Chapter 10: Profit Sharing

It was not yet 6:30 when Li Manjun arrived at the bus stop ahead of time, picking up mantou and soy milk for three.

At that time, soy milk didn't come in packaging, so Li Manjun had filled her thermos with it.

Liu Yan and her younger brother arrived right on time. The bus driver, preparing to head into the countryside, looked at the three young people with surprise. "You're early. What are you going to the countryside for?"

Liu Cheng was carrying the maltose syrup that he and his sister had boiled together the night before. It weighed nearly thirty jin and was quite heavy. He placed the basket on the bus's radiator cover; as the bus started moving, the heat would soften the slightly hardened sugar.

He set the things down and replied with a smile, "Scrap collecting."

The driver found this quite novel. "This is the first time I've seen young people doing this."

Li Manjun and Liu Yan found seats and sat down, their shoulder poles, ropes, and bags tied up and placed beside the aisle so as not to block the other passengers.

"When are we leaving, Master?" Li Manjun asked while taking out the mantou to share with the siblings.

Hardly anyone went to the countryside in the morning. The driver was leaving this early to pick up people from the villages and bring them into town. He smiled and answered, "We're leaving now."

The bus started up, drove out of town, and picked up the conductress—the driver's wife—before heading into the countryside.

The three of them finished their soy milk and breakfast. After a twenty-minute ride, they got off at the first village.

Only the larger villages were accessible by bus, and the people living there were relatively better off. Many used toothpaste, so they managed to collect quite a few toothpaste tubes.

The three of them divided the work: Liu Yan and her brother were responsible for trading sugar for toothpaste tubes and chicken or duck feathers, while Li Manjun was responsible for weighing the other scrap.

Few people ever went down to the countryside to collect scrap, so the villagers finally had a place to offload the scrap metal, waste paper, and glass bottles they had been hoarding. Li Manjun’s business went much more smoothly than expected.

The scrap was quite heavy. Looking at the load Liu Cheng carried easily on his shoulders, Liu Yan winked at Li Manjun in satisfaction—it was a good thing they had brought this strong laborer along.

Li Manjun’s main goal was to find antiques. She asked everyone she met, "Grandpas and Grandmas, do you have any old items at home? Things from a long time ago, forty, fifty, or even a hundred or two hundred years old?"

The elderly women laughed and said, "We have plenty of those! My family's tripod pot has been in use since my mother-in-law's generation. It's a seventy or eighty-year-old item. Do you want that too?"

Of course, Li Manjun didn't want these old cooking utensils. She twisted off a few pieces of maltose and handed them to the elderly folks to sweeten their mouths.

"Grandpas and Grandmas, you are experienced and have many connections. If anyone wants to sell old items or has them, please keep an eye out for us."

"That's easy enough," the elderly folks agreed happily.

They were all from the older generation who had suffered through hard times and had been frugal their whole lives. At most, they would buy a few snacks to coax their grandchildren, but they rarely indulged themselves. Thanks to Li Manjun and her companions, they got to taste the sweet sugar.

Liu Yan realized that her friend was much sharper than she was. These small favors cost nothing and required no effort, so why had she never thought of them?

By the end of the day, they had visited four large villages. They had collected almost all the toothpaste tubes and over twenty jin of chicken and duck feathers. Halfway through, they ran into a competitor who had arrived late. Seeing the smell of duck feathers wafting from Li Manjun’s group, he was so angry he cursed them for stealing his business.

At this moment, Liu Cheng stepped in front of his sister and Li Manjun. With his tall frame and the restless, explosive energy of youth, he said aggressively, "Who are you trying to bully?"

The competitor had no choice but to leave in a huff. "You young people, you'll get your comeuppance sooner or later!"

Liu Cheng glared and took two steps after him. "Say that again!"

The man jumped and ran faster than a rabbit.

Liu Cheng scoffed, turned back to the two women, and patted his chest in assurance.

"I could take five of him. Let's keep collecting; we don't need to fear anyone. I'll protect you both!"

Li Manjun and Liu Yan looked at each other and giggled.

"What are you laughing at?" Liu Cheng felt inexplicably embarrassed.

Li Manjun gave the young man a thumbs up. "You're great. With you here, your sister and I feel much more at ease."

Liu Cheng just scratched his head and gave a silly, embarrassed laugh. Liu Yan smacked the back of his head and jokingly called him a blockhead.

They had traded away all twenty jin of maltose and collected a significant amount of scrap metal, beer bottles, and waste paper. Today’s haul was remarkable.

When they took the bus back to town, the driver demanded they pay for an extra passenger's ticket, or he wouldn't haul so much scrap.

Li Manjun thought it was reasonable; in this day and age, you had to pay to ship goods, and they were taking up more than half of the bus roof, which had already drawn complaints from other passengers with cargo.

Li Manjun readily paid the extra fare, and the driver was satisfied.

When they got off, they paid for four tickets in total, costing two yuan. Adding the one yuan and fifty cents from the morning, they had spent three yuan and fifty cents on transport alone.

But all three felt the trip was worth it.

They unloaded the goods—a massive pile—and took them directly to the recycling station.

The owner remembered Li Manjun. Seeing her pull up such a large pile of scrap today, he was stunned for a long moment.

"You went to the countryside? That’s hard work. It must have been difficult to bring back such a big pile, right?" The owner's wife remarked as she looked through the items.

Thirty-five jin of scrap iron, ten jin of scrap copper, thirty jin of waste paper, thirty-eight soda and beer bottles, ten jin of chicken feathers, and fifteen jin of duck feathers. The last two items had filled the cloth bags until they were bulging.

Li Manjun had bought the "hard" goods for 82.4 yuan, with 81 yuan of her own capital and 1.4 yuan borrowed from Liu Yan.

The "soft" goods—the feathers—had been traded for maltose. Two liang of feathers for one liang of maltose; both adults and children felt they had gotten a good deal.

The recycling station owners calculated the total twice on a scrap of paper: 186 yuan exactly.

Li Manjun nodded. "Yes, that's right."

The owner's wife looked at her with a sigh as she counted out the money and handed it to her. "Bring more to me next time."

This young girl packed her scrap very well; she could bundle it up with just a few stomps, which was much easier than the messy piles the elderly folks brought in.

Li Manjun smiled and agreed, then walked toward Liu Yan and her brother, who were waiting impatiently at the entrance of the alley across the street.

Liu Yan took out a handful of change and handed it to Li Manjun. "We sold the toothpaste tubes for thirty-eight yuan and fifty cents."

"I have 186 here. That makes 224 yuan and 50 cents. Let's take out the costs and the bus fare first."

Li Manjun took out the 103.5 yuan in capital, leaving 121 yuan.

"How should we split it?" Li Manjun asked. The siblings said they would listen to her.

"The capital was provided by Sister Manjun. My sister and I just helped out, so just give us whatever wage you think is fair," Liu Cheng said sincerely.

Liu Yan nodded in agreement.

Li Manjun thought for a moment and decided to take fifty percent, with the siblings splitting the other fifty percent.

She stated her plan, and neither had any objections. Each person received thirty yuan and twenty-five cents—more than a skilled laborer would earn for a day's work at a construction site.

The best part was that the work wasn't even half as strenuous as a construction site.