On New Year’s Eve, L City finally had its first snow of the winter. The heavy snow, a full foot deep, covered the entire city and gave the children a New Year filled with ecstasy, but when the snow began to melt a few days later, the joy turned into torment.
These days, the coverage of concrete roads was too low and the drainage facilities were inadequate, so the accumulated snow turned into flowing streams, and the streets and alleys were practically a muddy swamp, making life miserable for people visiting relatives and friends in new clothes.
As the snow melted, the temperature in the city dropped several degrees, and the few street vendors selling New Year goods were shivering from the cold.
The peak period for visiting relatives after the fifth day of the New Year had passed, and now their business was declining, so they could only set up in front of the department store to catch some foot traffic.
Before they had done much business that day, they saw two boys carrying a small table to the roadside and setting up a stall.
A clean red cloth covered the tabletop, a large poster was nailed to the tree trunk, and colorful textiles were piled together.
A few literate vendors, full of curiosity, walked around to the front of the small stall and carefully examined the brush-written characters on the poster. They saw it read “Pure Wool Warm Study Gloves” in large characters.
“Do gloves really come in study and non-study kinds?” one person muttered in confusion, looking at the gloves on the table. On the small tabletop were seven or eight pairs of woolen gloves.
Unlike the usual thick mittens, these had five separate fingers, with the fingertips left open, ending at the first knuckle, like half-finished products. The colors and patterns were quite cute, soft and gentle as they lay together, very appealing.
“Of course,” a clear voice replied. The shorter boy in front of the stall greeted them with a smile.
“Studying means writing and doing homework. When your hands are frozen stiff in the dead of winter, how are you supposed to write? These are high-grade study gloves brought in from Shanghai. They make writing very convenient when you wear them.”
As he spoke, he raised his right hand. A coffee-colored glove was on it, and his nimble fingertips twirled a long ballpoint pen. After spinning it a few times, he gripped the pen and swiftly wrote a line of characters.
The handwriting was even and elegant, quite beautiful, not at all like something written while wearing woolen gloves.
“Hey,” a man laughed. “Don’t say it, writing really is quite convenient. Shanghai people sure have a lot of ideas. How much are they?”
“Eight yuan for the ones with cartoon patterns, five yuan for the decorative patterns.”
The onlookers immediately erupted in an uproar. “How much? Eight yuan for a pair of gloves?! Are you crazy for money?”
Surrounded by a crowd making noise, the boy was not flustered at all. He smiled and picked up a pair.
“Uncle, you have to look at quality when buying things. Finely spun Australian fine wool, doesn’t prickle the hands, doesn’t fade. Look at this label…”
He turned the glove over, revealing a small trademark embroidered with a rosy cloud and a string of English.
“The Dawn brand, you know Dawn? They only do export lines. Look at these patterns – Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Winnie the Pooh. Which one isn’t well praised, cute and fashionable?”
“This shipment came through connections as a factory order. Our city only has this batch, absolutely no other branch!”
His rapid-fire speech left people stunned, and every now and then he threw in a few English words.
Although the boy kept a natural and friendly expression, he had unknowingly drawn people in, giving his words some persuasiveness. Just then, a little girl beside them suddenly tugged at the corner of her mother’s clothes.
“Mom, I want the kitty! The pink kitty!!”
That shout earned her mother’s angry glare, but the boy did not let the opportunity slip.
He opened his mouth and said, “Little sister likes meow-meow too, huh? They’ll look so pretty with your red padded jacket! Big sister, why don’t you get a pair? Winter is so cold, it’s so hard for a child to do homework.”
“No matter how poor you are, you can’t be poor in education; no matter how hard things are, you can’t make your child suffer.”
“These fashionable gloves won’t go out of style, you can wear them for years. Calculated that way, they hardly cost anything at all. It’s the New Year, buy a pair for your child~”
In these times, people who came to the department store were truly not poor, and besides, who had ever seen this kind of hawking sales pitch on the market? Under the pincer attack of her daughter and the boy, the woman finally gritted her teeth. “Fifteen yuan for two pairs, yes or no?!”
“Oh, big sister, you really are…” The boy put on a pained expression. “The boss doesn’t allow bargaining. The cost price on these is too high; we’re not making any profit at all. Look, we only have a few pairs in total, not even enough to sell…”
However, this big sister was clearly a formidable character too. The two haggled back and forth for a long time, and finally the boy slapped his thigh. “It’s the New Year, first sale, so I’ll give it to you! Second Brother, wrap up this big sister’s gloves!”
He packed the two pairs of gloves into a delicate little colorful bag, then seriously handed it to the little girl whose face was full of happy smiles, and casually patted her little head. “Hold it tight, little sister. Study hard and make progress every day~~”
With the first sale made, the onlookers began to stir. The desire to buy is the easiest thing to whip up in a crowd. More and more people gathered, and in the end it almost turned into a buying frenzy.
The hagglers disappeared, and most were boys and girls afraid they wouldn’t get the patterns they liked.
The two were so busy they were drenched in sweat, their smiles almost frozen on their faces. In less than an hour, more than 100 pairs of gloves were sold out completely.
A few late customers shouted unhappily. “How come they’re all sold out? Are there any more? Just spare me one pair!”
The boy gave a ha-ha. “There really aren’t any left today! Sorry about that. This stock is really too popular, and we didn’t bring in much. When we get more goods later, I’ll set up here again! For sure, for sure!”
The crowd gradually dispersed. Chen Yuanming let out a long breath and squatted on the ground. His throat was hoarse from hawking for so long, and the muscles at the corners of his mouth were twitching from smiling.
He had thought he would never do street sales again, but unexpectedly he had to use this skill so soon.
Liu Yun and her daughter were still at home working overtime to knit gloves, and the only ones who could come out to sell goods were him and Sun Lang. But business was really easy to do now, much smoother than he had imagined.
The boy beside him gave him a hard shove, almost pushing him to the ground.
“Dou Dou!” Sun Lang lowered his voice, his eyes sparkling. “They’re all sold out! More than 100 pairs!”
Chen Yuanming put on a stern face and glared at him.
Just as Sun Lang was stammering and about to take back what he had said, Chen Yuanming broke into a huge smile and threw an arm around his shoulder. “Heh heh, of course. Look at who knitted them and who sold them!”
The two boys looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing together. A month of hard work – worth it!
Another week passed. Two days before winter vacation ended, they went to set up a stall again at the entrance of the city government family housing compound.
In total, the two sales sold 80 pairs of patterned gloves and 146 pairs of pure patterned gloves, for a total income of 1,362 yuan.
When the last one-yuan note was gathered into the pile of money, Liu Yun raised her head.
Because she had been knitting wool for so long, her beautiful black-and-white eyes were now filled with bloodshot veins, her eye bags were frighteningly swollen, and the tips of her fingers were all wrapped in bandages, some with dark red stains on the gauze.
But her smile was sweet and happy, and her whole person seemed radiant.
More than 1,000 yuan! After deducting less than 150 yuan in costs, the net profit for this month was more than 1,000 yuan! That was equal to her yearly salary.
She had thought about doing some side work to supplement the household income, but she had never imagined doing business could be this profitable! And it was just a small glove business…
Her eyes felt a little hot. Liu Yun took a deep breath, pulled out a stack from the pile of money, and seriously handed it to Chen Yuanming. “Dou Dou, I really owe you so much this time! Take this money, it’s what you deserve!”
Chen Yuanming smiled slightly and took the money.
That stack was about 400 yuan – one-yuan, two-yuan, five-yuan notes, the largest denomination being no more than a great unity, not even a single worker-peasant-intellectual note. It was a heavy wad.
He just gently shook it, then pulled out half and put it back.
“Dou Dou, you!” Liu Yun grew anxious, grabbed the money and tried to stuff it into Chen Yuanming’s arms.
Chen Yuanming directly stepped back. “This is enough, really.”
He looked at her bloodshot eyes and felt a little sore inside. This past month, the one who had truly worked desperately was definitely not him.
Yet even so, she was willing to take out one-third of the profit and give it to him… In his previous life, he had never met such a simple and honest business partner.
“Being able to knit so many this time is all thanks to you and your daughter. I just did a little talking. Getting this much is already quite a lot.”
“But if it weren’t for you, how could we possibly…”
“Don’t! Auntie, really don’t!” Chen Yuanming stepped aside again. “There will be more opportunities to make money. You’re the one who needs capital. If there’s a next opportunity, I’ll just tag along with you for some dividends.”
The word “capital” made Liu Yun’s hand freeze in place, and she hesitated. The profit this time had been so generous that it truly sparked a great interest in business for her.
If a small operation of about a hundred pairs of gloves could bring in over a thousand yuan, what if she really bought goods to sell?
Only, toward Chen Yuanming… She thought for a long time, then finally gritted her teeth. “All right! This year Auntie will buy more wool and start earlier. By winter, we’ll definitely earn even more…”
“No.” Chen Yuanming shook his head. “There won’t be profits like this again.”
“What? How could that be! I think these gloves won’t go out of style for two or three years…”
“That’s exactly because they won’t go out of style and are very simple, so if I’m not mistaken, imitations will appear within a month. By autumn, the whole street will be selling these gloves, and by then they might even go for two or three yuan a pair.”
This statement struck Liu Yun so hard that she felt dizzy. So this was just a one-time deal? Then she should have stayed up later, even if it meant rushing out a few more pairs…
“However…” Chen Yuanming changed his tone and revealed a slight smile.
“It’s not impossible to make money. It’s just a matter of expanding scale and upgrading products. They’re all fingerless gloves. What if you knit a semicircular brim so that when not writing, the whole hand can be wrapped inside?”
“Or fluffy woolen scarves, ear covers that can cover the ears… In business, you can’t just follow old conventions. Only constant innovation can bring progress. Everyone is not stupid. Those who just take one step and look at the next will eventually be overtaken.”
These words sounded utterly ordinary, simple and straightforward, but like a thunderclap in winter, they rumbled and exploded in Liu Yun’s heart.
She felt as if a great door had opened for her, revealing a brand-new world. Her lips trembled for a long time, then Liu Yun smiled.
“Dou Dou, you really are cut out for business. You really…” A thousand words turned into a sigh. After a long while, she smoothed the hair at her forehead with her hand and showed a shy smile.
“I sort of understand. Let me think it over carefully. Dou Dou, don’t think Auntie is stupid. It’s just, it’s just that this is the first time I’ve heard these things, and I need a little time…”
No, she really wasn’t stupid. Chen Yuanming revealed a bitter smile in his heart. No one knew his true background better than he did.
What he could rely on now were merely the advanced business ideas from his previous life, the experience accumulated by countless predecessors who had struggled and fought in the sea of commerce.
Yet this small-town woman in front of him, who had never even done a single small business deal, could understand the meaning of his words so quickly – her talent was already quite astonishing.
With this opening, Chen Yuanming chatted with Liu Yun for quite a while longer, only stopping when the sky grew late.
He declined her dinner invitation and did not let the exhausted Sun Lang escort him. He walked along the small road toward home.
The evening wind was cold, and there were few streetlights. Chen Yuanming did not walk fast, but his steps were steady and firm.
During this past month, he had not only completed his first business deal and received his first dividends; more importantly, in the newspaper he had seen at Sun Lang’s house, he had found something he was more familiar with.
The gulf war, the shanghai inspection, encouraging pudong development… Some things that had left an incomparably deep impression on him were advancing in the direction he remembered.
It was only 1991 now.
After that great man’s southern tour speech ended next year, what pace would this era take as it moved forward?
His heart was like a boiling volcano. Chen Yuanming clenched his jaw and quickened his pace in the cold wind.
The hundred or so yuan tucked in his chest was like a burning coal, scorching his heart, making his blood boil and his heartbeat surge. He could grasp something; he just needed to find a flawless method…