"Besides making cars, bicycles, and hoes, steel mills should have some scraps that can be used after grinding."
Factory Director Niu nodded, "But those things won't be wasted; they can be melted down and refined."
Zhao Youcai waved his hand, indicating that Factory Director Niu didn't need to continue. Instead, he picked up a pen and paper and started drawing again.
"Do you think you could make these hair clips that look like pins? If you could, and with some good design, you could sell them for a good price by combining them with scraps of fabric from the textile factory or other useless pieces of cloth."
After all, nowadays women wear their hair in braids and swing it around all day, so they'd be jumping for joy if they had a red ribbon to tie their hair with.
If there were so many styles of hair clips to choose from, I'd be ecstatic!
"It's best not to use iron for this material, I'm afraid that it will conduct electricity during thunderstorms and kill a few people."
After all, such accidental events do exist, and people often magnify bad things and stand on moral high ground to point fingers.
Factory Director Niu frowned in thought, considering the possibility that this matter might be successful.
Although hair clips seem to have very low production costs, they likely require a significant amount of manual labor. Overall, the profit margin might not be very high, but any woman would definitely like one of these.
If it can be used at the Thousand Harvest Festival, and all the scraps are sold to foreigners to generate foreign exchange for the country, then a higher price wouldn't be a bad idea.
Just then, Factory Manager Ma from the textile factory returned from his business, still very excited.
Putting everything else aside, just the waterproof and breathable fabric that Zhao Chunhua developed alone, with its wide range of applications, would allow him to remain in the position of factory director until retirement, as long as he doesn't make any fundamental mistakes.
At this moment, Director Ma looked at Zhao Youcai as if he were a god of wealth who had fallen from the sky.
Especially after being pulled aside by his arch-rival to discuss a new product collaboration card as soon as he arrived, he was incredibly excited.
The four factory managers, excluding Zhao Youcai, began a passionate discussion in pairs in Zhao Youcai's office. After finalizing the cooperation plan, they all took their leave.
Zhao Youcai didn't insist that they stay in his office a little longer, knowing what they were anxious about, and he didn't stand on ceremony with them.
With the Thousand Harvest Festival fast approaching, they need to prepare an extra batch of supplies.
Zhao Youcai also knew that the businesses participating in the Thousand Ears Festival were all factories led by the state, and Zhao Youcai's privately owned farm could not be included.
Therefore, if Zhao Youcai wants to shine at the Thousand Ears Festival, he cannot focus his efforts on the breeding farm.
We need to think carefully about what else we can sell besides instant noodles. After all, most of our customers this time are foreigners, so it would be best to sell something that can't be used as military rations, something addictive, and something that makes us hungry again very quickly.
Zhao Youcai thought for a long time, and suddenly a brilliant idea flashed in his mind.
Got it!
He hurriedly rode his bicycle to Zhaojiagou, and before leaving, he specifically instructed Zhao Jianhua to keep a close eye on the farm and not let any random people in.
He was also told to go and look around the fence of the farm to see if there were any dog holes and to block them up as soon as possible.
Ideally, it should be poured with cement to make it solid, to prevent anyone from digging it out with a shovel.
Upon returning to Zhaojiagou, Zhao Youcai didn't even go home; he went straight to the village's tofu seller's house.
Is Lao Xu home?
Instead of pushing the door open and going in, Zhao Youcai stood outside the fence and shouted loudly into the house.
There was no other way; apart from Old Xu himself, the entire Xu family, spanning three generations, consisted of women.
If Old Xu, who sells tofu, is out, it might cause a bad influence if he goes in.
Especially since there are many gossipy women in the village, they chatter on and on about all sorts of things, which is really annoying.
Fortunately, Lao Xu was at home. When he saw Zhao Youcai after putting on his shoes and going out, he was so happy that his face almost blossomed into a smile.
There was no other way; the Xu family had too few able-bodied workers, and the women couldn't earn full work points. That's why the production team made them make tofu.
Thus, the combined work points earned by the whole family throughout the year were barely enough to cover their basic needs. If Zhao Youcai hadn't found a lucrative business for the entire village, this large family might not have survived.
"Old Zhao, what brings you here? Come in and have a seat!"
While smiling and inviting people into the yard, he didn't forget to shout into the house at the top of his lungs:
"Old woman! Quickly make a bowl of sugar water, Brother Youcai is here!"
Knowing that his family was struggling financially, Zhao Youcai quickly shouted into their house at the top of his lungs:
"Sister-in-law, no need to trouble yourself! I just came to talk to you about something and I'll be leaving now. If it really caused any trouble, I'll leave right now!"
Old Xu's wife was about to put down the scraps of cloth in her hand and get up to go to the kitchen when she heard this, and she didn't even dare to get off the kang (a heated brick bed).
I was really torn; I wanted to entertain the important guests, but I was also worried about offending them.
"Mother, I'll go."
Old Xu's eldest daughter walked out with a smile and poured the water directly into the nearly empty sugar jar in the kitchen.
The sugar was so hard that it couldn't be poured out at all, and it would take several minutes to poke it with chopsticks.
Although she felt very distressed, she felt relieved when she thought that without Zhao Youcai, her family wouldn't even have this little bit of sugar.
"Look at you, child, why are you so honest?"
Zhao Youcai knew in his heart that his family was the richest in the whole village, lacking nothing.
Sugar is expensive these days. Some families who can't afford sugar cubes are lucky if they can just make a bowl of slightly sweet syrup for their children during the Lunar New Year.
Old Xu's family was one of the hardest-working people in the entire Zhao Family Village. Old Xu also had an elderly mother in her eighties who was still bedridden and had to drink herbal medicine every meal.
There's no way around it; Western medicine is too expensive, and I simply can't afford it.
Even many of the medicinal herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine are collected by his family from the mountains, sold at the TCM clinic, and then used to buy medicine.
After all, not all fresh medicinal herbs can be used directly, and they don't know how to process medicinal herbs in such a delicate way.
People are already struggling to make ends meet, how could Zhao Youcai possibly be so heartless as to squander their entire fortune?
"Take this back and enjoy it with your family." As he said this, Zhao Youcai reached into his briefcase and rummaged through it, taking out a bag of mung bean cakes.
Speaking of which, this briefcase was a gift from Factory Director Ma, who said, "You're the factory director now, it's really not right for you to be idle all the time. It's easy for our textile factory to get some leather, it's not a big deal."
As for the mung bean cake, Zhao Youcai bought it from the supply and marketing cooperative. He thought it would be easy to just mix it with water and drink it when he didn't have much of an appetite, but he never expected it would come in handy today.
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