Shi Zhen discussed with Shi Ting and Guan Baiyu that Guan Baiyu would start teaching Shi Ting from tomorrow.

Guan Baiyu arranged the courses as he saw fit, with the goal of improving Shi Ting's basic knowledge.

As for himself, besides selling rice balls, he needs to take care of Shi Ting's studies here. As for how to do that... isn't there a Teacher Fei next door?

Before Shi Zhen was reborn, education had become increasingly strictly regulated. To enroll in most schools, one had to meet certain conditions, such as having a household registration and property ownership certificate. Transferring schools could only be done through the Municipal Education Bureau.

At this time, however, schooling is relatively easier to arrange, and transferring schools is something the principal can handle.

Students from rural areas who want to study in town can talk to the principal of the town school and ask for a small sponsorship fee.

Of course, given that most parents at this time did not push their children too hard, and the sponsorship fees were not a small amount, most people would let their children study in the school that was in their area of ​​expertise and close to home, and would not go to great lengths to get a good school.

Shi Zhen had been running a stall in town for several months and knew a few junior high school teachers in the town, but his relationship with them was limited to stall owners and customers. If he asked them for help, he would definitely have to give them a kickback, and they might not even take him seriously as a stall owner.

Finding Teacher Fei would save you all this trouble.

He always takes the initiative to help Teacher Fei whenever he encounters any problems, and the two have already become friends.

Shi Ting wants to study here, and he doesn't even need to ask Teacher Fei for help. He just needs to mention Shi Ting's study plans to Teacher Fei, and Teacher Fei should be able to tell him what to do.

Shi Zhen was right. He had only said a few words to Teacher Fei, and Teacher Fei said that transferring schools was not difficult, and that he knew the principal of the junior high school in town.

According to Teacher Fei, it would be perfectly fine for Shi Ting to attend the junior high school in town, but she would need to pay a sponsorship fee.

Although Teacher Fei was not young, he never procrastinated. That afternoon, he took Shi Zhen directly to the principal of the town's junior high school.

The principal of the town's junior high school lived not far away. He was a classmate of Teacher Fei's son, so he respected Teacher Fei very much.

Of course, Shi Zhen felt that the principal's good attitude was also due to the fact that Teacher Fei's children are now all working in the education system.

In addition, Teacher Fei has been a teacher for a long time, and many teachers and even staff members of the Education Bureau in Changxi City still call him "Teacher"... Even though Teacher Fei has retired, the principal still gives him face.

The matter of Shi Ting attending junior high school in town was quickly settled; she just needed to go to the school to complete the formalities before the start of the semester.

Even the sponsorship fee... other people's sponsorship fee was three thousand, but the principal only asked Shi Zhen for two thousand.

After leaving the principal's house, Teacher Fei asked, "Shi Zhen, do you have enough money? If not, I can lend you some."

Professor Fei was very clear about the Shi family's situation.

With such a large family here, they need money for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, and they all rely on Shi Zhen's stall to make a living... It's probably going to be tough for them.

Shi Zhen said, "Teacher Fei, no need, I have the money."

Shi Zhen doesn't actually have two thousand yuan on hand right now.

After the Shi family arrived, he bought some things. Now that it's summer and it's very hot, he even installed a ceiling fan at the Shi family's house and bought a small electric fan for himself and Guan Baiyu.

In addition, there are many people in his family now, and the food expenses are at least ten yuan a day... He doesn't have much savings.

Fortunately, he had paid the food stall vendors earlier and received eight hundred yuan, so he now has about a thousand taels in his hands.

He needs to earn more in the next two months.

Otherwise, Shi Ting and Guan Baiyu both need to go to school, and he doesn't have enough money.

As for how to make money... Shi Zhen thought about it and decided to hand over the fried food stall to his father first, and then do some other business himself.

For example, selling cold drinks at night.

Breakfast is a must-buy item for everyone, so there are many customers, but the profit margin is often very thin.

The cold drinks at night are different.

These kinds of things are more like the icing on the cake of life; if he buys something a little more expensive, everyone can accept it.

For example, if a 250ml carton of milk costs ten yuan in twenty years, everyone will think it's expensive.

However, people will still buy milk tea made with boxed milk that costs only a few dollars to produce and sell it for more than ten dollars a cup.

Many milk tea shops don't even use pure milk; they use milk powder, which is cheaper.

At that time, there were absolutely no places selling cold drinks and milk tea in Anshan Town. If he were to start one, it would be a unique business, and the profit margin for cold drinks is extremely high...

Most importantly, this business is easy to start; even those without experience can do it.

Shi Zhen had thought about selling mala tang before. At that time, there was no mala tang in Anshan Town. If he set up a stall to sell it, the business would definitely be very good.

But making mala tang (a type of spicy hot pot) requires some skill; he might not be able to make it taste good.

Another thing is that meatballs and similar items that can be sourced at low prices in the future are currently unavailable in Anshan Town.

When he was selling fried skewers, Shi Zhen had actually thought of another thing that was suitable to sell, namely "skewered hot pot".

All sorts of skewers are boiled in water, and when a customer orders, they are served in a disposable cup with some broth... It's actually much simpler and easier to make.

Because the cost of vegetables such as kelp, shiitake mushrooms, and fried tofu is very low, its profit margin should be quite good.

Shi Zhen ultimately rejected the business because he couldn't buy cheap fish balls, tofu, or other suitable ingredients for cooking in Anshan Town or Changxi City.

He can't just sell vegetarian dishes and sausages.

People nowadays still prefer to eat some meat.

Fried skewers are different. Sausages, ham sausages, chicken wing tips, chicken mid-wings, chicken hearts, tenderloin, and so on—many things that can be bought in the market can be fried.

In short, compared to mala tang (spicy hot pot), cold drinks are definitely a low-cost, easy-to-start business with readily available raw materials. To do this business, you'll need at least a freezer.

In later generations, a large freezer can be bought for a thousand dollars, and a second-hand one can be bought for two or three hundred dollars, but at this time... a freezer would cost at least two or three thousand dollars.

This is only in the last two years, and appliance prices have come down a bit. In the 1980s, a refrigerator would cost tens of thousands of yuan.

However, he needed a freezer for his business a long time ago, and he was bound to buy one sooner or later, so buying it now wouldn't be a loss.

When Shi Zhen thought of this business opportunity, he discussed it with Guan Baiyu.

Guan Baiyu doesn't know much about business, but his brother is so smart! The business ideas he comes up with are sure to make money!

Guan Baiyu encouraged Shi Zhen, praising him endlessly: "Brother, you'll definitely be fine, you're so amazing! I believe you can definitely make money..."

Shi Zhen smiled as he looked at him, until his voice lowered and his face turned red.

The next morning, Shi Zhen took Guan Baiyu, who had accompanied him to town to sell rice balls, to the Shi family home to teach Shi Ting, and then went to Changxi City.

He's going to check the price of freezers and then buy one.

If he doesn't have enough money... he'll have to use the tuition fees he saved for Guan Baiyu.

With the freezer, even if he doesn't sell cold drinks, he can still make money selling popsicles in the sweltering summer, so he won't lose Guan Baiyu's tuition fees.

At that time, many households did not have refrigerators, and popsicles were similar in status to milk tea in later generations. People were happy to buy a popsicle when they went out shopping.

Even the simplest, lowest-cost popsicles in syrup can sell for two or three cents each; the profit margin in this industry is truly substantial.

Upon arriving in Changxi City, Shi Zhen discovered that there were even more construction sites there.

Changxi City has really developed very quickly in recent years.

Shi Zhen quickly found an electronics store in Changxi City.

Nowadays, most refrigerators have two layers, with the upper layer for freezing and the lower layer for refrigeration. The cheapest of these refrigerators costs three to four thousand yuan.

Black and white TVs are cheaper, while color TVs can sell for four or five thousand.

The freezer that Shi Zhen needed was cheaper than a refrigerator because it could only be set to one temperature, but it still cost more than two thousand yuan.

Shi Zhenqian didn't bring enough supplies, and he hadn't found the cups, straws, or other ingredients needed for making cold drinks, so he didn't rush to buy a refrigerator and went to other places instead.

For well-known beverages like Coca-Cola, he can sell them directly in cans, or he can sell them in large bottles.

There are local soda manufacturers. They can buy some soda, freeze it in the refrigerator, or pour it out and add ice cubes, and then sell it directly.

You can also make iced milk with condensed milk and milk powder, or make orange juice with orange powder, etc.

After running around Changxi City for several hours, his clothes were soaked with sweat several times, and Shi Zhen finally had a better understanding of the cold drink business he wanted to start.

He also discovered that... there are stalls in Changxi City that specialize in selling iced cola and iced soda.

If I could have a bottle of this on a hot summer day, it would be so refreshing... Too bad he doesn't have the money.

Shi Zhen didn't buy anything in Changxi City. For lunch, he ate rice balls he had made that morning and drank the salted black tea he had brought with him.

This black tea tastes strange, but it quenches thirst.

By 2 p.m., Shi Zhen was starting to feel the strain.

Today, there are still many dormitory buildings built by former state-owned factories in Changxi City. These dormitory buildings are generally four or five stories high, and they are close to each other. There is not much greenery downstairs, at most a narrow flower bed.

Shi Zhen sat down on a small flower bed in the shade on the east side of a dormitory building, intending to rest for a while.

Besides him, there were other people there, including some middle-aged and elderly women gathered together, either knitting sweaters or... sewing buttons, beads, and embroidering on their sweaters.

This embroidery is not the exquisite kind of embroidery from ancient times, but rather the kind where simple flowers are sewn onto a sweater using very thick thread. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can quickly get the hang of it.

Shi Zhen glanced at it and felt that he could embroider it too.

He thought sweaters with beads and embroidery were really, really tacky... but people at that time liked fancy things.

These days, the price of this kind of sweater is by no means cheap compared to the average income.

etc!

Shi Zhen suddenly noticed that these people had many identical sweaters next to them, and they were sewing them one by one...

They weren't decorating their own sweaters; they were taking on jobs to do at home to supplement their income.

Shi Zhen smiled and went over to chat with them, asking where they got the sweater and how much it would cost to embroider one.

These sweaters were obtained by these people from a nearby factory. The price of embroidering a garment depends on how well it is embroidered.

Some clothes only require sewing on a button, earning a few cents per piece. Other clothes require more sewing, earning a few dimes per piece. Especially for clothes with intricate embroidery that takes a lot of time... some people earn one or two yuan for embroidering one piece.

They would take the clothes home and embroider them, and if they worked on them long enough, they could earn ten or twenty yuan a day.

Of course, most of them have other chores to do at home and often have to take care of their children, so they can only do it in their spare time. They can earn about five or six yuan a day.

After listening, Shi Zhen felt that this was a good business opportunity.

Of course, he didn't intend to do embroidery; rather, he saw the business opportunity in it.

He can contact the factory and ask them to help assign him work!

There are several sweater factories in Changxi City, as well as many small workshops that produce sweaters.

Many of the sweaters produced require secondary processing.

There are many job opportunities in the city, and relatively few women are idle at home, and they may not necessarily be willing to do these tedious tasks.

But if this job were to be done in Anshan Town, especially in the surrounding countryside...

The women there would definitely be very happy to do these jobs!

Although young women in Anshan Town can generally find jobs now, women born before the 1960s generally do not have jobs and find it difficult to go out to work because they have not received an education, have to take care of their families, and so on.

But these kinds of handicrafts that can be taken home... they can definitely do them.

Shi Zhen felt that he could take jobs from the factory and then distribute them to the villagers.

If the factory pays him one yuan for each piece of embroidery, he can give each piece to the villagers for eight mao (0.8 yuan).

In this way... he can make a net profit of two cents.

Shi Zhen had an idea and headed towards the garment factory without thinking.

In 1994, the coastal areas were truly experiencing a period of rapid economic growth.

At that time, no matter what was produced, people would rush to buy it.

A few years ago, there was a sausage factory where the entrance was always crowded with distributors who were scrambling to buy the sausages they produced!

The wool sweaters in Changxi City are also selling well, as the factories are operating almost day and night, with three shifts running in total.

The factory manager doesn't need to worry about not having orders at all; what they need to worry about is that there's never enough raw material for production.

Another example is the sweaters that are embroidered with flowers or sewn with beads; they can sell for a high price, but they don't have the manpower to make them.

Let the people around us do the work... but they can't do much anyway.

The factory can only produce simple styles as much as possible.

It was at this time that Shi Zhen came to their door.

When he arrived, it was exactly four o'clock, the time when the day shift workers were leaving their shifts.

The female workers came out of the factory chatting and laughing, and then washed their feet at the tap at the factory gate.

They usually wear slippers at the factory. After an eight-hour workday, their feet are always dirty, so they have to wash them before going home.

After washing up, the older people would just leave in their slippers, while the younger people would usually change into nice sandals before leaving. As for the slippers, they could leave them at the factory.

At that time, the factories were not large and the management was not strict. Shi Zhen was dressed quite well when he came to Changxi City. The old man at the gate asked him what he was doing there. He said in the local dialect that he was looking for someone, so the old man let him in directly.

After searching around and asking a few people, Shi Zhen found the factory leader who was in charge of distributing wool sweaters to the women in the surrounding area and having them embroider and sew buttons.

Shi Zhen originally came here just to try his luck, but he didn't expect the factory leaders to be so easy to talk to. After hearing his ideas, they became interested.

Shi Zhen immediately started talking to the other party.

The deal was quickly finalized; it involved giving the leader a kickback.

The leader said he could use his car to help transport the sweaters from the factory to Anshan Town and offer Shi Zhen a decent price. However, if the factory offered one yuan per sweater, Shi Zhen would have to give him a tenth of a yuan as a kickback.

Shi Zhen had no objection to this; such things happen everywhere and are unavoidable.

However, this means that when he assigns jobs to others, he can only pay them 70 cents. Of course, this is not a fixed amount. Some jobs are simple and can be done for a lower price, and there are plenty of people willing to take them.

He's responsible for receiving and sending samples, checking the quality of finished products, and taking responsibility if clothes are lost—he'll definitely have to pay money.

The sweater factory has its own trucks, which can help Shi Zhen deliver the sweaters to Anshan Town. When the time comes, they can come and load the sweaters up and take them away.

Shi Zhen thought for a moment and decided to send all the sweaters to the house he rented in Guan Jianguo.

Qian Qi had already taken all the utensils from the cooked food stall. The fried skewers and rice ball stalls didn't need much, and they had all been put away in the houses in town. Now, the house he rented from Guan Jianguo and the house from Guan Baiyu were both empty.

Guan Baiyu's house had a dirt floor, so it wasn't appropriate to leave sweaters lying around. However, the main room that Guan Jianguo rented to him had a cement floor and the walls were plastered with lime.

He can just lay a plastic sheet on the ground and put the clothes directly on it.

After discussing it with the other party and agreeing that he would come to pick up the goods the next day, Shi Zhen hurriedly went to get a car.

He was lucky to catch the last bus, but even so, it was already past 7 p.m. when he got back to Anshan Town.

Fortunately, he had told his parents before he left that if he couldn't come back, they could set up their own stalls so as not to delay their business.

On his way home, Shi Zhen passed by his family's stall and saw Shi Dalin, Zhao Meiyun, and Zhao Qiujuan managing it together in an orderly manner, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

And when he returned to where the Shi family lived...

Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting were waiting for him. While waiting, Guan Baiyu was also teaching Shi Ting pinyin.

Shi Ting's pinyin is not very good, and her Mandarin is not standard.

Guan Baiyu actually has a common problem with Southerners speaking Mandarin, such as not being able to distinguish between front and back nasal sounds, but Shi Ting... she has reached the point where she can't distinguish between alveolar and retroflex consonants!

Of course, Shi Zhen remembers that more than 20 years later, Shi Ting spoke Mandarin without any accent.

Shi Ting was studying very diligently at this moment, which made Shi Zhen somewhat gratified: "Tingting is very hardworking."

“Yes,” Shi Ting nodded seriously, “Brother, I used to speak Mandarin poorly, and people would laugh at me. I don’t want that!”

No wonder he studied so diligently...

While Shi Zhen was talking to Shi Ting, Guan Baiyu brought out the food that had been reserved for Shi Zhen.

He kept the rice and vegetables warm in the pot, so they're neither too hot nor too cold, just right to eat.

Shi Zhen, who was starving, immediately began to devour the food, eating without any manners.

After Shi Zhen finished eating, he felt like he had recovered.

Upon learning that Shi Ting had been studying all afternoon, he asked Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting to come with him to the fried food stall.

The three of them went outside, and Shi Ting ran ahead in a flash.

Shi Zhen had instructed Shi Ting that she could only walk in busy areas at night and not in alleyways.

Shi Ting was quite obedient in these respects; she was afraid of the dark... so Shi Zhen didn't tell her to stop and watched her run away.

After she ran away, Shi Zhen asked Guan Baiyu, "How is Tingting's foundation?"

Guan Baiyu was silent for a moment, then finally said, "Brother... my sister is quite good at Chinese, but not so good at math..."

Well, Shi Ting can manage to do her Chinese homework, but her math homework...

Guan Baiyu was really puzzled. He didn't understand why Shi Ting still couldn't figure out such a simple question, even though he had explained it several times.

After listening to Guan Baiyu's words, Shi Zhen fell silent for a moment.

Sigh, even Guan Baiyu couldn't understand those junior high school math problems.