Jinghong Hotel is some distance from the seafood market; it took more than ten minutes for the tractor to chug along to get there.
It was still early, and the market was bustling with activity and noise—a truly lively scene.
The stalls were filled with all kinds of seafood, from fresh fish, shrimp and crab to dried fish and seaweed, and so on.
The tractor skillfully stopped at the market's goods entrance.
Feng Ye and A Can first unloaded the goods on the ground, then borrowed a trolley from the market and transferred them to shop number 51.
After locking the shop door and returning the cart, they went to shop number 4 to find Xu Shaoping.
Xu Shaoping was free at the moment, with no customers. Seeing them coming over, he quickly greeted them, "Boss Feng, it's been a long time!"
Feng Ye smiled and said, "It has indeed been a while since we last met. How's business? Pretty good, right?"
"It's so-so, nothing special. Business is getting harder and harder, the competition is fierce."
Xu Shaoping sighed.
“It’s normal for the competition to be fierce, but your location is good and there’s a lot of foot traffic, so you should still have an advantage.”
"That's about all the advantages we have."
Xu Shaoping gave a wry smile, then asked, "What about you guys? I haven't seen you selling dried fish lately."
"The last batch was sold out, and this batch was just put out to dry before it was ordered by Jinghong Hotel."
"That's great, it saves us trouble. Although we might earn a little less, we won't have to spend time selling them piecemeal."
“Yes, it saves us a lot of trouble.” Feng Ye nodded, then added, “We came here to ask Mr. Xu for a favor.”
"Don't bother with all this trouble, just tell me what's wrong."
"Here's the thing, the dried fish and shrimp ordered by Jinghong Hotel are temporarily stored at Shop No. 51. You can keep the key; someone will come and get it."
As Feng Ye spoke, he took out the key and handed it over.
Xu Shaoping took the key and put it in the drawer: "No problem, who's coming to get it? Is it Fatty Nie?"
"Does Mr. Xu know him too?"
Ah-chan, who was standing to the side, chimed in with some curiosity.
“Every single vendor in this market wants to do business with him, so how could they not know him?”
Xu Shaoping pointed to the vendors in the market and said with a smile.
"So that's how it is."
Feng Ye smiled and continued, "It's Fatty Nie. He's busy right now, so he asked us to leave the key with you. He'll come and get it when he has time."
"No problem, I'll give it to him."
Xu Shaoping nodded, then asked curiously, "How much stock did Jinghong Hotel order? And how much will it be stored in your shop?"
"Not much, just over 300 catties of dried fish and over 100 catties of shrimp."
"That's quite a lot, it gets tanned pretty quickly."
"Actually, we didn't show many ourselves; we only got this much because we bought some from other people."
"Why don't you dry more fish? Your dried fish is quite popular. During the time you were closed, many people inquired about it and wanted to buy some."
"Huh? Is that so?"
Feng Ye and A-Can exchanged a glance, both looking somewhat surprised.
"It's true. People who have bought your dried fish say it's not salty, very fresh and fragrant, and has a good degree of dryness. They all like it."
Xu Shaoping paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Some people know that was originally my shop. When they saw you were closed, they even came to ask me about it."
Feng Ye was somewhat incredulous upon hearing this.
I never imagined my dried fish would have such a good reputation.
This was something he had never even considered.
It's just dried fish made from miscellaneous fish, nothing special, and the taste is just so-so.
Is it because of the contrast with its peers?
After thinking it over, this is the only explanation I can come up with.
Ah-Can became excited: "Since they're selling so well, we should dry more fish; we can't let this opportunity slip away."
Feng Ye nodded in agreement, then said to Xu Shaoping, "Mr. Xu, I'll leave the keys to you now. We need to head back quickly."
"Don't worry, I'll keep the key safe. I'll give it to Fatty Nie when he comes over," Xu Shaoping assured him.
Feng Ye and A-Can then bid farewell and left Shop No. 4, heading out of the market towards the dock.
Back on the Rising Sun, Feng Ye and A-Can were still quite excited.
"Brother Ye, are you going out to sea to fish again?"
As Ah-Can started the diesel engine, he asked excitedly, unable to contain his excitement.
Feng Ye looked at him strangely: "Go, why don't you go?"
Ah-Can was dumbfounded when he heard this: "Shouldn't we hurry back to dry the fish?"
"If you don't go out to sea, where will you get fish to dry?"
“We can buy from others; we’ll pay for it.”
"Are you stupid? It's not the time to dry fish in large quantities yet, who would keep so many small fish here?"
Feng Ye looked at him as if he were an idiot.
"That's right, nobody knew we would accept them."
Ah-Can patted his head and smiled sheepishly, "I was so flustered that I lost my mind."
"No need to rush. When we get back this afternoon, we'll tell Uncle Fa, and he'll arrange everything for us."
"Should we let Uncle Fa collect it? He won't collect it for us for free; he'll definitely make a profit."
"That's for sure. Who would work for free? Last time we said we'd pay five cents a pound for the miscellaneous fish on the Harvest Ship, and the same price for Uncle Fa. As for how much he charges, that's his business."
“That works too. We can’t stay at home every day collecting miscellaneous fish.”
Ah-Can nodded, then suddenly remembered something and said, "Brother Ye, you said last time you wanted to get more varieties, do you have any ideas?"
Feng Ye thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Let's leave it for now and take it slowly. We can't expect to get fat in one bite. Let's just dry the miscellaneous fish for now."
"Besides, the drying yard next to my new house isn't finished yet. I'll decide what to do once it's done."
The large plot of land to the left of the new house, which he planned to use for drying fish, had already been cleared of weeds and leveled; all that remained was to build a wall and a warehouse.
"Didn't my mom get me a piece of land there too? Why don't we turn it into a drying ground for fish?"
"It's up to you, but we probably won't need it for now."
Feng Ye knew about this. After he explained the background of his land last time, his mother and Aunt Ling went to the village committee and made a scene. They actually managed to get another piece of land of about 20,000 square meters.
His older brother and Ah-chan split the cost equally, each taking half.
"Then let's leave it for now, and we can sort it out when we need it later."
As they chatted, the two steered the Rising Sun away from the dock and headed towards their usual fishing grounds.
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