Chapter 240 The House is Completed
The house at the end of Fuxing Lane was built from 1978 to the end of 1979. The number of workers increased from more than 20 at the beginning to more than 100 later. It took two full years to complete and cost a total of 120,000 yuan. The materials were shipped from overseas three times. The wood used was grown by Lin Qi herself, including red sandalwood, huanghuali, golden nanmu, ebony and ironwood. In order to find the seedlings of these precious trees, Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao used all the connections they could use, which was very painstaking.
But the effect is good, and all the trees we wanted were found.
When the architect who drew the design saw the finished product, he was so surprised that he was speechless for a long time.
"The finished product is even more amazing than my design, so beautiful!" the architect exclaimed, "Especially the wood, I love the texture of the wood. Where did you get it? It's not available for sale outside."
"It's a secret." Xu Hexiao said with a smile.
"Please buy some for me, and I will draw the design for your next house for free." said the designer.
"This kind of wood is very expensive, are you sure you want to buy it?" Xu Hexiao asked.
"Buy it!" the designer gritted his teeth and said, "I like your finished product so much. I want to build a house like this, too. But I'm not as rich as you, so I'll just build a two-story building. I didn't expect that the combination of Western style and ancient style would be so stunning. I like it so much."
"I like it too." Xu Hexiao said with a smile.
The combination of brick-concrete structure and wood is not out of place, but very harmonious. He especially likes the large windows with wooden frames, which lack the coldness of metal windows; he likes the large glass doors, which provide a wide field of view and make the room very bright; he likes the wooden floors throughout the house, especially the wooden floors in the room, where he and Qiqi can walk barefoot in every corner of the room; the marble outside the house is also good, with marble on the walls and underfoot, and the exquisitely carved marble exterior walls add a lot of color to the whole house.
There are nine buildings with courtyards in an area of more than 6,000 square meters. The largest one in the middle is for Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao, and the other eight are smaller, for the seven children and Zhao Shu.
Each building has a similar appearance and the design inside is not much different. The first floor is the kitchen, dining room, living room, a guest room and a warehouse; the second floor is the master bedroom with an area of 100 square meters, the cloakroom and the study; the third floor has a room that can be used for painting and practicing calligraphy, a room for storing calligraphy and books, and a semi-open tea room with a glass door. Outside the glass door is a balcony with an area of about five square meters, where some flowers can be grown.
In addition to the nine buildings, a pond was dug, in which lotuses were planted and fish were put in. There was also an antique pavilion in the middle of the pond, with a marble table and stone benches in the middle.
Next to the pond is an three-acre rice field, reserved for Lin Qi to grow rice.
Lin Qi planted various fruit trees around the walls of the house. There were three rows of fruit trees in total. These fruit trees were generally tall, including jujube trees, apple trees, cherry trees, apricot trees, peach trees, pomegranate trees, chestnut trees, persimmon trees, etc. There were more than 30 kinds of fruit trees planted. When these fruit trees grow tall, they can block the outside view, noise, wind and dust.
In order to meet Lin Qi's needs of growing things, Xu Hexiao specially set aside for her a fruit and vegetable area, a crop area, a medicinal material area, and a poultry and livestock breeding area. The poultry and livestock area is far away from all the houses and is on the other side of the lotus pond.
Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao discussed that they would sell all the deer this year and stop breeding. The poultry and livestock area mainly raises chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, sheep and pigs. There are no deer, but geese and sheep have been added. The activity areas of these animals are in the breeding area, lotus ponds, rice fields and other places. These places form a large area, which Lin Qi encloses with vine walls to isolate the sounds and smells of the animals.
After the room was built, it was already the end of the year. Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao started making furniture, and Zhao Shu was left to look after the store. Xu Hexiao and Zhao Shu delivered the goods to the store every morning, and then he went home, while Zhao Shu stayed to look after the store. In the last two months of the year, the business in the store became very good, and more goods were needed. Hundreds of kilograms of goods were sold out before dark every day.
Xu Hexiao did not tell the people at the machinery factory that he had opened a store, but because the things they sold in their store were of such high quality, their reputation spread far and wide. Many people knew that there was a "Qizi Shop" that sold things that were unique and good in the capital. People from the machinery factory heard about it and came, and then saw Zhao Shu in the store.
When the news of Xu Hexiao opening a store reached back to the machinery factory, everyone there was stunned.
"Xu Hexiao gave up his job as a respectable worker and became a street vendor?"
"He's not really a small vendor, at least he has his own shop."
"But it's not good to talk about doing business and speculating, right?"
"Now small businesses are allowed, and no one is catching speculators."
"If nothing else, life has indeed become much more convenient since the emergence of small vendors."
"But it's not a good reputation. People will look down on you. What do you think Xu Hexiao wants?"
"Could it be that the pressure of raising seven children is too great? As children grow older, they eat more, go to school, and will have to get married in the future. It's normal for Xu Hexiao to have a lot of pressure as he has six boys."
"You know what, the quality of the goods in his shop is very good, and there are many customers. Last time I went there, the goods in their shop were sold out before 3 o'clock, and many people who came later wanted to buy but couldn't."
"Is it really that good?"
"Why would I lie to you? Just go buy it yourself and you'll know. But you'd better go early. If you go late, you won't be able to buy it."
“........”
In the last month of the year, the children came back. The business of the store was getting better and better. Zhao Shu was too busy to handle it alone, so three of the seven children went to the store to help every day, and the remaining four went to the new home with their parents to help make furniture.
At the dinner table that day, Zhao Shu said, "We don't have enough stuff in the store. We're sold out just after 12 o'clock in the morning. Should we get some more goods?"
The current cargo has increased from 200 to 300 kilograms to 600 to 700 kilograms. The number of stone mortars for pounding rice and stone mills for grinding flour has increased to six. Unless Lin Qi keeps pounding rice and grinding flour all day, it is difficult to increase the number. There are still some preserved fruits, but because Lin Qi has not continued to make them during this period, they will be gone after they are sold. There is not much wine left either. Brother Tan just took away a truck last month, and now there are less than 10,000 kilograms left. If they can be sold for ten days or half a month, they will be gone.
Zhao Shu didn't know where these goods came from. He vaguely knew that the source of these things was unusual, but he didn't ask much. The reason he asked today was because the business was so good and he didn't want to close so early.
"You can add 300 kilograms of rice and flour every day, and another 100 kilograms of wine and dried fruits. Starting tomorrow, the work of making furniture will be temporarily stopped. I will pound rice and grind flour at home tomorrow." Lin Qi said.
"I went to buy some wine jars this morning. The five-jin and ten-jin wine jars were not enough." Xu Hexiao said. Nowadays, most people bring their own containers when buying things, but some people forget. For a wine jar, their store will charge an extra dollar.
"Dad, what about us?" the children asked.
"The three younger ones will go to help in the store, and the four older ones will go with me to buy wine jars in the morning and brew wine with me in the afternoon." Xu Hexiao said.
The next morning, in addition to rice, flour, wine and preserved fruits, there were four more bags of fresh fruits, two bags of winter dates and two bags of oranges. Each winter date was as big as a baby's fist, and the oranges were bright red and about the size of a bowl.
You didn’t say there would be fruit yesterday, so why are there suddenly four more bags of fruit today?
Could it be that someone sent it so early in the morning?
Zhao Shu tasted a winter date and an orange respectively, his expression changing unpredictably. His eyes swept across Xu Hexiao and Lin Qi's faces. The former was very calm, while the latter looked like a dead pig that was not afraid of boiling water.
The corner of Zhao Shu's mouth twitched. Are they too lazy to even cover up?
But what is the secret of this young couple?
Because there were a lot of things today, Lin Qi's whole family went out to deliver the goods to the store together.
It snowed last night, but the snow wasn't heavy, only reaching people's ankles.
"The weather is getting colder. Will everyone stay at home?" The seventh child stepped on the snow with worry on his face.
"On the contrary, the weather is cold and everyone is preparing for the New Year. They are now rushing to stock up on New Year's goods." Xu Hexiao said with a smile, "So we have to take advantage of this period to sell more things. Once this period is over, we will close the store and stay at home to celebrate the New Year."
A few days ago, the daily turnover of their small shop was about 3,000. Today, the amount of rice, flour, wine and preserved fruit has increased, and there are four more bags of fruit. If they are all sold out, the turnover should be able to reach about 6,000.
Nowadays, everyone's monthly salary is only a few dozen yuan, and the highest is only a few hundred yuan, but their shops earn several thousand yuan a day. If they tell others about it, I'm afraid no one will believe it.
Of course, this is also because their family is doing a no-cost business. All the items sold in the store are provided by Lin Qi, especially the wine, which accounts for the majority of the income. Except for the wine jars, which need money to buy, everything else has no cost. Even the firewood is either the wood grown by Lin Qi or the leftover wood from the house at the end of the alley.
The family came to the store, and to their shock, there were people who were better than them, and there were more than one, but more than a dozen. In the cold weather, these people were under the eaves, rubbing their hands and stamping their feet. When they saw Lin Qi's family, their eyes suddenly lit up.
"Hey, you're finally here. Open the door quickly. We want to buy things now." One of the customers urged.
"I'm the first one here, so I'll buy first."
"I'll be the second one. Once you buy it, it'll be my turn."
"Why don't you line up first?" Lao Qi reminded these people.
"Yes, yes, everyone line up."
While these people were queuing, Xu Hexiao opened the door of the shop and the family put their things into the shop.
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