"Ah, it's a long story," Hu Zhou said breathlessly to Zhi Xia. "Sister An, let's sit down to talk, I'm about to be exhausted to death."
Zhi Xia hurriedly found a stool that looked decent enough and brought out a watermelon from the backyard, "No one lives here, and there's no water either. When I came, I bought a watermelon. Let's quench our thirst with this first."
Hu Zhou was still hesitant, but after a brief pause, he relented. "Then I won't stand on ceremony with you. I still have some melon seeds left in this basket. Anyway, I can't do business today, Sister An, just take them back to eat."
Hu Zhou took the watermelon, slapped it with his palm, and the watermelon split into two halves. He broke off another piece and handed it to Zhi Xia before eating his own.
In recent years, he had been working in the warehouse of a factory, just a temporary worker with a monthly salary of 18.8 yuan. This was also thanks to An Zhi Ang's help finding the job.
He had no family, was an orphan alone, and had planned to just muddle through life this way. But after helping An Zhi Ren embezzle money a few years ago, An Zhi Ren gave him a lot. With that money, he got married and had something of a family.
But the more miserable your fate, the more Heaven scowls at you.
Because they were poor, when his wife gave birth, they didn't go to the hospital. She passed away directly after giving birth, leaving behind a newborn girl.
As a single father, Hu Zhou still had to support and raise his daughter while going to work, relying on that salary of 18.8 yuan. His child couldn't have a good life. So he turned to other means, selling melon seeds at the entrance of the movie theater.
It was pretty lucrative work, earning far more in a few days than his monthly salary. Unfortunately, he offended another group also selling melon seeds.
They had some connections and brought people with red armbands after him. It was really f#@%ed.
Realizing he had accidentally sworn, Hu Zhou quickly looked up at Zhi Xia. Seeing that she didn't show any sign of disgust, he breathed a sigh of relief.
When An Zhi Ang used to hang out, it was like he was experiencing life as a young master. But Hu Zhou was truly just a punk looked down upon since childhood.
Still, Zhi Xia was the only sister the old boss told them to look after more. Hu Zhou still wanted to leave her with a good impression.
As for Zhi Xia, this was really just what she needed - a pillow delivered just as she started feeling drowsy.
What she lacked most right now was reliable manpower.
"Hu Zhou, you and my fourth brother go way back. Let me ask you something, don't take offense okay?"
"Sister An, just call me Little Hu. That's what everyone calls me. Please just order me to do anything. Although I haven't had much contact with Brother An these past few years, he helped me in the past. So he'll always be my elder brother. And his sister is my elder sister."
Gangsters might lack other virtues, but they do value loyalty.
Zhi Xia couldn't help but laugh. "We're familiar with each other, so I won't hide it from you. I have connections to obtain some goods, but lack manpower."
Hu Zhou's eyes instantly lit up. He hurried to reveal his own cards, "Sister An, I, Hu Zhou, may not have other skills, but I've made some friends recently. If you really can get good merchandise, I can help contact people to sell it."
Zhi Xia casually said, "That was my intention too. It's mutually beneficial for everyone to make money together."
Hu Zhou was already impatient, "So what kind of goods can Sister An get?"
"That's exactly what I wanted to ask you. What sells best right now?"
"Nothing surpasses food and clothing. But most people are short on ration tickets." That was the hardest part of doing business. They needed tickets to take goods, so the buyers would also need tickets. But regular people had very limited tickets and couldn't afford the goods without them.
After discussing it, Zhi Xia and Hu Zhou decided to start their first business transaction with cloth.
According to Jin City's current policy, registered residents were allotted 6 feet of cloth tickets and 1 jin of cotton tickets per person annually. That wasn't even enough for taller or fatter builds to make a set of clothes, let alone outfits for all four seasons.
Many families shared clothes. So when supply and marketing cooperatives occasionally had defective cloth without needing tickets, regular people still couldn't grab them. As long as they could get cloth that didn't require tickets, even if it cost a bit more, it would definitely sell better than food.
Zhi Xia didn't take Hu Zhou's melon seeds. After learning he had a 2-year-old daughter at home, she even let him take back half the watermelon to feed his child and made arrangements to meet with him again tomorrow afternoon.
After Hu Zhou left, Zhi Xia didn't rush to leave either. Instead, she locked the front gate then turned to enter her space.
She remembered that when she wasn't a zombie, she had scavenged a lot of supplies. Other than edibles she gave to An Zhi Xian, including clothing and manufacturing machines and various factory inventory.
Among them were no small amount of fabrics for clothing, stored for years in storage spaces. She should take out and handle the suitable ones first.
Although storage spaces could stack endlessly, having too much stuff would still make it hard for her to keep track. Leaving things in a pile wasn't a solution either.
Fortunately she had categorized everything back then. Zhi Xia first took out the items to tidy up, making sure there were no special markings, before sorting the fabrics into grades of good and bad. She then put the boxes back into her space.
Half a warehouse full of fabrics were divided by thickness and quality into six pricing tiers. The cheapest was 2 yuan per foot. A bolt of cloth was counted as 40 feet, so even that would be 80 yuan.
And the more expensive options ranged from 4.5 yuan, 6 yuan, cheap woolen fabrics were 9 yuan, expensive ones were 12 yuan. She priced them according to supply and marketing cooperatives' cloth, choosing fabrics that fit the characteristics of this era. Those that didn't match were still piled up in her space for now.
Zhi Xia separated all these fabrics and labeled the prices clearly on paper. She also calculated that all of these materials totaled around 10,000 yuan in value. After all, this was their first endeavor. She didn't dare overextend her steps either. If sales went well, she could gradually increase volume later.
After finishing up, she finally went back home.
Time slipped by stealthily. The skies gradually darkened from afternoon to evening.
Having been busy for half the day, her entire body was drenched in sweat, with damp bangs plastered to her forehead.
An Zhi Xian came out from next door and happened to see her disheveled state. "Where have you been all day? Didn't even see you at all. How did you get yourself in this state?"
