Chapter 7 Encountering Him
The place was noisy and crowded.
The aroma from the fried dough stick stall, wonton stall, and steamed bun shop wafts into the air.
The vegetable sellers, seafood sellers, and meat sellers’ hawking sounds were one after another, noisy and orderly.
In her previous life, she loved to go to such morning markets in her spare time. The fresh air and the delicious food fresh out of the pot made her feel happy both physically and mentally. Of course, at that time, she had achieved financial freedom and did not need to worry about food and clothing.
After the excitement, Su Jiaojiao was depressed to find that all the good seats inside were taken. Not to mention the plastic buckets, there was not even enough room for people to stand.
She pushed her bicycle through the dazzling array of stalls and asked about the price of conchs today. Some were two dollars and fifty cents, some were three dollars, and some were four dollars. Su Jiaojiao had an idea in mind, so she found an open space on the side of the road, set up her bicycle, and moved the plastic bucket down.
Now she is no longer a strong woman, no longer the founder of Yunran, she is just an ordinary rural girl who wants to make money to go to high school. No matter what era or situation, it is impossible to live without money.
The morning market that she longed for in her previous life has become where she makes a living now.
Time is running out and she can't afford to relax at all.
Next to her was an old man selling plastic bags. Seeing that her bucket was full of conchs, he asked her gently, "Little girl, do you want some plastic bags? They're fifty cents a bundle."
"Yes." Su Jiaojiao then remembered that she didn't bring a plastic bag. She rummaged through her pockets and finally found five one-cent bills. She thought to herself, what a close call. Fortunately, she had fifty cents, otherwise she wouldn't know how to pack the conchs for the customer.
There were people coming and going at the intersection, but few people stopped to look at the goods.
Five minutes, ten minutes passed, and no one stopped in front of her, let alone asked the price.
Listening to the shouts all around, Su Jiaojiao wiped the sweat from her face. No matter what, even though she had no experience selling seafood, she couldn't back down. She couldn't make money by being thin-skinned. So she went all out: "Fresh conch, freshly caught from the sea, come and see."
This shout was indeed effective.
Soon, two middle-aged women stopped in front of her stall and looked at her conches. "Little girl, how much are conches per pound?"
"Three pieces." Su Jiaojiao smiled brightly. "These conchs are alive. Look, they're covered with seaweed. I just caught them in the ocean last night. Look, they've spit out the sand. I'll just clean the sand off the surface and cook them when I get home."
"They're quite fresh." One of the women in white Dacron picked four or five from the bucket and shook the water off her hands. "Weigh them and see how much they are."
"Wait, I want two kilograms. Can you give me a discount, two dollars and fifty cents?" Another woman in a blue artificial cotton dress squatted sideways to bargain with her. Su Jiaojiao glanced at her and said calmly, "Auntie, my conch is so fresh and the right size. It's not expensive."
"Well, you picked it up yourself, so you don't have much money anyway." The woman in blue started to choose. "Okay, okay, it's two dollars and fifty cents."
"Yes, two dollars and fifty cents. Let's buy more." The woman in the white shirt had already put the conchs into the plastic bag and started bargaining. "That's right, the big ones are big, and the small ones are small. They're only worth two dollars and fifty cents."
"I won't sell it for 2.5 yuan!" Su Jiaojiao refused. If she sold these conchs for 2.5 yuan, she would not make any profit. Each conch was weighed a little higher, and in the end she would definitely not be able to sell 40 kilograms.
"If you don't want to sell it, forget it. Let's go inside and take a look." The woman in blue frowned and pulled her companion away. The two of them looked back as they walked, as if waiting for Su Jiaojiao to call them.
Su Jiaojiao didn't even look at them.
She could see through this little trick at a glance.
When she collected these conchs at the beach, she charged a uniform price of two yuan per pound.
The two women just now both bought the big ones. If they sell them all, wouldn’t only the small ones be left?
Thinking of this, Su Jiaojiao borrowed a plastic basin from the old man selling plastic bags, and divided the conchs in the bucket into two parts according to size, selling the big ones for three yuan and the small ones for two and a half yuan.
She just took a walk around the market and saw that almost all products were sold in this way. It was easier to sell them if you could make comparisons.
She overlooked this detail.
People came one after another to look at the goods and ask the price.
What surprised Su Jiaojiao was that compared with the price of the large conch, the small conchs were sold out quickly. Twenty-four kilograms were sold in eight batches, for a total of sixty yuan.
They are getting closer and closer to the cost, which makes Su Jiaojiao very excited.
She was even happier than when she got a big order in her previous life.
At seven o'clock, people in the morning market gradually dispersed. Everyone had to go to work and would not stay in the morning market for too long.
The small stalls in the market had basically sold out their seafood. Su Jiaojiao weighed them and found that there were still 15 kilograms of large conchs left. Seeing that many seafood vendors had left, leaving a lot of space, she decisively picked up the bucket and moved to another location.
But just as I settled in, someone with a red armband came over to collect the money: "One dollar for the booth."
I almost forgot that there is a fee to enter the market.
The sun gradually rose, and it was almost nine o'clock, but her conches had not been sold out yet. At this time, most of the people visiting the morning market were old men and women. They were reluctant to spend money, and they picked and chose, complaining that the conches were too expensive, and said that the conches in the morning market were all two yuan.
Su Jiaojiao was not moved at all.
Her small conchs can be sold for two dollars and fifty cents, so how could the big conch be sold for three dollars?
She came late today. If she had come earlier, she would have been able to sell it.
What's more, they bought small amounts, so she wouldn't be happy if the scale was even, and she wouldn't be happy if the scale was too low. If the scale was too high, all the weight would be lost. It would be good if she could sell 39 kilograms of 40 kilograms of goods, and she wouldn't fill the conch with water.
Just as she was thinking, a gray pickup truck stopped in front of her. The driver was a man in his thirties. He jumped out of the car and asked, "How much are these conches per pound?"
"Three pieces." Su Jiaojiao replied.
"This conch is quite fresh." He carefully examined the conch in the bucket. He was a connoisseur of its kind. He smiled and asked her, "Did you find it in the village?"
"Yes." Su Jiaojiao nodded. Seeing that he looked like he was going to buy something, she smiled and said, "Three yuan is the price at the morning market."
"Okay, I'll take them all." The man waved his hand.
Su Jiaojiao liked dealing with straightforward people, so she quickly fished the conch out of the bucket and weighed it: "Fifteen pounds and four ounces, that's fifteen pounds, a total of forty-five yuan!"
The cost of these conches is eighty yuan.
The small conch sold for 60 yuan and the large conch sold for 45 yuan, a total of 105 yuan. After deducting the cost and the one yuan stall fee, the net income was 24 yuan!
Twenty-four dollars can buy several pieces of cloth.
It should be no problem to make small accessories like head flowers and sell them at the county fair.
The man who bought the conchs carried the bag to the back of the truck, opened the door, and got in. He turned around and said to the person in the back seat, "Xiuming, didn't you say you wanted to go out and visit our market? Why didn't you get out?"
The car window was half open.
Qin Xiuming, with a young and handsome face, was wearing a dark blue casual sportswear and was reading a book. He glanced out the window and waved his hand, saying, "It's too noisy. I won't go down."
The car window slowly closed.
The pickup truck started.
He turned a corner, got onto the main road, quickly merged into the traffic flow, and disappeared.
Su Jiaojiao hadn't seen Qin Xiuming for several years, so she was a little surprised to meet him when he was young.
Until the old man selling plastic bags stood in front of her and asked her loudly in a thick rural accent: "Little girl, do you still want to use my plastic basin?"
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