6 - Preparations
When he entered the house, the scent of food rushed out. Liu Yun had just brought over a large plate filled with ribs to the table, with some carrots and mushrooms mixed in the broth. Just looking at it could make a person drool.
At the sound of the door opening, Liu Yun immediately turned her head, and greeted Chen Yuanming with a smile, "Doudou you're finally here, I told Maomao to go... Aiya, what happened to your clothes, where did you get hurt?!"
With one look, she saw the boy's dirty knees and his backpack that was carrying black-red blood stains. Liu Yun walked over anxiously and pulled Chen Yuanming to get a closer look.
"Let's not talk about it, when I arrived Doudou was surrounded by several classmates and was about to get beaten up!" Sun Lang chimed in from the side, "The injury on his head was caused by those guys, who knows how many times this has happened before!"
"How could this be?! "Liu Yun got mad when she heard,"Have you told your mother? Let her go speak to your class teacher! "
"Auntie, this is really nothing." Chen Yuanming smiled awkwardly and said evasively, "And it's already winter vacation now, this isn't worth caring about..."
"You're too closed-off and reserved! If you were more like Er Mao then how could you still be bullied..." Thinking of Chen Yuanming's situation at home, Liu Yun couldn't help but sigh, this child was alright, but his parents cared too much about keeping appearances. When the kids would stir up trouble in the courtyard when they were younger, as long as they met Chen Jianhua, without even allowing an explanation, he'd directly give his son a beating. After that, not many people dared to play with him anymore..
She went and got a wet towel, and patted off all the dust. Liu Yun pressed Chen Yuanming onto the seat, "Eat first, you're too skinny, if you get stronger then they wouldn't dare to bully you!"
Two dishes and a soup were on the table, and each person had a fluffy bowl of white rice in front of them, just looking at it made one want to start eating. Sun Lang had already grabbed a rib with his chopsticks and placed it into Chen Yuanming's bowl, "That's right! No one dares to mess with me at school!"
"Auntie will also be knitting gloves at home during this time, so Doudou, you could come to Auntie's house during winter vacation, and study and do homework with Maomao..." Liu Yun also grabbed a chopstick-full of cabbage stewed with noodles and stuffed it into Chen Yuanming's bowl, and the food in his bowl piled up. "Right, what mark did you score for the end of this term?"
"679 points, seventh in the class." Chen Yuanming ferociously ate two mouthfuls of food and evened out the teetering pile of food that had been placed in his bowl.
"How much?!" The rice in Sun Lang's mouth flew out, and he looked at Chen Yuanming with a shocked look. At this time, L City still used the local unified examination papers, and the total score for seven subjects added up was 700, "It's only 20 points less and you're only seventh in the class?!!! Why is Middle School No. 3 so weird, the first place person in our entire class only has 680 points!"
"Also, you placed in the top 50 rankings within the entire school, yet look at how little points you got!" Liu Yun bluntly gave her son a look, and turned her head to smile at Chen Yuanming, saying, "Really, if you come over here you can also help Maomao with his schoolwork, Auntie is worried to death over it."
Looking at Liu Yun's kind smile, Chen Yuanming couldn't understand. Sun Lang's father was the director of one of the branches in a factory. Sun Lang should go to a university in this city, and be directly arranged to go work in the factory after graduating. As for the required scores to get into the several high schools in L City, Sun Lang was able to get admitted into high school, and going to university wouldn't be a problem for him. These words were nothing more than her worrying about him being bullied by others, and wanting to let Sun Lang help him block some of these things.
However, there's no one who knows how the future would develop better than Chen Yuanming. After three years of high school and four years of university, the lay-offs from the various state-owned enterprises would reach its highest peak. At that time, these state-owned enterprises would no longer be as brilliant as they were and there'd be countless bankruptcies and transfers. If there was only a third-rate university diploma, then talk about all the competition? If the other party cares about him so much, then it'd only be natural to reciprocate...
Swallowing the food in his mouth, Chen Yuanming showed a big smile, "Ok Auntie, I will help tutor Second Brother with his schoolwork. If I can find some highschool teaching materials, I could also try to help Second Brother review it a little."
After hearing these words, the two of them were stunned. Sun Lang's face immediately scrunched up, "Doudou, you're really treating this seriously?! It's still winter vacation right now! "
"So what if it's winter vacation! "Liu Yun interrupted her son's complaining, immediately felt relieved. There were no parents who would dislike their child getting better grades, and wouldn't killing two birds with one stone be even better? "Auntie will go and ask the other neighbours, we'll definitely be able to find some high school textbooks. Your Second Brother will rely on you now!"
"Auntie, don't say that, Second Brother's grades are already pretty good." Chen Yuanming ignored the frown of the person sitting across from him and returned a smile. He then remembered something, "Right... Isn't Uncle working in the office at one of the factory branches? I was wondering if you could help me find some newspapers. It doesn't matter if the date is old, I'd just really read some newspapers... "
"Aiya, that's easy!" Although she was somewhat curious as to why a child would want to read a newspaper, but this kind of thing wasn't uncommon, so Liu Yun agreed, "I can just tell your Uncle about it, the newspapers in their office are usually all given to the guards to sell off, it's really a pity!"
Just chatting noisily like this, the meal passed by enjoyably. After dinner, she sent her son to go wash the dishes, and Liu Yun took out a pair of coffee-coloured gloves from the cabinet and handed them to Chen Yuanming.
"This is what your Sister and I came up with... Doudou, look..." She nervously gave the gloves to Chen Yuanming, and Liu Yun looked at the other person eagerly, as if she had completely forgotten that he was only a 15-year-old child.
He pinched the gloves a little. It was genuine fine wool, soft and comfortable, and it didn't seem like it would irritate the hands too much. The five fingers were very well-proportioned. A few simple stripes had been made on the back of the glove, and the colours also matched beautifully. Chen Yuanming took one and wore it on his hand. His hands were slightly larger than those of most ordinary middle school students, and his fingers were very long so the glove was a little too small, but the warmth of the wool was perfect. He took out a pen from his bag and tried it on the gloves. The spacing of the fingers weren't too loose or too tight, and the workmanship was so exquisite that it didn't seem at all like a product that had been made by hand.
"It's great!" Sighing sincerely, Chen Yuanming took off the glove, "There's nothing to say about the workmanship, but Auntie, just how long did it take for you to make a pair of these gloves?"
"Is this really okay? It didn't take much time, knitting a pair probably took around two or three hours? "Liu Yun was so excited that her eyes lit up, "Later on your sister and I can split up the work. I'll work on the finer details and she can knit the back of the gloves, maybe we can finish even more quickly. "
"Two or three hours..." Chen Yuanming frowned slightly, this was a little longer than he had expected. After thinking for a while, he squeezed the gloves again, "What if the yarn was knitted more loosely? There doesn't need to be too many stitches, maybe around ⅔ of the current amount."
"It go a little faster, but it wouldn't save much yarn... "
"There's no problem with the yarn." Chen Yuanming laughed, "No matter what someone buys, the most important thing is the quality. If it's something like this, with a good colour choice and delicate needlework, then you should make something else with slightly simpler colours and rougher needlework, to give customers more choices, so that your things will sell better. Also, if you look here..."
Chen Yuanming turned the glove over and pointed to the bottom, "Auntie, you could get some satin cloth similar to those used for brand tags or logos, embroider a simple pattern onto it, and then stick it in using a sewing machine. You can say that it's a big brand product over from Shanghai."
"That... Wouldn't that be tricking people?" Liu Yun asked, with a stunned reaction. In these years, people didn't really have a deep brand awareness. When wearing clothes, brand goods wouldn't be recognized at all, so these problems wouldn't even be thought of.
"This is called a marketing strategy." Chen Yuanming was not anxious, and slowly explained to the other party, "Auntie, think about it, these days, who wouldn't want something from Beijing or Shanghai? Taking it out will also give face, and our products can't be considered as uncommon either, but packaging it can make it seem more grand. As long as it's grand, the price will also go up... "
"Then~~ Then what would be the appropriate price to sell these at?" Liu Yun hesitated again, "This doesn't require much yarn to make, and the cost of making one pair is only a few cents. If the brand tag that you mentioned is added, then what do you think about selling it for three dollars... "
"The more sophisticated ones can be sold for 8 dollars, and the average ones for 5 dollars." Chen Yuanming simply replied, "Most of them can be made for women, the more fitted they are for the hands, the better. The men's styles only need to be made more ordinarily, and knitted a little larger."
Liu Yun has already been completely shocked. You should know that at this time, a wool sweater would cost around 1200 dollars [1], and the average monthly salary was only around 100! Even daring to sell a pair of gloves at this price, could they really be sold?
"Don't worry." Looking at Liu Yun's expression, Chen Yuanming laughed, "Auntie, trust me. It'll take a you so much effort to do this, so of course I wouldn't let you lose out."
After he spoke, he thought about it a little, and he took out a notebook from his bag, and sketched out some simple cartoon characters such as Kitty cat, □□ Bear, and Snoopy onto the paper [2]. He had never studied art before, so several of the sketches looked crooked, but in Liu Yun's eyes, these drawings looked quite novel and cute.
"These are all foreign big-name brands. If you can find a way to knit them onto the gloves, then with these patterns, you wouldn't have to worry about selling them. But first of all, you should make less of the delicate ones with patterns on them and more simple ones first."
Looking at the drawings in front of her and listening to Chen Yuanming's methodical explanations, Liu Yun's heart also slowly settled down. Thinking of the profit that each pair of gloves could bring, her heart suddenly became fiery. "Okay! Auntie will listen to you, let's try it this time!"
On that day, they discussed a lot of details about the sales of the gloves, and finally Sun Lang personally sent him home on his bike. Although this time he arrived home even later than last time, but the excellent results from the final exam obviously offset everything else, and his parents even showed a little arrogant contentment towards him helping Sun Lang with his schoolwork during the winter vacation, and did not object to it. While lying on the still cold and hard wooden bed, Chen Yuanming pulled up his quilt and closed his eyes in the cold wind that was seeping through the window slits. The night passed by dreamlessly.
Footnotes:
1200 dollars: Remember, this is in Chinese currency (I think)? Either that, or for whatever reason the sweaters were just insanely expensive back then.Kitty cat, □□ Bear, and Snoopy: This was what it said in the Chinese raws. "Kitty cat" is probably like Hello Kitty or something lol.