Chapter 66 Pick up "Haidilao"--Sun Yanan

A few days ago, on a blustery winter night in early 2011, I had a dream. I dreamed of an open-air teahouse in Jiexin Park in Jianyang, Sichuan. Teacher Huang Tieying was sitting next to me wearing his iconic gray peaked cap. Kouzi was enthusiastically chatting about Zhang Yong playing cards and fighting with others in this park, and the table was piled up with peanut shells in front of him.Zhang Yong sat on the side, chatting with each other, interjecting occasionally.With one foot kicking on the small tree trunk in front of him, he took advantage of the momentum and leaned back. The chair under him was tilted, and the two chair legs were lifted up to hang in the air, shaking back and forth carelessly.The afternoon sun fell through the gaps in the leaves and fell on Zhang Yong's face, leaving mottled shadows.

This part of the dream is no stranger, because this scene actually happened 8 months ago. I went to Sichuan, Zhang Yong's hometown, together with Mr. Huang.We sat around the yard of Zhang Yong's Chengdu villa, listening to Zhang Yong's old mother recount the details of her son's growth; It is a completely different version. It talks about the bitterness of creating Haidilao with Zhang Yong and two friends. She couldn't help herself and burst into tears; The reunion and parting with Zhang Yong, the ins and outs; we drove back to Jianyang with Zhang Yong, the place where he first made a fortune, drank mutton soup together in a dirty mutton soup restaurant by the roadside, and listened to his childhood stories. The neighbor’s aunt, who was considered a ten-thousand-dollar household back then, talked about the roast goose soup that was mixed into the hot pot soup; we wore protective clothing and visited the production process of the hot pot bottom material factory in Haidilao. At that time, Zhang Yong was playing basketball nonchalantly in his spacious office; Zhang Yong took us back to Sifang Street where he lived when he was a child, which is now full of dilapidated illegal buildings. Building, I saw him walking through the narrow corridors between buildings with his hands behind his back, occasionally saying hello to passing acquaintances in Sichuan dialect--this man in front of him looked ordinary, like any casual man on the streets of Sichuan. There is no difference; we also came to the original site of the first Haidilao in Jianyang, which has now become a small beauty salon. The girl stared at these uninvited guests inexplicably... I could feel Zhang Yong's relaxed state, as if the fish had returned to the pond where it grew up, and brought us back and deep into his past and present...

From Chengdu to Jianyang, from Sichuan to Beijing, in the past few days, we have visited Zhang Yong’s close relatives, friends, partners, the original shareholders of Haidilao, all senior executives, and managers at all levels of Haidilao , ordinary shop assistants, security guards, drivers... This is a completely different group of people. Most of them are from poor families. They have changed their destiny with their own hands and left their hometowns to live a completely different life in the competitive city.Most of Haidilao's executives are about the same age as me, although they are young, they are all mature and experienced.

Dare to love and hate Yang Xiaoli——When I first met Xiaoli, she was just a newlywed, and now she has been promoted to a mother-to-be. Yuan Huaqiang, a young and mature man, a reckless young man, has now become the head coach of Haidilao's management system. The clever and clever Ms. Lin—the immature girl who came to Haidilao to apply for a job with her cousin's ID card, has now put on her wedding dress and is a new wife. Haidilao, as her natal family, organized her wedding. The reckless and determined Xie Zhanghua - once reckless about the consequences of accidents in the store, has now grown into a capable and steady store manager.

There are also Gou Yiqun, a very small number of highly educated people in the management of Haidilao, Xie Ying, who is simple and sincere, and Yang Bin, who is reserved and thoughtful... In an interview, Zhang Yong once told us not to write Haidilao too well, but to present the most authentic things. Haidilao is not perfect, it is not a myth, but it has an inexplicable charm, people can't help but explore it again and again, and when the answer is finally revealed, they find that everything is just that simple. When something or someone enters your dream, it becomes a memory.This may mean that this period of writing about Haidilao is coming to an end.

I didn't expect that I had been entangled with this hot pot restaurant for so long, and it became an indelible experience in my career as a reporter.It is a lucky and happy thing to cooperate with Mr. Huang. Mr. Huang, who is a businessman and a writer, has both the shrewdness of an entrepreneur and the bookishness of a scholar. He is always striding forward and courteous. He is a real gentleman and a wise man. Senior citizens.He would be unabashedly overwhelmed and excited by every brilliant detail of the interview. On the way back from an interview, Mr. Huang told me enthusiastically that he thought it would be interesting to be a reporter.

I think so.