Chapter 44 Then Chen Aiguo was afraid that his granddaughter would be bored...

Children in rural areas rarely have real winter and summer vacations.

Chen Pan didn’t know what other people’s homes were like, but at least it was like this in hers.

Before her family opened a shop, Chen Pan had to help her grandparents feed pigs and sheep in the winter, and in the summer she would basically follow her grandfather to the mountains to herd cattle every day.

This wasn't to suggest that her grandparents oppressed or abused her, or forced her to work. Rather, there were only three of them in her family. In the winter, she saw her grandparents constantly busy at work. As she grew older, she couldn't just watch them work all the time, so she would always do things she could on her own. In the summer and autumn, the adults had to tend to the livestock while also tending to the crops. As she grew older, she couldn't just sit back and do nothing.

It's like a family that owns a restaurant. Their children, without needing to be taught, will entertain guests, helping their parents serve food and clear the table. Meanwhile, children whose parents work in sock and garment factories, if brought there for extended periods, will be able to imitate their parents as soon as they sit down, putting socks and clothes on the machines, and performing tasks within their capabilities, while other children are playing.

Chen Pan was like that. She had been with her grandparents since she was born. Back then, they took her to do laundry and herd cattle and sheep. As she grew older, she seemed to have a natural knack for herding cattle, feeding pigs and rabbits, washing clothes, and cooking.

In the past summer vacations, Chen Pan basically followed his grandfather, or went to the mountains by himself with Lao Huang and a dozen sheep.

Life wasn't exactly hard. Basically, she'd herd the cattle and sheep up the mountain, where she could find a shady spot to rest and sleep. Sometimes, she'd even take a Chinese textbook or a comic book and peruse it. In between, she'd just occasionally keep an eye on the cattle and sheep, making sure they didn't wander off and eat the crops.

There were soybeans and wheat grown by other families on the mountain, and occasionally there were edible wild fruits and weeds. She could pick them and eat them with her own steamed buns and boiled water.

Aside from feeling a bit bored at times, everything else was pretty good. I don't know how the day went by, but it went by so quickly.

In the past, Chen Pan spent his summer vacations herding cattle and sheep for his family. But now, Chen Pan spends his summer vacations selling and distributing pancakes for his family.

She was not very strong and had difficulty kneading the dough, so Grandpa Chen would knead the dough early in the morning, and then Chen Pan would be responsible for making and spreading the pancakes.

Of course, when there were many people, Chen Pan would sometimes be in charge of lighting the fire and selling goods, while Grandpa Chen would be in charge of making and baking the pancakes.

There's a strange phenomenon in China: within the home, men are considered the breadwinners, while women are the homemakers. For things like cooking, women are generally considered responsible. At least in Longcheng, men generally avoid the kitchen. Even if they do enter, it's usually to light the fire and fetch water; they're definitely not expected to cook.

But when it comes to opening a restaurant and making pancakes, everyone seems to have a feeling that men's pancakes are tastier and cleaner. At this time, everyone seems to have completely forgotten the saying "a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen".

Anyway, at Chen Pan's bakery, even though her grandmother had left, everyone seemed to be fine with seeing her grandfather kneading dough and making pancakes. Of course, this might also be because no matter who was kneading the dough or making the pancakes, they would always wear a hat, put their hair up, and dress neatly.

Anyway, ever since Chen Pan’s grandmother returned home, Chen Pan has been tied up in her own shop.

While her grandfather kneaded the dough, she washed and cut the vegetables. When her grandfather started mixing the fillings and making pancakes, she began to skillfully heat the pot and spread lard on it, and then filled all the food containers on the chopping board with various seasoning bags.

When his grandfather started to make pancakes, she added some fire, then quickly wiped the counter with a rag and put away the bamboo basket containing the pancakes.

When his grandfather made the first batch of pancakes and started to welcome the first customer, Chen Pan also had to quickly clean the store and then go to the small kitchen to make their breakfast.

In their family, they basically cook three meals a day.

If Chen Pan missed a meal, it didn't matter to her, but her grandparents would be so hungry that their hands and feet would become weak and their faces would turn pale. So whenever Chen Pan was with them, she would usually cook three meals a day.

Of course, the fact that she got stomach cancer in her previous life was largely due to her bad habit of not caring whether to eat breakfast or not, and basically eating lunch and dinner whenever she remembered if she didn't feel hungry.

So in this life, without the need for grandparents to urge him, even if his grandmother is not around, Chen Pan will spontaneously prepare every breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As a result, Chen Pan got up at 5:30 every morning during the entire holiday and went to bed at 11:30 at night. He felt more tired than if he had no holiday at all.

Just like now, when I have a little free time.

Chen Pan was just about to take a break when her grandfather asked her to keep an eye on the store, saying that he was going to buy meat and vegetables for tomorrow.

"Well, then, Grandpa, you go, I'll take care of the store."

Between 2:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon is their free time.

The pancakes that Grandpa had baked earlier, along with the twenty or so doughs he had made, were enough to sell for the time being. Seeing Grandpa was about to leave, Chen Pan, who had a thousand thoughts in his mind, put on a well-behaved front.

Then after his grandfather rode away on his bicycle, Chen Pan sat in the store, feeling listless again.

Her small 12-inch black and white TV had been moved here a long time ago.

In fact, at this time, Chen Pan should have made a cup of rock sugar and longan tea like her grandmother, then turned on the TV and watched it carefully and had a good rest.

But Chen Pan was feeling upset and did nothing at this time.

She did not make herself a cup of rock sugar, longan and red date tea, which her grandparents thought was particularly delicious. She did not turn on the big fan that she had just bought and installed on the right wall of her house, nor did she turn on her small black and white TV.

She didn't even take off the white plastic bag she had put on her hand when she was selling goods to someone.

Just like countless times recently, she slipped down while sitting and slowly fell on the mahogany dining table in her house again.

"Okay, thank you for your help. Just keep working up there and come down and tell me if you need anything."

While Chen Pan lay on the table, motionless, Qin Yang was upstairs giving cigarettes to several newly hired decorators and telling them about a recent decoration problem he had thought of.

Several masters nodded continuously and promised that they would do the waterproofing and plumbing according to his requirements.

Since it was agreed that the final payment would be made only after the final acceptance, Qin Yang was not too worried. After communicating with them for a few minutes, he came down immediately.

This is also the time when his shop has the fewest people.

During the few minutes that Qin Yang went upstairs, the door of the shop downstairs remained ajar as usual.

After going downstairs and opening the door of the convenience store, Qin Yang saw a few small pieces of broken tiles left over from the exterior wall plastering a few days ago in the corner of the wall, so he simply bent down and reached out to pick them up.

The place where he picked up the things was actually the wall connecting his shop with Chen Pan's shop. When he looked up, he looked through the glass window next to him and saw Chen Pan lying on the table again through the bamboo baskets filled with cakes inside.

Chen Pan seems to be in this state recently.

As long as there are no customers in the store, as long as Grandpa Chen rides his bicycle out to buy ingredients, she always looks so lifeless.

After returning to the store with the broken tiles in his hand and throwing them into the store's trash can, Qin Yang hesitated for a moment and then rummaged through his family's newly purchased cabinet refrigerator.

In just over ten seconds, he arrived at the door of Chen Jiajia's store with two bags of ice cream.

"Give Panpan an ice cream!"

“…”

Chen Pan was distracted. When he saw the yellow plastic bag he handed over, Chen Pan was stunned for a second and then immediately stood up and walked over.

Then soon, one of them sat on a blue plastic stool at the door of his house, and the other sat on a yellow backrest stool at the door of his house, eating yellow and white ice cream bags at the same time.

As for the stools outside their shop, they always put them outside after opening the shop every day. Sometimes they sit on them, and sometimes they give them to customers.

Anyway, at this moment, in mid-July at around three in the afternoon, when the sun was scorching and there were noticeably fewer cicadas and pedestrians on the road, they all suddenly sat outside eating bagged ice cream.

"I haven't had this kind of ice cream in a long time."

Qin Yang gave Chen Pan a bag of ice cream that cost only 20 cents. He could sell it as soda.

It was precisely because this thing was cheap that Chen Pan did not refuse it.

Holding this cold childhood memory in his hand, Chen Pan's face was filled with nostalgia and surprise.

"This is only ten cents wholesale. Next time you want to eat it, you can always come to me and get it. I can always treat you to it."

After being her neighbor for four months, Qin Yang had a complete understanding of the Chen family's situation. So when it came to Chen Pan, who was sensible and had grown up without a father or mother, Qin Yang spoke without hesitation.

"It's not good to eat too much of this, but in this kind of weather, it's really good to eat something cold occasionally."

Chen Pan didn't hear any other meaning in the other person's tone. She lowered her head to look at the things in her hands and suddenly asked, "Is this what you froze in your new refrigerator?"

"Yes, my mom said this should be kept outside or in the refrigerator, but we don't have many popsicles at home right now, so I just put it in the freezer. I think it tastes better this way!"

"I also think eating ice is better than drinking water!"

Subconsciously taking a bite of the yellow crushed ice, Chen Pan then asked, "I heard that your big refrigerator cost 2,500. A new refrigerator, a whole new floor of a new building, plus renovations, replacing windows, and cladding all the exterior walls. With so much going on at once, can you afford it just by selling two shopfronts?"

“…”

If someone else had asked him this, Qin Yang would have felt particularly offended and wouldn't have answered truthfully. Even if his mother had asked him, Qin Yang would have lied.

But the person questioning him now was the much younger Chen Pan, a Chen Pan who felt very similar to him. So after a moment's hesitation, Qin Yang suddenly spoke truthfully, "It's actually not enough. Your family paid 9,000 yuan, and Uncle Wang's 3,000 yuan, which only adds up to 12,000 yuan. But for this house, I only spent 14,000 yuan just to add a floor on all four sides. I actually borrowed money for the glass, the exterior wall, the current interior renovation, and this refrigerator. So far, I owe my friend over 10,000 yuan."

"You are truly like a man with too many lice and too many debts, who has no worries!"

Chen Pan smiled knowingly, then sighed, "But this is the only solution you have. If you don't renovate and add to the building, you won't earn more rent money, nor will you earn money from future demolition. And as for your shop, if you don't make the outside look better and don't strive for excellence in service and products inside, how can you compete with the dozen other small shops nearby?"

"Yeah, if I don't think of a solution, I'll just have to watch my shop get less and less crowded." Qin Yang thought Chen Pan was quite interesting and sighed while pinching the ice pack in his hand. Then, Qin Yang deliberately changed the subject: "You do this every day. Don't you feel extremely painful? Do you feel like you're going crazy?"

"It's not that serious, it just feels really uncomfortable sometimes." Knowing what he was talking about, Chen Pan nodded subconsciously, then she said in a very light tone: "But there's nothing we can do about it. We can't just take care of ourselves and ignore our families."

"Indeed!" Qin Yang, who had been completely trapped since his parents' divorce, nodded in agreement. Then he looked at Chen Pan, whose personality was very similar to his and who would definitely be trapped by her grandparents for the rest of her life, and a trace of sympathy and empathy flashed in his eyes.

"Just bear with it for a while. When your grandma comes back, you can go out and play." Qin Yang didn't know how to comfort the little girl beside him, so he could only say this.

"But it's really pitiful for my grandma to be stuck here every day. I'm so lucky I can take over her shift. She will definitely stay a few more days when she goes back this time."

I don't know how their topic suddenly got to this point. After saying something subconsciously, Chen Pan sat up straight as if he had been given a shot of chicken blood. "Qin Yang, let me tell you about a sales method I saw on TV news. For small shops and supermarkets like yours, you can get an anonymous membership card."

"Anonymous membership card?"

"Yes, then you can print a lot of circles on the back of the membership card. Then you tell your customers that whenever they spend more than five yuan with you, they can stamp your membership stamp on it. Then, when they collect three membership stamps, you can give them a bag of brown sugar. When they collect five circles, you can give them a bag of laundry detergent. When they collect ten circles, you can give them a barrel of oil. When they collect fifteen circles, you can give them a small aluminum pot. When they collect twenty circles, you can give them a large aluminum pot or a four-piece set or something like that.

Anyway, you can choose the gift yourself. The key is to use this thing to attract customers to your place. One circle is five yuan, and twenty circles are a hundred yuan. If a customer spends a hundred yuan with you, giving him a pot worth two or three yuan, or four or five yuan, I think it should be a very cost-effective deal -"

In fact, what Chen Pan was talking about was the membership cards that were ubiquitous in their era.

But computers had not yet been invented in that era, and it was really too difficult for a store to manually record a membership card.

In this case, this original anonymous points card is actually the simplest method.

Chen Pan, who has been unable to go out to make money recently, has been thinking about these things almost every day.

Her shop is just a sesame seed bun shop, and it's not easy for a shop like her to get a membership card. Everyone is busy with work and school and has no mood to do this.

But most of the people coming in and out of Qin Yang's small shop are nearby tenants and residents.

If we sell them this kind of membership card, maybe it will work.

So after unexpectedly receiving a two-cent ice pack from the other party, Chen Pan told the other party exactly this method that he could not use at the moment.

Her thoughts at this moment were exactly the same as before: if she said something and the other party was willing to listen, that would be great. But if the other party didn't accept or was not interested, she wouldn't force it, nor would she say it a second time.

But fortunately, the situation this time seemed to be the same as last time. This time, as soon as she said it, Qin Yang's expression became serious, and he immediately sat up straight and listened very carefully.

"Wait a minute, Panpan, are you talking about those small cards that look like business cards—"

Qin Yang paused halfway through Chen Pan's speech. He then went back and took out a pen and a notebook, and began to draw a nameless membership card for Chen Pan.

"Yes, here you can write your store's name, address, and phone number, and below that you can list the main products you sell. Then you can print 300 copies first to see if you can sell them. There's a circle at the back, which can be blank or you can write numbers like 5, 10, 15, or 20 on it.

"And you must make sure the stamp on it is done properly; absolutely no one can forge it. After that, you must also clearly state the rewards. Oh, and there must be an expiration date. Make it clear that if the points are not redeemed by the end of the year, they will be forfeited. Also, make it clear that this membership card is anonymous, so you are not responsible if the card is lost or used by someone else—"

"Is that so?"

According to Chen Pan's instructions, Qin Yang directly drew the front and back of the points card on the notebook.

Looking at what he drew, Chen Pan thought about what he could think of and actively helped him improve it.

They sat together, absorbed in the discussion.

Ten minutes later, after Chen Aiguo hurried back from shopping, fearing his granddaughter would be bored, he saw his granddaughter and the boy next door in the distance, each sitting on a separate stool. The legs of the two stools were almost touching, and the two children's heads were so close together that they were almost touching, a disconcerting sight.