Chapter 100: As soon as the guests arrived, Dong Xinghua immediately asked for service...
As soon as everyone arrived, Dong Xinghua immediately asked the waiter to serve the dishes and asked someone to bring the menu to show the four of them.
"Hey guys, I just ordered these dishes randomly. I don't know if you like them or not. Please take a look at the menu and order a few dishes you like."
After Dong Xinghua finished speaking, one of the middle-aged men with a square face smiled and said, "Sister, you are too polite. Dongpo pork, fish head tofu soup, braised prawns, four-happiness meatballs, beef stewed with radish, these dishes are not hard to come by, right? We are also benefiting from you. We can't afford to eat like this normally." Especially now that the factory's performance is not good and people are in panic, they dare not spend money casually.
"Brother Wu, you're so polite," Dong Xinghua said with a smile. She then looked at the others, "Brother Wu, Brother Chen, Brother He, Brother Qi, please don't be so polite with me. Just order whatever you like. When we go out to eat, of course we have to enjoy it to our heart's content."
The four of them exchanged glances, feeling a bit intimidated by the generous and polite request. They were merely in charge of the warehouse, fine for selling scraps, but beyond that, they didn't have much authority.
They are all ordinary people who just want to take advantage of a little bit. If they take too much, they will feel anxious.
Seeing the atmosphere was about to become tense, Wang Anwen snatched the menu, ticked off a few dishes, threw the menu into the waiter's hands, and said to the four people, "We are all brothers, there is no need to push and shove when eating. But there are only six of us, and we can't finish too many dishes. I'll take the initiative and add two meat dishes and two vegetarian dishes."
"The meat dishes are mutton soup and cold-mixed pork head. It's cold in winter, so eating mutton warms you up. Pork head goes well with wine. The vegetarian dishes are bok choy and cabbage stewed with vermicelli. Since there's so much meat on the table, we should add a couple of vegetarian dishes to help with the greasiness and change things up, right?"
After that, he asked again: "Do you think my arrangement is okay?"
"Okay, sure," the square-faced man said with a smile, and the four of them relaxed. They had been friends with Lao Wang for over a decade, and while Lao Wang was a bit of a slacker, he was a decent person and wouldn't go after them.
"If that's all right, let's eat first," Wang Anwen said. "Laobanzhai's business is booming, especially since it's dinner time now. The dishes we just ordered will probably take some time to prepare. Let's eat what's on the table first."
As he spoke, he opened a bottle of magical wine and poured a glass for everyone: "Old Wu, I remember you like this, right?"
Old Wu picked up the wine glass, but did not drink it. Instead, he put it to his nose and smelled it. The aroma of wine was strong and the aroma was rich.
He nodded: "Good wine, really good wine."
"Then let's go first?" Wang Anwen raised his glass. Old Wu nodded. "Okay, let's go first."
The two of them didn't eat any food and just drank wine.
After toasting Old Wu, Wang Anwen looked at the other three, "Old Chen, Old He, and Old Qi, how about we have one too? Come to think of it, it's been a while since the five of us have had a drink together, right?"
"Yes." Old Chen picked up the wine in the glass and drank it all in one gulp. The wine was mellow and smooth, with a soft and delicate taste, like silk sliding across the tongue. The aroma was strong, and the rich fragrance lingered in the mouth and tongue for a long time after drinking it.
"This wine is good." The price is probably not cheap.
Pour another glass, "Try it again."
Lao He rolled his eyes at him and said, "You don't like drinking, and every time you're asked to drink, you always refuse. But today you're so enthusiastic, I'm afraid the sun is rising from the west."
Wang Anwen didn't get angry at being teased, and directly stated his purpose: "The sun doesn't rise from the west, but my sister needs your help with something, and asked me to be a middleman to mediate."
Holding the wine glass, Lao Qi said unhappily, "I knew the wine you offered me wasn't that good."
"Lao Wang, I'm just a small warehouse manager. We've discussed the issue you raised before. I've explained the factory rules to you. This is the situation. I can make decisions on small matters, but I can't do anything about other matters."
"I understand." Wang Anwen nodded. "My sister is also a kind person. She won't make things difficult for you."
"It's just that—your conditions are really a bit harsh."
Old Qi glared at me. "Is that too much? Silk is only two hundred a bag, and cotton and linen are only sixty. Do you know how many kilograms of fabric are in that bag? Even with these conditions, you still want to lower the price? Give up now. I can't make the decision. Even if you treat me to more meals, it will be in vain."
"No, no——" Dong Xinghua hurried to explain.
Wang Anwen patted the table, signaling her not to be nervous.
"Old Qi, you're too impatient. I haven't even finished my words and you're already snapping. Didn't I just tell you that my sister is a kind person and won't make things difficult for you? Look at you, why are you only halfway listening to me?"
Lao Qi sighed, "I can't help it. You know our factory is in trouble right now. They're deciding which employees to lay off! Everyone's staring wide-eyed, waiting to find something to hold against someone, just waiting for them to make a mistake and get fired."
"The price of scraps of cloth is set by the Finance Department. If it was when the factory was doing well in the past, no one would care about these small amounts of money. I would help to ask for a lower price, or even give it away for free. But now, even a fly leg is meat." As he said this, he picked up the wine glass and drank it all.
Wang Anwen picked up the bottle, refilled it for him, and said, "Look, we're here to give you a bargaining chip to stay in the factory!"
"Give me more chips?" Lao Qi paused in holding the wine, and the other three also pricked up their ears to listen.
Wang Anwen said, "Normally, no one would buy these scraps of cloth!"
The four nodded.
"Are they all piled up in the warehouse, taking up space and being useless? They'll have to be taken care of during the rainy season, or they'll get moldy and rot. But it would be a shame to throw them away."
The four nodded again.
"Look, isn't your chance here now? These scraps of cloth that no one wants and that take up space are now bought by my sister. Isn't this a great opportunity for you?
"You're supposed to be a warehouse manager, and your only job is to keep the goods moving in and out. But you've leveraged your connections to take on sales duties, finding customers to buy unwanted scraps of cloth, and increasing the factory's revenue. How can they not reward you? Even if they don't reward you, at least they shouldn't put you on the list of people getting laid off, right?"
Lao Qi's eyes lit up, and he immediately said, "But lowering the price still won't work." There are a lot of good materials among those scraps of cloth. The current price is already cheap. What's the difference between selling it at a cheaper price and giving it away for free?
"No bargaining." Wang Anwen gave Dong Xinghua a look, and Dong Xinghua immediately responded, "Don't worry, brothers, I won't bargain. On the contrary, I'll even increase the price for you!"
"Raising the price?" Old Qi looked at Dong Xinghua suspiciously.
Old Wu took over the conversation: "Raise the price, but do you have other requirements?" He thought for a moment and quickly realized, "Do you want to pick up scraps of cloth?"
Dong Xinghua had gone to great lengths to buy scraps of cloth, surely intending to make something with them. But no matter what she was making, the bigger the scraps, the better; otherwise, just piecing them together would be exhausting.
"As expected, my Brother Wu has a quick mind." Wang Anwen flattered him.
"Don't say anything." Old Wu looked at Dong Xinghua. "Sister, tell me first, how do you choose this? What's the price you can offer?"
Dong Xinghua repeated what Xu Heye had said before: "Brother Wu, I mainly want to pick out some cotton and linen materials. Cotton and linen materials are used a lot. Which textile factory doesn't have more than a dozen bags of them?
I bought these scraps of fabric because I want to make something small, and I need larger pieces. If I buy them in a package, I won't be able to use all the small pieces. If I don't use them, I won't have a place to put them, so I'll just have to throw them away. Isn't that a waste?"
"So I still want to discuss with the factory whether they can give us some of the scraps. We will offer a higher price for the scraps after sorting them out, adding 20 yuan to each bag, so it will be 80 yuan per bag.
We'll take the large pieces of cloth we need, and leave the remaining small pieces in your factory. Later, these small pieces of cloth can be distributed free of charge to the factory workers as welfare. Everyone can take them home to make insoles or shoe soles, so they won't be wasted."
Last night Xu Heye said to add forty to each bag, but Dong Xinghua thought about it and only gave twenty. He had to increase the price in half first. He had to give the other party a chance to bargain, right?
Otherwise, if they say forty, they might ask for sixty. People are like this, they don't care whether the other party's price is honest or not, they always have to bargain, otherwise they will feel they are being cheated.
As expected, when Xu Heye said this, Old Wu felt that it was too low: "Twenty won't do, it's too little."
After a long bargaining session between the two sides and with the mediation of Wang Anwen, it was finally settled, just as Xu Heye and Dong Xinghua had discussed last night.
"Silk is sold by the bag, 200 yuan a bag, but you have to open the box to inspect the goods to make sure they are all silk. Cotton and linen can be picked out by scraps, but the price will be increased to 100 yuan a bag."
"But the factory won't send anyone to help them pick. If they want to pick, Sister Dong has to find someone to do it herself." After all, a bag of scraps of cloth worth one hundred yuan is nothing for a big factory, and it's not worth the factory sending employees to help pick.
"Of course that's fine." Dong Xinghua smiled. She certainly didn't mind, and she would even prefer to choose for herself.
Only by choosing by themselves can they get the material they want. She is still worried about asking others for help!
Wang Anwen: "Okay, now that we've settled the business, let's eat and drink and have fun."
"Yes, yes, Lao Wang, let's have another one." Lao Wu raised his glass with a smile.
The group continued to eat and drink, but because they had to go to work, they were sensible and did not get drunk. An hour later, Dong Xinghua escorted Old Wu and the other two out of the hotel.
The four of them were touching the cigarettes in their pockets and holding the meat and vegetables that Dong Xinghua had asked the hotel to pack, with smiles on their faces.
This girl is nice, generous, open-minded and knows how to behave.
Dong Xinghua was also very happy. Now they just had to go back to the factory, say hello to the finance department, and then go to pick out the fabrics.
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