Song Xiaogang rummaged through a cabinet and found the slightly worn-out Chinese Newspaper, passing it to Wang Ye.
Looking at the date on the front page, this copy of the Chinese Newspaper was from last month, so it wasn't the latest issue.
It seemed to have been read by numerous people, leaving the entire newspaper battered and tattered.
But that was okay. Wang Ye wasn't looking to read the news, he was trying to find a specific phone number using the newspaper!
He went straight to the advertisements in the last few pages, meticulously examining each one.
Advertising in this newspaper wasn't expensive, it seemed like an ad was only 500 rubles, which is about twenty US dollars.
The best part was that they would continuously run your ad for an entire week!
This was a good bargain, giving you real value for your money.
Of course, the ads here were quite basic. They were only the size of a small block of tofu, with a few simple lines of text.
If you wanted to sell something, hire a translator, or look for a job, you'd put it succinctly.
Wang Ye was searching for a phone card seller named Liu Jun.
In Moscow, the phone cards used by both students studying abroad and Chinese businessmen were similar to the commonly used IP phone cards back home.
Because they needed to frequently make calls to their home country, they couldn't just make regular long-distance calls; it'd be too expensive!
So, someone came up with the idea of this IP phone card, specifically designed for calls to their home country. They were relatively cheap and were very popular among the students studying abroad and the Chinese businessmen.
These phone cards came in different denominations: 20 US dollars, 50 US dollars, 100 US dollars, etc.
Of course, there were also cards with higher values, but those were usually bought by businessmen. The students didn't really need to make that many calls.
......
There were no shortage of people selling phone cards in the advertisement section of the newspaper, but to Wang Ye's disappointment, he didn't find Liu Jun after searching for a while.
In his previous life, he only thought of contacting a phone card seller from the Chinese Newspaper when he realized that he and his classmates always had to rely on student workers in the market whenever they needed to buy phone cards. Coincidentally, the person he contacted was Liu Jun.
The sellers who advertised their phone cards would deliver them to your doorstep, as long as you bought a significant amount!
If only one or two cards of twenty or fifty US dollars were brought, the seller wouldn't be inclined to deliver them. After all, Moscow is a vast city and travelling takes up considerable amounts of time.
Only if you bought cards amounting to a few hundred US dollars would they be willing to deliver.
Normally when students buy cards, they only get one of twenty or fifty US dollars, and hence couldn't avail of the home delivery service.
However, Wang Ye was different. Back then, he bit the bullet, shelled out two thousand US dollars, and bought over a hundred phone cards at wholesale, becoming a "middleman" who earned a profit from the price difference...
Of course, the wholesale price was different from the retail price. He paid two thousand US dollars and got phone cards amounting to two thousand five hundred US dollars from Liu Jun.
After selling for two or three months, he finally managed to sell all his cards, making a total of three hundred US dollars.
Because he wanted to sell his cards faster, he offered many discounts when selling them.
That was the first money Wang Ye ever made in his life…
But this time, Wang Ye certainly wouldn't be playing small like he did in his previous life, he had bigger ambitions!
Unfortunately, Wang Ye had browsed through the newspaper multiple times and couldn't find "Liu Jun's" ad…
That was expected. From what he remembered, Liu Jun was just a part-timer who sold phone cards to make some extra money, so naturally, he didn't advertise in the paper every day.
The money he made probably didn't even cover the cost of advertising.
He decided to set this matter aside for now and pay more attention to it later—there was no need to rush.
......
The news about Wang Ye buying a phone spread quickly among the students who had arrived in the same batch.
Actually, some students had planned to buy phones themselves. But since they had just arrived, they hadn't gotten the chance to do so yet.
Then Wang Ye went ahead and quietly bought one first, drawing the ire of a few female students.
"Hey, Brother Ye, why did you go buy a phone on your own? Why didn't you call us? I wanted to buy one too. I don't care, you have to take me with you to buy a phone tomorrow!"
"Yeah, yeah, Wang Ye, you were wrong to do this. We're all classmates who came here together; we should do things together. We know you're good at Russian, but you have to think about our poor Russian skills. Tomorrow, take us all with you to buy phones."
"Brother Ye, you managed to get this phone for three hundred US dollars? That's not expensive at all. I thought I'd buy one later, but since it's not that expensive, I might as well go tomorrow and get one..."...
A few classmates crowded around in Wang Ye's dorm room, complaining.
Wang Ye could only give them a helpless look. It was not his intention to avoid his classmates and buy the phone on his own.
He bought the phone because he had business to attend to, he hoped to earn some money, and since he thought his classmates didn't urgently need phones, he didn't invite them along.
Now, it seems like he was in the wrong for doing so...
He raised his hand and said with a wry smile, "Okay, okay, it was my fault this time. I forgot to notify everyone. Here's what we'll do, tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, come to my dorm, and I'll take you all to buy phones. It's at the big supermarket, not far from here. Just make sure to have your money ready. And, the phones there vary in price, the cheapest one costs about three hundred US dollars, while the expensive ones might cost a thousand US dollars. So, shop within your means. I personally suggest not to buy the expensive ones, as long as a phone can make calls, it's good enough…"
Wang Ye was thinking for everyone's sake.
Although he's eighteen now and doesn't look much different from the others, just another university freshman, he actually had twenty years of social experience...
Wang Ye knew that making money wasn't easy for his classmates' parents, which is why he suggested not to buy expensive phones for the purpose of showing off or satisfying their vanity.
There wasn't any need, besides, the phones these days were pretty basic and could only make calls and send text messages.
To be honest, they were all essentially identical.
This wasn't like two decades later when the differences between high, middle, and low-end smartphones would become glaringly apparent.
But clearly, not everyone was receptive to Wang Ye's advice, especially the female students…
The next day when Wang Ye led the group to the big supermarket to buy phones, the difference between the male and female students was clear as day.
The male students mainly sought value for money, with most of them choosing the cheaper phones—the Nokia 3310 being their first choice.
However, the female students, all without exception, considered the Nokia 3310 unimpressive, opting instead for pricier and prettier models with most phones costing more than five hundred US dollars...