"Absolutely no problem, leave it to your brother."
After the matter was settled, Chen Lishu continued to make windbreakers at home, and also designed a few more clothing styles in her spare time.
Anything too avant-garde would definitely not be suitable. Thinking of the popular batwing tops of the eighties and the double-breasted dresses, Chen Lishu made two of each. She also made two sets of men's Mao suits and the later popular jackets, work pants, and trousers. Once all these were done, she delivered them all to Zhao Kang at once.
As the delivery date agreed upon with Nan Haitao was approaching, Chen Lishu made a special trip back to the village.
The busy spring plowing had come to an end. During this period, Zhang Qin, Li Xiulan, and Liu Yuemin had made a total of twenty-five windbreakers.
Since the village had a few days of free time, Chen Lishu thought about the dried goods she had collected before the New Year and could stir-fry them to sell at the train station. It was springtime, and there weren't many snacks around, so the price was sure to go up.
With this in mind, Chen Lishu called Gu Xingye to go to town with her.
The next day, Gu Xingye was stir-frying melon seeds at home, while Chen Lishu delivered the thirty agreed-upon clothes to Nan Haitao and brought back some more fabric.
"Sister Chen, you're back."
"Why are you standing here instead of coming into the yard?" Chen Lishu saw Ding Chen standing at her yard gate as soon as she turned the corner of the alley.
"I saw Brother Xingye busy, so I didn't want to disturb him."
Chen Lishu knew that Gu Xingye was always quite hostile towards Ding Chen, which made the boy a bit timid whenever he saw Gu Xingye.
"It's alright, you can come in with me." Chen Lishu smiled at him and pushed open the yard gate.
Ding Chen glanced into the yard and shook his head. "No need. I just came to tell you that the photo studio has been doing well these past two days, and Brother Zhao is very happy. Some people have also started asking where the clothes were bought. We've all followed your instructions and uniformly scheduled them for next Thursday in the alley behind the department store. I've noted down all the customer requests."
"Thank you so much."
Chen Lishu was surprised by Ding Chen's thoughtfulness. She took the paper he handed her and thanked him with a smile.
Such private transactions definitely couldn't be arranged at home. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee had not yet convened, and private businesses were not yet permitted. Renting a shop would be too conspicuous. Chen Lishu had no choice but to come up with a workaround. By changing the time and location each week, and having Zhao Kang and the others help, the customers would be more concentrated, saving them the trouble of running around and thus saving a lot of time.
After seeing him off, Chen Lishu had just entered her home when she found that Gu Xingye had already stir-fried more than half a bag of melon seeds. She grabbed a handful to taste and found the flavor to be very good.
"As the weather gets warmer, they don't keep well and can easily become damp. I didn't dare to stir-fry too many. I'll take a portion to the station to try selling them. If they sell well, I'll stir-fry more tomorrow."
Chen Lishu nodded when she heard him. Before going inside, she reminded him, "Be careful when you go. If things don't look right, it's better to abandon the goods than to get caught."
Gu Xingye nodded in agreement and then left with half a bag of melon seeds.
After returning to her room, Chen Lishu opened the paper Ding Chen had given her. She roughly counted the number of people who had placed orders, which totaled over twenty.
Looking at the densely written records, Chen Lishu felt a little worried. With so many orders, she couldn't possibly handle them all with just her two hands. Furthermore, she had been so busy making clothes that she had even neglected her studies. This situation couldn't continue. She needed to find a way to expand her production scale.
Expanding production scale required manpower, and preferably sewing machines. After much thought, Chen Lishu set her sights on her next-door neighbor, Wang Chenglin's family.
Wang Chenglin and his wife both worked in a garment factory, so they were naturally skilled at making clothes. Moreover, their family happened to have a sewing machine. Most importantly, their family was large, with elders above and children below, leading to significant expenses. Having interacted with them for a while, Chen Lishu knew that both of them were honest people. Even if they disagreed, they wouldn't spread the word.
With this in mind, Chen Lishu decided to visit the Wangs after dinner to gauge their situation.
"Third sister-in-law, I'm back." Gu Xingye suddenly pushed open the door in the afternoon while Chen Lishu was cutting fabric.
Chen Lishu looked up in surprise. "Why are you back so soon? Did they not sell well?"
"No." Gu Xingye hurriedly poured himself a glass of water. After gulping it down in one go, his parched throat finally felt a bit better. "They sold incredibly well. Everything I brought has been sold out."
Afterward, Gu Xingye poured out a pile of small paper bills from his satchel. They were all one-fen and two-fen coins, with an occasional one-mao coin. He straightened them, stacked them, and slowly started counting. By the end, he was shocked.
"Third sister-in-law, five yuan and eighty-six fen!" He had been out for less than three hours. Moreover, he had specifically weighed the melon seeds he brought out before leaving; there were only thirty-two jin, and they were selling for almost two mao per jin. The key was that the price he bought them at was only a few fen per jin.
Knowing how profitable these things were, Gu Xingye immediately became energetic. After putting away the money, he went out to stir-fry more melon seeds.
After he finished stir-frying the melon seeds for the next day, Chen Lishu looked at the time. It was almost time for Gu Xingping to finish school. She put down her work and went to cook.
After dinner, Gu Xingping cleaned up the kitchen, and Chen Lishu took a jin of melon seeds to the Wangs' house.
"Sister, you're here. Please, sit down." The Wangs had also just finished dinner. Sun Min, seeing her enter, handed her current task to her sister-in-law, wiped her hands casually, and went to greet her.
"We had some leftover melon seeds from the New Year. My uncle coincidentally stir-fried them for us today, so I brought them over for the children to have as a snack." Chen Lishu smiled and handed the melon seeds in her hand to Sun Min.
The children in the Wang family were gathered around a square table, doing their homework. Hearing that there were melon seeds to eat, their eyes lit up.
"Hurry up and finish your homework. Don't drag it out and stay up late under the lamplight. Isn't electricity money?"
Sun Min chided the children and took the melon seeds Chen Lishu handed her. "Sister, you're too polite. Ever since you moved here, these children have been so fortunate."
The relationship between the two families was quite good. Whenever Chen Lishu brought something back from the countryside, besides giving some to the Ding family, she wouldn't forget the Wangs.
"They say distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. It's not anything valuable, it's just the convenience of having family in the countryside."
After saying this, Chen Lishu glanced around to make sure there was no one else in the room, and then said seriously, "I came over this time to ask if you would be interested in making some money in your spare time, sister-in-law."
Chen Lishu didn't explain everything upfront. If Sun Min disagreed, there would be no point in her continuing.