Chapter 16: Homecoming
Shen Qing thought carefully in his mind.
The profit margin of the products sold in the shop is basically between 30% and 50%, which means that the purchase price of the lowest quality brush is over 80 or 90 cents.
They just started out, so it was definitely not feasible for them to go for the high-end and fine product line. However, even if they made the worst brushes, they could still sell them for eighty cents each!
Pig hair has no uses and can be given away for free, but pig hair is hard and is not the main material for making brushes. Common hairs include wool, rabbit, weasel, etc.
Shen Qing couldn't get the weasel, but wool and rabbit fur should be available in the city.
The raw materials cannot be installed directly after purchase. They need to be degreased, that is, the grease attached to the roots is removed. They can be soaked in wood ash water or lime water.
Shen Qing didn't know the difference between the two, so she decided to try both to see which one worked better.
Wood ash water is easy to get, but you need to buy lime first to make lime water.
The pen holders are made of bamboo joints. Xingcheng is located in a plain area with a cold climate. There are no thick bamboos, but there are still thin bamboos - she saw bundles of thin bamboos in the firewood room, which the villagers used for burning.
All you need to do is cut it down and bring it back.
Shen Qing now feels that anything that doesn’t cost money is a good thing!
At present, we need to buy sheep and rabbit wool, lime, and we need to tie the pen head tightly with silk thread so that it cannot come loose and be stuffed into the hole of the pen holder. This silk thread must also be purchased.
If you see other items like combs for combing hair and scissors for trimming brushes, buy them. If you don’t see them, you can go to the city tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to buy them.
After all, we bought a lot of things today, and if there were any more, it would be difficult for two people to carry them.
It would be nice to have a vehicle, whether it's a cart or a wheelbarrow, which can load things and saves effort.
Stop, stop, you haven't started earning money yet, and your total savings are pitifully small. Good steel should be spent on the blade, how can you spend it on large consumer goods right away!
Jiang Xiangnan looked at his mother coming out empty-handed and asked, "Mom, why didn't you buy anything? Did you spend too much money today and don't have enough?"
Shen Qing shook his head and said excitedly: "No, I just went to take a look, I didn't think about buying. Third brother, let's go, let's work hard today and go to the place where the raw materials are sold!"
The raw materials need to be soaked for five to seven days first. If you don’t buy other things today, it won’t delay the construction period, but if you buy these two things one day earlier, you can ship them one day earlier, and you can make money by selling them.
A family in urgent need of money has finally found a project that can make money. How can she not be anxious to complete it as soon as possible!
Moreover, since it is the first attempt, there is a high possibility of problems in the middle. Then you may have to make repeated adjustments, which is likely to waste time, so the sooner the better.
Jiang Xiangnan felt that his brain couldn't keep up. Why did his mother go in and then come out to sell raw materials?
But whatever my mother says is what it is!
"Hey, let's go, it's not hard!"
The reason why mother brought him here instead of the fourth child is that she trusts him to be able to carry the things. Now there are just a lot of things, but they are not heavy at all. They were much heavier before he came.
Besides, even if the two buckets are full, he would be happy to do it even if it is hard work!
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Shen Qing asked around and quickly found a place that sold wool materials. Wool and rabbit hair were different from pig hair. Pig skin could be eaten, but the pig hair was scraped off by the butcher after being scalded by boiling water, so it had no great use except for being used as fertilizer.
Wool and rabbit fur are different. They are dense and thick, and together with leather, they are excellent for warm clothing, so they are sold together with the leather.
When Shen Qing makes a brush, she doesn't need a whole piece of material - a whole piece of material is expensive, so she only picks up the useless scraps from the edges and corners, and even collects the scattered hairs from the brush.
Finally, he filled a backpack, but gave up because it was too full to hold anything, having spent an ounce and a half of silver.
On the way back, she bought some silk thread. The place that sold silk thread had scissors and combs specially used for embroidery. Shen Qing was very happy to have them, so she took them with her immediately and spent more than one or two taels of money on them.
There was a sugar shop next door, which saved the two of them the trouble of looking for something. They bought two kilograms of brown sugar for more than three hundred coins. The other things were fine, but Shen Qing was surprised when he bought the brown sugar. No wonder they said sugar was a valuable item.
After everything was settled, Shen Qing calculated the total savings of his family, which was less than six taels, to be exact, five taels and a few dozen coins.
We were already poor, and now we are even poorer.
Fortunately, the balance in the mall has exceeded one thousand yuan, with one thousand three hundred and forty-five yuan, so I won’t go hungry.
The sun rose to the middle of the sky, and Shen Qing estimated that it was twelve o'clock. He originally wanted to buy some buns to fill his stomach, but was rejected by Jiang Xiangnan.
"It's only seven or eight miles, we'll be home in no time. My sister-in-law will definitely leave some food for us, so we won't waste this money."
Originally, he thought his mother came out to sell fish and eels and buy some delicious food to take home, but as he looked at the wool and silk threads, he had a vague guess in his mind.
Besides, we had white flour dumplings last night and this morning, and there was pig's head and pork fat in the bucket, so there must be something delicious for dinner. What's more, this time mother didn't even buy the brush that she asked her to buy for her beloved little brother. Mother needs money, and how could he waste it when there was food at home?
Shen Qing was thinking about going back to make soap and brushes, so she didn't try to persuade him anymore. The two of them quickened their pace and headed home.
I can't wait to go home.
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Xingcheng is a flat land with no ups and downs. When Shen Qing arrived, the sky was white and misty. He was preoccupied with his own affairs and had no mood to look around.
Although he was in a hurry on the way back, he had found two ways to make money, so he felt much more relaxed and had the mind to take a closer look.
The more I look at it, the more I understand why Xingcheng suffered so many casualties due to the flood.
The main reason is that this flood was not entirely caused by heavy rain, but by the bursting of rivers caused by heavy rain. The rivers have burst their banks hundreds of times, large and small. After each burst, the banks were reinforced and raised. Over the years, the banks have become higher than the entire Xingcheng!
The heavy rains in recent days poured down like pots of water, the water level rose very quickly, and then the river embankment was destroyed, and the entire Xingcheng was shrouded in floods!
Houses and livestock were destroyed and washed away, and many people's whereabouts were unknown. Even those who survived could only flee in a panic.
Qili Village is close to Xingcheng City. Generally, the places where cities are built are carefully selected and are much safer than other places. Qili Village also benefited from its terrain. There were basically no casualties among the villagers in the dam burst, but the houses had collapsed long ago in the heavy rains of the past few days, and not a single half-human-high corn seedling was left.
We had been fleeing together before, and since there were many of us and we were all from the same village, we helped each other and stayed safe for a while.
However, as food gradually dwindled and the journey became increasingly long, the families had different opinions on the destination, and conflicts became more and more frequent. Finally, the family system fell apart, and the scattered families became like fat sheep in the eyes of other disaster victims and refugees...
Shen Qing thought worriedly that on the road to escape, just a dozen people from his family would not be enough, and he would also need to bring some teammates along.
Of course, it is best if these teammates are strong in martial arts but not cunning or mean, and not petty. It is also best if they have a certain economic foundation.
Oh, it’s so difficult.
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