Chapter 172: This Feeling Is Absolutely Wonderful

In recent days, Li Xian had been communicating with Yan Shilin solely over the phone to avoid any suspicion.

Now that the investment and promotion matters were settled and involved further operational issues, he needed to meet with Yan Shilin in person.

It was quite a surprise for Li Xian to see the little trickster again after more than ten days.

Previously, apart from refining her style to resemble the rich wives from Hong Kong movies, he mainly instructed her to maintain a high-profile and aloof demeanor.

In his impression, a woman who was reserved and rarely spoke her mind seemed more fitting of a wealthy image than one who was talkative and adept at social maneuvering.

Actually, the aloof persona was mainly to avoid exposing Yan Shilin's background as a little ruffian who frequently used slang like "damn" and "useless" in her speech.

So, in the early days of their arrival in the mainland, Li Xian was quite worried.

But in just a few days, when he saw Yan Shilin again, he found that the little trickster now had an aura of natural grace.

Although she had dropped her elegant attire for a simple tracksuit to meet Li Xian, her casual command of the restaurant staff while ordering—despite only choosing a few simple dishes like caramelized sweet potatoes, two side dishes, and two bottles of beer—made the waitstaff particularly nervous.

"Oh dear, my stomach can't handle any more rich food these days," Yan Shilin complained with a pained expression, rubbing her belly as the waiter turned to leave with the menu.

Looking at the straight-backed Yan Shilin, who naturally crossed her right leg over her left under the table while wearing her sportswear, Li Xian couldn't help but smile.

After all, anyone who was pampered by leaders every day and could casually donate a million to build a Hope Primary School would see a change in demeanor.

The current Yan Shilin reminded Li Xian of the character Dan Jie, a sanitation worker from Feng Xiaogang's poorly received film *Private Customization*.

In the film, Dan Jie spent a day experiencing the life of a rich person at the Dream Fulfillment Company, then chose to return to a simple life.

Li Xian had walked out of the cinema quietly at that point.

How could a sanitation worker, who spent a day imagining spending a hundred billion and extinguishing half the lights in the Forbidden City just to see how much property she owned, ever go back to her previous life?

So when Dan Jie willingly gave up her illusory glory to return to reality, Li Xian had criticized the film's creators for being completely unrealistic.

Now, seeing Yan Shilin's transformation, Li Xian felt this was what life was truly like.

Once you've tasted fine food, you can't go back to eating raw meat.

Once you've worn silk, you can't go back to coarse cloth.

Once you're accustomed to sleeping with a beautiful model, you can't go back to dealing with a less fortunate partner.

Once you've used high-quality products, you don't want to return to low-quality alternatives.

This is the reality.

The ancients summarized it as: "It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality."

The first shareholders of the proud and mighty America even included this in the Declaration of Independence: "The Creator has endowed people with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It's not a bad thing; this is how human society progresses.

Ignoring Yan Shilin's repeated questions about why he was smiling, Li Xian waved his hand and explained the future arrangements.

He had already contacted Hong Kong and instructed Fan Zengjin and Guan Zehua to set out, expecting them to arrive the day after tomorrow. Once they arrived, they could immediately start Hengyuan Trading, inject the 12 million yuan they had prepared into the company, and then proceed with acquiring the Honghua Factory.

Next, Hengyuan Trading would acquire the Sanitary Napkin Division of New North, merging the business parts that had already been planned into Hengyuan.

Then they would integrate the Honghua Factory and launch the first generation of winged sanitary napkins that had already been designed.

Yan Shilin didn't understand these details and Li Xian didn't plan to involve her in these tasks. He only wanted to explain everything to her so that she would be able to act as a prominent figure and not come across as too stiff when interacting with local leaders in the future.

Yan Shilin took the arrangement seriously and pulled out a notebook to jot down the key points Li Xian mentioned.

Seeing this detail, Li Xian couldn't help but smile.

...

The Honghua Sanitary Napkin Factory was not in severe financial trouble like Sina or Beilin when they were acquired.

Honghua Factory was one of the few domestic menstrual product manufacturers, facing a blue ocean market, so it was doing fairly well, though not highly profitable.

Taking advantage of Yan Shilin's current popularity in Bincheng, Li Xian instructed the division to reform the Honghua Factory.

Personnel-wise, the government took the lead in reducing the factory's 900-plus employees to 400 and cutting the management team from 53 to 4, directly halving the factory's labor costs.

In terms of products, while retaining the Honghua brand's original production, the newly prepared first-generation winged sanitary napkins, using wood pulp and fluff pulp as the main absorbent materials, were put into production.

The use of wood pulp and fluff pulp was mainly due to these materials allowing for resource sharing with New North, being supplied directly from Sina Paper's pulping base. Additionally, compared to the pure cotton pulp currently on the market, the wood pulp and fluff pulp mixture had higher performance when absorbing larger volumes of blood.

This was the only technological and resource advantage Li Xian could rely on aside from the imitable little wings!

While the Honghua Factory underwent vigorous reform, Li Xian finished his family affairs and headed to Beijing.

Before the army moved, supplies went ahead.

Having tasted the sweetness of advertising and now accustomed to its high returns, Li Xian had developed a bad habit:

A bad habit of feeling uncomfortable without advertising...

However, this time, he didn't want to engage in small-scale promotions like public service ads or provincial TV ads.

After completing the acquisition of Honghua Factory, he still had over 3 million left.

He wanted to do something big.

...

In 1993, Beijing had begun to show signs of prosperity, but it was nothing compared to two decades later. Though not as glamorous, it had its own unique charm.

In front of Beijing North Station.

There were many pedestrians on the street.

The colors were distinctly divided—either the antique style of old Beijing or the brightly colored, somewhat surrealistic seven-colored flowers and Rubik's cubes.

Electric poles that Li Xian had never seen before dominated the streets, while the air was filled with the sound of pigeons and a dusty scent reminiscent of a long-awaited rainfall—pure dust, without any PM2.5.

The traffic was bustling on the streets, but unlike the BBA-filled traffic jams of twenty years later, it was orderly—orderly and not congested.

The big billboards on the side of the road featured slogans like "Serve the People" alongside the young entrepreneur idol Shi Yuzhu from that era. Hmm, the giant was now building skyscrapers. Not the infamous *Journey* or the even worse *Journey 2*.

Although the weather was already hot in May, traffic police were still dressed in spring uniforms with white tops and blue bottoms, resembling the white cat detective from the *Black Cat Detective* cartoon from afar.

Amid the traditional and somewhat outdated scene, large and small public buses, summer cars, and Santanas, along with an abundance of motorcycles and bicycles, coexisted.

Seeing the lively three-wheeled vehicles running under the watchful eyes of traffic police, and the three-wheeler drivers showing no fear of the officers, Li Xian couldn't help but chuckle.

This feeling is absolutely wonderful!