Old He understood immediately that this Section Chief Chen from the Fourth Hospital was probably trying to engage in speculative business.
But this is none of his business. If he gets caught or suffers a loss in transporting the goods, it is all the business of the young man in front of him. He just needs to grab this life-saving straw.
Otherwise, this factory has been unable to ship goods and is on the verge of collapse.
Director He made up his mind. "Chief Chen, I'll tell you the truth. I won't count the labor costs or machine depreciation. Just give me the money for the raw materials. At least I can't lose money on the books."
The wages of the workers in the state-owned factory were allocated from above. Even if not a meter of cloth was produced, the wages would still be paid, so Director He didn't care at all.
Even the money for raw materials has to be found by their own factory. Without money, they cannot buy new raw materials, and without raw materials, they cannot start production, which means they cannot meet the production volume set by their superiors. This makes him very anxious.
Not losing money on material costs is Director He’s bottom line.
Chen Xia nodded: "Let's go and see the quality of these cotton cloths."
Standing in the warehouse of the textile factory, looking at the mountains of cloth in front of him, Chen Xia went in to check them out. They were all good cloth, including cotton and Dacron, in many colors, many of which were small floral, large patterned, and striped. Chen Xia was quite satisfied.
"Lao He, how much do you want for these cloths?"
Director He took out the account book and showed it to Chen Xia. "Look, these are the purchase prices of the raw materials. I don't know how much cloth is in here, but the materials cost me 30,000 yuan. If you can pay this amount, all the cloth will be yours, and I will also be responsible for transporting it to the place you specify."
After seeing the account book, Chen Xia didn't want to bargain anymore and nodded to agree to the price. 30,000 was fine. If it was shipped to Nanyun Province, not to mention how much jadeite it could be exchanged for, even if it was simply sold as cloth, the profit would be at least three times more.
In some frontier areas, cloth can be used as currency and bartered, just like in ancient times, which shows how precious it is.
"Lao He, the price is what it is, but I have two requests. First, you have to deliver this much cloth to my house over three nights. There's a river pier in my backyard, so you can use a boat to deliver it so no one can see you. Second, you have to give me a few letters of introduction from your factory. You can't ask me to sell cloth with just a letter from the hospital, right?"
"That's it. Okay, we'll definitely do it for you."
Director He was very happy that he had finally passed on this hot potato. He silently prayed in his heart that Chen Xia would not jump into the river and commit suicide after losing money.
As for delivering the goods at night, he still had this tacit understanding, even if it was just for the sake of that box of "Sanliu Weitai".
In this way, the two sides reached an agreement and several ships of cloth were delivered that night. Because he was afraid of being caught in bed, Chen Xia would promptly take the goods to the space hospital after they arrived.
In the end, no one knew how much cloth Chen Xia bought, and it became an eternal mystery.
As for rice, it was even simpler. I heard Chen Xia was going to collect rice again, and in the name of the collective, he was still charging 2 cents per jin (approximately 100 grams). This wasn't limited to Xipu Commune; even nearby Jiahui Commune, Hongxing Commune, and Shangfangqiao Commune were secretly selling rice.
In just three days, 200,000 kilograms of rice were received and piled up in the abandoned warehouse of the Qingfeng Village Fishery. When the people from the Xipu Commune Grain Station heard the news, they secretly went to see it. If the quantity was too large, they were also prepared to make a fuss.
But when I got there, I couldn't see any rice. It was completely empty, and I couldn't help but doubt the authenticity of the source of the news.
Who was Chen Xia? How could a thief who had lived two lives as a flower-plunderer be caught in bed? He had been on guard against the group at the grain station.
Everything was ready, and Chen Xia boarded the train to Nanyun.
4 days later...
Chen Xia was squatting on the side of the road, vomiting non-stop. Next to him was a dilapidated long-distance bus. At least half of the bus was vomiting like Chen Xia.
This was on the long-distance bus that Kunming took to Dali. He had inquired about it as soon as he got off the train yesterday. There are many places producing honey in Nanyun. Chen Xia's final destination of this trip is Ruili, so he chose Dali, which is on the way, to buy honey.
Chen Xia had traveled to Dali in her previous life, to the foot of Cangshan Mountain, by the Erhai Lake, the beautiful scenery of the ancient city, and that romantic encounter bar, ahem.
There is also the famous movie theme song "By the Butterfly Spring": "Dali is so beautiful in March~~By the Butterfly Spring, it's a good place to put on makeup~~Butterflies fly over to collect nectar~~Why is my sister combing her hair~~~"
As a result, Chen Xia did not enjoy the beautiful scenery of Dali in March. Instead, he vomited violently on the way. He underestimated the transportation of this era.
A tattered, filthy long-distance bus, its horn silent but everything else making noise. Its shock absorbers must have broken down long ago, and it twisted and turned on the dirt road to Dali like a disco.
It is only 400 kilometers from Kunming to Dali, but at that time most of the roads were winding mountain roads with broken roads and broken cars, which made most of the people in the cars vomit. A large group of people, adults and children, men and women, squatted on the side of the road, competing to see who could vomit the most.
The long-distance bus driver was smoking a cigarette nearby, looking at the vomiting group in front of him with a smile.
He had seen this scene so many times that he was used to it. The car from Kunming to Dali took almost all the time to reach the destination, so there was no time for them to stop and rest.
"Okay, okay, it's almost time for us to leave. The mountain roads will be even harder to navigate after dark. Anyone needing to use the restroom should hurry up and get in the car. Anyone who needs to puke should swallow it back. We still have four hours to get to Dali, so everyone, bear with it."
Chen Xia decided to vomit one last time before getting on the bus, when suddenly a handkerchief was handed to him.
"Little brother, wipe your mouth. It's really a shame to come all this way here."
The person who spoke was a man in his forties, wearing glasses and a fountain pen pinned to his Mao suit. He was sitting next to Chen Xia. They had introduced themselves before getting on the bus. He was Sun Kunsheng, deputy director of the Dali Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and he was on a business trip to Kunming.
After getting on the bus, Chen Xia let out a long sigh, "Brother Sun, the transportation in your Nanyun Province is too bad. There are no flights to Dali, not to mention no trains. This is really unbearable."
"Hahaha, even if there's an airport, we're not even qualified to sit in it. I heard a plane ticket is worth half a year's salary. By the way, Brother Chen, why are you going to Dali this time?"
"It's not that our preparation room is short of raw materials. I heard that Nanyun's honey is cheap, so I wanted to come and take a look. If the price is right, I'll buy some back."
Sun Kunsheng was very surprised. "You traveled all the way from Zhijiang Province to Nanyun Province to purchase honey? Brother Chen, you really traveled far. To be honest, we have quite a lot of honey in Dali, but how you transport it back is a big problem."
Chen Xia waved his hand. "Transportation isn't a big problem. Our unit used to be a military hospital, so it's also connected to the troops stationed here. Hey, Brother Sun, you just said you knew where to buy honey?"
Sun Kunsheng smiled pretentiously: "Have you forgotten what I do?"
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