Chapter 126: Success Need Not Be Mine

Page 1 of 3

“Uncle Zhang, sorry to trouble you. I’ll be heading back now.”

In the end, Zhong Di still did not ask to buy Uncle Zhang’s jujube tree.

Leaving aside the fact that digging it up would damage the tree, there was no need for him to own everything he valued.

“What trouble is that? You sounded pretty busy, so you’d better get back!”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries with Uncle Zhang, Zhong Di left his jujube orchard.

Besides chatting about everyday matters, he also told Uncle Zhang that he was preparing to post a technical article on the Xuan Voice platform, then sent him his Xuan Voice account through Little Letter.

Uncle Zhang was visibly excited by the news. Clearly, he had a special affection for growing jujube trees.

With this final addition, Zhong Di’s technical article was now complete in every respect.

It ran to more than eight thousand words, which was considered quite long for a technical article. In truth, Zhong Di could have explained everything clearly in three thousand words if he had wanted to.

But that would have created a fatal problem: it would not have been grounded in everyday reality.

That was precisely why Zhong Di had written eight thousand scattered words. He had used many plain, easily understood expressions to explain a great deal of specialized information.

For instance, when discussing the use of urea during the leaf-expansion period, he first explained its function in ordinary language, then gave a familiar example from daily life, and finally introduced the proper dosage and how to adjust it according to actual circumstances.

Even so, those eight thousand words had been written under Zhong Di’s careful control. Had he gone into any greater detail, the article would probably have approached ten thousand words.

After checking it once more, Zhong Di sent the manuscript to his older sister through Little Letter and asked her to publish it on the platform using the farm’s business account.

To the outside world, the account represented only the farm; it carried no personal mark of Zhong Di’s. Even this article bore no byline.

He had never expected the article to bring him anything—fame, money, status, or the like.

He only hoped it might help the jujube growers at large.

As the saying went, “It is not necessary that I be the one to reap the fruits of success.”

As long as the jujube growers benefited, who cared who received the credit?

Page 2 of 3

The only uncertainty was whether doing so would ultimately be a good thing or a bad one. Gray jujube prices had been falling year after year because production kept increasing. If yields continued to rise at this rate, would it lead to even lower prices?

The thought had barely occurred to him before Zhong Di dismissed it. The low price of gray jujubes was simply the result of market forces. It was not as though withholding technical knowledge would prevent production from increasing.

Once that matter was settled, Zhong Di began doing all sorts of odd jobs. More accurately, he began loafing around.

Everything in the orchard was progressing in an orderly fashion. Put plainly, there was little for him to do. There were jobs to be found if he went looking, but none of them were particularly important.

Nanyuan Flowers, Kulun City.

Yu Yunfei lay quietly on his bed, glancing at his phone from time to time. Then he would go over to the window and stare at a pot of mosquito-repelling herbs, his brow tightly furrowed.

As the first person in Kulun City to establish a formal flower market, he had enjoyed the first wave of benefits brought by the city’s development and had smoothly joined the small elite at the top of society.

Nanyuan Flower Market made him money every moment of every day. Cash was constantly flowing into his pockets, making him the envy of countless people.

He was one of those rare people who seemed to make money simply by lying down. Yet under such circumstances, Yu Yunfei had done something that left everyone speechless.

He had established a local flower-production base in Kulun City.

Everyone knew that to break through in the flower-growing industry, one needed not only extensive distribution channels but also sufficiently low costs.

And cost was the decisive factor. If you could not bring your expenses down, how could you compete with anyone else?

In the northwest, temperature was a fatal weakness. Flower production often required more than a simple greenhouse; it called for heated greenhouses, even smart greenhouses.

Unlike the central regions, where many flowers could be grown outdoors, this inevitably increased expenses.

To make matters worse, labor costs in the northwest were also higher than in the interior, while assembly-line production techniques were less advanced. All of this made flower production considerably more difficult.

That was why, despite the vast territory of the northwest, its flower-market industry had never developed particularly well.

The sparse population was one factor, but the real problem was that costs could not be brought down.

In most people’s view, would it not have been better to remain a platform provider? The middlemen made money from the customers, while he made money from the middlemen. Was that not the perfect arrangement?

But only Yu Yunfei knew the difficulties hidden beneath the surface.

Page 3 of 3

He had always been a man who prepared for danger in times of safety. In recent years, the income brought in by Nanyuan Flowers had already begun to slow. This year, it had even declined. The drop might not appear significant, but in reality, it was extremely dangerous.

If things continued this way, the business would begin spending more than it earned within a few years. That day would come soon. Although Nanyuan Flowers had made him a great deal of money over the years, he was still far from achieving true financial freedom.

Apart from certain securities investments, regular fund contributions, and rental properties, his passive income consisted solely of Nanyuan Flowers. If Nanyuan Flowers collapsed, he would face enormous problems.

Many people might not understand. They might think, “Even if your annual income is no longer growing, you still earn plenty, don’t you?”

In reality, income that does not grow is equivalent to falling behind, and it happens quickly.

Put simply, suppose I earned one million a year ten years ago and still earn one million a year today. In real terms, that one million today might be worth only five hundred thousand of what it was worth ten years ago—or even less.

Many people never take currency depreciation and inflation into account.

That was why Yu Yunfei had gone against everyone’s advice and insisted on establishing a flower-production base.

Only after the project was up and running did he realize that it seemed to have no real competitive advantage at all. But the money had already been poured in, and there was no turning back. The cost of shutting down the production base would be far greater than the cost of keeping it running.

Many people might not understand this. It involved a simple matter of valuation. Suppose my project, while still operating, has a market value of twenty million. If it goes bankrupt and its various assets are sold off, perhaps only one million can be recovered. As long as I keep it running, I may lose only a little over a hundred thousand each year. But the moment I shut it down, I lose nearly twenty million at once.

That was essentially the situation. It was also why so many factories would rather continue losing money than shut down. Only when their cash flow was completely severed would they consider declaring bankruptcy.

Over this matter, Yu Yunfei was under tremendous pressure. The investors’ money had already been brought in, and the costs had already been sunk. He had to find a breakthrough—a genuine core advantage.

Then, one day, a relative brought him a pot of mosquito-repelling herbs, and all at once, Yu Yunfei found the opening he had been searching for.

His production base also grew perennial plants such as mosquito-repelling herbs, so he knew exactly what they were like. They could never have such an outstanding effect. To put it bluntly, it was all a gimmick.

But why was this particular plant so effective?

The only explanation was that it was a matter of variety. He had no idea where that farm had obtained the strain. It might have been produced through hybridization, or it might have been a naturally mutated variety.