Witty Wife, Better Life

Chapter 465: Chapter 455 Business is a bit bleak

Having successfully made her first sale, Shen Yunfang smiled as she saw the customers off. Li Xianglian’s family of four, who had been watching from behind, hurried over.

"Yunfang, you sold it just like that?" Li Xianglian still couldn’t believe it.

Just now, someone had passed by, and her sister-in-law had chanted a few lines, and the man squatted down to look at the couplets, pointed at one, and then paid for it. Was it really that simple to sell a pair of couplets?

Of course it was that simple—did selling a pair of couplets have to be some kind of ceremony with firecrackers?

"Yes, I sold a pair." Shen Yunfang took the twenty cents out of her pocket and waved it around, "Actually, it’s not difficult, as long as you’re bold enough to call out and sell." If it were busier, she wouldn’t even need to hawk her wares, but they had arrived early and there were hardly any passersby. Without calling out, no one would notice.

"Yunfang, can you repeat what you said earlier? I didn’t catch it," Liu Jianjun, eager to learn, was the first to want to memorize Shen Yunfang’s hawking phrases, which he found difficult to come up with on his own.

So Shen Yunfang gave them a short training session, and the four of them, young and old, really put in the effort to learn those hawking lines.

Shitou and Shuanzi were young and had good memories; they memorized the lines after only a few tries. Liu Jianjun and Li Xianglian, on the other hand, struggled to memorize them—Shen Yunfang was also scratching her head at their struggles.

"Big sister, brother-in-law, you don’t have to memorize that. When people come, just say whatever comes to mind." There was no need for everyone to shout the same thing.

"No way, how can we just say anything? Don’t worry about us, your brother-in-law and I will definitely learn it," and with that, the couple turned back to recite the phrases against the wall.

People passed by intermittently, some stopped upon hearing Shen Yunfang’s pitches, looked at the couplets, and then walked on, while others found them appealing and bought a pair. That day, from seven in the morning to after three in the afternoon, Shen Yunfang sold a total of twenty-three pairs of couplets, amounting to four yuan and sixty cents, exactly, in her pocket.

By the afternoon, noticing that there were fewer people around, Shen Yunfang felt it might be pointless to continue, so she called Liu Jianjun to pack up the stall. They pushed the cart full of couplets back to the courtyard house.

Mu Huazhen and the others at home were anxiously awaiting their return, and as they saw them coming, they rushed over.

"How did it go today?" Actually, seeing the cart full of couplets, which looked no different from when they left, Mu Huazhen suspected it might not have gone very well, but she still asked with a smile.

"It went well, we sold quite a few," said an elated Li Xianglian, feeling that earning more than four yuan in a day wasn’t too bad.

Seeing Shen Yunfang’s unconcerned demeanor, Mu Huazhen smiled along, "Is that so? That’s really good, it’s a fortunate beginning. Come on in and warm up. I’ll unload the cart." She took the initiative to do the work.

"Oh, there’s no need, you’re dressed so cleanly; don’t get yourself dirty. Don’t start working; we got it," Li Xianglian said, stopping Mu Huazhen from helping, "Yunfang, you too. You’ve been standing all day. Go inside and take a break, your brother-in-law and I will finish unloading this quickly."

"No need, big sister. Let’s do it together. If we need to rest, a little more time won’t make a difference."

A few trips back and forth, and they had moved all the couplets from the tricycle back to the storage room.

Then, the whole group sat by the fire to warm up and waited for dinner.

Mu Huazhen made lunch for everyone at the courtyard house, and Ma Liguo delivered it to several people. By the time it was delivered, it had gone cold, so everyone just made do and ate a mouthful. Now that Mu Huazhen saw everyone had returned, she hurriedly started to prepare for dinner.

With so many people to feed, it wasn’t feasible for Mu Huazhen to be busy by herself. Lunchtime had been unavoidable since everyone was out, so Shen Yunfang, who hadn’t even gotten her seat warm, went to help with cooking again.

With many hands, the work went quickly, and they were able to eat dinner a little after four.

At the dinner table, Shen Yunfang summarized today’s sales situation.

"Today was our first day setting up a stall, and achieving this result is already very good, but in the future, we still need to try to sell more. After all, we have so much stock in our warehouse, many of which are this year’s couplets. If they’re left over, we can only sell them again after twelve years."

Ma Liguo nodded along, not very satisfied with today’s sales performance. After all, his expectations were high at the beginning, and the sudden drop made him a bit disappointed.

"We have one hundred designs, and we printed a thousand copies of each. That’s a hundred thousand copies in total. With only twenty days left until the New Year, you figure, we need to sell five thousand copies a day to sell them all before New Year’s." He had initially thought that if they ran out, he would ask the printing factory to print more. Now it seemed that wouldn’t be necessary.

Li Xianglian, who had been eating happily with a smile on her face, was dumbfounded. What? Sell five thousand copies a day? But today they had sold only a little over twenty copies. Thinking about the gap, she immediately felt like the food was hard to swallow and couldn’t eat any more.

Her drastic change in mood was noticed by everyone at the table.

Shen Yunfang smiled and encouraged Li Xianglian, "Big sister, don’t get too stressed. Our business is essentially cost-free. Those old couplets only cost us a hundred or two hundred yuan. In these days before the New Year, how could we not sell enough to cover that? Right?"

Ma Liguo kept his head down and remained silent. He knew that Shen Yunfang was just trying to comfort Li Big Sister with those words. He was clearer on the actual costs than anyone.

If they didn’t count the money initially given as a gift to the printing factory’s manager, Yunfang had spent a hundred and thirty yuan on people to write the couplets, and he had paid almost two hundred and seventy yuan for the plate-making and printing labor fees. Then there was the cost of the paper, which they had covered themselves; this wasn’t much, adding up to a hundred yuan given to the printing factory. Altogether, the cost was at least a thousand yuan.

Of course, Yunfang had paid all these expenses upfront. He had also wanted to contribute, but Yunfang said she would pay first and keep track of the expenses for ease of calculation at the end.

Now it seemed like they might make a loss.

After hearing Shen Yunfang’s words, Li Big Sister did her own calculation, "Mmm, if we sell a bit more, we might not suffer a loss. But we’re not really making much money either."

Li Big sister suddenly thought about her family coming over, wondering if their food and lodging should be considered as part of the cost. If they didn’t make money, her family’s visit wouldn’t be helping her younger siblings but adding a burden instead.

"Don’t worry about that. Today was our first day setting up a stall; many people don’t even know we’re selling Spring Festival couplets. Plus, there’s still a long time until the New Year. Many people have the habit of waiting until after the twentieth of the twelfth lunar month to start buying New Year’s goods, so we shouldn’t be anxious. The sales will definitely get better in a few days." Even though today’s business had been bleak, Shen Yunfang still had confidence.

First, she had analyzed the characteristics of the current era. At this time, with everything waiting to be reinvigorated, the common people had long been in a state where the planned economy didn’t satisfy their needs—meaning even if you had money, you couldn’t buy anything. As a result, many people had adopted the habit of hoarding things whenever they were available for sale, fearing they wouldn’t be able to buy them later. Many people had this mindset now.

Furthermore, the business of selling Spring Festival couplets was something she had decided on after much thought. Over the past decade, for political reasons, many families didn’t dare to hang couplets during the New Year’s, fearing they would be labeled as feudal superstition. However, the people’s regard for the Spring Festival and the adherence to traditional customs couldn’t be easily changed. Now with the national policies improving, the common people certainly wanted to celebrate the Spring Festival with vigor, and couplets and blessings were indispensable for every household.

Therefore, she believed that the business of selling Spring Festival couplets had great potential.