided to use it to make money.

After learning about the unsold tiles yesterday, he had set his sights on this opportunity. 

He initially thought that after instructing Wang Feng to help him promote the tiles, it would take a few days to see results. Since he had nothing else to do, Li Xian prepared to borrow the forest area's camera to photograph the model house and create large promotional photos for advertising.

However, before he could borrow the camera, young couples from the forest area began arriving one after another.

Faced with Li Xian's price of seven yuan per square meter, many found it expensive. But Li Xian keenly noticed that it was mostly the grooms who complained about the price, while the brides, who either tried to please the groom or used local connections to haggle, were visibly unhappy.

The results were clear.

In the next two days, Li Xian received twelve new house wall renovation orders, all at the price of seven yuan per square meter! 

Among these twelve orders, almost all were finalized by the brides.

Honestly, Li Xian was very confident in this business. However, he never expected it to be so popular. He admitted he had underestimated the spending power of the young people of this era.

This sudden influx of twelve orders disrupted his original plan. With so many orders coming in at once, Wang Qinghe and his six brothers, along with a few tile workers, were simply not enough.

Li Xian had Wang Qinghe look for young people with poor family conditions and little farmland in the forest area. At the same time, he borrowed the camera from the forestry bureau, urgently photographed the model house's "effect pictures," and developed them.

After these tasks, he immediately rushed to the forestry bureau.

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**At the Tile Factory**

Yang Hongshan had attended a meeting at the commercial bureau in the past few days. The bureau had been dissatisfied with the tile factory's performance for some time. During this meeting, Wang Wenqing, the head of the bureau, revealed plans to shut down or transfer some loss-making enterprises. This left Yang Hongshan extremely worried.

Upon returning to the factory, he immediately called a factory-wide meeting to explain the current difficulties: unsold inventory, halted production, and the looming risk of factory closure.

During the meeting, he spoke with great earnestness and emotion.

However, the effect was as negligible as a sow's fart.

The factory workers continued their usual behavior—being late, leaving early, and even absenting themselves—while still knitting sweaters, eating seeds, and chatting.

At this moment, Li Xian, who had been absent for three days, showed up.

When Li Xian requested nine hundred boxes of bathroom tiles and six hundred boxes of mosaics, totaling fifteen hundred boxes of tiles, Yang Hongshan was stunned.

"Young man, say that again. How many tiles do you want?"

Li Xian, helpless, had to repeat his request.

Fearing that Li Xian might be deceiving him, Yang Hongshan grabbed his hand, "What about the money? When will it be settled?"

Li Xian immediately pulled out a wad of cash from his sports jacket pocket, "Now!"

Seeing the stack of money, Yang Hongshan was ecstatic. "Young man! You're really something! Oh, right, what's your name again?"

Li Xian was too exasperated to comment.

Seriously,

You haven't even remembered my name?

How careless can you be with this business!

"Yes, yes, Li Xian, right?!" Yang Hongshan slapped his forehead, excitedly grabbing Li Xian's hand, "Li Xian, tell me, how did you manage to sell all those tiles?"

With the contract in hand, Li Xian was not afraid of the factory going back on its word. He directly explained how he used the renovated model house to target newlywed couples for precise marketing.

Hearing Li Xian's full plan, Yang Hongshan's expression was very complex.

The factory had tried selling tiles to the forest area before, but each attempt had yielded very little. The distributor's response was that tiles were not popular in the forest area, with houses even having cement floors—there was no market for them.

Even Yang Hongshan himself had visited several times, and the situation was indeed as the distributor described.

Who would have thought of putting tiles on the exterior walls to create patterns? Who would have thought of leveraging the newlyweds' tendency to compare?

At that moment, a new window opened in his world. He realized that many problems were merely due to a lack of creative thinking. Much of the loss was because of insufficient imagination.

"Li Xian, this method can be replicated, right?" Yang Hongshan grabbed Li Xian's hand, sincerely asking.

Li Xian nodded, "Yes. My next step is to expand the team and then promote in several nearby forest areas. Your inventory should sell out quickly."

Yang Hongshan was excited, pacing back and forth in the factory manager's office as if making a huge decision. Finally, he stood in front of Li Xian again.

"Good kid! I really want to open up your head and see if there's a money tree growing inside! The bureau is planning to close or privatize the tile factory. I'm thinking of taking over the factory. I'll give you a twenty percent discount on the cost of this batch of tiles, and I'll still give you that ten thousand yuan bonus. After all this, you come work for me as the deputy factory manager. What do you say?!"