When it gets hot in the summer, people in the villages near Anshan Town don't stay at home after sunset, but go to the outdoor drying grounds to "cool off".
Everyone moved bamboo mats, bamboo chairs, and the like to the cement drying yard in front of their homes, and took a palm-leaf fan to fan themselves while occasionally slapping their legs to drive away mosquitoes and flies.
Of course, some people are willing to spend money and simply light a ring of mosquito coils around their feet.
At this time, even dinner was eaten outside. The porridge that was cooked early was served in bowls and left to cool on the stove. When it was time to eat in the evening, a bowl was served, with some pickled vegetables or fermented bean curd on top, and then people would go to the threshing ground to eat it.
Some children who like sweets will have brown sugar sprinkled on their porridge.
Some young people simply walked or rode bicycles to town.
Especially for those who are in a relationship, going out for a stroll after dinner is an absolute must.
People in the countryside are like this, and people in the town are pretty much the same; everyone loves to wander around outside.
And this stroll often leads to the vicinity of the movie theater.
There's a small square here where you can buy all sorts of things; even if you don't buy anything, you can still come and enjoy the sights.
And today... there's an extra stall here?
"Iced soda and iced cola, 50 cents a cup! Mung bean popsicles and red bean popsicles, 30 cents each!" Shi Zhen would call out from time to time.
The soda that Shi Zhen sells is produced by a nearby factory. It comes in glass bottles and costs 35 cents a bottle.
These soda shops usually sell them for 60 cents a bottle, and they buy back the glass bottles for 10 cents, which means the soda inside sells for 50 cents.
Next to Shi Zhen was a case of soda and a large bottle of cola.
The iced soda and iced cola he was talking about are made by taking a disposable cup that is slightly larger than a regular disposable cup, scooping in a few pieces of ice with a large spoon, and then pouring in soda or cola.
A bottle of soda can be poured into about two cups, and a large bottle of cola can be poured into many more cups. He sells it for 50 cents a cup, making a very high profit.
But quite a few people still came to buy.
After all, it's icy cold, which is especially refreshing in the summer.
I brought my girlfriend shopping, and she felt hot, so I had to buy her a refreshing drink.
Of course, some people might think that 50 cents a cup of cold drink is a bit expensive. They can buy a 20-cent popsicle or a 30-cent red bean popsicle, which is the same price as in a convenience store.
Business is booming in Shizhen. Many people who buy fried skewers and other snacks will come to buy cold drinks, and moviegoers are also happy to bring in a cup.
Now movie theaters only sell tickets, they don't sell popcorn or cola!
Some people prefer their food colder and will ask for more ice to save Shi Zhen some soda.
Shi Zhen and Guan Baiyu worked together seamlessly, one selling and the other collecting the money. They quickly amassed a pile of coins.
Just as they were selling, Zhao Qiujuan arrived. She came to help, but after looking around, she realized there was nothing she could do, so she stood there awkwardly.
Taking advantage of a break, Shi Zhen poured her a glass of cola: "Sis, have a glass of iced cola." Zhao Qiujuan probably hadn't had this before.
Zhao Qiujuan got one, and Shi Zhen wouldn't neglect Zhao Meiyun either. He even gave Shi Dalin a cup with extra ice and less cola.
Shi Dalin doesn't have diabetes yet, so he can't very well refuse to give him the drink.
Zhao Qiujuan accepted it and gave Shi Zhen two yuan.
"No need," Shi Zhen refused to accept it.
“Yes, Tingting said this isn’t just your business. You even take money from her when she eats popsicles, so how can you not take my money?” Zhao Qiujuan quickly put two yuan into Shi Zhen’s money box.
Shi Zhen didn't refuse again and took out two more mung bean popsicles for Zhao Qiujuan.
Zhao Qiujuan gave two yuan to pay for Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun's cold drinks, and there was still fifty cents left.
Zhao Qiujuan got an ice pop and gave one to each of Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun.
Seeing this, Shi Zhen said, "Sister, my dad doesn't like sweets, you and Aunt Zhao eat them."
People who had severe diabetes in their past life, to the point of developing several complications, should avoid eating too many sweets.
Shi Dalin: "..." Who said he doesn't like sweets? He's always liked sweets!
He used to say he didn't like sweets, but that was because he wanted to save the good food for the children!
However, Shi Dalin was too embarrassed to say that he liked sweets, so he remained silent. Zhao Meiyun opened the popsicle and offered him a bite, and he finally gave her face and took a small bite.
Shi Zhen poured Guan Baiyu a glass of cola as well.
Guan Baiyu held the bottle to his lips, wanting him to drink it, but he refused: "I don't like sweet drinks."
After saying that, Shi Zhen scooped himself half a cup of ice, added some cold water, and took a sip.
Guan Baiyu could only drink by himself, glancing at Shi Zhen from time to time.
He never tired of watching his brother work.
Shi Zhen collected money from the money in small increments, but secretly he felt a little regretful.
If he had a shop, he could set up some tables and chairs, some pretty cups... and then he could offer everything from milk tea and shaved ice to some more expensive products.
There are quite a few wealthy people in town. A bowl of shaved ice costs three yuan, and I reckon there are still people who would buy it.
Of course, things are already very good now.
Shi Zhen's cold drink stall, along with his fried skewers stall, stayed open until 10 p.m.
By this time, the ice in the refrigerator had begun to melt.
He left home at around 5 a.m., and it's been more than four hours since then. It's already quite good that the freezer has lasted this long... Shi Zhen said goodbye to his parents, pushed his stall home, and as soon as he got home, he plugged the freezer in, took a shower, and went to bed around 11 p.m.
Since he didn't need to sell rice balls in the morning, Shi Zhen slept until after seven o'clock and felt refreshed.
It was already July 20th, with only 30 to 40 days left before school started. Shi Zhen had already made plans for the days ahead: during the day, he would collect and distribute sweaters in the village, and at night he would go to town to sell cold drinks and popsicles.
Well, when he's collecting and distributing sweaters during the day, he also sells popsicles in the village, as well as cold drinks.
The cold drink business is really profitable. Shi Zhen gradually added some beverage varieties, such as iced milk and iced orange juice. He could earn at least 30 cents per cup. He could easily sell more than 100 cups a night. In addition, there were popsicles and frozen bottled drinks. He could earn more than 100 yuan a day.
In addition, he could earn more than a hundred yuan a day by collecting and sending sweaters... Shi Zhen finally felt relieved and no longer worried about Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting's tuition fees.
However, Shi Ting's studies are still quite worrying.
Her grades were terrible, and her foundation was weak.
Shi Zhen had almost given up on her.
If you want Shi Ting to go to university, then forget about it. In a few years, vocational school will be better. Try to find a way to get Shi Ting into vocational school. She should be able to become a nurse or a kindergarten teacher in the future.
These professions are currently in short supply, so the required scores are a bit lower... Nowadays, graduates from good vocational schools can directly become doctors!
As for Shi Ting's love of spending money... Shi Zhen doesn't talk to her about anything else now, he just keeps telling her that in this life, you must never be in debt.
Shi Zhen also told several somewhat frightening stories about being in debt.
For example, some people who owe high-interest loans are lured into illegal coal mines and forced to dig coal day and night.
For example, someone who owes money and doesn't pay it back might have their hand chopped off and their Achilles tendon severed.
He described it so vividly that Shi Ting was almost scared to tears.
Guan Baiyu was also a little confused when she saw this. Why was her brother scaring his sister?
Guan Baiyu had some reservations about Shi Ting before. She was Shi Zhen's younger sister, whom he had raised by relying on each other. He was afraid that after Shi Ting appeared, his brother would revolve around her and not care about him.
However, this did not happen.
Sometimes he could even clearly feel that his brother was not as close to Shi Ting as his brother was to him.
In this way, he no longer harbored any resentment towards Shi Ting.
These days he's been trying to teach Shi Ting to read, but she just can't seem to get it right, and he's starting to feel a little sorry for her.
Seeing that Shi Ting was frightened, Guan Baiyu specially opened a bottle of soda for her to drink for free.
"Brother Baiyu, thank you." Shi Ting had been taking too much money from Shi Zhen lately, so she felt embarrassed when someone treated her. She shared half of the bottle of soda with Guan Baiyu.
Ahem, her brother and Guan Baiyu are business partners. Now Guan Baiyu drinks Guan Baiyu's share, and she drinks her brother's share, which is just right.
Guan Baiyu quite liked the drinks and popsicles, so he added some ice and sipped them slowly.
Shi Zhen poured the frozen ice into a basin, then poured cooled boiled water into a plastic compartment to continue freezing the ice.
The scene of Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting drinking soda together made him feel a little dazed.
Several months have passed, and Guan Baiyu has grown much taller and more handsome.
His sister, though a bit dark-skinned and a little silly, is also a pretty girl.
A young boy and girl, wouldn't you say they're childhood sweethearts?
At this moment, Guan Baiyu asked Shi Ting and Shi Zhen in a low voice.
Shi Ting then talked a lot about her brother's childhood, a jumbled mess of things, going on and on about whatever came to mind.
"Once, my brother showed me a small snake by its tail, and the snake coiled up and bit him. Luckily, it wasn't poisonous..."
“My brother fell from a tree once. His eyes were covered in blood. I was so afraid he would go blind. Luckily, he only injured his eyelid. He still has a scar on his eyelid.”
"Once, he thought he could jump from one rock to another, but his pants were too tight, which tripped him, and he didn't jump up, instead bumping into a rock..."
...
Guan Baiyu: "..." Little sister, all you remember are your brother's bad luck.
However, it's really hard to imagine that his brother used to be so unreliable.
Of course, Shi Ting's memories weren't all about Shi Zhen's misfortunes: "My brother had a huge appetite. He was too embarrassed to eat too much at home, afraid of finishing all the food in the pot, so he always went out to find food. He could find all sorts of random things. He even told me that he wanted to experience the hardships of the past, so he took me to peel bark from trees to make dumplings. They were quite delicious, but the tree he peeled the bark from died."
“My brother can also weave straw sandals, and he’s much better at it than my dad. He’s also woven straw curtains to help surround my bed!”
"He would swing from tree to tree on the vines, from one tree to another. He was also a great climber. He could climb up such a tall jujube tree in no time. It's a pity that many of the jujubes on that tree were infested with worms. It made me so angry."
“My brother is very popular in our village. Several older girls in the village who are about his age all like him and want to be my sister-in-law.”
By the end, Shi Ting was quite pleased with herself.
Guan Baiyu was very unhappy, though he didn't know why. It was mainly because he didn't want his brother to get married.
"How are they now?"
“Nothing much,” Shi Ting said in a low voice. “When we came out this time, they even gave my brother some things, but he didn’t accept them.”
Guan Baiyu was even more unhappy.
Shi Ting continued, "I feel that my brother is different from before after he came out. He didn't smile like this before, he doesn't walk like this, and he doesn't talk like this. Now when I see him, I'm really a little scared... Is it too hard outside? Sigh, my brother said before that he would definitely bring me a gift when he came home, but he didn't bring anything."
Shi Ting was feeling a little down.
Guan Baiyu said, "Brother has just grown up. You should be understanding of him."
"Yes." Shi Ting nodded seriously.
After selling cold drinks for a few days, Shi Zhen met the wife that someone had told Guan Wenguo about.
She was a short, plump woman with an ordinary appearance. She was about thirty years old and also surnamed Li. Her name was Li Xiangwen.
Li Xiangwen was very diligent. As soon as she arrived, she helped Guan Wenguo's family with their laundry and even took clothes from Shi Zhen to embroider.
Shi Zhen disliked Guan Kai's family, but he generally didn't target them personally. Whether it was his grandmother or Li Xiangwen coming to him for a sweater, he would give it to them.
However, when his grandmother wanted to ask him for more beads or something, he refused to give them to her.
He just didn't understand why his grandmother wanted more of these plastic beads; they weren't really of any use.
The young lady didn't get any advantage, but she still liked to come over and chat with people.
At first, she praised Li Xiangwen extensively, saying that Li Xiangwen was far better than Li Ahui.
However, it wasn't long before she started to dislike Li Xiangwen, saying that she treated Guan Kai badly, made dishes that Guan Kai didn't like, and that Guan Kai even cried. Basically, she felt that Li Xiangwen had done something particularly wrong, while the people around them didn't think that Li Xiangwen had done anything wrong.
Well... Li Xiangwen has only been here for a few days, how would she know what Guan Kai doesn't like to eat? Isn't it normal to make things that Guan Kai doesn't like to eat?
Shi Zhen finally understood why Guan Wenguo couldn't find a partner in his past life...
Sure enough, Li Xiangwen couldn't stand Guan Wenguo's house after living there for half a month and left.
At this point, the young grandmother stopped speaking ill of Li Xiangwen and began to reminisce about her, thinking that Li Xiangwen was actually quite nice.
Shi Zhen: "..."
However, the gossip about my great-grandmother's family is no longer the most talked-about topic in the village.
Recently, a man from the next village made some money in business and started an affair with a woman from town. He was making a scene and wanted a divorce, but his son and father together kicked him out with the door bolt. That's the real bombshell.
This man is not young anymore. The woman he's been with is already a grandmother, and his son is almost twenty. Everyone in the village thinks he's crazy; he doesn't want a perfectly good family and insists on running away.
They also felt that his son was too reckless, driving people away like that and losing all the money!
However, the man's lover couldn't have children, so the money will probably end up going to his son.
July passed just like that, and in early August, something unexpected happened that seriously affected Shi Zhen's business.
Once it rained, Shi Zhen couldn't go out to sell cold drinks, and then in early August, a typhoon suddenly struck.
The typhoon knocked down Guan Jianguo's jujube tree, which was a minor matter. The more troublesome thing was that it rained for two days in a row afterward, and then... the river in front of Guan Baiyu's house got fuller and fuller, and the river flooded the cement road along the river. Guan Baiyu's house is next to the road, and the doorway was completely flooded.
If Guan Baiyu's house hadn't been raised a bit, the whole house would definitely be flooded!
The water on the cement road was about knee-deep for Shi Zhen, but when some children walked on it, it reached their thighs.
The location wasn't high, but Shi Zhen definitely couldn't push the freezer to town, and it would be difficult to put it on a tricycle and push it there either.
Even trucks loaded with sweaters couldn't reach Guanjian Country—they would stall when flooded. Shi Zhen saw a motorcycle drive past their house and stall immediately. The motorcyclist could only dejectedly push the motorcycle away.
The villagers were used to the water, and the children even went out to play in it on the road.
Shi Zhen knew why this was happening.
In the 1990s, the national water conservancy projects were not as well-constructed as they are now. In places like Anshan Town, some rivers were filled in in order to build roads.
The largest road in Anshan Town used to be a river.
All these things combined... every summer, some low-lying areas in the area get flooded.
However, it usually just gets a little wet, not considered a flood, and won't cause them too much damage, so everyone calmed down. Shi Zhen even saw Guan Jianguo take a big net and his daughter to the cement road to catch fish.
Surprisingly... you can actually catch it.
The road being flooded didn't receive attention and was finally resolved until a major flood occurred later. Two thousand years later, the area has never been flooded again.
And now... Shi Zhen has communicated with the wool sweater factory, and they have decided to take away his wool sweaters. As for the rest, they will be delivered in a few days.
Under normal circumstances, the water level will recede in a few days.
Most importantly, the sweater factory isn't in a rush to deliver goods, so they don't mind taking a few days off.
Shi Zhen carried all the finished wool sweaters to town on a shoulder pole. When the truck arrived, he followed it to Changxi City.
He has already processed a lot of wool sweaters for us, it's time to settle the payment.
The wool sweater factory settled Shi Zhen's wages quite readily, and the amount was quite substantial, exceeding ten thousand yuan by several hundred.
This is definitely the largest sum of money Shi Zhen has received since his rebirth! However, most of it does not belong to him.
Shi Zhen had agreed with Boss Zhou that he would give Boss Zhou a one-tenth kickback after receiving the money.
Logically, one thousand would have been enough, but Shi Zhen gave him one thousand two hundred directly: "Thank you for taking care of me these past few days, President Zhou."
Mr. Zhou is not short of money, with a monthly salary of one or two thousand yuan, but the extra income of more than a thousand yuan still makes him very happy. He told Shi Zhen that he would send him a wool sweater in a few days, and also said that other wool sweater factories around them were also looking for people to do this, and Shi Zhen could ask them to see if he could take on more work.
Shi Zhen thanked him and gave the driver who always delivered goods to him 100 yuan so that the driver could buy cigarettes.
After giving that much money, there was only nine thousand left, but it was still a thick wad of cash.
Once he returns to Anshan Town, he can start paying the women in the village their "wages".
He himself will also make a large sum of money!
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