"Pffft!"
"Creak, creak."
Chen Pingjiang's eyes widened as he stared at the ceiling, his face filled with anger.
He grabbed the fourth volume of "Zhu Xian" from his bedside and threw it directly at the opposite bed.
"Damn it, disturbing my dreams first thing in the morning. Farting, grinding teeth, and talking in your sleep, sooner or later you're going to scare me to death."
Zhou Guanghan lay spread-eagled on the opposite bed, drooling.
After being hit, he immediately sat up, looking groggily at Chen Pingjiang with sleepy eyes.
"When you get married, you'll see if your wife doesn't beat you, then it's over."
Erzi had an old habit: when he slept, it was like a concert.
Anyone with light sleep would be tormented to death.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would suddenly shout "Ah!" or blurt out many strange things.
"A University! A University!"
"Pass the ball, you idiot."
Zhou Guanghan smiled sheepishly and wasn't angry.
He knew Chen Pingjiang didn't dislike him, but talking in his sleep and grinding his teeth were habits he truly couldn't change.
"Damn it, I can't sleep anymore. Let's go out and eat potstickers."
Chen Pingjiang sat up with a powerful fish-leap, looked at the small tent in his crotch, and chuckled.
A twenty-year-old body was truly great.
Pulling an all-nighter and continuing to surf the internet during the day wouldn't feel like dying, unlike in his thirties.
He could eat and sleep well, and most importantly, he wouldn't get fat.
And this cute little thing.
Chen Guangming and Xu Fangjuan had already gone to work.
The grandfather and grandson brushed their teeth and left.
"Still the familiar taste and familiar recipe."
There was only one shop on the street selling potstickers, with small fillings and thick skins.
When Chen Pingjiang was little, he craved them, two mao a piece, and he could eat twenty at a time.
"Erzi, don't go back for the summer vacation. I'll take you out to make money."
After eating his fill, Chen Pingjiang said, chewing on a toothpick.
Even in 2006, opportunities were more abundant than in later generations, but it wasn't that easy to make money.
Remembering lottery numbers was nonsense.
The World Cup was in full swing, but Chen Pingjiang couldn't remember the specific scores.
Besides, the famous betting websites that would later emerge hadn't come out yet, so where could he place a bet?
Everything required capital.
Without the first pot of gold, there was nothing to hope for.
"Damn those novels where protagonists are reborn and find rich beautiful women or rich old ladies, or make millions in one summer. Only now do I know it's fake."
Chen Pingjiang still had some ideas, but the crucial point was that it was summer vacation now, students' money couldn't be earned, and the two of them couldn't scrape together two hundred yuan in their pockets.
What kind of business could they do?
Borrowing from classmates was also unrealistic; they were all poor students.
A terrible start!
After wandering the streets for a long time, he still had no good ideas.
Working for someone else was impossible; he would never work for someone else in this life.
This also showed that Chen Pingjiang knew himself well; he wasn't the kind of person with a stable personality who could honestly work for others.
"Let's go to the station and take a bus to Dongfeng Village."
"Ah, are we going to find Great-Aunt's house?"
Zhou Guanghan called her Great-Aunt, which was Chen Pingjiang's paternal aunt.
Chen Pingjiang's paternal aunt and his father, Chen Guangming, were half-siblings, nearly twenty years apart.
In the village below the county, two cousins and a female cousin were all working out of town.
About an hour later, the two arrived at Dongfeng Village by bus.
Vast vineyards lined both sides of the provincial road, presenting a myriad of colors under the sunlight, like a brilliant oil painting.
Dongfeng Village didn't grow crops, only grapes.
As a child, he ate grapes until he was sick of them.
Now, in this season, grapes were also in season.
The two familiar figures arrived at paternal aunt Chen Xiufen's house.
There was also a large river in front of her house where Chen Pingjiang often swam when the water rose in the summer.
"A-min, where's Auntie?"
Entering the main hall, Chen Pingjiang glanced around and didn't see his paternal aunt.
He only saw his little nephew, Chu Min, leaning over the Eight Immortals table doing his summer homework.
His cousin and her husband were both working in other cities, and his nephew Chu Min was staying with his maternal grandmother in his hometown for school.
Rural families were not easy.
Chen Pingjiang's paternal uncle passed away early, and his paternal aunt raised three children alone.
In her old age, she also had to take care of their children.
Chen Pingjiang remembered that his paternal aunt had taken care of up to four children in her hometown at most.
At this time, it was better; she was only taking care of two, and another niece was picked up to go out of town for the vacation.
"Grandma is spraying medicine in the fields."
Chu Min was a bit different from typical rural children.
Other rural children, once summer vacation started, were like wild horses escaping their reins, never staying home, climbing trees to dig out bird nests, playing in the mud, all of them like monkeys, dark and grubby.
But Chu Min was fair-skinned and quiet-natured.
"This old lady really can't sit still for a moment."
Chen Pingjiang shook his head helplessly.
In his previous life, his paternal aunt was very good to him, and so were his cousins.
However, after his father passed away, visits between the two families became less frequent.
The July sun was scorching, even at just ten o'clock in the morning.
The muggy weather felt like a sauna.
After searching for a long time in the vineyard, they finally found his paternal aunt Chen Xiufen.
The old lady was sixty this year, very capable, a petite figure of 1.52 meters, wearing black dacron clothes and pants, and a straw hat.
"Oh, why have you two come here?"
Paternal aunt Chen Xiufen smiled and called out.
"The grapes are ripe; we came to cut them."
Chen Pingjiang only knew about the Sunshine Rose grape variety.
When it first entered the domestic market, it cost up to 500 yuan per jin, known as the "Hermes of grapes," and it did taste good.
Within a few years, the price of this variety dropped to less than ten yuan.
Why?
Everyone saw that this variety sold well and went to plant it, so the price naturally dropped.
Additionally, the excessive pursuit of larger fruit size affected taste and quality, coupled with competition from other grape varieties in the market, it became less and less popular.
The grapes in front of them were large and purple.
Chen Pingjiang tasted one; the sweetness was good.
"Auntie, how are the grapes this year?"
"This year is decent. The weather is good, the temperature is high, so the grapes are sweet enough."
Chen Xiufen chatted with Chen Pingjiang while wearing a backpack sprayer.
"In previous years, how did you sell your grapes?"
"Specialized companies came to collect them."
...
After chatting for a while, Chen Pingjiang had an idea.
There were several specialized buyers who came to collect grapes in the Dongfeng Village area.
The grapes they collected had standards, such as a sugar content requirement of 15% and a spoilage rate not exceeding 5%.
As for the sales channels for grapes, they were nothing more than local wholesale markets, fruit stores.
Some big bosses also stored them in cold storage and shipped them to other provinces to sell.
Any business that required capital was beyond Chen Pingjiang's means; he could only make money from nothing.
Acting as a buyer to collect grapes from door to door? Without capital and without sales channels, it was unthinkable.
"Auntie, Erzi and I want to do a small business during the summer vacation, but we don't have any capital. We want to get some grapes from you to sell in the city, and we'll give you the money after we sell them. What do you think?"
Chen Pingjiang stated the purpose of his visit. Gaining his paternal aunt's support was half the battle won.
"Sure, why not? But I only planted three mu."
Chen Xiufen said with a smile, the wrinkles around her eyes softening as she was happy that Chen Pingjiang had grown up.
"Erzi, look how good my auntie is to me. I don't have money on me, and I felt bad coming empty-handed today."
After thinking for a moment, Chen Pingjiang continued,
"But Auntie, you can't tell my mom, otherwise she'll start nagging me again."
...
The two didn't even stay for lunch, immediately rushing to catch a minibus to the city for reconnaissance.
The supply was settled; the only remaining problem was how to sell them.
For an entire afternoon, Chen Pingjiang dragged Zhou Guanghan back and forth across this fourth-tier small city.
Taxis in Tongshi were really cheap back then.
The starting fare was only three yuan, and ten yuan could get you from the east of the city to the west.
The new city hadn't developed yet, so many things were sold in the old city's pedestrian street.
Setting up a stall was unrealistic; how much would stall fees and management fees cost in a month?
He asked several fruit stores, but it all came to nothing.
They all had fixed suppliers; what business was it for him to butt in halfway?
Only retail, only retail!
(End of Chapter)
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