Shi Zhen had previously worked in the city. Whenever he saw someone embroidering, he realized it was a job he could take home and wanted to do it. There was a reason for that.
He remembered that before Qingming Festival, he asked people in the village to help him fold paper ingots. Even though the money offered was very little, everyone was willing to help.
Ultimately, it's because most of the older women in the village don't have jobs and don't have any money.
He took on this job so that he could earn money and they could also earn money.
Without money, you lack confidence in whatever you do; that's just how realistic society is. So, if there's an opportunity, everyone in the village is happy to find work.
The driver from the wool sweater factory recognized the roads in Anshan Town.
He drove very fast, and unlike a bus, he didn't need to stop halfway, so he arrived at Anshan Town in less than half an hour. Then, with Shi Zhen's guidance, he drove the car into Guan Baiyu's village.
The roads in the village are quite narrow, but fortunately trucks can pass through.
When they arrived at Guan Jianguo's country, because Guan Jianguo had a tractor, the road leading from his drying yard to the gate was widened, so that trucks could drive in and even turn around on his drying yard.
It's not like the 1970s and 80s anymore, when there were few cars on the road and children would chase after any they saw.
But suddenly an unfamiliar truck arrived, and the people who had nothing to do nearby, despite being out in the sun, gathered around.
Shi Zhen pointed to Guan Guangguo's house and told the Mr. Zhou that it was his relative's house. He also said that he usually rented a place in town, and this was a rented house for storing sweaters, because these sweaters would be embroidered for the villagers in the future.
When Mr. Zhou saw Shi Zhen smiling and greeting the villagers, clearly recognizing them all, he didn't doubt Shi Zhen's words.
Although Shi Zhen's clothes and appearance were ordinary, his speech and handwriting revealed that he was educated and his family was probably well-off.
Such a person wouldn't go to such lengths just to scam him out of two hundred sweaters.
These two hundred sweaters are worth more than the thousand yuan deposit that Shi Zhen left with him, but the sweaters produced by their factory are not pure wool, and the cost is estimated to be around a thousand yuan.
When Shi Zhen went out to sell rice balls this morning, he asked Guan Baiyu and Shi Xinghuo to help clean the house where he and Shi Xinghuo lived.
He even made them move his and Shi Xinghuo's bed to Guan Baiyu's house.
From then on, he and Shi Xinghuo slept in the outer room of Guan Baiyu's house.
Shi Xinghuo may not be reliable, but Guan Baiyu is definitely reliable. When Shi Zhen opened the door, he saw that the room was clean and tidy, and there was a plastic sheet on the floor.
That was a plastic sheet he had bought before to keep out the rain on rainy days.
After inspecting the items, Mr. Zhou felt relieved. He left two hundred sweaters, told Shi Zhen to come and pick them up the day after tomorrow, left a phone number, and then left.
After he left, someone came to ask Shi Zhen what this person had come for.
Shi Zhen didn't hide anything and told them directly that he had taken on a job and needed someone to help with embroidery.
He then took out the sample and said, "I'm not really sure how to embroider this flower, and there's only one sample... I need to figure out the embroidery method first. Do you have any skilled craftsmen? You can try embroidering one with me. Don't worry, as long as the embroidery is up to standard, I'll definitely pay you."
Most villagers lacked confidence and had never seen anyone embroider like this before, so many hesitated and dared not speak up.
Finally, Guan Baiyu's adoptive mother, Zhang Xiumei, stepped forward: "This doesn't look difficult to embroider, I can give it a try... How much would it cost to embroider one?"
Shi Zhen said, "I can give you more embroidery samples. It's one yuan per piece. Of course, I'll have higher requirements for the samples."
The pattern on this garment is a bit intricate. You have to fix the printed paper onto the garment, then embroider it according to the pattern. Once you're done embroidering, you tear off the paper, and that's it.
Of course, since it's a sweater, the thread used for embroidery is also wool, which is relatively thick, so the embroidery speed shouldn't be too slow. It shouldn't take a whole day to embroider one piece.
The price the wool sweater factory quoted for this garment was one yuan and two mao per piece.
Shi Zhen plans to try embroidering it himself, and after determining the time it would take to embroider one piece, he will calculate the price and send it to the villagers.
Generally speaking, sitting and embroidering for an hour can earn you 50 cents, so the women in the village are happy to do it. They can earn one yuan an hour, which makes them very happy... He previously asked them to fold paper ingots, and they worked for several hours but only earned two yuan!
At that time, manpower was really cheap.
After Zhang Xiumei was the first to step forward, other women soon said they wanted to try embroidering samples.
Shi Zhen had been living in the village for several months and knew roughly about the people there, so he selected a few to embroider with him.
The women looked at the sample for a long time before they began to embroider.
It was their first time doing this kind of work, so they were very careful, afraid of making mistakes, and tried their best to embroider exactly the same as the sample.
They even counted the stitches required for each flower petal beforehand.
Shi Zhen also took a piece of clothing to embroider.
People who do a lot of farm work, like his father, have very rough hands covered in cracks. Sometimes, when the cracks are so bad, they have to wrap their fingers with tape.
Hands like these would have difficulty doing fine work and wouldn't be able to hold a needle and thread.
However, he is still young, so it's not that serious. Although he has calluses on his hands, they are not cracked.
The needle used for embroidering sweaters is quite thick and long, but he handled it without any problem.
Shi Zhen took the needle and began to follow along.
He wasn't good at everything, but he had done a lot of chores since he was young, so he always had strong hands-on skills. He could even embroider exactly like the samples.
Shi Zhen embroidered a garment for fifty minutes straight without stopping.
Before he finished embroidering, Zhang Xiumei had already finished one, while among the others, some had finished embroidering and some had not.
This is their first time embroidering, so it will be a little slow. Shi Zhen thought that if they could embroider these clothes quickly, they should be able to embroider two pieces per hour after embroidering a few more.
If someone embroiders slowly, they can probably only embroider one piece per hour.
After a moment's thought, Shi Zhen gave the price for embroidering the clothes: "I need more than a dozen samples of these clothes. You can embroider the samples here for one yuan each. After the samples are finished, you can take the clothes back from here to embroider for seven mao each. If you take them today, you need to give them back to me tomorrow."
These women were initially quite apprehensive, worried that they wouldn't be able to do the job, but now that they've embroidered one, they feel more confident.
They usually have to cook and do a lot of housework, but after dinner, they can still find at least seven or eight hours a day to embroider.
Once you get the hang of it, you can earn at least ten yuan a day embroidering.
That's three hundred a month!
Shi Zhen also calculated it before giving them this price.
Although he exploited people a bit too much, well... who told him to be short of money right now?
I can only be a capitalist now.
While these women were embroidering samples, other villagers came to watch, such as Guan Jianguo's mother. She even asked for the clothes and started embroidering as well.
The embroidery is actually quite good!
Once all twenty samples were ready, Shi Zhen began distributing the sweaters he had on hand.
Some people tried to claim ten or fifteen items, but Zhang Xiumei was ruthless and directly asked for thirty.
"Auntie, can you finish embroidering?" Shi Zhen asked with some concern.
Zhang Xiumei said, "You forgot, Jinjin is on summer vacation!"
Shi Zhen: "..." Is this asking Guan Jinjin to help with the embroidery? But Zhang Xiumei's family also raises chickens... However, there isn't much work to do in the fields recently, and Guan Guangguo has become quite skilled at raising chickens, so he can take care of them all by himself.
Of course, the biggest reason Zhang Xiumei came to him for work was probably because raising chickens wasn't profitable.
Recently, many families near Anshan Town have been raising chickens at home, but the price of chickens has remained low. However, feed prices have increased due to increased demand.
The wool sweater factory only gave Shi Zhen two hundred wool sweaters in total. Ten sweaters for you, twenty sweaters for me, and these clothes were quickly taken by the women in the village.
Shi Zhen wrote down the name of each woman and the number of clothes they took in his notebook.
Of course, he also specifically instructed them not to get the clothes dirty, and to be more careful when embroidering. If the embroidery was not good enough, he would make them redo it. Losing the clothes was even worse; they would have to pay for it.
Since they were all villagers, Shi Zhen knew they wouldn't secretly hide the clothes after taking them away.
But if he's not careful and gives them too many, for example, if he notes that he'll give them ten but ends up giving them eleven, they'll most likely keep the extra one and not give it to him.
So even though the clothes were already bundled in groups of ten when they arrived, Shi Zhen still carefully counted them before giving them to them, and made them count them on the spot as well.
Giving too many clothes is not good, and giving too few is definitely not good either.
Once everyone had left, Shi Zhen relaxed.
After deducting the extra money paid for having samples made and the kickback to Mr. Zhou, he could probably earn seventy yuan from these two hundred pieces of clothing.
So sometimes finding the right way to do business can really earn you more than working hard and diligently.
This job was undoubtedly the easiest yet most lucrative of all the jobs he had done since his rebirth. Once the business was on track, he might be able to earn a hundred a day.
Not to mention, he doesn't plan to do just that; he also wants to set up a stall in town to sell cold drinks at night.
Shi Zhen planned out his future and intended to buy the freezer as soon as possible.
Of course, he'll have to wait until his business gets on track after a few days.
If he could contact more sweater factories, perhaps in the future, hundreds of women in this village and nearby villages would get work from him.
In the 1990s, there were quite a few villages that made money by doing this kind of handicraft. For example, in some villages, the whole village worked together to make lighters.
In some villages, the whole village would glue hair clips together.
There are also villages where the whole village works together to string beads and make bracelets and necklaces.
It's not bad for the whole village to work together to do secondary processing on wool sweaters.
Shi Zhen was quite busy; he went to Changxi City early in the morning, and everyone else was just as busy.
After helping Shi Zhen tidy up the house that Shi Zhen had rented from Guan Jianguo in the morning, Guan Baiyu went to town to teach Shi Ting a lesson.
He discovered that Shi Ting's foundation was very weak, so he took his own elementary school textbook to Shi's house and started teaching her from punctuation marks, such as "de," "de," and "di."
Cough cough... After this lesson, he discovered that his foundation was also quite weak.
Another issue is that Shi Ting's math skills are really not very good.
Guan Baiyu taught very seriously. As he was teaching, Zhao Qiujuan came back pushing her rice ball stall.
Guan Baiyu immediately stood up: "Sis, where's my brother?"
Zhao Qiujuan said, "Azhen went to Changxi City."
"Oh..." Guan Baiyu was somewhat disappointed.
Zhao Qiujuan was quite happy. She had run her own business today and handled so much money, so she felt different now.
"I sold rice balls this morning, and I have some leftover peanuts and egg crepes. Would you like some?" Zhao Qiujuan asked.
Guan Baiyu wasn't very interested, but Shi Ting was: "I want it!"
Zhao Qiujuan then took it out and gave it to Shi Ting to eat.
When making rice balls, you have to scoop out each ingredient with a spoon, and eventually these ingredients tend to mix together.
For example, peanuts may contain pickled vegetables or preserved mustard greens.
The food looked a bit dirty, but Shi Ting didn't mind, since she hadn't been able to eat it before, so she picked up a pair of chopsticks and ate it.
At that moment, Zhao Dongjuan arrived and grabbed a handful of peanuts.
Shi Ting didn't sense anything was wrong, but Guan Baiyu was a bit speechless—wasn't it a bit inappropriate to just grab it with his bare hands?
Okay, he caught his brother's obsession with cleanliness.
Zhao Meiyun began asking Zhao Qiujuan about her stall situation.
Shi Zhen planned to hand over the stall to Zhao Qiujuan, and Zhao Meiyun was overjoyed when she found out.
You can make money by setting up a street stall!
Now that her eldest daughter has an income, she'll be able to marry someone better in the future.
Zhao Meiyun's worldview was limited to things like getting married.
Zhao Qiujuan happily recounted her experiences setting up her stall to her mother, adding, "Mom, I think I'll be able to learn it in just one more day."
"You've learned to work for free?" Zhao Dongjuan asked.
Zhao Qiujuan and Zhao Meiyun were speechless for a moment.
Zhao Qiujuan paused for a moment and then said, "Azhen said that from now on, this business will be mine, and all the profits will be mine."
“Getting up before dawn, only you would think it’s a good thing,” Zhao Dongjuan said. “He must have thought this was tiring, that’s why he made you do it.”
Guan Baiyu was a little confused.
His brother used to get up every morning to sell rice balls and sell fried skewers at night. He also had to cook meat for the cooked food stall. He was so busy that he didn't have time to sleep. He could even fall asleep when he rested on the straw. All this was so that his family could have a good life.
This person not only doesn't appreciate it, but also acts sarcastic and mean?
If they weren't unfamiliar with each other, and if Zhao Meiyun and the others weren't already in such an awkward situation, Guan Baiyu really wanted to say a few words to Zhao Dongjuan.
But these are Shi Zhen's family members after all...
Zhao Qiujuan was also angry: "It's not like Ah Zhen hasn't done it before; he was the one who set up this stall before!"
That's what they say, but Zhao Qiujuan couldn't do anything about Zhao Dongjuan.
Zhao Dongjuan is so old, she can't hit her.
Sometimes, in order to prevent her from causing trouble, she and her mother even have to find ways to give her more benefits.
Shi Zhen's rice ball stall has not yet been fully handed over to Zhao Qiujuan.
But he has completely given the fried food stall to his parents.
Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun weren't very good at arithmetic, and they had come back late yesterday, so they hadn't calculated the profit. But they still felt like they were burning their hands with the more than one hundred yuan they had received.
To change the subject, Shi Dalin asked Guan Baiyu to help calculate their stall's profit.
I have a general idea of what was prepared at the stall yesterday. Although there are some differences, I can still calculate the approximate profit.
Guan Baiyu calculated for them and found that they had earned about twenty yuan yesterday.
Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun were completely stunned by this answer.
How can they earn so much in a day?
No, you can't say they were busy for half a day.
No wonder their son insisted on bringing them outside; it's so much better outside.
The people in their village should also come out to work.
Zhao Qiujuan was also a little confused: "You can earn this much by setting up a stall?"
Guan Baiyu said, "Selling fried skewers earns more money, but the rice ball stall might not. However, if there are extra orders, you can earn just as much. It's a pity that my brother was too busy before and had to ask others for help, so he didn't keep all the money he earned."
Shi Dalin and the others knew about this; Shi Xinghuo had already saved up a thousand!
Moreover, no matter what kind of business it is, it is always difficult at the beginning. How to buy and process the materials are all problems. They were able to get started only after Shi Zhen taught them.
It must have been very difficult for Shi Zhen when he first started doing it.
Guan Baiyu ate lunch at Shi's house, and he bought the vegetables for him.
Shi Zhen was worried that if he and Guan Baiyu didn't buy anything, his family would eat whatever they wanted, so he told Guan Baiyu to make sure to buy some meat and eggs.
However, the cooking was taken over by Zhao Meiyun and Zhao Qiujuan. While cooking, the two complained that Shi Zhen and Guan Baiyu had bought too many groceries.
After dinner, Guan Baiyu taught Shi Ting for a while longer. During this time, Zhao Qiujuan also came over and listened to the lessons.
Guan Baiyu was very happy that Zhao Qiujuan wanted to listen and earnestly taught Zhao Qiujuan pinyin.
Guan Baiyu didn't stop until 3 p.m., preparing to go home.
His brother... should be back by now, right?
Guan Baiyu rushed home and saw his brother sitting on a bamboo chair in the house that Guan Jianguo had rented for him. He was holding a sweater in his hands and embroidering very seriously with his head down.
Since Shi Zhen had nothing to do tonight, he kept a few sweaters for himself to embroider, since it would be a way to make money.
He was used to the work, and he felt a little uncomfortable when he stopped.
Upon seeing Guan Baiyu, he casually released the clothes he was holding: "Xiaoyu, you're back?"
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