Reborn in 1977

Chapter 116: Buying Chicks

People came, and people left.

Chen Fan noticed that after Jiang Lili wrapped her headscarf, she seemed to hold her head higher, her eyes curiously looking around.

As they walked, she suddenly raised her hand and pointed forward, "Oh, there are chicks for sale there."

Chen Fan looked in the direction she was pointing and saw an old man putting down a pair of baskets. He then took a small stool from one of the baskets covered with a dustpan and sat down.

Didn't see any chicks?

Jiang Lili said, "That's how chick sellers are. The baskets are lined with straw, and the chicks are underneath, covered with a dustpan on top."

Chen Fan immediately strode forward, "Let's go."

Taking two steps at a time, he arrived at the stall. The old man looked up at them and chuckled, "Buying chicks? Buy more chicks to raise, and you'll have a 'chicken butt bank'. The more you buy, the more you earn."

Chicken butt bank?

Chen Fan blinked, instantly understanding what he meant, and couldn't help but chuckle.

That was quite descriptive. First, you spend money to buy chicks. When the chicks grow up, they can lay eggs. One egg a day is 4 cents, and 10 eggs are 40 cents. Wouldn't that mean the more you buy, the more you earn?

As the old man spoke, he had already removed the two dustpans. Sure enough, there were chicks lined with straw underneath. Each one was like a fluffy ping-pong ball, squeezed into the basket, making Chen Fan's eyes light up.

Oh, my girlish heart!

He immediately reached out to grab one.

The old man quickly stopped him, "Don't rush, don't rush. These chicks are very delicate. They'll get startled if the temperature is too high or too low. Warm your hands first, then pick slowly."

He paused for a moment and added, "Or you can just tell me which one you want, and I'll pick them out for you one by one."

Chen Fan was stunned. Were chicks that delicate?

Then how would he take them back later?

Jiang Lili squatted beside him and whispered, "Later, ask for some straw to put on the eggs. Put the chicks on top of the straw, and then cover them with a cloth to block the wind."

Chen Fan looked at the egg basket. Hundreds of small chicken eggs were neatly arranged in the rectangular basket, only taking up a third of the space. Adding straw on top would definitely make it easy to carry the chicks.

He turned to Jiang Lili and smiled, "You're so smart."

Jiang Lili chuckled speechlessly. It wasn't that she was smart, it was just that he had never lived in the countryside.

Next, they started choosing the chicks.

But before Chen Fan could start, Jiang Lili asked, "Old man, how much are your chicks each?"

The old man held up two fingers, "The same price as the supply and marketing cooperative, 20 cents."

Jiang Lili frowned slightly, "Can it be cheaper?"

The old man chuckled, looking at the two of them, and said, "I'm not asking for a high price at all. These things weren't hatched in my own home. I bought them from chicken peddlers. I'm just earning a little hard-earned money."

Chen Fan widened his eyes, "There are chicken peddlers too?"

Not just him, even Jiang Lili looked at the old man in disbelief. She had been in Lujiawan for 3 years and had only seen people carrying baskets and selling chicks from village to village. She really didn't know that anyone was doing the business of peddling chicks.

The old man looked at him and said matter-of-factly, "Why wouldn't there be? As long as you report to the production team and the production team issues a sales certificate, you can go out and sell chicks.

It's just that you have to buy work points when you're away from home, and the price of buying work points is high. Earning 10 work points for a day's work isn't even worth 50 cents, but buying work points from the production team costs 8 yuan for 5 days. You can only go out after buying work points."

Listening to him talk about these things, Chen Fan felt very magical and asked, "Doesn't that mean it costs more than 1.5 yuan a day? Can you earn it back selling chicks?"

The old man looked around. Since no one was coming to buy his chicks at this time, he was happy to chat with this young man, laughing heartily,

"It depends on how you earn it. Those big chicken peddlers go directly to the familiar production team hatcheries, get their goods from them, and then take the train to sell them in other places. At least a thousand chicks at a time. They can earn 20-30 yuan for a trip of four or five days. After deducting the money for buying work points, they can still earn about 20 yuan, which is more than being a worker."

He shook his head again, "It's just that the more you earn, the more you lose. If you can't sell them all in four or five days, then the remaining chicks basically won't survive. Or if the weather is bad, 7 or 8 out of 10 chicks will die in a thunderstorm, and you'll lose everything.

Moreover, it's easy to be disliked for doing this job. These chicks have a smell. Even if you have a sales certificate from the production team, the guest houses won't let you stay. When you're taking the bus, the driver won't let you on the bus unless you give him two packs of cigarettes.

When you get to your destination, you have to pay off the people in the vegetable market management office and the market supervision team when you're carrying your load to the vegetable market to peddle. You have to take care of all aspects.

Especially the money for buying work points can't be saved. If you don't have a certificate from the production team, you'll be caught and sent to a study class, and you'll be punished by the market inspectors."

Speaking of this, he patted his pocket and chuckled, "The most important thing is that you can't have too little capital. You can't do this if you have too little. I can't, so I can only buy a hundred or so from those big chicken peddlers and earn some money for food by going from village to village."

He paused for a moment and looked at Jiang Lili again, "I'm not afraid to tell you plainly. You can ask other people, and you can find out about some things.

Big peddlers buy chicks from the hatchery for 14 cents each. They sell them to individual customers for 20 cents each, and they sell them to small peddlers like us for 18 cents. I only earn 2 cents per chick. Even so, I still have to bear the loss of dead chicks. If you bargain with me again, then I'll be working for nothing."

Hearing this, even Jiang Lili was embarrassed to bargain. She just murmured, "Then can you give us some straw?"

The old man sighed and looked at Chen Fan, saying with emotion, "Your wife is amazing. She's really not an ordinary homemaker!"

Hearing this, Jiang Lili's face turned red, but luckily, she had a headscarf covering her face, so you couldn't tell.

She still struggled to say softly, "No, no, we're not."

Chen Fan also quickly waved his hand and smiled, "You've misunderstood. We're just friends."

The old man suddenly understood, "Oh, not married yet? Then young man, you have to hurry. Wives like this are not easy to find."

Seeing that he couldn't explain it to him, Chen Fan simply pointed to the chicks and said, "Please pick out a batch for me, 10 roosters and 10 hens each."

Jiang Lili turned to look at him, "What do you want so many roosters for?"

Chen Fan leaned close to her ear and whispered, "To eat."

Jiang Lili was speechless. Pullets were much more popular than cockerels. Only this glutton would raise so many roosters to eat.

The old man had already started, first tearing off a handful of straw and putting it in Chen Fan's basket, carefully arranging it, and then starting to grab the chicks, "There's a trick to chicks. You have to pinch their butts. If their butts aren't very soft, you can't buy those chicks. To use people as an analogy, their 'butts haven't turned yellow yet'. The ones I'm giving you are the ones I've picked out myself, guaranteed to be strong."

As he spoke, he picked out 10 roosters and 10 hens.

Chen Fan looked at the chirping chicks in his basket, liking them very much.

He quickly took out a prepared cloth from his bag and gently covered them, then paid 4 yuan before leaving with the basket and Jiang Lili.