The happy little days of the Ye family

Ye's father drove the donkey cart from home before dawn. After arriving at the dock, Ye's father spent a penny to store the donkey cart at a livestock storage point not far away.

It was already late at this time, and the pier was very busy.

Father Ye first walked around the stalls, but did not see any defective goods for sale. Father Ye could only ask stalls one by one.

Father Ye went to the big stall first, where there were more goods. The large stalls are all relatively strong merchants, and there are no defective products.

In the end, there was only one merchant selling porcelain. He said that he had a batch of burnt vases and enthusiastically invited Father Ye to go to the warehouse to have a look.

Father Ye thought that if he had time anyway, it would be a good idea to broaden his horizons, so he followed the porcelain boss to the warehouse.

"Boss Ye, these are the vases."

There are several large wooden boxes in the warehouse. Inside the wooden boxes are neatly placed many vases of different colors, but the colors are not as good-looking as the ones I just saw on the stall.

"You have also seen the vases in my stall. They are all sold for one tael of silver each. This batch of vases were fired at a slightly lower temperature and the color is not so beautiful, but the shape and workmanship are excellent."

"The color of these vases is much different from the ones on the stall. How much does each one cost?"

To be honest, Father Ye really doesn’t understand porcelain at all.

"There are 30 vases here, and they will be given to you at cost, 20 taels of silver." The porcelain boss said with a sincere face.

"Boss Tang, I'm really short of money. I'd better look at other cheaper goods."

Hearing the price, Father Ye, who was standing at the door, quickly ran away.

This broken vase actually costs 20 silver. Isn't it because he is young and wants to trick him? Father Ye went to the small stall excitedly, ready to go shopping again.

The small stalls mostly sold food and mountain products, and there weren't many things suitable for Ye's father to take home and sell.

Father Ye came to a stall selling fabrics. There were seven or eight pieces of fine linen cloth on the stall. The weaving and dyeing were quite ordinary. They should be home-made cloth.

"Auntie, how do you sell this fabric?"

"110 yuan a horse."

The price is the same as that of Buzhuang, and there is no profit in taking it back.

"Auntie, do you have any cheap defective fabrics here? I'm a salesman and I want to take some cheap fabrics back to the village to sell."

"There is a piece of burlap that has been woven into pieces. It's only a little bit damaged. You can't tell it was used to make clothes." The aunt took out a piece of ginger-yellow burlap.

This fabric was woven by her eldest granddaughter. She was too young to control the strength and the weaving was damaged. I originally wanted to keep the clothes I made at home, but my granddaughter insisted on taking them out to sell.

"This fabric has a lot of damaged areas, and there aren't many places where you can make clothes by removing the damaged areas. How much does it cost per piece? I don't want it if it's too expensive."

"The damage is not obvious. It can be used to make clothes. I'll give it to you for 60 yuan."

"This fabric is worth at most 40 Wen. 60 Wen is too expensive. Don't give it up."

Father Ye remembered that the last time Mother Ye came to the county town, the piece of burlap cloth she bought on clearance was only 45 cents. 60 cents must be too expensive.

After some back and forth bargaining between Father Ye and his aunt, Father Ye finally bought the fabric for 55 Wen.

If the fabric is damaged, it can only be sold for seventy or eighty cents at most. That is to say, Father Ye can earn more than twenty cents at most from this piece of fabric.

Father Ye walked around the entire dock twice, but in the end he couldn't find any other suitable goods, so he could only buy some small commodities from other places in the county and go back.

According to Ye’s father’s many years of experience in the grocery store, sugar, salt, needlework, hair ties and cheap rouge gouache are the most popular.

There is a street in the county dedicated to wholesale. Every time the shop purchases goods, it is there. There are all kinds of things there.

When Father Ye came to purchase goods with his employer, the price was negotiated by the employer. Father Ye did not know what the purchase price was.

When negotiating the price, Father Ye negotiated based on half of the grocery store's selling price. But Ye's father bought few things, and the prices offered by the stores were generally relatively high.

In the end, Father Ye only took two kilograms of the cheapest candy bars, ten brightly colored headbands and some average-quality needlework. After thinking for a long time, he finally took a few boxes of facial grease.

Father Ye originally wanted to buy some salt, but he couldn't buy it.

Father Ye looked at the things in his hands. If he were a salesman, wouldn't this be enough? Father Ye went to Chenjia Cloth Store where Mother Ye last bought fabrics.

"Shopkeeper Chen, my younger brother's surname is Ye, and I'm a salesman. I want to buy some cheap fabrics from you and sell them back to the village. If there are any defective fabrics, it's best."

"Boss Ye, I can guarantee you that the fabrics here are definitely the cheapest in the county. If you take more, I can give you some. Special price fabrics are occasionally available, but they are usually only sold in the store."

Shopkeeper Chen uses the special price fabrics to attract customers. Although he makes less money from the special price fabrics, when he enters the store, he will definitely not only buy the special price fabrics, but also buy some regular price fabrics or needlework.

"Is there any red linen or cotton?"

The red cotton fabric last time was very popular, and Father Ye also wanted to buy some more red fabric.

"Red fabrics are generally in demand when they are scarce. I just have the last piece of red linen left here." Shopkeeper Chen brought the red fabric from the shelf to Father Ye.

The red color of this fabric is not very true, the color is light, and the dyeing is not particularly uniform.

Shopkeeper Wang saw that Father Ye was not very satisfied, so he took some pieces of cheesecloth and fine linen from the shelf and handed them to Father Ye.

"There are still a few bolts of burlap piled up in the warehouse. I asked the guys to take them out."

It didn't take long for the clerk to bring over some pieces of burlap. The color was quite bright, but Father Ye took it over and took a closer look. He found that the weaving was sparse and the dyeing was uneven. It was worse than the ones bought at the dock.

"Although these pieces of fabric are of average quality, the colors are beautiful. The girls and wives in the village will definitely like them. And they are not expensive, only 70 yuan per piece."

Although the regular-priced fabrics are two or three cents cheaper than those in town, it is not appropriate to spend more than 100 cents to earn only a few cents. Although the quality of these burlaps is a little worse, the colors are indeed beautiful.

Finally, Father Ye took a piece of red linen, a piece of goose-yellow burlap and some better quality needlework.

"Boss Ye, I still have some large pieces of cloth here. See if you want them." Shopkeeper Chen dragged a large sack from the corner.

When you open the sack, there are some relatively large pieces of cloth inside, which can be used to make clothes for children of one or two years old. If you are a bit crafty, you can make clothes for older children by piecing together several pieces of fabric.

"It's basically made of fine linen, and the fabric is relatively large. It can be used to make clothes or handkerchiefs."

The fabrics were large or small, but they couldn't be sold. Shopkeeper Chen felt a little distressed to give them away, so they have been backlogged here.

"Shopkeeper Chen, how much do these fabrics cost?"

"There are about 50 pieces of cloth here, so I'll charge you 35 yuan."

"Okay, I want this bag of cloth too."

"Each piece of cloth will cost you five cents. The red linen will cost you 115 cents, and the burlap will cost you 65 cents. The needle and thread will cost you 80 cents in total, and the cloth head will cost you 35 cents. The total is 295 cents."

When he left, shopkeeper Chen enthusiastically gave him two more bags of cloth.

On the way back, Father Ye did some calculations and found that today's purchase cost a total of 583 Wen. If all these things were sold, Ye's father was frustrated to find that he could only earn seventy or eighty cents.