I'm back in 1990

Chapter 95: Marathon-like Increase

With a head full of worries, Huang Xiaochuan returned to school.

Not long ago, Wu Duo found an old blackboard from somewhere, bought a small bucket of black paint and repainted it. After it dried, he hung it on the wall near the dormitory entrance.

The table above records the types and quantities of stamps and philatelic items purchased by the six people in the dormitory. The following table shows the weekly price fluctuations, allowing people to visually and intuitively see the upward trend of these stamps and philatelic items.

The group had been waiting for Huang Xiaochuan in the dormitory for a while; this was their weekly routine after joining the stamp trading group.

After Huang Xiaochuan entered, he handed the newspaper to Wu Duo, who had been waiting for a long time. Wu Duo took the newspaper and copied today's market price onto the blackboard.

JP stamps and low-quality miniature sheets have seen little price increase, while the prices of premium JP stamps have been steadily rising.

This made Hao Zhi feel incredibly arrogant; he was the most smug person in the entire dormitory.

"Look, look! Look at my eye for quality. All the stamps I picked are going up in value, while yours are no match."

Huang Xiaochuan was preoccupied with his own thoughts and didn't have time to pay attention to him.

However, some people couldn't stand Hao Zhidu's smugness.

Ding Yi rolled his eyes at Hao Zhidu: "It's just like a marathon. This is only the beginning. Some athletes have strong explosive power and sprint ahead at the start. Others have good endurance and endless energy, and these are the athletes who often win the championship."

Ding used a marathon as a metaphor for the rise in stamp prices, and you have to admit, it's quite accurate!

Since most of the other people in the dorm bought Japanese DVDs and low-quality miniature sheets, they overwhelmingly supported Ding Yi's analogy.

Zhang Gaolei was the first to agree with Ding Yi's point of view: "That's right, Lao Ding's analogy is quite appropriate. After all, it's just the beginning, and the best is yet to come."

"Don't rush. You won't see much in a week or two. As Xiao Chuan said, the key is to look at the long term."

"Alright, alright, making a table is just to record the process. We mainly want to see the result." As the class monitor, Wu Duo mainly tried to mediate.

Hao Zhidu felt a little bored when he saw that his choice was not accepted by everyone, but he was still somewhat dissatisfied and felt a surge of anger.

After they finished arguing, they realized that the cafeteria's opening time had already passed by five minutes.

Zhang Gaolei was in a panic, repeatedly shouting, "Hurry, hurry, get to the cafeteria! If we're late, we'll only get soup!"

Of the group, Zhang Gaolei disliked rice the most. He preferred noodles, steamed buns, dumplings, noodles, and flatbreads, but he couldn't get used to rice, saying it wasn't filling enough.

The canteens at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics generally offer relatively small quantities of noodles, with rice as the main staple and noodles as a supplement. The university also has a significant number of students from northern China, which means that noodles are always in short supply. If you go late, steamed buns and other similar items may be sold out.

Huang Xiaochuan had witnessed the appetite of northerners before. They could eat four large steamed buns in one meal. You should know that a steamed bun in the school cafeteria weighs two ounces. Their appetite was simply unbeatable.

Seeing that Huang Xiaochuan was still sitting there in a daze, Ding Yi patted him on the shoulder.

"What's wrong? You seem completely out of it since you got back. Did something happen?"

Ding Yi's pat woke Huang Xiaochuan up, and he quickly replied, "It's nothing, I was just thinking about something."

After being slapped by Ding Yi, Huang Xiaochuan suddenly understood. What's there to worry about? There's always a way out! Who cares! We'll deal with it when the time comes. Can a living person let themselves die from holding in their pee?

Ding Yi handed Huang Xiaochuan's rice bowl to him: "Hurry up and go, or we'll really have to drink soup."

Huang Xiaochuan joked with Ding Yi, "Drinking soup is good too, it's diuretic!"

This amused Ding Yi: "Then you must drink more, because Chen Zhe is going to suffer tonight, he'll dream of rain in the middle of the night."

Huang Xiaochuan could easily understand that Ding Yi was teasing him about wetting the bed at night, and he pushed him aside in annoyance.

Chen Zhe, one of the parties involved, didn't understand what Ding Yi meant at first and looked confused.

I was still thinking to myself, how could he know in advance what I would dream about last night?

Fortunately, Huang Xiaochuan quickly cleared up his confusion: "Old Ding said I'd wet the bed if I drank too much soup, and since you're in the lower bunk, you'll get soaked!"

Chen Zhe then realized that there were really a lot of twists and turns in the lives of people from Shanghai.

Just as Huang Xiaochuan, Ding Yi, and Chen Zhe were about to reach the cafeteria entrance, they saw Zhang Gaolei emerge from the cafeteria looking dejected, with Wu Duo and Hao Zhi following closely behind.

It seemed the cafeteria really only had soup left, so Huang Xiaochuan suggested, "Looks like there's not much food left in the cafeteria. Let's go! I know a restaurant near the school called Frontier Restaurant. I heard their braised pork with noodles and diced fried noodles are really good. Shall we try it?"

Upon hearing that there would be noodles to eat, Zhang Gaolei immediately perked up again.

"Really?"

"Why would I gain a pound of weight if I lied to you? Let's go!"

At this moment, Ding Yi followed Huang Xiaochuan away, not forgetting to remind him, "Their lamb skewers are also delicious. How about we get a couple later? I haven't had lamb in ages, I'm really craving it!"

After saying that, he pretended to be nostalgic and even wiped his drool in a pretentious manner.

Wu Duo and Hao Zhi had both heard that Huang Xiaochuan, that rich scoundrel, had treated them to braised pork noodles. Just thinking about all that meat made their mouths water.

The six of them walked for about ten minutes and arrived at the Frontier Restaurant. Knowing that their roommates had big appetites, they ordered a total of six servings of braised pork noodles, three servings of stir-fried noodles with diced meat, and twelve skewers of lamb, two skewers per person.

The lamb skewers here are especially large, over 20 centimeters long, with ten pieces of meat on each skewer, each about the size of a pigeon egg, making for a very generous portion.

Ding Yi exclaimed in surprise, "Holy crap, no way? Ordered so much?"

Huang Xiaochuan gave him an unpleasant look: "Can't you shut your mouth? Just eat your food. You're being coy when you have food to eat. You're such a jerk."

Zhang Gaolei and Hao Zhi both love noodles. As soon as the noodles were served, the two couldn't wait to dig in. They slurped them up, and Zhang Gaolei even popped the pre-peeled garlic cloves into his mouth one by one.

According to him, eating noodles without garlic diminishes the flavor by half.

This meal seems to suit Chen Zhe's taste quite well, but this kid is the most refined when he eats.

Seeing that he was eating slowly and methodically, Ding couldn't help but feel anxious for him.

"Chen Zhe, you have to eat noodles like this to really enjoy them. Look at you, eating noodles like you're feeding a cat. Come on, learn to eat big bites with me. It's written in Water Margin, 'A true hero eats meat in big bites and drinks wine from big bowls.' Today, we won't drink wine; we'll eat meat in big bites and noodles with big mouths."

The meal filled everyone's stomachs. Hao Zhi even burped contentedly while holding his belly, and didn't forget to ask the restaurant for a bowl of noodle soup.

He said this is called "using the original soup to digest the original food".

Nine plates of noodles plus twelve skewers of lamb were completely devoured by six people. The plates were emptied, and the kitchen staff must have been overjoyed to see them.

On the way back to school, the group walked in pairs, with Ding Yi and Huang Xiaochuan walking side by side.

Ding asked him, "Xiao Chuan, how do you plan to spend your money if you make any in the future?"

Huang Xiaochuan didn't answer, but instead asked, "How do you plan to spend it?"

"Me? If I lose money, I'll learn from it and figure out why I lost. With more experience, I won't lose money again if I encounter something like this!"

Just as Huang Xiaochuan was about to look at him with new respect and praise him, the kid changed the subject: "Of course, it would be best if I could make a lot of money from it, then many of my dreams could come true."

"For example, I can use some of this money to buy stocks on the stock exchange. Money sitting in my hands is just worthless paper; I need to make it work for me. Also, I can buy some things I like, like a Walkman or cassette tapes. I also want to buy a camera; I've had my eye on one for a while, but it's too expensive—a Nikon SLR costs several thousand!"

Huang Xiaochuan thought Ding Yi was quite interesting. Not only did he know how to make money, he also liked to enjoy life. In trendy terms, he was good at making money and good at spending it.