Hearing this, Xiao Weiguo slapped his own palm in excitement.
With the supply issue—his biggest worry—now resolved, as long as he kept working hard, making money wouldn't be easy?
"How much did your dad collect today?"
Liu Ye held up a single finger, her pretty face flushed red with excitement.
"A thousand pairs, at thirty cents a pair."
"Good. Just like we agreed before, I'll take them all at sixty cents a pair. Same old rules: tomorrow, ride your bicycle over to find me, and we'll head to Wuxian again. I'll give you your capital back after we sell the goods."
A thousand pairs of socks bought for three hundred yuan could be sold for six hundred yuan the moment you turned around—a full hundred percent markup. Where else could you find a deal like that?
"All right, it's a deal."
Liu Ye agreed instantly.
Xiao Shanshan had heard every single word of their conversation at the doorway.
In her heart, she was even happier than Xiao Weiguo.
Big Brother really didn't lie to me this time. Liu Ye even came to the house to talk business with him; there's no mistake.
That night, Xiao Shanshan slept exceptionally soundly.
She had a dream. In the dream, Big Brother actually married Liu Ye, and their big family lived happily together.
When she woke up, she couldn't help smiling to herself. How could she have dreamed such a thing? What kind of family did Liu Ye come from? Why would she ever take a fancy to her brother?
Early the next morning, before the sun was up, Xiao Weiguo took Liu Ye and a huge bag of socks and headed toward Wuxian.
Only, they didn't realize that not long after leaving the village, someone on a bicycle had started following far behind them.
Today Liu Ye brought all one thousand pairs of socks. Xiao Weiguo looked around and found a relatively large residential compound belonging to the Wuxian Winery.
The winery was doing very well, and Xiao Weiguo believed the people living there would have higher purchasing power.
Keeping a portion on his person, he slipped into the residential compound alone, while Liu Ye stayed outside guarding the rest.
Just as he expected, people here were easier to sell to than those near the machinery factory, with some families even buying twenty or thirty pairs.
Xiao Weiguo sold well over half in just a single morning. After eating lunch, he spent less than half the afternoon selling out every single pair of socks.
Holding the six hundred yuan in cash she had just earned, Liu Ye grinned from ear to ear.
In less than a day, she had earned more than three months of her father's salary. If things went on like this, wouldn't she be getting rich in no time?
What she didn't know was that Xiao Weiguo's pockets now held nine hundred yuan.
He had earned a full three times as much as her.
"Liu Ye, go back and tell your dad to collect as many as he can. If the funds aren't enough, come find me, and I'll figure something out."
Xiao Weiguo understood that with profits this high, it was inevitable someone would figure out the trick. If competitors showed up later, the supply source would become his only safeguard.
He wasn't afraid of having too much stock on hand; Wuxian wasn't the only county around—there were several others. If worst came to worst, he'd just have to walk a bit more. He was a strapping young man; could he not even handle a little hardship?
That was why he wanted Liu Ye's father to stockpile more socks. After all, you couldn't get these prices directly from the factory; you could only collect them from the factory workers.
Over the next few days, Xiao Weiguo and Liu Ye rushed back and forth early and late every day, selling a baseline of one thousand pairs of socks daily.
On their busiest day, the two of them brought fifteen or sixteen hundred pairs, and sold every last one.
After getting a taste of the sweetness, Liu Ye's father, Liu Erzhu, used up all the family's savings and borrowed quite a bit from relatives and friends, stockpiling a massive thirty thousand pairs of socks at once. If not for a shortage of capital, he could have stockpiled even more.
After all, among three or four hundred workers, practically everyone had five hundred pairs on hand. With so much of this stuff sitting at home when you couldn't eat or drink it, if you could get rid of it, of course you'd want to clear it out fast.
For over ten days straight, both sides could be said to have made a killing.
On this day, Xiao Weiguo spent a small fortune buying himself a suit, shelling out a full ninety yuan. Taking advantage of the state abolishing the ration-coupon system for purchases, he also spent 198 yuan on a Pigeon-brand bicycle.
Riding Liu Ye's bicycle every day limited the goods the two of them could carry. With a bicycle for each of them, they could carry more cargo, and Xiao Weiguo would have a much easier time.
After selling socks for so many days, he realized there were still quite a few people who looked down on farmers.
Previously, Xiao Weiguo's shabby attire had dragged down his impression score quite a bit.
Otherwise, he believed he could have sold even more socks.
Over these dozen days, he had made over ten thousand yuan, anyway; spending money to kit himself out was an absolute must.
If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools; there was no need to skimp on this.
When he appeared in the village looking slick and polished, it immediately set off a flurry of discussion among the villagers.
"How did this good-for-nothing suddenly strut into wealth?"
"I heard he's doing some kind of business. Look at that outfit, he looks like a foreign devil."
...
Very few people wore suits in this era; even state cadres mostly wore Zhongshan suits or cadre uniforms.
Such a flashy outfit on Xiao Weiguo, whom everyone viewed as a good-for-nothing, naturally sparked all sorts of speculation.
"Doesn't everyone know what kind of trash this kid is? Can he run an honest business? Is business really that easy to run?"
"Exactly. If it were that easy, we'd all be doing business and getting rich long ago. When would it ever be his turn?"
All in all, Xiao Weiguo's transformation brought out a mountain of gossip.
But how could Xiao Weiguo, a man who had lived once before, possibly care about such things?
He understood these people's small-scale peasant mentality far too well.
When everyone was poor together, every single person was exceptionally kind, supporting one another to weather any hardship.
Yet the moment someone got ahead, they would instantly invite the jealousy of many.
There was only one solution to this kind of problem: stand higher and farther, becoming an existence they could only look up to. At that point, no one would ever feel jealous again.
They would only treat you like a god, like a father—take, for instance, the "Father Ma" of later generations.
Before reaching that height, the only option was to ignore the existence of these people.
There was no need to explain anything to them, nor any obligation to do so.
When Xiao Weiguo returned home wearing a suit and riding a brand-new 28-inch heavy-duty bicycle, it left even Xiao Shanshan stunned.
"Brother, what kind of act are you putting on? You look like a big businessman."
Xiao Weiguo couldn't stop himself from smiling.
This made him a big businessman? You really haven't seen those truly big businessmen of later generations.
Which of them didn't roll in with a fleet of luxury cars, flanked by seven or eight bodyguards in black suits and dark sunglasses?
Even Xiao Weiguo himself, after making a fortune, drove a Rolls-Royce and lived in a high-end villa.
He carried his large black leather bag into the house and gestured for his sister to come over.
"Shanshan, guess what this is?"
"Ah, what is it?" Xiao Shanshan asked, blinking her big eyes.
She had eaten well and slept soundly for the past half-month, and you could see a new radiance blooming across her entire face.
With a swift *zipp*, Xiao Weiguo unzipped the bag and dumped its contents right onto the reed mat of the kang.
Brightly colored and neatly stacked, there were thirteen solid bundles of "Great Unity" banknotes—thirteen thousand yuan in total.
Xiao Shanshan stared blankly, her eyes locked on the pile. After a long moment, she let out a cry of shock and spun around to bolt out the door.