In the 1990s, Aaron Foster helped his uncle Kenneth Doyle run the kiln for five years. He made a net profit of 400,000 yuan and handed it all over, only to be fobbed off with a 100-yuan IOU and a strip of cured meat. Aaron decided to go solo, and with 6,000 yuan pooled by his mother and three uncles, he opened Foster Brickyard. His old clients only trusted Aaron and placed orders right away, publicly embarrassing Kenneth. His ex-girlfriend Claire Foster and Riley Doyle conspired to set a brick-transport trap, but Uncle Jeff's niece Ivy Halston led a tractor team to support him and break the siege. Aaron introduced internal-combustion firing technology and won official orders. Kenneth exploited migrant laborers, causing brick quality to collapse; his brickyard went bankrupt, his son was left unable to carry on the family line, his wife divorced him, and in the end he tried to take revenge with homemade explosives, failed, and was arrested and jailed. Aaron turned his life around, became rich, married Ivy Halston, and was named an “Advanced Youth.”
