Chapter 212 One of a Kind: This thing can actually be sold? ...
Having only been on the island for a few days, Yin Pingping packed her bags and returned to Shanghai with a pile of goods. Shanghai and Guangzhou are the only remaining ports in the country open to foreign trade, and there are many hotels and shops catering to foreign guests and overseas Chinese.
In Guangzhou, the Canton Fair already serves as a sales channel, and their factory's advantage lies in the Shanghai dialect, making it easier to sell their products in foreign exchange shops in Shanghai.
"Factory manager, don't worry, I will definitely complete the task!" Yin Pingping clenched her fist, holding an English notebook in her hand. Every morning, she would get up and recite a few broken foreign words.
She is determined to study foreign languages diligently and dare to speak and communicate with foreigners... Yin Pingping can't wait to communicate with foreign guests! Learning foreign languages in the factory, with no one to talk to, brings no sense of accomplishment.
Yin Pingping is a chatty person. After learning a new "dialect (foreign language)," she couldn't wait to chat with the locals.
Yin Pingping has a little-known quirk: she likes to learn dialects from people and chat about interesting things from her hometown. She had learned quite a few dialects before, and when she was chatting with Sister Hong's boyfriend, she was just interested in his hometown, which... led to a misunderstanding.
"Yin Pingping, do your best." Qin Xiangxiang took a break from her work to personally see Yin Pingping off.
In fact, Qin Xiangxiang felt a little sorry for Yin Pingping, especially when the dock workers loaded the woven bags full of goods onto the ship. She had to use all her strength to keep from laughing out loud.
These geometric patchwork embroidered shirts, apart from a batch of patchwork designs personally modified by Qin Xiangxiang, make up about 70% of the shirts. Of those, 30% are just haphazardly pieced together embroidered shirts that are simply unwatchable, nothing but ridiculous.
Qin Xiangxiang put the 30% of the comical shirts into the "sample" bag and instructed Yin Pingping to sell these first.
Hahaha, I'm such a scumbag...
Qin Xiangxiang silently cursed herself twice.
One of them was so outrageous that Qin Xiangxiang couldn't even place the genius who made it. The patchwork embroidery on it was completely haphazard, with a large red peony on the left shoulder and a little yellow duck playing in the water on the right... Abstract! Outrageous!
There's also red and green, hahaha.
Qin was so happy she almost laughed until she cried!
If this stuff piles up and can't be sold, Qin Xiangxiang is determined to return it to its rightful owner. Whoever made it should keep it for themselves!
After seeing her off, Qin Xiangxiang skipped home humming a little tune, only to bump into Li Jianzhi, who was also returning home at the same time. In the setting sun, Li Jianzhi was wearing a crisp military uniform, and his face was incomparably handsome under the glow of the setting sun.
"Li Jianzhi!" Qin Xiangxiang waved to him.
Li Jianzhi took off his hat: "I thought it was some young girl skipping and jumping on the street, but it turns out it's my wife. She's like a girl in her teens."
Qin Xiangxiang chuckled twice, like a child who had blown up a latrine and played a prank, and chatted with Li Jianzhi about the sample clothes in the factory.
She laughed until her stomach hurt: "Who is so talented as to make this kind of shirt?"
Li Jianzhi chuckled: "What the superiors do, the subordinates follow. The soldiers you've trained are a perfect example."
"I have excellent taste."
Qin Xiangxiang snorted, thinking to herself that she was the one with foresight. She whispered to Li Jianzhi, "I'm doing this to prevent unsold stock, you understand? If it really becomes unsold, we'll leave it for the people in the factory to wear. None of us have ever worn an embroidered shirt before."
Qin Xiangxiang blinked mischievously and said, "I kept two nice ones for myself."
"That pile of clothes... it's like finding gold in shit."
Li Jianzhi smiled and patted her head, "Our Xiangxiang is really smart."
"Don't mess up my hair."
Qin Xiangxiang was in a good mood. "Li Jianzhi, tell me, if we lived inside a book, what kind of book would it be?"
While things are going very well on this side, we still don't know how the original female lead, Lin Xiuqin, is doing on her blind date.
Li Jianzhi: "It's an old-fashioned farming novel."
"You're the one who farms! Can't you be a red-hat merchant? Shhh—farming is fine, you're quite talented." Qin Xiangxiang covered her mouth, realizing she had said the wrong thing.
Li Jianzhi chuckled, thinking that the way his wife covered her mouth looked like a little hamster.
He was a soldier, and his wife ran a clothing and textile business. To be honest, novels about clothing and textiles were indeed "too old-fashioned" for 2025.
The idea that everyone who is reborn back to the 1980s or 1990s gets involved in textiles and clothing, construction and real estate, or supermarkets is a tired and repetitive story.
However, my wife's business was quite unique. Most of the novels from the 1980s featured characters who went to Guangzhou to do wholesale, buying clothes there and then selling them at high prices back in their hometown.
"Refreshing" novels are about making a lot of money by selling them at high prices.
Those who are more realistic and go to Guangzhou to do wholesale business have all been scammed and exploited by various factories.
His wife is the director of a state-owned textile factory, which is quite an achievement.
However, neither of them has any special abilities; they rely entirely on their wisdom and luck, making this a simple and down-to-earth period novel.
A lifestyle of living comfortably.
For example, by 2025, the business novels had developed various routines, such as traveling back to the 1990s to collect Russian equipment and exchanging jeans and canned goods for cannons, warships and airplanes.
For example, there are regionally specific examples, such as those who made their fortunes abroad, like running a prison in the United States; collecting taxes on the US border; or working as a policeman in the United States, emptying magazines with a gun... There are also those who use their mobile phones to manage things like ancestors, rule-based ghost stories, dungeons, or the Fourth Calamity.
As for Li Jianzhi, he watched his wife build her fortune in the era of literature.
However, whether in novels or in real life, he feels that he is living a very happy life now.
Li Jianzhi: "Thinking about it, the luckiest thing in my life is meeting you."
Qin Xiangxiang's face suddenly turned red. This man was shameless, suddenly saying something that made her blush and her heart race.
"Don't suddenly act like a scoundrel."
"Saying this to your wife is called confessing your love. Just think about it and you'll blush. You're saying one thing but meaning another."
Qin Xiangxiang was furious and said fiercely, "If you can't sell them, you can wear that patchwork of peony and little yellow duck."
"So you won't be so glib."
Li Jianzhi: "Life is full of disappointments, eight or nine out of ten times."
It's a pity his wife doesn't understand abstract art, primitive art, or ethnic style...
In the future, if people abroad wear clothes with slogans like "XX Delivery," which wouldn't sell in China, they might find it novel.
At the Overseas Chinese Store in Shanghai, the store had just opened that day, and there were still few customers. A young woman, carrying a rustic woven bag, stood in front of the store counter early in the morning.
"Why are you here again?" A female shop assistant in her forties, dressed in a neat blue uniform, looked at the young woman in front of her with an impatient expression.
Her eyes held a certain sense of superiority unique to salespeople of this era.
In the 1970s, there was no such thing as "the customer is God," and there were even signs that said: "Do not beat customers."
However, Wang, the shop assistant, was still very polite to foreign guests, after all, this was a matter of etiquette for foreign visitors.
At this moment, besides the young woman carrying a woven bag, there was also a middle-aged couple from the United States. The husband was a scholar and the wife was an art consultant. The two were strolling around the store, full of curiosity about everything in front of them.
Yin Pingping: "Hello, Aunt Wang."
"This is a store for foreign guests! We don't accept trivial items."
"Aunt Wang, this shirt was personally designed by our factory director, and it was also guided by a senior professor from Shanghai who studied abroad. It follows mathematical geometric distribution... It's a geometric patchwork shirt with embroidered pieces specially made for our foreign guests." Yin Pingping praised it to the skies, and the sample she took out was exactly the shirt that Qin Xiangxiang had complained about, with a big red peony on the left and a little yellow duck on the right, a random patchwork design.
When Wang, the shop assistant, saw the shirt, she felt like she had been struck by lightning. "It's one thing for you to sell embroidered pieces before, but this...this shirt...if we hang this shirt out, we'll be laughed at to death by foreign guests. Take it away, take it away."
“Aunt Wang, please help me out! Just hang it up for seven days! It’s on that shelf in the corner over there, it’s just sitting empty anyway. Our factory is poor, but the factory manager is kind enough to buy up the unsold embroidery pieces from the neighborhood production groups. Please do me a favor. Next time I’ll bring you some sandals from our factory; our sandals are exported overseas…”
As she spoke, Yin Pingping hung the patchwork shirt in the corner and placed sausages and salted duck eggs on it.
Just as the shop assistant was about to stop her, the American couple in the store walked over. Mrs. Brown exclaimed with delight, "What an incredible and bold idea! Ethnic style! This is a piece of walking, breathing, primal art!"
Yin Pingping: "???" What is she babbling about?
Although she didn't know what the foreigner was saying, Yin Pingping immediately started talking to him in a half-Chinese, half-English voice, using English words like "embroidery art," "unique," and "art."
Mrs. Brown asked, "She said no two are the same? They're all unique?"
Yin Pingping: "Exactly!"
Of course, the patterns are all pieced together as one pleases.
"Only one of its kind in the world!"
However, Yin Pingping was unaware that, and Qin Xiangxiang, far away on the island, was also unaware of just how attractive this "unique" style, akin to haute couture, was to people!
Moreover, embroidery is a traditional Chinese craft, and foreigners who want to buy embroidery works by master craftsmen pay very high prices, which are beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Moreover, these patchwork shirts in front of us also use embroidery techniques, are reasonably priced, and have an artistic feel, making them very attractive.
One of a kind! Handmade!
Even if you don't wear it, keeping it as a souvenir is wonderful! At such a reasonable price, what more could you ask for? Unscrupulous buyers would definitely mark it up several times over back in China.
The Browns picked out five shirts in one go. Unlike the big spenders at the Canton Fair, they were still quite wealthy to buy five embroidered shirts at once.
"Pick one for the lady next door too!"
...
Yin Pingping said excitedly, "Aunt Wang, look, the foreign guests seem to like it quite a bit. Let's leave these goods here for now, and we'll settle the payment after they're sold."
Shop assistant Wang was dumbfounded: "Then... then let's leave it there for now."
How can something like this even sell?
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