Chapter 9: Anxin Food Processing Company
Xu An laid out his entire plan, and Uncle Dongliang nodded in approval as he listened.
"Your idea should work. At the construction site where I work now, there are, conservatively, five to six hundred people. Aside from the locals, there are about two or three hundred workers from out of town.
Unlike us, they can’t go home at night for a good, nourishing meal; they can only make do with nearby restaurants. As long as your box lunches are more affordable than the restaurants’ and don’t taste bad, you’ve got a real shot."
After saying this, he immediately added, "If you want to do it, why not try my construction site? When the time comes, Uncle will bring a few guys over. You won’t have to worry about not selling them.
But if they don’t taste good, you should find a different spot for the next meal and don’t come back. Otherwise, if they decide they want to beat you up, Uncle won’t be able to stop them.
There are about twenty construction sites of all sizes in the city right now. If you hit one a day, that’s enough to last you a month. Once you’ve made the rounds, you can pack it in and just wait for university to start."
Uncle Dongliang’s words had laid out Xu An’s street vending career from the first day to the last, crystal clear. It was a hit-and-run strategy: if the food was bad, scam them and scram.
"However, if your box lunches are actually good, you can just stick to this one site. Most of the folks from the nearby villages work here. If you just sell your food honestly, you won’t get bullied."
"Uncle Dongliang, what time do you get off work tomorrow? After work, come to my place for a meal. You can see for yourself whether I should be doing hit-and-runs or sticking to one spot."
Xu An was confident in his cooking skills, but no one else knew he was a good cook. Given his family’s situation, people wouldn’t just drop by their house for a meal; it was more common for them to invite Xu An and his siblings over to their own homes.
"Alright, let’s make it noon tomorrow. It’s been too hot lately, so we get off work at twelve and don’t start again until three-thirty in the afternoon. That’s just enough time to come back, eat, take a nap, and then head back."
After setting the time, Xu An said his goodbyes and returned home. Xu Kang and Xu Le were sleeping soundly in the bedroom, completely unaware that their older brother had even gone out.
The next morning, Xu An was up at four again to pick vegetables in the garden. After all, he had promised Second Uncle Guo Qiang yesterday that they would sell at the stall together again today.
He hadn’t gathered all the necessary supplies yet, and with his aunt coming to visit today, the earliest he could start the box lunch business was tomorrow. Today, he still had to focus on the stall and make some more money.
He didn’t have many vegetables today—three jin of tomatoes, two jin of bok choy, two eggplants, and two jin of green peppers. He sold them all in a flash, earning a total of twenty-three yuan.
Compared to yesterday, today’s earnings were cut almost in half.
Xu An decided to head to the town’s wholesale market to check on prices. He asked his second uncle to take the baskets back for him and then left the vegetable market.
The wholesale market was in the northeast part of town. It had everything from daily necessities like pots, bowls, and pans to foodstuffs like rice and vegetables.
As Xu An walked around, he jotted down the wholesale prices and minimum purchase quantities for different food items.
For example, frozen chicken wings had a minimum wholesale order of ten jin, at a price of fourteen yuan per jin. The market retail price was eighteen yuan per jin, so he could save four yuan per jin.
Frozen chicken drumsticks also had a ten-jin minimum, at six yuan per jin. If he could buy fifty jin at once, the price would be another yuan cheaper.
Generally, the prices at the wholesale market were two to five yuan cheaper than retail, but the required quantities were quite large. With no refrigerator at home, he had nowhere to store so much.
As he was leaving the wholesale market, just as he reached the entrance, a stout, big-eared middle-aged man walked over, sidled up to Xu An, and asked in a low voice, "Hey boss, here to buy ingredients? I saw you were just looking around the food section. The prices in this market are still a bit high, you know. I’ve got something cheaper. Wanna take a look?"
Although the man looked simple and honest, the moment he spoke, he gave off a shady, gangster-like vibe. He didn’t seem like someone involved in legitimate business.
Xu An didn’t respond. He distanced himself from the man and waved his hand in refusal.
Seeing this, the man wasn’t annoyed. He pulled a flyer from his shirt, stuffed it into Xu An’s hand, gave him a ’you-know-what-I-mean’ look, and then went off to find his next target.
After walking about a hundred meters away from the wholesale market, Xu An unfolded the flyer in his hand. It was for a small food processing company.
Frozen chicken wings, five-jin minimum, ten yuan per jin. Frozen chicken drumsticks, five-jin minimum, three yuan per jin. Frozen pork, five-jin minimum, four yuan per jin.
The flyer listed over twenty different food items, with prices four to five yuan cheaper per jin than even the wholesale market.
The prices were outrageously cheap!
But the low prices certainly caught Xu An’s attention. If he could buy ingredients at this price, he could make five yuan of profit on an eight-yuan box lunch. He decided he had to at least go take a look.
Xu An followed the address on the flyer. It wasn’t far from the wholesale market, only about a ten-minute walk.
The environment here was visibly much worse than at the wholesale market. Filthy water flowed across the ground, and discarded, rotting entrails were everywhere. With every movement of people, flies would constantly swarm up and settle back down. In some corners, you could faintly make out the shapes of maggots.
In front of a one-story building stood a long row of faucets where seven or eight people were washing ingredients. All sorts of unidentifiable filth floated in the water in their basins.
Xu An approached a woman who looked the most honest and held the flyer up for her to see. "Is this the Anxin Food Processing Company?"
The woman glanced up at Xu An, wiped her greasy hands on her apron, and took the flyer. "Haven’t been here before, have you? I’ll take you to have a look."
Without waiting for a response, she led Xu An toward the single-story building.
Inside the building, large red lights were on. Many people were moving between rows of shelves, picking out the ingredients they wanted.
The woman took a form and a pencil from the wall and handed them to Xu An, pointing at an old man. "We have all the ingredients here. Take this list, and when you see something you want, put a checkmark next to it and write down how many jin you need. Give it to that old man in the leather jacket, and he’ll pack up the right amount for you."
With that, the woman went back outside to her work. Xu An walked over to the shelf closest to the door to inspect the ingredients.
This shelf held pork. At a glance, there were all sorts of cuts, as well as a lot of pork offal. The ingredients were all packed in red plastic bags and piled haphazardly on the shelf, with a good deal of bloody water dripping down from it.
Under the glow of the red lights, the ingredients all looked very fresh. But the smell in the air told Xu An that they had already begun to rot.
Just then, someone who had filled out a form handed it to the old man in the leather jacket. The old man took the form, put on a military-style greatcoat, lifted a curtain behind him, and opened a heavy door to go inside.
Only then did Xu An realize that behind the old man in the leather jacket was actually a walk-in freezer.
He walked behind a shelf near the person who had just placed an order, pretending to look for items he wanted while keeping an eye on the activity over there out of the corner of his eye.
The sound of heavy footsteps approached, and the old man emerged from the freezer carrying a large basket of goods. Even in his greatcoat, he was shivering and hissing from the cold.
The customer casually picked up two bags of ingredients to inspect them, then suddenly yelled, "This date is wrong! Didn’t you say it was only six months expired? This stuff is almost two years past its date! Two years expired isn’t worth this price. You have to go lower."
"It’s been frozen solid in the freezer. There’s no difference between six months expired and two years expired. If you’re not satisfied, you can go somewhere else. You won’t find any place in the city cheaper than this."
"Come on, boss. I’m not greedy. Just one yuan cheaper per jin."
"It’s not like I don’t have cheaper stuff. See those on the shelves? One yuan a jin. Take as much as you want."
"I’m a regular customer! You can’t even give me this little discount?"
"At this price, we’re basically doing charity, just earning a bit for our hard work. Look at all the workers outside. If we go any lower, we won’t even be able to pay their wages."
"Fine, fine, fine. Bag it up for me."
’So it’s all expired food. No wonder it’s so cheap.’
Xu An wasn’t some bleeding-heart saint, but he wasn’t without a conscience, either. He was just an ordinary, normal person who had his own sense of right and wrong.
Most of the workers on the construction sites were the same age as his parents. If his parents were still alive, they would probably be among them.
Many of the people from his village who had helped his family also worked on those sites. Xu An couldn’t bring himself to buy these expired ingredients, make them into box lunches, and sell them to those very people.
Just then, another person went to the old man to pick up an order. Xu An took the opportunity to leave.
It was easy to make dirty money, but he still had a conscience and couldn’t bring himself to earn it. He just wondered which shops those ingredients would end up in, what kind of food they would be turned into, and who would end up eating them.
On his way back, Xu An entered the village from the north entrance, first making a quick stop at Xu Guosheng’s home before heading toward his own house.
Xu Kang and Xu Le were squatting outside the courtyard gate, staring eagerly at the road. The moment they saw Xu An, they sprinted over, each grabbing one of his legs in a hug.
"Brother, the Old Witch and the Old Demon King came to our house!"
"Yeah! And they said we were cute and gave us candy! Are they the child-nappers you’re always talking about, Brother?"
’The Old Witch and the Old Demon King? Aren’t those the monsters from their dreams? Why would they be at our house?’
Xu An peeked into the courtyard. There were seven or eight people inside, three of whom were sitting with their backs to the gate.
All three had uniformly taken off their left shoes, propping a bare foot on their wooden stools. One hand rubbed a foot while the other gesticulated wildly in the air, moving so fast when they got excited that you could almost see afterimages.
’Only my aunt’s family could be such a classic trio. That must be my aunt, my uncle, and my aunt’s mother-in-law, all showing up together.’
Xu An carried the two little ones into the courtyard, called out a polite greeting to the three of them, and found a corner to sit down.
Too much time had passed; Xu An only remembered that in his past life, the three of them had taken Xu Kang and Xu Le away after a big argument. He couldn’t recall the specific details, so now was a good chance to refresh his memory.
Xu Kang and Xu Le seemed to sense something. After entering the courtyard, they hid behind Xu An, peeking out with their small, fuzzy heads to watch their aunt and her family.
Xu Le tugged on Xu An’s shirt, motioning for him to lean down, and whispered, "The one with all the wrinkles is the Old Witch, and the tall, skinny one is the Old Demon King."
’Well then,’ Xu An thought. ’All this time, I thought the Old Witch and Old Demon King they were talking about were my aunt and uncle. Turns out it’s my uncle and his mom.’