Chapter 69

At ten in the evening, there being not much in the way of entertainment, the other three settled into bed, and Li Lan saved the buffer she'd written and got up to wash. Her typing was getting faster; on a good run she could manage four thousand in an hour, and she'd written something over twenty thousand across the day. It looked like a great deal. She knew that once the company was registered she wouldn't have days this free, so buffer had to be built now.

Having arranged to meet the park's manager first thing, she wasn't planning a late night, and it wasn't fair on the others in a shared room either — which was the thing that bothered her most. They all seemed pleasant enough; living in a dormitory simply came with far too many constraints. Applying to live out would have to go on the list.

Lights went off at eleven, and the noisy corridor gradually quietened. Li Lan lay in bed, sorted the term's tasks in her head, and shut her eyes.

The meeting was at ten. Peking University to the medical industrial park takes nearly an hour by bus with a change in the middle, so she was on a bus by eight, and even outside the rush it was packed. Getting off, she let out a long breath. Fortunately the second bus was going out towards the suburbs and had a good deal more room in it.

The stop was near the park gates, and getting off she checked her watch: half past nine exactly. As she came up to the gates her phone buzzed.

"Lanlan? I can see you. I'm at the gatehouse. Can you see me?" Zhang Lin's voice, hearty as ever.

Li Lan looked ahead, where somebody in loose clothes was waving at her from the gate, and went over. Zhang Lin, sure enough, after nearly four months.

She hadn't changed much. Whether it was Li Lan's imagination or not, there was something maternal about her that hadn't been there; nothing else was different, and it being early, she wasn't showing.

Seeing her run over with her bag on her back, Zhang Lin caught her in a warm hug. "Little Lanlan. It's been ages — you've got better-looking."

Li Lan hugged her back, smiling, though she didn't dare put any force into it, and let go after the lightest squeeze.

Zhang Lin led her in. "Come on. I've signed us in. We can go straight to the management office."

---

The medical park doesn't use agents the way housing does; needing tenants and investment, it has its own managers, and it was one of those that Li Lan had contacted.

The site was large, but the office was near the gate, so having parked in the car park they walked over.

They arrived at ten exactly, and the manager was waiting in the lobby — a man in his thirties, who took Zhang Lin for the person who'd rung him and came forward beaming. "Good morning, Ms Li."

Zhang Lin stepped aside, laughing. "I'm not Ms Li. She is."

Slightly embarrassed at getting it wrong, and not having expected somebody who looked that young, he composed himself quickly like the professional he was, showed them into a meeting room and went through her requirements in detail.

Being small to begin with — a company of one, in fact — she didn't need much office space, only somewhere to handle paperwork. The laboratory and the store were what mattered.

He thought about it. "We can meet that. The park does have small offices; they're rather out of the way, next to the laboratories, and were put in specifically for small companies. I can show you round if you're interested."

Because of the policy climate, the design had allowed for start-ups and space had been left for small new companies exactly like hers.

A good intention. In practice — whether the ground rent frightened people off or the companies coming in were simply flush — only a scattering of the small offices had been let.

Naturally he didn't put it that way, and spent the walk over talking up the park's advantages. Had Li Lan not known what she was about, his fluency would have carried her along.

Watching her face stay unchanged, Zhang Lin could tell she hadn't been swept up in his rhythm. She'd come along because she was worried about her being taken advantage of, and it seemed she'd worried unnecessarily. He noticed too, and privately marvelled: young, and not remotely easy to talk round.

Fluent as he was, what he actually showed them was sound enough — possibly helped by Zhang Lin mentioning she'd worked here.

The office was small, sixty or seventy square metres, divided into two rooms. The outer one was forty-odd, with two desks resembling laboratory benches, seating six; being a medical park, there were storage cabinets along both walls for finished product. The inner room was laid out much the same, one large desk and cabinets, with a token bookcase added.

For most companies it would be small. For Li Lan it was right, and would hold up for a while once she had researchers and someone handling everything else. She'd have liked to get it right in one move and the money wasn't there.

The laboratory was considerably bigger, and empty, having nothing of hers in it yet. She and Zhang Lin checked the ventilation and the water and drainage, and were satisfied to find that small as it was, the fittings matched those in Zhang Lin's old laboratory. Nothing skimped.

Then he took them to the store, which was much smaller, thirty or forty square metres — but with a cold room, which made it more than adequate.

Watching the two of them go over the laboratory, he could tell they'd done this before, which didn't worry him; the park's installations had all been thoroughly inspected. And their manner told him she was very satisfied. "The laboratories and stores were all signed off by specialists. Guaranteed compliant, not a thing wrong with them. What do you think?"

They nodded. The park had been built to one template, so the rest would be much the same. Li Lan went straight to it. "What's the rent?"

Which told him he had a live one, and he rallied. "The office, laboratory and store are priced separately. The office is four thousand a month; the store, being small, is two thousand; the laboratory is three. Utilities and service charge on top."

She nodded and went on. "And what does it cost to hire the vacuum pump, the extractor, the centrifuge?" She named four or five pieces of equipment in one breath. It was precisely why she'd chosen the park: the large equipment could be hired from it, which was inconvenient and, at this stage, saved her buying a whole set of instruments.

He produced a document and circled them. "Those are all common. They won't be expensive — around two thousand a month."

She nodded. The smaller equipment she'd already bought for the Beiguan laboratory and could have posted up; what she was asking about was the large machines and their substitutes. The oil extractor she'd used, for instance, was a thing costing a few hundred, whereas the park's equipment was mostly high-end and foreign. Buying those few items outright could have run past a hundred thousand.

"We also have a testing centre offering chromatographic analysis. The internal rate is eighty to a hundred and fifty a run; outside companies pay double. Something of a benefit of being here." he added.

Ten thousand a month in rent; with the water and power the experiments would need, generously counted, perhaps thirteen; with the equipment, close to fifteen thousand a month. A hundred and eighty thousand a year.

Being a pharmaceutical researcher herself, Zhang Lin knew what those machines were for, and hearing the list she knew what Li Lan intended. She drew her aside. "Lanlan, are you putting together a plant extraction laboratory? That's a hundred and eighty thousand a year. Is the office and the store because you're starting a business?"

For experiments alone, Peking's laboratories would be more than enough for her, which was what made her suspect it. And if that was it, she was going to say so even at the risk of being a nuisance. She didn't know what Li Lan's family did, but starting a business isn't playing at houses, and nearly two hundred thousand going in before anything had begun at all — and what came after wouldn't be free either. Two hundred thousand wouldn't cover it.

Seeing her nod, Zhang Lin sobered. "Starting a business isn't a game. That two hundred thousand, or more, could very well go down the drain. You're sure you want to go on?"

With the manager waiting for an answer, Li Lan signalled her to be patient. "Sister Zhang, I decided a long time ago. I'll explain properly when we're out of here." The business plan was in her bag; there simply hadn't been time to show her.

She wanted her to see it because she had it in mind to bring her into the company. Not a company yet — Cerulean wasn't registered. Not far off, though.

Zhang Lin sighed. "As long as you've thought about it. A hundred and eighty thousand isn't nothing."

Li Lan went back to the manager and carried on, and in the end, with the student start-up subsidies, he agreed to waive the first year's utilities and two years of service charge, which brought the first year to around a hundred and fifty thousand. He also allowed her to sign year by year — where other companies' agreements started at three years or five.