I'm back in 1990

Chapter 1175: Low prices are not a way out, they are a dead end.

"Brother!" The little girl saw Huang Zeji again and rushed towards her brother with joy.

Huang Zeji picked her up and spun her around in the air, making the little girl giggle: "Did you miss your brother?"

The little girl grinned and nodded vigorously: "Yes!"

"Where do you think?"

The little girl pointed to her stomach: "Here!"

Huang Zeji smiled and guided her hand to her head: "You should think here. Your stomach is where you're hungry, and your head is where you're thinking. Got it?"

The little girl tilted her head and thought for a moment, then stubbornly pointed to her stomach: "But I feel like it's my stomach that's thinking!"

Huang Zeji was quite exasperated by the little girl's logic.

Yu Xiang followed closely behind and entered the room, carrying a bag in her hand.

Huang Zeji immediately greeted her, "Mom!"

"You're back! Did you have your soup?" Yu Xiang was delighted to see her son return and handed the bag she was carrying to the nanny who came to greet her.

Huang Zeji, while holding the little girl, replied, "I just drank it."

"This soup needs to be drunk every day to be effective. Once you go to school, I'll have someone deliver it to you every day." Yu Xiang touched her son's face, frowning, "Look at your face, you've lost a lot of weight."

"No, please!" Huang Zeji was somewhat resistant when he heard that his mother wanted to arrange for someone to deliver soup to the school every day.

"You absolutely have to. Look at your energy level now. Do you think I don't know you've been staying up all night every day? Let me tell you, if you continue like this, you won't be allowed to live at school anymore. You'll have to come home every night, and I'll arrange a driver to pick you up and drop you off." Yu Xiang felt sorry for her son.

"Alright then!" Seeing his mother use her trump card of making him a day student, Huang Zeji immediately gave in.

"Ouch..." Yu Xiang stumbled, but luckily she grabbed the armrest of the sofa to avoid falling. After regaining her balance, she looked closely and was furious!

The unfortunate man had been messing around with the fish tank all day, making a complete mess of the living room. A flexible hose lay across her feet, running from the kitchen all the way through the living room to the huge fish tank. Scattered around the hose were many tools: scissors, tweezers, aquatic plant clips, several unopened packets of aquatic plant soil, and a pair of dripping wet rubber gloves.

"Hey Huang, are you ever going to stop? You've been messing around with this broken fish tank for ages! Look at the mess you've made of the house!" Yu Xiang, who was already a bit of a germaphobe, was furious at the sight of the mess.

She has very high standards for the cleanliness of the house, but for some reason, her husband became obsessed with aquascaping and bought a lot of equipment and fish tanks, making the house look like a construction site.

Seeing that his mother was about to lash out at his father, Huang Zeji wisely picked up his sister and went upstairs, trying to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

Seeing that the lady of the house was angry, the housekeepers quickly came to the living room to clean up.

Huang Xiaochuan walked over to Yu Xiang and said with an embarrassed smile, "Alright, alright, it's not worth getting angry over something like this." He originally wanted to put his arm around her shoulder, but when he remembered that his wife was a germaphobe, he quickly pulled his hand back.

He pointed to the fish tank and showed off to Yu Xiang, saying, "In a month or so, when the aquatic plants grow, I guarantee you'll love it. This aquarium is based on a piece from the ADA competition; once it's finished, it'll be absolutely stunning."

Yu Xiang sneered, "I believe you when you say other things, but I really don't believe this. Look at all the flowers and plants you bought, especially those orchids. Are any of them still alive?"

And those bonsai you bought—the Podocarpus macrophyllus and the Serissa japonica—are they all in the trash now, right? With your terrible gardening skills, you should just give up!

Huang Xiaochuan's face immediately fell. His wife wasn't like this before! Why is she like this now? She's so sharp-tongued.

"Never mind, I've been busy all day and haven't even had a proper cup of tea," Huang Xiaochuan thought, and went to the tea room on the first floor.

Seeing the man head towards the tea room, Yu Xiang reminded him, "Drink less tea. Dinner is coming soon, and drinking tea on an empty stomach is bad for your stomach."

"knew!"

For two lifetimes, he had always been busy. With the establishment of the family office, he was able to extricate himself from many trivial matters and decided to slow down and enjoy life. As a result, he became the idle person in his family's eyes.

After arriving at the tea room, while the water was boiling, he turned on his tablet and, as usual, browsed a few economics forums and financial columns.

This is his daily, unwavering habit; no matter how busy he is, he always makes time to read the articles and opinions of his peers.

There are quite a few hot topics today. In 2015, China's economy was at a delicate turning point.

Since the beginning of the year, various economic indicators have not been very good, and expectations for GDP growth have become increasingly strong.

The stock market is booming, with the Shanghai Composite Index rising sharply from over 3000 points at the beginning of the year to around 4500 points. Keep in mind that it's only May!

In other words, in less than five months, the stock market rose by 1500 points, and everyone on the street was talking about stocks.

Huang Xiaochuan had privately discussed with a few friends that a stock market bubble had formed, the leverage was too high, and problems would inevitably arise sooner or later. However, he couldn't say this publicly, given his position.

He casually flipped through a few of the latest articles by economists, but there was nothing particularly new or interesting.

Just then, the water boiled, and as he was about to put down his tablet to make tea, a push notification popped up with the eye-catching title: "Low Price is the Only Truth".

The article argues that the most effective way for China's manufacturing industry to gain a foothold is through low prices, citing China's complete industrial chain and low-cost labor as advantages. Instead of spending heavily on R&D and brand building, the article suggests focusing on reducing costs and using price wars to crush competitors.

They also said that consumers aren't stupid, of course they'll buy whatever's cheapest, low price is king, and cost-effectiveness is the only truth.

The article also gave several examples, saying that a certain small appliance brand became number one in the industry by relying on low prices, and that a certain clothing export company won a large number of orders by relying on small profits and quick turnover.

The text is filled with approval and endorsement of this low-price dumping.

Moreover, there were actually many people in the comments section praising it, and some even mocking those who wanted to engage in high-end manufacturing as being unrealistic and overly ambitious.

Huang Xiaochuan was furious at the sight, and the flames of anger shot up into his heart.

In his view, people who write such articles and those who make such messy comments in the comments section are either stupid or malicious, or both.

He was already in a bad mood because his wife had just scolded him, and now he was even more upset.

The water had been boiling for ages, still steaming, but he had no interest in making tea, so he casually turned off the power, got up, went to his study, and turned on his computer.

He is going to write an article refuting this argument.

When he went upstairs, he had already thought of the title: "Low prices are not the way out, they are a dead end."