"Honey, are we really going back to our hometown?"
"You're already on the train, why are you still asking such a stupid question!" Shen Yuequn replied irritably, listening to his wife's constant questions. After all, anyone would get tired of being nagged all the way.
"Then what about our wages?" his wife asked, unwillingly.
"We'll get them, of course, we'll go back to Wenzhou in three months. The chairman said he'll return our wages in three months!" Shen Yuequn explained for the tenth time with a sigh, "And this time, we're not returning alone, we're bringing back 30,000 yuan worth of goods."
"You don't know how much the chairman trusts us. Others can only take 10,000 yuan worth of goods at a time, but only I, Shen Yuequn, can take 30,000 yuan worth of goods. This is the chairman's trust in us!"
"Bah, what 30,000 yuan worth of goods? I don't think you can even sell 3,000 yuan worth. You've definitely been scammed. That chairman is just using these goods to pay off his debt to you, and then he'll coax you back to your hometown in Northeast China so he can escape!" his wife said grumpily.
"Shut up, don't say anything bad about the chairman!" Shen Yuequn suddenly roared, "The chairman is such a good person, how could he scam us? Don't you know he mortgaged his sister-in-law's house to borrow 1 million yuan? Otherwise, we wouldn't even have money for our train tickets back home!"
"Besides, the chairman has already given us a foolproof selling technique, called blind... blind... what was it... anyway, it's a killer sales technique. The chairman said that as long as we work hard enough, we'll sell all 30,000 yuan worth of goods in our hands within a month!"
"Nonsense. If he had this foolproof technique, he would have sold all the goods long ago, and there would be nothing left for you!" His wife was still full of resentment, but Shen Yuequn was too lazy to explain anymore. He just silently watched the scenery outside the window, changing from the delicate South to the dignified North, and finally to the rugged and wild Northeast.
On the first day back home, after a tearful reunion dinner with his long-unseen parents, Shen Yuequn entrusted his three children to his parents' care and then plunged himself into the familiar streets. He borrowed a tricycle from an old neighbor.
This tricycle was old, bought by the old neighbor years ago when he was a peddler to transport goods. Now it was dilapidated.
But this did not stump the hardworking, capable, and dexterous Northeastern man. He spent a whole day restoring the tricycle to look as good as new.
Not only did he fix the wheels and oil them, but he also specially painted a few characters on it and found some wooden boards to use as a sign. Finally, as time was running out, he rode the tricycle to the freight department and hauled back box after box.
There were so many things that Shen Yuequn had to make five trips with the tricycle to transport everything home. Then he immediately mobilized his parents, his idle children, and his wife to help.
"Hurry up, you guys, help me fold these boxes!" Shen Yuequn first took out stacks of flat cardboard boxes and asked them to fold them into individual boxes.
"My goodness, how many boxes are there!" Seeing that the unfolded flat cardboard boxes were already piled up in twenty stacks, each almost reaching the ceiling, his wife asked in astonishment.
"Not many, only about 3,000 boxes!" Shen Yuequn said, "Didn't I tell you? The boss gave me 30,000 yuan worth of goods to sell. These cardboard boxes are for packing the goods!"
As he spoke, Shen Yuequn pointed to another pile of boxes in the house. Unlike the unfolded cardboard boxes, these were finished products. There were small boxes of wallets, belts of similar size, and even larger boxes for leather shoes and leather jackets, which were almost all the main products of the Jiangnan Leather Factory.
"3,000 cardboard boxes for 30,000 yuan worth of goods? Does your boss pack only ten yuan worth of goods in each box?" his wife exclaimed in shock.
"You're actually right. Yes, each box contains ten yuan worth of goods... no, it sells for ten yuan!" As he said this, Shen Yuequn folded a box himself, then picked up a box of wallets and put it into the box. Then he began to pack it and sealed the box with tape.
"Honey, even if we have 3,000 cardboard boxes, you can't waste them like this. This one box can hold 30 boxes of wallets, so why are you only putting one? Isn't this a waste?" his wife said, her heart aching.
"I feel bad too, but the boss said that no matter how many items are in this box, it will only sell for ten yuan per box. So, would you be willing to put two wallets in it?" Shen Yuequn asked with a smile.
"No way!" His wife resolutely shook her head. Selling one wallet for ten yuan was already a bit of a loss, let alone putting two in.
"Alright, follow my example and hurry up to help me pack. We need to pack at least 200 boxes today, and we'll take them to the market to sell tomorrow. I'm not asking for much, but if even half of them sell, we'll be rich!" Shen Yuequn said excitedly, full of anticipation.
"Can these sell 100 a day?" His wife expressed great doubt. She picked up the packed cardboard box and found that its exterior was quite clean, with only the five characters "Jiangnan Leather Factory" on the front.
There wasn't a single extra word visible.
But when his wife saw the back, she saw two rather shocking seals: "Wz City Leather Association - Sealed" and "Wz City Migrant Worker Protection Plan - Approved."
"Good heavens, honey, aren't these boxes government property? We can't use them carelessly; it's illegal!"
"Get lost! The Wz City Leather Association is just a civilian organization. As for the Migrant Worker Protection Plan, it's actually a protection plan initiated by our factory. Don't worry, there's no legal risk involved!" Shen Yuequn said.
"Then why put these two scary things on the box?" his wife asked, confused.
"Uh, I don't really understand either, but our chairman said that these things are like the words 'special supply' on the Moutai label. They look useless, but they are actually very useful for bulk sales!" Shen Yuequn said with a chuckle.
His wife nodded, half-understanding, and then complained, "You say these boxes are strange too. Apart from these two lines of strange words, there's nothing else on the outside. You can't tell what's inside at all. How are we supposed to sell them? What if we give the wrong one?"
"The chairman said that people will buy them precisely because they don't know what's inside. It's like blind people, they're very curious about any box because they don't know what's inside."
"Bang!" Shen Yuequn suddenly slapped his thigh. "I remember now! The chairman said that these kinds of boxes are called blind boxes!"
"Oh!" His wife nodded. Although she didn't understand what it meant, she felt it sounded very impressive!