Volume 1: Reborn in the 1980s, selling lunch boxes with my mother Chapter 85: Liquor Sales Incident
Ordinary people at that time rarely bought bottled wine except for giving as gifts.
The main reason is that I can’t bear to do so.
I usually buy bulk wine for my own drinking.
There are basically two kinds of bulk liquor locally. Jiang Tian doesn't drink, so he doesn't know the difference between the two kinds of liquor. Anyway, he knows that the better one costs one yuan and twenty cents per pound, while the worse one only costs eighty cents per pound.
There was another cheaper one, 50 cents per pound, and Jiang Tian seriously suspected that this was the legendary "blended wine". Fearing that the customers would get sick from drinking it, he did not dare to buy any more, and only picked two that looked relatively safe.
What's speechless is that her store sells alcohol, but it didn't make the customers drunk, but instead attracted a "drunkard"...
By the way, ever since they started digging a fish pond in their backyard, Jiang Tian has been on guard against the old lady living behind her house causing trouble.
Unexpectedly, the old lady didn't come, but her son came to cause trouble.
Jiang Tian didn’t know that this man was the son of the aunt behind.
Ever since their lunch boxes became popular, so many people come to her house to buy lunch boxes every day. How can she remember everyone?
Because the box lunch business was booming, my eldest and second uncles specially brought a cart of bamboo from home and built a separate awning with four sides open for them on the open space in front of the house. They used several long wooden boards to build six long tables underneath.
It was a small business and they couldn't bear to spend money to buy small stools, so they just moved some red bricks from the construction site. Those who wanted to sit down and eat could move a few bricks themselves and stack them up to make a sturdy small stool.
Once the tables, chairs and benches in the store are finished, these red bricks will not be wasted and can be moved back and used to build the wall.
With so many people eating, there are bound to be some bumps and frictions.
Now, someone has jumped out to cause trouble.
"What's wrong with your family? The soju I usually drink is 50 cents a pound. It's ok that your lunch boxes are expensive, but why is your soju more expensive than others?"
"I buy it from other places, and it's also 20 cents a bowl. Just 20 cents! Give me a bowl."
A man with a red head, swollen face and red nose reached out to grab the long-handled bamboo spoon that Hu Qiongfang was using to pour wine.
Of course Hu Qiongfang couldn't let him make his own wine, so she explained in a nice voice that their family did not buy cheap blended wine. Although the cheapest one was mixed grain wine, it was also authentic grain wine, purchased at 80 cents per pound, and they sold it for 50 cents a bowl. In fact, they only made 30 to 50 cents on a pound of wine.
If they are really unscrupulous shop owners, they would actually make the highest profit by selling blended liquor, because the purchase price is cheap and if the alcohol content is high , they can buy it wholesale themselves and continue to add water to it.
One pound of wine can be exchanged for three pounds, with the purchase price of 50 cents, and the profit is more than tripled.
But Hu Qiongfang believed what her daughter said. Although this kind of wine was cheap and easy to sell, if someone died from drinking it, even selling the new house would probably not be enough to compensate.
Hu Qiongfang was timid, and when she thought that drinking blended wine could kill people, she immediately gave up the idea of selling inferior wine.
I would rather sell more expensive grain wine, even if it means making less profit, as long as people don’t die from drinking it.
Unexpectedly, when they stopped selling blended wine, their customers became unhappy.
Hu Qiongfang simply couldn't understand the minds of these drunkards as they had to buy blended liquor or something. Aren't they afraid of death?
Of course I am afraid of death, but I also really have no money.
The man who was clamoring to buy blended wine was the son of the aunt who lived behind their house.
Hu Qiongfang didn't recognize him, but she knew Old Brother Wu who helped her family build the house.
Seeing this drunkard coming over to cause trouble, Brother Wu put down the tile knife in his hand, ran over and dragged the man aside.
"Xu Lao San, are you courting death? Are you really bullying the mother and daughter because they have no one to protect them? Their two brothers are out hauling bricks, and if you make trouble now, you'll be in trouble when they come back!"
Xu Laosan was still not giving in, and he kept yelling, "We are neighbors after all, and we do business together. How can you be so stingy? What's wrong with just giving me two bowls of wine?"
Brother Wu was so angry that he laughed: "We are not related. They are doing business, not hosting a banquet. Your family didn't contribute any money, so why should they give you wine?"
In Wu Ge's opinion, Xu Laosan was spoiled by his parents.
Xu Laosan's family lives behind Hu Qiongfang's. His father, Xu Laoshi, is just an honest farmer, but his mother, Li Xiangmei, is quite capable. She had fenced off a large piece of land by the provincial road early on. The couple grows vegetables all year round and sets up stalls in the town. Although they don't earn as much as from doing business, it is much better than farming in the countryside.
Li Xiangmei gave birth to two daughters and a son. The first two daughters had already married, but Xu Laosan was spoiled by his parents and sister since he was young. He was neither good at literature nor martial arts, and was lazy and gluttonous. When asked to grow vegetables with his parents, he disliked the fact that growing and selling vegetables did not make money.
To be a truly profitable business, you need either capital or skills. He has neither, so no one wants to play with him.
After all this, the business was not successful, but I learned all the bad habits of a businessman. I had only a few dollars in my pocket all day long, and I was either eating with this person or drinking with that person, talking about business secrets worth tens of thousands of dollars, but in fact I might not even have a big Tuanjie banknote in my pocket.
Brother Wu looked down on such people, but Li Xiangmei was an elder who deserved sympathy. Brother Wu was also afraid that Xu Laosan, the drunkard, would get drunk and smash other people's stalls. Then his parents would have to pay for it, so he had to do his best to pull the man back.
Fortunately, the people working with him were all locals. When Brother Wu shouted, someone immediately ran to the back and called out Xu Laosan's parents.
When Jiang Tian saw the old lady, she thought of the small ditch in her backyard.
She occupied other people's land to dig ditches and used it to water her own vegetable garden. After that, she wanted to trick her, the "victim", into paying half of the money. With a mother like this, it's no wonder that Xu Laosan wanted to take advantage of her even for a bowl of wine.
Unexpectedly, this time the taking advantage aunt did not make a fuss. Seeing her son losing face to ask for a bowl of wine, the old lady was so embarrassed that her face turned red. She stomped her feet and cursed, while taking out five dimes from her pocket, wanting to buy a bowl of wine to coax this evil boy back first.
So as not to embarrass yourself outside!
The other guests eating nearby were not afraid at all. Instead, they held their bowls and watched the fun with great interest.
There were no mobile phones back then, and when people were eating, they couldn’t check their phones while eating like people do in later generations. The only fun was probably to squat at the door with a bowl in hand and watch the fun, right?
Li Xiangmei used to like squatting at the door and watching the fun, but she didn't expect that today she would be watched by others.
I wish I could beat this useless old son to death!
But after all, he is her biological son, and she only has this one precious son. What else can Li Chunmei do?
Not only did he buy a bowl of wine, but also, fearing that he couldn't coax his son back, he gritted his teeth and bought a piece of braised pork ribs and a piece of braised bean curd sheets.
With wine and meat, Xu Laosan was finally coaxed back by his mother.
