Chapter 72: The Twelfth Day
The twelfth day since returning to the old house.
Jian Xingxia had been bustling around since she got up in the morning, packing up everything she could possibly give Liang Chengcheng to take with her.
Liang Chengcheng was also frantically pulling items out of her luggage.
“You’ll need these sunglasses, right? The sun is so fierce in the mountains, so I’ll leave them for you.”
“Same goes for this sun hat and the UV protection jacket. I’ll leave them all for you.”
“Do you want cosmetics? Forget it, I’ll just give them all to you. I have plenty of sets at home anyway, and my sister just mailed me a few more.”
“These clothes and high heels… they aren’t convenient? Fine, then I’ll leave these two dresses, along with these jackets and pants for you. You can have the clogs, slippers, and sandals too…”
The two girls swapped items frantically, and as they swapped, Liang Chengcheng suddenly burst into tears. She threw her arms around Jian Xingxia’s neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Waaah, how did we graduate just like that? Why are we separating already? I feel like the university opening ceremony was only just a moment ago!”
Who would have thought four years could pass in the blink of an eye? Friends who used to see each other practically every single day in college were scattered to all corners of the country after graduation, making it rare to meet even once in several years.
Jian Xingxia patted Liang Chengcheng’s back. “Once I earn some money in the future, I’ll go visit you. And if my farmhouse resort opens up, I’ll invite you and Xiaoning and all the others over!”
Liang Chengcheng sniffled. “Mhm, you said it. I’ll be waiting for your farmhouse resort.” With that, she added another line, “I think you can hire Auntie Lin to cook for the resort. Her cooking is honestly quite good.”
Jian Xingxia was amused to the point of laughter by her. Was a family heiress’s career-driven mind seriously this intense? Even while weeping, she was still helping her scout for personnel.
Rushing against the clock, they woke up before dawn and departed at six o’clock.
Within a dozen minutes, they arrived at the village, where they gathered a haul of the freshest vegetables. Another half an hour later, they reached the town.
Jian Xingxia couldn’t see her off any further, so Liang Chengcheng hailed a cab. “Bye-bye, Xiaxia! I’ll miss you!”
“Me too.”
From the town to the city took another two to three hours, which would give her plenty of time to catch her midday flight.
Jian Xingxia watched Liang Chengcheng’s taxi pull away before riding the tricycle to collect her courier packages. The online shopping packages she had ordered over the past few days had arrived one after another, containing newly replenished fabric, salt, and sugar.
She had found even cheaper edible coarse salt online—9.8 yuan for ten catties. Jian Xingxia bought a hundred catties in one go, and the seller even gave her a discount, only charging ninety yuan.
The sugar was the same story—168 yuan for fifty catties, which averaged out to 3.36 yuan a catty. There was an even cheaper option: unrefined brown sugar bricks meant for animal feed, which cost only ninety-plus yuan for fifty catties. Jian Xingxia highly suspected that the production and purification levels of brown sugar in both the Daliang and Great Yu Dynasties were likely around this level. The purity of modern feed sugar might very well be even higher.
However, since it was ultimately intended for livestock feed—meant for horses and cattle—Jian Xingxia couldn’t find any information on whether it was safe for human consumption, so she ultimately didn’t buy it. Unless they truly encountered an extreme scenario, she still needed to provide the temporary workers with certified products. She only wanted to be an estate owner, not a slave owner.
The price of fabric couldn’t be driven down much further. There were cheaper fabrics available, but after making a few discrete inquiries, Jian Xingxia discovered that the cheaper fabrics were all made of “polyester.”
This required no second thought. In an era like the Daliang Dynasty where the common folk still wore hemp and kudzu linen, and cotton was considered high-quality cloth, there was absolutely no such thing as polyester. No matter how cheap it was, it was useless. If it couldn’t be taken back, it would just be a waste.
Still, Jian Xingxia bought a few cheap clothes, pants, and shoes.
For the clothes, she selected printing errors and custom-made clearance stocks, which were ridiculously cheap. Misprinted graphic tees cost eight yuan apiece for long sleeves and five or six yuan apiece for short sleeves. Clearance custom work uniforms made of thick denim or canvas fabric were incredibly sturdy, durable, and hard-wearing; they only cost twenty yuan a piece.
As for shoes, Jian Xingxia temporarily selected two types.
One was ox-tendon soled slippers. They were cheap, with a wholesale price of 3.5 yuan. The downside was that they easily caused sweaty feet and felt a bit stiff to wear. The upside, however, was that they were highly durable and relatively forgiving with sizes—a smaller size could still be squeezed into, and a larger size went without saying. Jian Xingxia herself preferred to buy slippers a few sizes larger because they were more comfortable to wear.
The other type was cloth shoes. Jian Xingxia was truly astonished by the industrial prowess of her motherland. Whether it was rubber-soled cloth shoes or patchwork-soled cloth shoes made from old clothes, the price could be driven down to just a few yuan a pair.
Slippers were the same story; Jian Xingxia had actually filtered through the options. If she only cared about price, she could buy them for one or two yuan, but they weren’t very sturdy, and the soles weren’t stiff enough. Since they were in the mountains after all, which couldn’t compare to flat roads, Jian Xingxia ultimately selected the 3.5 yuan ox-tendon soled slippers and the 6 yuan patchwork-soled cloth shoes.
She had browsed for several days, and because she bought in bulk, she had negotiated a discount price for each item. She had even meticulously combined them to hit the promotional thresholds. When it came to money, saving a single cent was a cent earned. In case any temporary worker took a fancy to the patchwork-soled cloth shoes and was willing to take them back, every single cent she saved on the price would allow their wages to maximize their utility.
Carrying a tricycle completely filled with courier packages, Jian Xingxia returned to the old house.
After unloading all the items, she hurriedly went to return the vehicle. During this busy farming season, large trucks found it inconvenient to navigate the mountains, so some narrow mountain paths could only be traversed by a tricycle. She had borrowed the vehicle from Hu Ming’s family for so many days, so it was time to return it.
After her online shopping spree, Jian Xingxia’s balance was left with only three hundred-plus yuan, practically wiped out. Fortunately, Liang Chengcheng had given her three hundred yuan as Auntie Lin’s wages. Since Jian Xingxia had offset it with supplies, her balance had balanced back up, returning to over six hundred yuan. However, because funds were tight after all, Jian Xingxia had no choice but to be a bit more tight-fisted.
Therefore, she thick-skinnedly didn’t offer cash. Instead, she packed two catties of chestnuts and selected a few items from her online shopping haul—boxed tissues, laundry powder, and slippers—to gift to Grandma Hu Ming.
Grandma Hu Ming was absolutely thrilled. “My Hu Ming said he insisted on using this boxed tissue. I told him to use toilet rolls to wipe his mouth, and he actually refused!” Grandma Hu Ming had only purchased toilet rolls and skipped the boxed tissues, so Jian Xingxia’s gift today hit right on target.
Jian Xingxia smiled along with her. She had realized that the villagers simply didn’t have much money, combined with the fact that young people were rarely at home, leaving them without channels for online shopping and various promotional events. Consequently, they could only buy cheap goods at the market or high-priced goods at the supermarket. Furthermore, over the past two years, some unscrupulous vendors at the market would even sell knockoff, uncertified small commodities to the rural elderly as big-brand authentic products. The elderly spent no less money, yet the quality of the things they bought was abysmal.
Now that Jian Xingxia was doing wholesale by herself, the entire village benefited along with her.
After returning the vehicle, Jian Xingxia walked along the mountain path with light footsteps. It wasn’t until this moment that she remembered to check the Estate Management System.
Good grief! Lin Sanniang had actually given her a perfect score of one hundred points!
[Temporary worker’s first job rating exceeds 95 points. Reward: One additional recruitment slot, valid only for the next day (today).]
Jian Xingxia was absolutely ecstatic. This worked out perfectly—she could hire two people in one go.
