Return to 1983 Hunting Xing'an Mountains

Chapter 695: Furniture prices must rise! Life is all about firewood, rice, oil and salt

This old house is quite old. Although it doesn't have the smoke flying everywhere when the kang is heated like in the old Xu's house, there are gaps in the earthenware under the kang edge from which smoke comes out. In addition, the old men who smoke have cigarettes in their mouths, which makes the house full of smoke.

But they couldn't resist the festive atmosphere. They teased Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping passionately and showed no mercy! After all, they were both getting married for the second time, not the first time. They knew what they should know, so they didn't have so many scruples when joking.

Before this, Guan Hua had taken Yang Yi and Li Tong to the west room to hide, because there were no other children in the room except them.

About 5 minutes later, a car stopped at the gate of the courtyard and two people jumped out of the car. They were Zhang Jinbao and Sun Lianfang. Following closely behind were Lao Jiang and Zhou Hui who rushed back from the street on a tricycle. At the end, Jiang Qiuer, Li Feng and Chang Lihong who was holding a child walked in on foot.

When Yang Jun heard the noise, he hurriedly pulled Sun Cuiping out to greet them, grinning and saying, "Bao'er! Lianfang... come in quickly! Hey, Uncle Jiang, Aunt Zhou..."

Sun Lianfang looked at him and said with a smile: "Brother Jun, you look quite neat today. You must be happy to have a wife, right?"

"You must be happy! Why didn't you come back yesterday?"

Zhang Jinbao continued, "I know you have to come here to do something, so I called Erning and he told me to go with Lianfang."

"Ah, let's go inside first. We can talk inside. Where are Uncle Jiang and Xiaoqiu?"

Lao Jiang retracted his gaze and said, "I'm going to take a walk with Li Feng in the back."

Sun Cuiping said with a smile: "Uncle Jiang, Auntie, please go inside first. I'll wait here for a while."

Immediately, Lao Jiang, Zhou Hui, Sun Lianfang and Zhang Jinbao entered the house first. After they entered the house, there was another round of cheers. After all, they hadn't seen Sun Lianfang for a while, and they really missed her when they saw her again out of the blue.

Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping stood upright at the door, mainly to welcome Li Feng and Chang Lihong, who were Sun Cuiping's relatives.

"Feng, sister-in-law! Come in quickly, why didn't Qiangzi come with you two?"

Li Feng said: "I asked him to send the car back. There is not enough space for many cars to park at the entrance. We can just take a stroll here."

"Oh, it would be great if you could ask him to drive you here."

Chang Lihong held the child and said, "I just want to talk to the people in the village. Although my sister-in-law is married, she is still a family member."

"That's right. It's cold outside, let's go inside. Everyone who should be here is here, and we'll have dinner soon."

After they entered the house, they saw people gathered in groups of three or five, each finding topics to chat about.

At this time, there were three tables in the east room and two tables in the west room. There were about 30 people in the room, just enough to fill it.

Yang Jun wants to do everything himself, which is a good thing, but now is his wedding day, and when he was about to move wine from the cellar of the Xu family's old house, he was stopped by Xu Ning.

When he learned that Yang Jun was going to move the wine, he immediately waved his hand and said, "You have to stay in the house and chat with uncle and uncle. I'll let Hu Zi and Shi Tou go. They are all in the cellar of my old house."

"Yeah! Make sure to drink it all today."

Then, Xu Ning led Wang Hu and Guan Lei over the wall to his old house, entered the cellar and moved the wine out. He walked to the low wall with the wine box in his arms and happened to meet Li Fuqiang who was coming in. He took the wine box and said, "Brother, our car seems to have some problems."

"What's wrong?"

"I heard something like a belt crackling, but I didn't understand what it was."

"Ah, it should be a minor problem. When I have time, I'll go to the farm machinery station on the street and ask Lao Jin's apprentice to help take a look."

In the outer room, Yang Shuhua was wielding a large spoon to stir the food in the wok. Beside her were Wu Qiuxia and others, who were transferring the food from the large basin into plates.

Liu Lizhen saw Xu Ning coming into the room, and she came up to him and whispered, "It seems your uncle hasn't come yet, why don't you go and see what's going on?"

No matter who is doing business in Qing'an Village, they don't have to invite others, but they must invite Du Shoucai. Yang Jun had already gone to the village headquarters to tell Du Shoucai, and also explicitly asked him to come earlier...

Xu Ning frowned and said, "My uncle might have been delayed by something. He should be able to come later."

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Du Shoucai and Du Manzhi stepping over the threshold of the courtyard. Xu Ning said with a smile: "Here they are. Brother Jun! My uncle is here!"

"Hey!" Upon hearing the news, Yang Jun turned around and rushed out of the house, ran to the courtyard in two steps, and hurriedly shook hands with Du Shoucai: "Uncle, brother..."

"Is he not late? I'm waiting for him to get home from get off work, and I'll ask his wife to keep an eye on the headquarters. Otherwise, I'll be very anxious if I can't get in touch with him."

"I know. I'm happy that you can come..."

There is not much to say about Yang Jun's interpersonal relationships. Perhaps he was a little excited about today's happy day, so he only said half of his words, and was interrupted before the rest. This was because there were too many people coming and going, and all he said was the same old things, so it was a bit boring.

For example, Yang Jun said the three words "come into the house quickly" no less than 30 times in the morning...

After Du Shoucai and Du Manzhi entered the house, all the people who came to participate in the wedding of Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping were present.

However, Yang Dong's father did not come. There was no way to argue about this matter, because it was Yang Dong's fault that Gaba was gone.

When Yang Jun heard that Yang Dong had passed away, he left 10 yuan for Yang Dong's father, but when he came to do business today, Yang Dong's father did not give any gift.

There were bowls, chopsticks and dishes on the table, most of which were meat dishes, because there were no fresh vegetables to eat in Qing'an in winter, unless you asked someone to buy them from the greenhouse.

But Liu Lizhen said she didn't care. The wooden box vegetables developed by her eldest son were already mature, so she specially made a pot of Chinese cabbage and meatball soup. In addition, there were stir-fried beef, three kinds of stir-fried beef, stir-fried pork, sweet and sour pork, braised pork, stewed venison and so on.

Yang Jun looked at the sumptuous meal and said to Liu Lizhen with a smile, "Thank you for your trouble, Auntie."

"Why are you being so polite? You should drink more to get married today."

"Of course, old lady, you guys should drink less. I was thinking of bringing Cuiping to toast you with a glass of wine."

"Oh my god, you're always making trouble. Then drink less."

Everyone in the room found a table and sat down. The masters all sat at the three tables in the east room, and the kang table in the west room was reserved for the children. However, there were only Jiang Qiuer, Li Tong, and Yang Yi, so the pregnant Meng Ziyan and Wang Shujuan, as well as Guan Hua and Sun Lianfang who were preparing for pregnancy, also went up to the kang.

Xu Laonian sat at the main seat at the table with a smile on his face and said, "Jun, say a few words."

Yang Jun was holding a wine glass and Sun Cuiping was holding a wine bottle. The two of them standing together looked like beauty and the beast. It was true that Yang Jun was too ugly.

"Okay, let me say a few words. First of all, I want to thank my brother Xu Ning. If it weren't for my brother, I wouldn't be able to be with Cui Ping!"

"Secondly, I want to thank my aunt, uncle, second uncle and second aunt. Without you, I wouldn't even know how to hold a wedding...Finally, I want to thank everyone present. Thank you for giving me face to attend Cuiping and I's wedding."

"Let's not talk too much. We are all close friends. No matter how much we say, it won't be as good as what we do. It's all in the wine." Everyone clapped their hands and shouted, "No need to drink it all in one gulp! Drink the rest! Don't you have to save some energy for the wedding night?"

"Hahaha……"

Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping did not feel embarrassed by this. Instead, they felt that this made sense. Yang Jun raised his glass and drank half a glass of wine. Then he said, "Let's all start eating. I'll take Cuiping to the west room to have a drink with my aunt. Uncle, Third Uncle, you guys eat first."

"Just keep busy..."

Xu Ning used his tornado chopsticks to pick up the beef from the dish and put it into his bowl. Then he heard Zhang Jinbao say, "Er Ning, our timber mill is short of materials again. I have asked many people, but they are unwilling to sell. Can you think of a solution?"

Xu Ning asked: "What kind of wood do you want?"

"It's mainly yellow pineapple. This material sells fast. Some people from the provincial capital even come to the city to order from us."

"We will raise the price of Yellow Pineapple furniture next year. If we continue to sell it like this, we won't have enough materials."

"I think so too. Since our lumber mill has raised the price of yellow pineapple materials, other lumber mills want to hold on to their stock and wait until the price doubles before selling them out."

"Don't worry about them. Wait for me to contact other forest farms... But something happened in our forest farm, so we will definitely conduct a strict investigation in a short period of time..."

Zhang Jinbao was stunned for a moment and asked, "Something happened? What happened?"

Then Xu Ning told Zhang Jinbao about Yang Dong and Zhang Guangjun being killed by a tiger. Zhang Jinbao frowned and said, "It was their fate. What about Qing'an?"

"It's not that we can't, but we have people watching us from above so we can't openly transport it to the city. How much wood is left in the factory now? When can we use it?"

"It can only last for ten days at most, assuming we don't take on any more work..."

Xu Ning was a little surprised and tilted his head and asked, "Is the business so good?"

"It's great!"

Zhang Jinbao patted his thigh and said, "I never thought it would be so good. Now everyone in the city knows that there is a Jinlong Furniture on Xishan Street. Whenever there are young people getting married, they basically all come here to take a look. Most of them come to order thirty-six legs, and some come to buy baby cribs."

"I asked you to make the anti-counterfeiting trademark. Did you do it?"

"It has to be done! Lian Sheng helped with this. He contacted the machinery factory to print a batch of copper sheets with our seal on them. In addition, I also hid a mark in the furniture. This mark is basically impossible for anyone to imitate."

"Okay, now the furniture factory's business is getting bigger and bigger. Don't just focus on researching furniture in the factory. You have to go out and have a meal and a drink with people from time to time. If you don't improve your relationship, how can you help others improve?"

"I know! Erning, I have an idea. Please help me research it. I'm thinking of asking my parents and Yinhe to go to the city. The factory is in need of an experienced master chef. My father has great skills and will definitely be able to convince everyone. What do you think?"

Xu Ning took a few bites of rice and said, "You have to ask yourself about this. I can't make the decision. I think they don't want to go, otherwise they would have sent Yinhe to work in the lumber mill a long time ago."

"why?"

"I don't want to be too far away from home when I get older."

"That's right. Yan is pregnant. Now they are even more reluctant to leave."

Xu Ning suggested: "If it really doesn't work, you can find a skilled craftsman to work in the lumber mill and offer a higher salary. We don't need that little salary. If you don't offer a high salary, will people be willing to come here with a stable job?"

"Then I'll go back and look for it. I'm afraid of finding a jack of all trades. Not to mention the quality issues, what I'm most afraid of is that he leaks the blueprints."

"What are you afraid of when signing a contract? It's illegal for him to leak the blueprints. The law will punish him. You know people in the city, so are you afraid of the blueprints being leaked?"

"..."

At this time, Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping had returned from the west room after toasting. After circling around Xu Laonian's table, they came to Xu Ning's table.

"Bao'er, let's have a drink," Cuiping said, pouring wine for Bao'er.

Zhang Jinbao turned around and said with a smile: "Sister-in-law, please pour me a little less. I have to go back to the city later."

"Why are you in such a hurry? You can leave tomorrow."

On the side, Meng Quezi heard that he was leaving and said, "You can leave tomorrow. You finally came back, so you have to stay at home for a night, right?"

Zhang Jinbao had originally planned to rush back overnight, but after hearing what his father said, he said, "Okay, I'll leave tomorrow morning."

"Hurry up and fill his glass. Every time I go to the city to drink with him, he deliberately fills my glass. Now it's my turn to fill his glass."

Xu Ning raised his eyebrows and said, "Brother Jun, this is not right. There are people at our table. Can you force everyone to drink?"

Yang Jun wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and said with a smile, "Isn't this asking your sister-in-law to pour the wine? Can you not drink the wine she pours?"

Li Fuqiang said with a smile: "This guy... now Jun Ge also knows how to use moral blackmail."

"Hahaha, that's not a big deal!"

After Yang Jun and Sun Cuiping left, Zhang Jinbao continued the topic and said, "I am also thinking of stockpiling more wood. The price is relatively low now. It is definitely better to put it in the lumber mill to dry it for two or three years before cutting it into furniture than to buy the rough wood directly now."

"We should have done this a long time ago! Look at the state-owned factories, whether they are machinery factories or steel factories, they all have large warehouses, but we are working with wood, so we must pay attention to fire prevention, otherwise a big fire can easily bankrupt us..."

"Well, then let's not divide the shares this year, and use all of them to store lumber, how about that?"

"Okay! Let me give you a suggestion. For example, wood such as yellow pineapple, ash, elm, and walnut should be stored in a ratio of 1:2:3:4. The wood is afraid of being improperly stored. If it is dug by insects and becomes hollow, what's the point of storing this wood?"

Xu Ning went on to say: "My idea is that we can hoard and sell at the same time. We don't need to hoard for two or three years. Hoarding for one year is a lot, because only when the funds are flowing can we make money."

"That's right. I'll go back and study it."

At this time, Yang Jun went into the east room and sat next to Xu Laonian. He picked up his wine glass and started drinking with Yang Yusheng, Lao Zheng, Du Shoucai, Meng Quezi and others.

There were uncles and grandpas sitting at the table. No one tried to get him drunk, but they just chatted casually. For example, they told him to take care of the family more in the future and not to be so busy that he disappeared. Life is about the daily necessities of life, and it's not something that can be done just by giving money. So why are the couple together?
Isn't it just that when you are sad, there is someone to listen to your heartfelt words, or when you are sick and unable to move, there is someone to serve you tea and water and food and drinks.

Yang Jun had learned from the failure of his last marriage, and he benefited greatly from what everyone here said. These were all words of experience, not empty compliments.

(End of this chapter)