C9 – UntamedAlley

10-13 minutes

Wang Juan took a look at the boy’s shabby clothes, and looked at his deer-like dark eyes, and finally stood up: “This one, or this one?”

Feng Rui carefully identified, pointing to Qiu Mingquan: “This, the hero 50 type gold eagle high iridium pen; and this, the hero 100 gold pen.”

Wang Juan listened to the boy’s diction clearly pointing out the two pen models, she couldn’t help being slightly stunned.

This child, had a good eye, or was it a coincidence?

As soon as he came up, he selected the national gift pen for Jiang’s visit to the Soviet Union, as well as the best praised model Hero 100 in the entire Hero Gold Pen?

Qiu Mingquan seriously lifted the two exquisite pens to his eyes, actually giving Feng Rui confirmation: “Is this the one?”

“That’s right, ask the price.” Feng Rui said indifferently.

Wang Juan smiled haughtily: “Child, this Hero 100 fountain pen is six Yuan, you can dip the ink to try. But this gold eagle high iridium pen is gift boxed, it can’t be dipped in ink to try, 18 yuan.”

“Oh.” The boy paused and asked precisely, “I want to buy two Golden Eagles, eight Hero 100, a total of eighty-seven yuan two, right?”

“What? You want so much?” Wang Juan was startled and looked at him suspiciously.

“Yes.” Qiu Mingquan nodded and carefully took out the money he had just taken out from his pocket and spread it out on the counter.

“You count it, here is eighty-eight yuan.”

Wang Juan was overjoyed and hurriedly picked up the abacus on one side and cracked it a few times: “Hey kid, you counted right! It’s eighty-seven yuan and two!”

She hurriedly opened the small cabinet at the back and took out the pens that Qiu Mingquan had named to buy, and fetched the corresponding premium gift pen boxes, and diligently and deliberately found a newspaper to wrap the ten velvet pen boxes together.

“Thank you, Auntie.” Qiu Mingquan bowed at her good-naturedly, polite as could be.

Wang Juan counted the money, reaching over her head to pull an iron clip, all the money counted was placed on the clip, and then she reached out and flung. The iron clip, carrying the money, flew from the wire above her head to the distant accountant’s cashier.

Soon, the cashier on this floor sitting on a high stool finished counting, issued a good invoice, found a few cents of change, and passed the money back along the wire instantly.

Looking at Qiu Mingquan’s departing back, Wang Juan was overjoyed: “This early in the morning, we’ve made several days’ worth of turnover!

The time was almost eleven o’clock when he was holding the pens. Qiu Mingquan found a food stall under the bridge opposite the boutique building, bought a bowl of bean curd flowers and hastily filled his stomach, then started to catch a bus for the return trip out of town.

There weren’t many people on the bus, so he carefully took out the little book and looked at the time and date recorded on it: Zhenghong Primary School, parents’ meeting, January 10th, which was today.

After a bumpy ride, he finally arrived at Zhenghong Primary School at 1:00 or 2:00 pm.

It was the appointed time for the parent-teacher conference, and a large number of parents were coming to the gate, mostly on foot, but also on bicycles, so the latter-day spectacle of piles of cars blocking the school gate wasn’t yet seen.

Qiu Mingquan stood alone at the school gate, his face suddenly turning red. In later generations, he did physical labor, business, and smoothly talking, he had never done it before.

Feng Rui waited for a long time and helplessly said, “If you don’t move again, are you going to throw all these eighty yuan principal into your hands?”

“Or else, use my body?”

President Feng was furious: “You think beautifully! The most I can do for you is chopping people up, and you want me to work for you?”

Qiu Mingquan gritted his teeth and finally ran to the most conspicuous place in front of the school, put his school bag on the ground and put all the beautiful pen cases on it.

A few parents walked past him and looked at the ground in amazement, and someone said, “Huh”.

Unlike the cheap fountain pens in ordinary stationery stores, these pens had very fine black velvet boxes, and when he looked closely, the bodies were also very nice.

There were those engraved with large gold carved patterns, those with silver caps with date red bodies, and those with silver one-piece, lined up in the sunlight, shining with a dazzling light.

“Take a look. Hero gold pen, this is the latest 14k gold made nib, it’s the best-selling model yet!” Qiu Mingquan mustered up enough courage to say to the two or three parents who were watching with their heads down.

Although his voice wasn’t loud, he recited it several times on the way here, so he didn’t stumble too much.

One of the middle-aged men, with a gentle face, pushed his black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose: “Oh, I heard the advertisement on the radio this morning, saying that Commissioner Jiang had gone abroad to give a gift with the Hero pen.”

Qiu Mingquan nodded excitedly and hurriedly picked up the only two 50 type gold eagle high iridium pens: “Yes, yes, uncle, you know the goods, this is the one!”

“Oh!” The few parents who were about to lift their feet and disperse stopped curiously, looking at the glittering high-end pen in his hand, their hearts stirred.

The middle-aged man with black-rimmed glasses then smiled: “Little brother, you got so many pens?”

Qiu Mingquan said stiffly: “Uncles and aunts, buy a pen for your children as a reward. Hero pens are in fashion now, and gold pens will soon be in short supply.”

Hey, such a small child, was actually a businessman?

Several parents were a little surprised.

Not long after that special period, buying and selling, business for profit, even in the more financially advanced city of Dongshen, was still a rare existence.

The vast majority of people were still proud to work in state-owned enterprises, not many were willing to go to sea, let alone such a young child?

“You got this, from where?” Someone asked suspiciously.

Under the guidance of Feng Rui, Qiu Mingquan was already prepared and quickly took out the invoice issued in the morning. He shook it and revealed the official seal of the boutique shopping mall, “Uncle, I just purchased from the mall this morning. You see, I guarantee the authenticity of the goods.”

The parents no longer doubted, in this era of material shortage, only state-owned factories could make these things, if he wanted to buy fake goods, there was no place to buy.

“So, how do you sell this?”

“It’s expensive,” Qiu Mingquan said according to the words Feng Rui made up for him, “this senior gold eagle national gift pen is very high class, a gift or for personal use are particularly dignified, twenty-eight dollars a piece. This hero 100 gold pen is the most highly regarded, the most cost-effective, eight eight yuan a piece.”

“Mr. Feng, is this price a bit black-hearted, the resale price is increased by thirty to forty percent?”

“Can this be sold? You know that people in this era are living on a tight salary and are not well off!”

As a matter of fact, a middle-aged woman immediately shouted, “Oh, it’s so expensive! The young man is black-hearted, and increased the price a lot!”

“Auntie, I’m not going to hide it from you, I’m just earning money for an errand.” Qiu Mingquan said eagerly.

“This is quite far from the city. You need a round-trip ticket, and if you can’t make it back all morning, you’ll have to have a meal outside. Additionally, if you take a special leave to buy this, you’ll have to deduct your salary.”

“I can go on weekends, why should I be in such a hurry? “The woman curled her lips harshly.

Qiu Mingquan smiled, and his deer-like eyes looked at her with special sincerity: “I went today, and only these last few were left.”

The words were said with very little courage, simply a treacherous businessman full of lies, but Feng Rui sneered in his heart: “This is not a lie, you can say.”

Feng Rui remembered very well that the advertisement for Hero Pen was heavily hit back then, with both radio and newspapers appearing. Not long after, there was a widespread shortage of Hero pens in major shopping malls in Dongshen City.

Many families of children were proud to have a high-grade hero gold pen worth a lot of money, Even Feng Rui’s mother went late and didn’t buy it. It happened that a relative from abroad returned home and brought two gold pens to him from the Hong Kong counter at that time.

The more parents gathered around, this time the television advertising was still far from the latter day as indiscriminate, after this round of intensive advertising of the hero pen, it left a deep impression in the hearts of many people.

But look after look, there were also people also picked up left and right to examine, but no one paid.

The middle-aged woman’s eyes twinkled and she sneered: “You kid, doing speculative things! This time and again, changing hands to increase the price, I see you have more courage than thieves, believe it or not the police can arrest you!”

Qiu Mingquan’s dark eyes looked at her and didn’t say a word.

It was the middle-aged man who spoke, and his voice was kind: “That’s not the way to say it, sister. ‘Let some people get rich first’ is what Comrade Xiao Ping said three years ago, revitalizing the economy and revitalizing circulation is a good thing, not a crime.”

His tone was calm, but he appeared sonorous and powerful. At first glance, he was a knowledgeable cultural figure. With this, the middle-aged woman who chatted with him would not speak up.

It wasn’t until a crisp bell rang that all the parents hurriedly dispersed and rushed to their respective children’s classrooms to begin the parent-child meeting.

Qiu Mingquan stared blankly at the empty school entrance and asked in his heart, “Should we lower the price a little later when they disperse?”

“You’re not allowed to drop a penny.” Feng Rui said coldly, “Are you questioning my pricing strategy and business decisions?”

Qiu Mingquan’s heart was bitter: still a strategic decision, if you don’t know, you think it’s a multi-million dollar business.

I’m afraid that these pens will be completely smashed in my hands!

The president’s voice was even colder: “A few million is nothing, I used to sign contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars. Besides, the pricing decision has nothing to do with tens of dollars or tens of millions, what ultimately affects the outcome is only the hearts of the people. Understand?”

Don’t understand Qiu Mingquan silently replied in his heart.

“Don’t understand it is right.” Feng Rui was about to say “so you can only work in the construction site”, but somehow, he still paused and proudly changed his mouth, “you don’t understand so you have to learn, you know?”