Starting with vegetable greenhouses in 1988

Chapter 167 Holding Hands
It was dark.

The front courtyard of No. 7 Courtyard in Suzhou Hutong.

A Jiefang truck stopped in front of the gate, and Li Weidong got out of the driver's seat, yawning.

Because Li Zhe opened the 365 Vegetable Store, the delivery time is now much earlier. Wang Rongsheng gets up at three or four in the morning to lead people to pick vegetables, and the car leaves Daying Village before five o'clock, more than an hour earlier than usual.

The south-facing storefront opened, and Wang Jianjun came out, greeted Li Weidong, and the two brothers unloaded two baskets of cucumbers from the back of the truck.

Li Zhe also came out of the storefront, carrying a briefcase, wanting to take a ride to the 365 Vegetable Store.

Li Weidong smiled and said to Wang Jianjun, "Jun'er, you stay home today, I'm going to check out the vegetable store."

“Okay,” Wang Jianjun replied. He had already visited the 365 Vegetable Store yesterday morning while delivering vegetables with a truck.

"Wait a minute." Li Weidong said, then turned and climbed into the passenger seat, taking out a basket. "It's your birthday today, and this is something your family asked me to bring you. There are red-dot steamed buns made by my mom, and eggs boiled for you by my uncle. I'll cook you a bowl of longevity noodles at noon."

"Thank you, Brother Weidong."

Li Zhe said to Wang Jianjun, "Brother, I can't come back at noon, so I'll celebrate your birthday tonight."

Li Zhe can only remember his own and his parents' birthdays; he can't remember other people's birthdays.

Wang Jianjun smiled and said, "I have plans for tonight, so just come back early."

After a moment's thought, Li Zhe understood what the other party meant: "Okay, I'll remember."

After getting on the bus, Li Weidong asked curiously, "What's Jianjun's plan? He's being so secretive. Does he have a girlfriend?"

Li Zhe laughed and said, "I don't know, why don't you just ask Brother Jianjun?"

“Hey, Jianjun is shy. I asked him, but he was too embarrassed to say.” Li Weidong stroked his chin and recalled, “A couple of days ago, I think I heard my mother and uncle talking about this. I guess they wanted to introduce him to someone.”

Li Zhe became interested: "Whose daughter is she?"

“Hey, Da Ya was just joking around with me back then, making a lot of noise, I didn’t hear her at all.” Li Weidong shook his head and continued, “Right, Teacher Chen said yesterday that you should go back when you have time, he has something to discuss with you.”

"Okay, I'll go back after I've finished these last couple of days and settled things at the store."

The two brothers chatted in the car, which soon drove to Jianguomen Street and stopped outside the vegetable shop in the Diplomatic Residence.

Li Weidong got out of the car and immediately spotted the green 365 Vegetable Store sign. "Hey, this sign is bright and cheerful, that's good."

Sun Tao also heard the commotion and came out with three middle-aged women to help move the vegetables.

Don't underestimate these three women; they are quite strong and can lift things just as well as men.

Li Weidong and Aunt Zhao carried a vegetable basket into the store together. When they saw all kinds of goods on the shelves, their eyes lit up with curiosity.

He looked around. Besides fruits and vegetables, they also sold groceries and meat. "Wow, this beef is really expensive! Second brother, you didn't write it wrong, did you? It costs 55 foreign exchange certificates! Anyone who didn't know better would think it was dragon meat!"

"This is imported beef, air-freighted over."

"Cows that came by plane?" Li Weidong touched the cold beef. "I must say, this beef is definitely different from our local beef. The lean meat has white marbling inside; I've never seen anything like it before."

If you hadn't said it was imported beef, I would have thought it was from a sick cow.

Li Weidong walked around the store and praised, "Not bad, not bad, you've done a great job with this store. You sell everything, almost like the general store in our village, except this stuff is much more expensive. Why did you decide to open a general store? Didn't you initially say you wanted to open a vegetable store?"

Li Zhe said, "Yes, at first I planned to open a vegetable shop. But when people come to buy vegetables, they don't just buy vegetables, they also buy some other items, so I started to include some of those items in my shop."

"Hey, you're the smartest kid." Seeing his younger brother's vegetable shop, Li Weidong was in a great mood and felt at ease.

Ever since his conversation with his wife that day, he'd been feeling uneasy. If even he and his wife, as the older brother and sister-in-law, had the idea of ​​building their own greenhouse, then others would surely have similar thoughts. If this wasn't handled properly, his younger brother's business would fall apart.

But he couldn't tell his younger brother about this directly. Now that he saw his brother's vegetable shop in Beijing was doing so well, selling not only vegetables but also other goods, he felt relieved.

The second brother is quick-witted. Just when his group had the idea of ​​building greenhouses, before they could even take action, others already had businesses in Beijing.

He felt he was worrying for nothing; there were still several months to go, and the second child should have a plan by then, right?
After seeing the unusual dish, Li Weidong went to deliver the vegetables.

Sun Tao, along with three middle-aged women, prepared vegetables and organized the shelves. Li Zhe checked whether the prices of the goods had changed; if the market price had changed, new price tags would need to be installed.

At 8:40, Lin Zhixia arrived at the store, put on an apron, and helped with the work. At 8:46, Chen Ju arrived at the store and helped wipe the counter.

Li Zhe was quite satisfied with the two girls, as they were both very capable.

At 8:52, a person was standing at the entrance of the vegetable store, neither coming in nor leaving.

Sun Tao walked closer and took a look, then turned and ran to Li Zhe: "Brother Li, it's that foreign lady who was the first to buy groceries yesterday, I think her name is... oops... Peppa Pig."

Li Zhe smiled and said, "Georgina Page."

"Yep."

"You need to work on your English properly. If it's still like this when we officially open for business, I'll really dock your pay."

“Practice! I practice every day.” Sun Tao chuckled and looked towards the door. “Brother Li, should we invite that lady in? We can’t just leave her standing outside.”

Li Zhe glanced at his watch: "We agreed to open at nine o'clock, so we should start receiving guests after nine o'clock..."

He said to Lin Zhixia, who was standing next to him, "Lin, it's cold outside. Please invite that lady in and tell her that we don't open until nine o'clock. She can sit in the store for a while."

Sun Tao rubbed his hands together and reminded him, "Brother Li, our goods are all ready. We can actually start operating now."

Li Zhe shook his head: "A store needs to have its rules; that's also a matter of a store's credibility. If you say you'll open at nine, then you open at nine. Today, a customer arrives at 8:50, and you let them buy something right away; tomorrow, a customer arrives even earlier, and you haven't prepared the goods yet, how do you handle that?" Seeing Sun Tao frown and remain silent, Li Zhe continued:
"Moreover, other customers all follow the rule of coming to buy groceries at nine o'clock. When they arrive and find that some customers have already left with their groceries, they will also feel uncomfortable. If everyone does not buy groceries according to the store's opening hours, our store will be in chaos."

After listening, Sun Tao nodded hurriedly: "Brother Li, you're right, I misunderstood."

Li Zhe turned his head and saw Lin Zhixia inviting Georgina Page in. She was the shop's first customer, and Li Zhe had a deep impression of her: "Taozi, ask the older sister what she would like to drink? Coffee, tea, water, we have all of those."

Sun Tao swallowed hard, walked over awkwardly, and asked in somewhat broken English, "Ms. Paige, would you like something to drink?"

“No, thank you,” Georgina Page replied politely.

"Okay." Sun Tao turned around, a look of joy on her face—she understood! She understood my English…

After entering the store, Georgina Page didn't immediately choose anything, but she lingered around. At nine o'clock, she immediately selected four kinds of vegetables, two kinds of fruit, two pounds of high-gluten flour, and one pound of imported steak…

She weighed herself and paid. She spent a total of ninety foreign exchange certificates.

Although the expenses were ten more foreign exchange certificates than yesterday, the actual profit was greatly reduced.

The reason is simple: yesterday my older sister bought a pound of Qin Chuan hybrid beef, and today she bought imported steak; the former has a gross profit of 17 yuan, while the latter makes almost no profit.

After nine o'clock, customers began to enter the store, even more than yesterday. Li Zhe didn't send anyone out to hand out flyers today, but simply set up the vegetable stall at the entrance.

Wang Ting arrived at the store at 10:00 AM.

Seeing that there were quite a few customers in the store, she quickly changed into an apron to help out.

I was busy until after 11 a.m., and the store had sold more than half of its fruits and vegetables, as well as a lot of meat. However, the repurchase rate of Qin Chuan hybrid beef was not high today, and there was a lot left over.

When things calmed down at noon, the group took turns eating.

Wang Ting ate breakfast late, so Li Zhe let the others eat first. Only after Lin Zhixia and the others returned did Li Zhe and Wang Ting leave the shop together.

It was nearly noon, and the sun was high in the sky.

Li Zhe felt quite comfortable standing in the sunlight and asked Wang Ting beside him, "What do you want to eat?"

"I don't know what to eat either." Wang Ting put on the black leather gloves Li Zhe had given her and smiled. "Whatever you say, it's my treat today." Then, as if remembering something, Wang Ting added, "Western food is out of the question."

"Haha..." Li Zhe laughed, "Then let's go eat some door nail meat pies, I'm craving them."

Wang Ting patted her ample chest and said, "No problem, it's on me, Sister Wang. You can eat as much as you want."

The two of them walked and talked.

As they crossed the street, Li Zhe naturally took Wang Ting's hand. Wang Ting's hand trembled slightly, but she did not refuse...

(End of this chapter)