Chapter 68: A New Expansion of the Business

Xie Zhao brought over a pair of shears and cut open the top layer of oiled paper, revealing the beautiful patterns inside.

Xie Tian’s eyes lit up.

“Wow! It’s so beautiful!”

The pale yellow daisies bloomed in vibrant, dense clusters, looking bright and beautiful.

Touching it, she could feel the texture woven row by row by a loom, creating a distinct, raised pattern. It was a fabric she had never seen before!

“Are we going to use this fabric to make clothes?”

Xie Cheng knitted his brows. “You wouldn’t even be able to go outside in it. Just leaning against a door would snag and tear it!”

Simply put, it was too impractical!

Xie Tian blinked and said in a low voice, “But it really is beautiful!”

Girls were always visual creatures.

She could hardly imagine how gorgeous it would look if made into clothes!

Xie Zhao smiled at Xie Cheng and said, “This fabric is meant for qipaos or shawls. If we used it to make regular clothes, the cost would be way too high.”

“I plan to use it to make bags.”

Bags?

This term was still very new to the two of them.

In those days, when country folk talked about a “bag,” they usually meant a simple cloth pouch.

It was often just scraps of fabric stitched together into a pouch, with a channel sewn around the top for a drawstring. A quick pull, and the opening would cinch shut.

It was simple, convenient, and cost next to nothing.

So, what on earth was this kind of “bag”?

After a moment’s thought, Xie Zhao asked Xie Tian to fetch a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Leaning over, he placed the paper on a stool and began to sketch rapidly.

In his past life, he had started out as a secondhand peddler.

He only started making real money when he caught the wave of the e-commerce boom.

He hadn’t run a particularly reputable business back then. He would copy designs, hire OEM factories to manufacture them, and get livestreamers to promote the goods. He sold the items first and made them later, which was the highly criticized practice of pre-selling.

During those years, he made his first pot of gold through this method.

A whopping thirty million yuan.

Because of this, he was very familiar with women’s clothing and bags.

Within just ten minutes or so, he had sketched the basic structure of two bags.

One was a shoulder bag, and the other was a handbag.

The shoulder bag was designed to be lively and cute, with inner and outer pockets marked with different colors. At the top left and right corners of the bag, he drew small decorations resembling ears.

Xie Tian asked in confusion, “Second Brother, what’s this? Why does it look… why does it look so much like rabbit ears?”

Xie Zhao nodded.

“They are rabbit ears.”

He had planned this all along.

No matter the era, if one wanted to make big money and high profits, the target audience could never be the farmers who scraped a living from the dirt.

They barely earned a few dozen yuan a year, and they had to pinch every penny just to keep from going hungry.

How could people like that spend money on bags?

To put it bluntly, Xie Zhao knew that even the river snail business was not a long-term venture.

Every time they hauled the cart into the county seat, they were a massive target. He was well aware of how many envious eyes were watching them.

Besides, after a hard day’s work, the profit was at most seven to eight hundred yuan.

More importantly, it wasn’t sustainable.

Selling river snails ultimately depended on having a large supply of snails to make good money.

Liuzhou only lacked river snails during the winter. Once summer arrived and the snails bred in droves, they wouldn’t be worth much.

Furthermore, if you could find a way to make money, others could too.

Within a month, others would surely start to muscle in on the river snail business.

He had to pave the way for the future.

And this bag business, with its low cost, high selling price, and massive profit margins, was the path he had chosen.

“The wild rabbit pelts we’ve been buying will come in handy now.”

Xie Zhao said with a smile.

He picked up the drawing and pointed at the design. “Young girls will love the rabbit ears as decoration. As for the rest of the rabbit fur, we can glue it flat onto cardboard and shape it into a bag. Any gaps can be filled in with fabric featuring auspicious cloud patterns. They will complement each other beautifully and look incredibly luxurious. The officials’ wives in Hudong County will definitely love it.”

After Xie Zhao finished speaking, Xie Cheng and Xie Tian both fell silent.

The two of them were completely unfamiliar with this field.

Xie Cheng looked at Xie Zhao with some worry and asked, “What about the river snail business then? Are we still doing it?”

“Of course we are,” Xie Zhao said. “We’ll find a few trustworthy young men in the village and hire them to deliver the goods with us. Having more people will keep us safe. We’ll also hire a donkey, and the price…” He was in the middle of speaking when a sudden commotion broke out outside.

“Why are you hitting people?!”

A sharp cry rang out, followed immediately by Liu Cuihua’s cursing. “Wang Erlaizi! You are absolutely shameless!”

“Mind your own business!”

A loud, brash voice shouted back. “Whoever has the river snails in their hands owns them! Liu Cuihua, you think you rule the earth, and now you’re trying to boss me around? Believe it or not, I’ll beat you up too!”

Xie Cheng pricked up his ears to listen. “Let’s go take a look!”

The three of them hurried out of the main room, only to see a man in a black, traditional button-up jacket lying on the ground near their gate. His clothes were covered in patches, and his hair was half-gray. He was curled up and hunched over on the ground with his back to Xie Zhao and the others, making it impossible to tell what was going on.

By the courtyard wall, Liu Cuihua stood with her hands on her hips, angrily pointing and cursing at a young man.

“Come on then! I dare you to try hitting me! See if my husband doesn’t beat you to death!”

Liu Cuihua cursed, “You’re lazy and good-for-nothing! If you want to make money, why don’t you go gather river snails yourself? Damn you! You really have no shame at all!”

She raised her voice. “Come look, folks of Shishui Village! This Wang Erlaizi says he’s going to beat me to death!”

There were already many villagers gathered near Xie Zhao’s house. Hearing Liu Cuihua’s shouts, the villagers who had come to deliver river snails hurried over and crowded around.

“What’s going on? Who dares to beat up Liu Cuihua?”

“Looks like Wang Erlaizi! Didn’t he just get released from prison the day before yesterday? Is he causing trouble again already?”

“Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s go see. That bastard must be bullying our fellow villagers again!”

…

The crowd gathered around.

Xie Zhao walked over quickly. He squatted beside the middle-aged man in the black, center-opening padded jacket and found that the man’s eyes were closed, his lips were purple, and his face was turning a sickly shade of green.

There was a dirty footprint on his waist, and his rolled-up trouser legs were covered in mud.

He had clearly just gathered river snails and wanted to bring them over to sell for money.

He lay there with his eyes closed, unconscious.

Xie Zhao quickly reached out to check the pulse in his neck.

Fortunately, he was probably just too hungry and cold, and his blood sugar had dropped.

“Little Sister, go scoop a spoonful of brown sugar. Hurry!”

Low blood sugar could be a minor issue or a severe one, but if it wasn’t treated in time, it could be fatal.

Xie Tian was startled. Seeing Xie Zhao’s serious expression, she quickly agreed, ran to the kitchen to grab a spoon, and scooped a spoonful of brown sugar from the clay jar.

The middle-aged man on the ground had already begun to shiver.