Chapter 108 You Know and I Know

Zheng Man rode her bicycle back with another load of rags. As soon as she stopped, she told Tang Yuan: "A man came to buy tea leaves. He said that last year someone was selling tea leaves around here, old tea leaves that cost one pound each. He asked if we can still have them this year. Was it you last year?"

"Yes," Tang Yuan nodded, "but it will take a few days for the old tea to be available at one yuan per pound. If someone agrees to it, we will ship the tea to you."

"Okay, if someone asks me again, I'll tell them this," Zheng Man took down the scraps of cloth, "These scraps of cloth are enough to make a lot of hair bands and small wallets."

"The scraps are cheap and good quality, and they can be made into a variety of small purses. It would be nice to buy some and keep them," Tang Yuan said as he carried the bag into the warehouse. "I think your business has been pretty good recently."

"Very good, much better than expected," Zheng Man picked up two bags of rags at a time and followed Tang Yuan into the warehouse. "One more thing, I exchanged two hundred yuan from someone today, I'll give it to you later."

"Two hundred?"

"Yes, this time it's two hundred," Zheng Man put down the rag bag and turned to look at Tang Yuan, "You still need it, right?"

"Yes," Tang Yuan nodded, "Just change it, don't ask me all the time. I need it no matter how much."

A large part of her future business will certainly be in the Mainland. Even after the reform and opening up, she will need to spend money. If she earns a lot of Hong Kong dollars, she can exchange them. It is better to save more RMB so that she can always use it in the future.

"Then I won't ask anymore in the future." Zheng Man said with a smile.

After the two of them moved all the scraps of cloth into the bag, Zheng Man took out two hundred yuan from her wallet.

Tang Yuan lowered his head, looked at the ten relatively new big reunion tickets in her hand, then looked up at her.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. This money is quite new. The previous money was more or less worn out." Tang Yuan joked with her and took out a thousand yuan from his bag.

"I know some people from the mainland..." Zheng Man said in a low voice.

Tang Yuan looked up at Zheng Man's expression, blinked, and seeing her face turn red, he immediately said, "You make your own friends, I will definitely not interfere. Just tell me if you need help."

"Okay." Zheng Man breathed a sigh of relief and stood up straight.

Tang Yuan had some guesses in his mind, but he didn't ask too many questions. He just calmly completed today's transaction with her.

In the evening, Zheng Man had something to do, so the two did not go back together.

Tang Yuan looked at Zheng Man's straight back as she left. That kind of demeanor and temperament was something that most people couldn't learn. He guessed that the friends she knew were more or less related to the current situation in the mainland.

Hong Kong has not yet been returned. Before its official return, there will be various actions to crack down on Hong Kong crimes and groups in the 1980s and 1990s, and there will definitely be actions both inside and outside.

But she didn't expect Zheng Man to be involved in these things.

But considering that she can fight four thugs alone, has some fighting skills, and is from the mainland, it is normal to contact her now.

Although there are many things, they have little to do with her. At least on the surface she is still a Hong Konger and just an ordinary person. No matter what, she cannot be dragged into it.

The worst that can happen is that you can just exchange more RMB.

Well, by this calculation, doesn't that mean she won't have to worry about lack of RMB anymore?

Thinking of this, Tang Yuan's mood instantly improved. When he was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something, looked back at the warehouse, turned around and locked the door, took out the "temporary residence", and entered the game space with the car.

The coffee shop currently has sufficient stock, so she doesn't need to replenish the stock for at least two days. She can just go there and save the time of riding her bike back.

It’s a pity that the “temporary residence” can only follow her personally, otherwise she would have been able to sleep there until she moved out of the house she bought some time ago. Now she still has to stay in the game space.

Standing in the wooden house, Tang Yuan opened the shopping area and selected a bed worth two hundred gold coins.

After confirming the purchase, she lay directly on the bed, feeling the comfortable and soft mattress, turned over and squinted her eyes.

If she had known she would buy a bed earlier, she would have bought it earlier so she wouldn't have to sleep on the floor for so long.

She closed her eyes but could not rest immediately because she had to work the night shift in the kitchen and count the number of hair bands with her parents-in-law.

…

Tang Yuan opened the door and walked into the small compartment of his parents-in-law.

"Let's calculate today's quantity first."

"Do we need to work overtime today?" Auntie Wen handed a bag of hair bands to Tang Yuan.

"You can work overtime if you want, but if you don't, just go back," Tang Yuan counted the posts one by one, "I'll give you the flashlights. It's too late to go back without light, so it's not safe."

In order to rush the work two days ago, she specially prepared a flashlight for each of the four people. Now that the work was over, she had kept the flashlights but had no use for them, so she asked for them to use.

"I'm willing to work overtime," someone in the shed next door said, "I don't have anything to do when I go back home anyway, and the lights are still on here, so I might as well work here for a while longer."

"Yes, I want to work overtime too." Another person also spoke up.

Tang Yuan looked at the straw curtain between the sheds and asked, "Shall I open this curtain for you?"

"No, no, if we open the curtain, we will all be busy chatting and have no time to do anything. It's good this way," the neighbor spoke first. "It doesn't really make any difference this way. It's just a straw curtain. It can't block anything."

"Right, right, right. We can't let chatting delay our work," the mother-in-law also said, "It won't be a big deal if I go back. Just let us stay and work overtime. We can all do more."

"Okay, then you stay," Tang Yuan nodded, ordered the hair bands, and handed the money to the mother-in-law, "Make more hair bands during this period. I will tell you when you don't need to make hair bands anymore."

After finishing one, she went to other cubicles to settle their bills, and then went into the house carrying a bag of hair ties.

This room was originally partitioned, and after she moved in, in order to prevent people from simply seeing what was going on inside, further partitions were made, and there was even a small door inside.

There were some cardboard boxes piled up outside, leaving a small open space.

Tang Yuan put his things away, thinking about the situation of the people outside, and walked into the yard to talk: "It's hot now. If it rains heavily, you can sleep in this room. I have a lot of things to do later, so I won't come at a fixed time. You can open the door with the key. I may come every one and a half or two days. Is that okay?"

Coming once every one and a half or two days means that you have to wait that long to settle the bill.

If this was at the beginning of the cooperation, the four of them would definitely not agree to it. But now that the two parties have been cooperating for so long, the four of them are not short of money, so after hearing her say this, they all agreed.

After saying this, Tang Yuan walked out of the door, leaving his "temporary residence" in a nearby corner, and never came back.

This is the disadvantage of setting up the workplace at the residence. Her parents-in-law all know when she is there and when she is not. She can come out of the house occasionally, but not often. She can only stay outdoors like she did in the beginning.

…

"You two, mother and daughter, made 70 hair ties in total and you got 1.40 yuan."

"You're sixty-six."

"You're eighty-six."

"And you..."

The village chief took the money, made a note of the account, and then distributed money to the people sitting in front of him. Everyone was smiling after receiving the money, especially the mother and daughter, who kept snuggling together.

After settling the payment, the village chief walked up to the mother and daughter and said, "Apu, be nice to your daughter in the future. Don't think about marrying her to a fool again."

"No, no, I never wanted to marry." The woman called A Pu hugged her daughter's head tightly.

When the village chief saw this scene, she guessed that the matter between the mother and daughter was not that simple, but since the matter had already passed, she naturally would not say more, and there was no need to say more.

Turning his head, he continued to look at the others: "You come here to work. Your family and yourself have all kinds of problems. If you want to stay, you have to work hard in the future. You have to do your job well so that you can earn more money. Especially for young girls, if you earn money, even if you get married and have children in the future, you will have something to rely on. Do you understand?"

"Understand."

“We understand.”

The village chief listened to what everyone was saying and looked at their expressions. Although she knew that not everyone could truly understand what she was saying from the bottom of their hearts, at least this moment was different.

…

"550...640...680...720!"

Together with my grandparents, they can now make nearly 300 hair ties a day, which means more than 1,000 hair ties a day.

Tang Yuan wrote down the data. After a few days of production, she now has about 5,500 in stock.

There was no news from Mona, so she still asked her parents-in-law to help her make hair bands. She didn't let them make small wallets until she had more than 10,000 in stock.

They can also work overtime to make small wallets. On average, they can earn about the same amount of money from making small wallets and hair circles in a day. Therefore, even though making hair circles is relatively easier, they are happy to make small wallets.

A few days later, the young spring tea leaves gradually grew bigger. The tea mountains were still green, but there were fewer tender tea leaves. Many families began to pick old tea by hand or with tools. Just like last year, each time the old tea was delivered, there were at least a thousand kilograms.

When the quantity increases, the warehouse is almost never empty.

But Zheng Man sells old tea at a faster speed.

Because the salary for selling tea was fixed, she asked about giving her processing fees, but she did not nod and only said that she had not worked too hard during this period.

Tang Yuan looked at the young tea that was gradually being completely emptied out of the warehouse, the old tea that was delivered every day and was sold out the next day, and the rags that Zheng Man brought back every day. He belatedly guessed that Zheng Man might have developed some "downline".

Because her subordinates took over her work, she had nothing to do, so she had to go to the garment factory and stock up on scraps of fabric.

Zheng Man does have a fixed salary, but old tea is sold at one yuan per pound, which is quite popular in Hong Kong. Last year, Tang Yuan sold over a thousand pounds every day. If Zheng Man gave the old tea to someone else to sell, and they took it somewhere else, even if they sold it at one or two yuan per pound, they could still make some money by selling such a large amount of tea.

Coupled with the hundreds of RMB that Zheng Man brought back from time to time, Tang Yuan was more certain of his previous guess.

But she just sold it for one dollar per pound. As for how the buyer dealt with it, that was their business and had nothing to do with her. Anyway, she got enough money, not a penny less.

Thinking of this, Tang Yuan not only did not say anything, but when he was preparing the inventory, he even prepared some extra hair bands and small wallets so that Zheng Man could take them out to sell.

The tea business was subcontracted out, so Zheng Man had nothing to do and could make some extra money by selling hair bands and small wallets.

Zheng Man saw something and looked up at Tang Yuan.

Tang Yuan calculated the cost of these things with her, and Zheng Man laughed. The two of them tacitly agreed not to say anything more, and began a tacit transaction between us.

Finally, Zheng Man brought back fewer scraps of cloth.