Chapter 395 Report

Seeing that Song Lubai was still not leaving, Song Hai started to shoo her away.

"Even if you wait here, I can't pay your bill. The rules are the rules, and I can't break them."

Song Lubai said, "What kind of rule is this? We have to pay the bill first when we buy sweet potatoes. If we don't pay, they won't give us the goods. No matter where we go, we have to pay for the goods. That's the rule. Brother, are you taking advantage of me because I'm young and inexperienced?"

Song Lubai knew why Song Hai was doing this.

The supply and marketing cooperative in the city is the superior supply and marketing cooperative of the nearby farms and the city department stores. Its purchase volume is incomparable to that of the farms' supply and marketing cooperatives. However, the goods that come in cannot be sold out in a short time, and the payment cannot be collected. This means that small households like them have to rely on the capital turnover of the cooperative.

Song Hai said, "Xiao Song, I understand your difficulties, and you should understand mine. If I can pay, I'll settle the bill for you right now. We're relatives from the same village, how could I take advantage of you? Just wait another week, and if there's any news about the sweet potatoes, I'll let you know immediately."

Song Lubai said, "I trust you, brother, just because we're relatives. I'll give you some more time, but from now on, you should try to settle accounts with us directly. Otherwise, I won't be able to explain it to you when I go back."

After exchanging a few more polite words, Song Lubai took the receipts and left the supply and marketing cooperative with the deliveryman.

Broken vermicelli is priced the same as whole vermicelli. Even though the price of wide vermicelli was raised to 26 cents, Song Lubai wasn't that happy.

The thin vermicelli weighed 360 jin, and each jin was 1.5 fen cheaper than the wide vermicelli, resulting in a total profit of 5.4 yuan less.

It was already late afternoon when Song Lubai returned to the troupe. She ate the food that Wei Zhao had left for her in the pot, and then went to the workshop to check on the situation without stopping.

Today's dishes included tofu. Passing by a tofu shop, she saw the door was open and went inside.

In the courtyard of the tofu workshop, the soybean grinder was pushing the millstone. Watching the white soy milk flow down from the mill, Song Lubai walked closer and asked, "Master, can this millstone grind sweet potatoes?"

The tofu maker stopped, wiping the sweat from his brow, and said, "I've never ground sweet potatoes before, but soybeans and sweet potatoes are about the same hardness. If you cut the sweet potatoes into small pieces, you can definitely grind them into a paste."

The master craftsman recognized Song Lubai and knew that the troupe had set up a sweet potato flour workshop. He said, "I'll clean this place up another day. You can bring some sweet potato pieces to try. If it works, we'll ask the troupe to get another stone mill. Using this will save a lot of trouble."

"Hey, do you want some soy milk? It's four cents a pound. If you want some, I'll save you a pound. It's all freshly ground."

There are many people in the family, and one jin is not enough to drink. Song Lubai said, "I want two jin. I'll go back and get the basin right now."

She was malnourished at the time, so if someone offered her a good deal, she had no reason not to accept it.

The soy milk the chef made for her had no water added and smelled of raw soybeans. It needed to be cooked first and then sweetened with white sugar.

The workers in the workshop were busy. When Deng Hong saw her return, she hurriedly asked her what price the supply and marketing cooperative had given her.

After the two talked for a while, Song Lubai said to the workers who were steaming rice noodles, "Take a break tomorrow. You can also go wash and cut sweet potatoes and make sweet potato syrup."

The worker asked, puzzled, "Why?"

Didn't we tell them in the previous meeting to make the most of every minute to get things done?

Song Lubai said, "The slurry only settles overnight, which is too short a time. A lot of starch hasn't settled yet, and a lot of starch is wasted in the water that was poured out. So our starch yield is too low. From now on, we need to let it settle for two days."

The workers thought it made sense after hearing it.

Watching the workers on the other side continuously slicing sweet potatoes with knives, some of them had their hands and palms so raw that they were wrapped in several layers of cloth.

Song Lubai's mind conjured up a knife that could easily cut sweet potatoes into sections without much human effort.

While the workers were busy in the workshop, she went into her small office and wrote down a page of improvement methods before heading to the government's commercial office.

Yu Lin was writing a report when she saw her return. After asking about the situation, he said, "Next Monday, you need to report to the regiment on the progress of the food workshop. You need to clearly write down how much goods were made, how much were consumed, how much money were made, what difficulties were encountered, and everything else. Take a look at the report I wrote about the shoemaking class first, and use this as a guide."

Four whole pages! It's terrifying to look at!

Song Lubai looked at the report he pushed over and asked, "You wrote the report for the shoemaking class, and you wrote the report for the food workshop too, right?"

Yu Lin rubbed his wrist and said, "I only wrote it because Yang Xiu'e couldn't write it, but you're different. You're a high school student, after all. You need to learn how to write this kind of report. It's good to practice more."

Song Lubai's biggest problem right now is that her income is not high enough, and other problems have arisen in the process of solving the problem of insufficient income.

After reading what Song Lubai wrote on the paper, Yu Lin said, "It's really good that you can think of these things. I'll go to town to have someone make the stone mill and the cutting knife. I'll discuss the purchase price of sweet potatoes with the troupe, but I don't think the troupe will agree. We'll have to find another troupe to buy sweet potatoes."

Song Lubai said, "The regiment has a lot of reserve grain. Even if we put it in the cellar, the sweet potatoes can only be stored until April or May next year at the latest. Could you sell them to us cheaply then?"

Yu Lin looked at her and said, "There's no use thinking about that now. When the time comes, I'll try to get it. If it's not stored properly, the sweet potatoes will freeze. I think we should dry a large batch of sweet potato starch before the New Year."

Song Lubai shook her head and said, "I'm afraid that won't work. We need basins to dry starch, and we don't have enough basins."

The two discussed the workshop for a while, and Song Lubai said, "Sweet potatoes can produce starch, and potatoes, when cooked, also have a mealy texture. Can potatoes produce starch?"

Yu Lin was taken aback, then said uncertainly, "Why don't you give it a try?"

"However, potatoes cost five cents a pound, which is more than twice as expensive as sweet potatoes. With such high costs, it's not worth it if the starch yield is low."

Song Lubai said, "Let's give it a try first. If it works, the price of potato noodles won't be low."

Yu Lin didn't mention the payment for the goods because the profits from the shoemaking class were enough to keep the business office running, and he believed that if Song Lubai got the payment, she definitely wouldn't have left it unmentioned.

In winter, it takes longer to dry the starch slurry than before, so Song Lubai decided to stop making thin sweet potato noodles and start making wide rice noodles instead. Not only would they be more expensive, but they would also be more convenient.

Monday arrived in the blink of an eye, the day for the government's general meeting.

The team leader and deputy team leader from the business office all went.

The shoemaking class's profits were as impressive as ever, while the food workshop, which Song Lubai was in charge of, was not doing so well.

Not only were the profits insufficient, Yu Lin also proposed to the group to lower the purchase price of sweet potatoes.

Feng Gang's face immediately fell.