It has to be said that the "honest and simple" persona that Jiang Xiaoman unintentionally created for himself has really been automatically claimed by fans. Now, as soon as they see him starting to promote Langshan local specialties, they place an order without saying a word!
Anyway, if I buy it and then find that I don't need it, I can resell it in the fan group.
As we all know, most of Xiaoman's fans are "Buddhist" fans. They casually watch videos and place orders. Sometimes, even if an item has been sold out for a long time, fans will subconsciously click on the shopping cart to support Xiaoman's sales when they see the video, only to find that it has already been sold out!
I'm speechless.
Therefore, you can often see fans who are slow to realize the importance of buying second-hand items in fan groups.
Worried that young people wouldn't like these old-fashioned tea cakes, Jiang Xiaoman specially packaged them into half-pound packs. Each tea cake weighs 5-8 grams, and half a pound contains about thirty cakes. The price is 68 yuan with free shipping nationwide. As Jiang Xiaoman said in her live stream, even if she doesn't like drinking them herself, she wouldn't feel bad using them to make tea eggs.
More than 400 mini tea cakes were sold out halfway through the live stream.
Seeing a netizen ask how they could already be making tea cakes when the pre-Qingming tea harvest had just come out, and whether it was aged tea or something, Jiang Xiaoman smiled, took out her usual phone, opened the local weather app, and held it up to the camera—
"Look, the highest temperature here was already over 20 degrees Celsius a dozen days ago!"
"Moreover, the reason why we can produce tea twice a year is mainly because the mountains are relatively high, and the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the mountain is large. Everyone should have memorized this poem, right? 'The flowers of April have all faded in the human world, but the peach blossoms in the mountain temple are just beginning to bloom.' That's exactly the point!"
"So, many of the tea trees at the foot of the mountain can be picked after the New Year. Once the tea leaves at the foot of the mountain are picked, the tea leaves on the mountain can also be picked. And once the tea leaves on the mountain are picked, the second batch of tender buds will sprout up at the foot of the mountain."
"Wait! Don't ask me to hire people to pick tea leaves! I really can't afford it! Besides, I also want the elderly and mothers left behind in our village to earn some money by making tea cakes. I'll just earn some pocket money too. Let's all take it easy, haha~"
Seeing the comments from fans who hadn't bought any tea leaves urging him to hire someone to pick them, Jiang Xiaoman laughed and didn't grant their request.
Putting aside the fact that hiring people to make tea cakes would require renting land and building a factory, such a large expense is something he simply cannot afford now. But for the sake of the elderly and mothers left behind in the village, he cannot take away their livelihood.
Chapter 153
When Jiang Xiaoman went to collect tea cakes this time, he originally brought some candies, snacks and pastries to thank the villagers. After all, he had never urged them, but they had kept this matter in mind and made the tea cakes themselves without him having to ask.
Unexpectedly, the villagers were incredibly enthusiastic when they saw him actually come to collect the tea cakes. Jiang Xiaoman was initially confused, but after sitting down and chatting for a while, she finally understood why.
Many villagers who went out to work this year did not earn any money; some even had to borrow money from other villagers to pay for their train tickets home.
After the Spring Festival, these migrant workers not only didn't leave any money for their families, but instead asked their families for travel and living expenses, then packed their bags and boarded the return journey to "earn money"...
Hearing this, Jiang Xiaoman was almost speechless.
These people are just taking advantage of the fact that these old people have never been to the city.
Even setting aside factory work with room and board provided, as long as you don't spend recklessly, if you can save 500 yuan a month, you'll have 6,000 yuan a year.
How could someone possibly have to borrow money for their travel expenses?
Even if you don't work in a factory, but instead deliver packages, food, or even just work as a gatekeeper in a residential area, you shouldn't be unable to save up a few hundred yuan a month.
To put it bluntly, these days the government cares a lot about migrant workers, worrying that their wages will be withheld. In some places, they even require construction companies to deposit a security deposit into a designated bank account so that even if the contractor runs away, the migrant workers won't be left without any wages.
Therefore, even the reason that "the contractor owes wages" is untenable. Where do these people get the audacity to tell their families that they have been away for a year and haven't saved a single penny?
Jiang Xiaoman could figure it out with a grain of salt: unless a very few people were truly unlucky and didn't make any money, the rest of them were either out dating factory girls, eating out and watching movies, spending all their wages, or watching live streams and tipping, trying to become the top spender.
Therefore, many families in the village have had a tough time after the Spring Festival this year. Add to that the school fees for the children and the various living expenses... Jiang Xiaoman's income from selling tea cakes is truly a lifeline for these people!
After all, almost every household in the village has its own tea trees, which were abandoned before. Now that they heard they could pick tea and make tea cakes, they went back to pick them. They are all tea leaves from their own land, so the cost of raw materials and labor is almost zero.
Jiang Xiaoman even gave them the tools for making tea cakes. The only thing required for the entire production process was a little firewood—the mountain people all went up the mountain to collect firewood themselves, so it cost almost nothing.
Jiang Xiaoman buys the remaining tea cakes at 50 yuan per kilogram after removing a few substandard ones. Making 10 kilograms would earn him 500 yuan. The whole family goes up the mountain to pick tea leaves. After two months of hard work, if they can make 200 to 300 kilograms of qualified small tea cakes, they can make a net profit of more than 10,000 yuan!
With this money, the children can occasionally be given some pocket money to buy things to eat while they go to school, and the family's expenses are also more manageable.
These elderly people and mothers left behind in their hometowns finally saw a glimmer of hope in their despair. They were so eager to pick tea and make tea cakes day and night that they couldn't bear to rest.
From that day on, Jiang Xiaoman set a rule for the tea farmers he was cooperating with: if any family needed money urgently, they didn't need to wait for him to come and collect the tea cakes; they could just deliver them as soon as they were made, and he could pay them on the spot.
Jiang Xiaoman's group of tea-loving fans lived happily ever after.
While the internet was flooded with complaints about how expensive this year's new tea was, with pre-Qingming green tea being sold for as much as 1,000 yuan per kilogram, they were actually drinking pre-Qingming tea cakes that cost over 100 yuan per kilogram!
To Jiang Xiaoman's dismay, ever since he started displaying mini tea cakes priced at 68 yuan per half-jin on his shared bikes, his fans have stopped sharing his videos, fearing that other netizens might also discover the delicious and affordable tea cakes from his shop.
After all, they don't even have enough for their own people, so it's best for outsiders not to get involved.
This is why Jiang Xiaoman truly only sells seasonal tea cakes produced in her own village, buying and selling as many as she can. If it were another professional livestreaming host, who had stockpiled a large number of tea cakes and was hoping her fans would help promote them, she would be furious!
...
Jiang Xiaoman has hardly been home lately. Although the courier station isn't fully renovated yet, courier services don't require elaborate renovations; many courier stations in the city simply rent garages for office space. Jiang Xiaoman simply opened her business in two newly built tile-roofed houses next to her unfinished apartment.
These two tile-roofed houses were specially granted to him by the village, and they are not considered his private property, because the village just happened to lack a stop for buses to pick up and drop off passengers.
In the past, passenger buses passing through the village would stop directly at the school gate for convenience.
The school was demolished and rebuilt this year, and construction vehicles frequently come and go at the entrance. It's a bit dangerous for buses to stop here to pick up and drop off passengers.
The village chief saw that Jiang Xiaoman's location was just right. It was right by the roadside, and there were no other residents or dangerous construction sites on either side. If the bus was occasionally delayed, or if it rained, people could take shelter from the rain at Jiang Xiaoman's place and wait for their families to bring them umbrellas. It couldn't be more suitable!
You're the one!
So, two simple tile-roofed houses appeared next to Jiang Xiaoman's house, with a sign written in calligraphy hanging on them: Langshan Village Passenger Bus Stop.
The shuttle bus to town runs once in the morning and once in the afternoon, stopping here four times a day. The rest of the time, this stop is deserted, except when Jiang Xiaoman comes to pick up and send packages.
He happens to be selling tea cakes recently, so he packs the collected tea cakes here and calls the courier company he works with, asking them to pick up the packages here when they deliver them to town.
Partnering with a courier company is so convenient. This way, he won't have to hire a car to go to the county town to send packages when he sells local specialties anymore, and the shipping fee is even cheaper than in the county town.
Actually, their village is so small that, according to the courier company's regulations, it wouldn't meet the conditions for becoming a franchisee. But what can they do when Langshan has such a special situation?
As a place known throughout the country for its poverty, almost all the towns and villages in Langshan meet the current support conditions for express delivery companies to "target poverty alleviation" and "open up online sales channels for agricultural products".
What surprised Jiang Xiao was that, even the franchise fee was waived according to the targeted poverty alleviation policy. If his order volume exceeded the contract's stipulation after the one-year term, or if he received an award in the local government's poverty alleviation project, he could apply for a waiver of the franchise fee...
So even though he only handles a few dozen orders a day now, Jiang Xiaoman isn't worried. The courier company assesses its performance based on the average number of orders per year. The peak period for order volume will come when their local honey and aged tea cakes are on the market in large quantities.
Moreover, since his courier point only charges one yuan per order, many villagers who work outside the village now prefer to use this address when sending things home, or when young people from the village shop online. So, he can receive dozens of orders every day.
Jiang Xiaoman didn't understand why the town charged extra for package pickup before, but now that he's done it himself, he understands. Villagers have to work on the mountain during the day, and many prefer to pick up their packages after dinner. Just considering the electricity and overtime pay, if he hired someone to do it and only charged one yuan per package, he would go bankrupt.
Jiang Xiaoman is a natural time management master. After discovering this problem, he has now adjusted his schedule accordingly.
During the day, when no one came to pick up the packages, he locked them all in the next room, only opening one room for passengers to pick up and drop off buses, or for people waiting to rest temporarily. He himself continued to work in the fields and mountains as usual.
In the afternoon, he brought some dry food and packed packages while waiting for villagers to finish their work and come to pick up or send their packages.
Because he specially wrote a note at the door, agreeing that the daily pickup time was from 4 pm to 8 pm, the village's express delivery point has now become the liveliest place in the whole village in the evening!
The elderly in the village have to do housework and take care of children all day long, unlike retired elderly people in the city who have time to dance in the square. So, in the evening, bringing their children to the express delivery point to see what express deliveries other people have received has become the most popular leisure activity for the whole village.
Jiang Xiaoman can't stand seeing others idle and not making money!
Seeing that they returned from the fields as if nothing had happened, he rolled his eyes and the next day, right in front of the courier point, he took red paper and ink and wrote a large "Mountain Products Purchase Order".
The list above includes some local specialties that many fans asked about when we filmed the videos before, such as dried bamboo shoots, dried wild mushrooms, dried wild vegetables, and farm-smoked bacon.
He often went to the town market himself, and the purchase price he wrote down was basically the same as the price that villagers would pay when they carried their goods to the town market to sell.
As a result, the number of people who would bring their children to watch the spectacle whenever they had nothing to do has decreased significantly.
What's all the fuss about?
You don't earn a penny just by watching the fun. Sometimes, when the kids cry, you have to go to the corner store to buy them some snacks to soothe them.
Instead of wasting time, wouldn't it be better to pick some wild mountain vegetables, dry them, and sell them to Jiang Xiaoman to make money?
Fans were incredibly touched to discover that Jiang Xiaoman hadn't forgotten what they'd been reminding her of, and they were all eager to try it out, saying that since the quantity looked large this time, they were sure they could snag a serving to try...
The fans guessed correctly. Around the time of Qingming Festival, the mountain stalagmites, ferns, and various wild mushrooms are sprouting up. During this season, many villagers like to go up the mountain to pick some and dry them to keep for their own consumption.
Sometimes, when someone is short of money, they will carry some mountain produce to the market to sell. However, almost every household in the mountains dries these vegetables, and the price is not high. They often can't even sell them. Over time, people have given up the idea of picking mountain produce to sell.
Worried that Jiang Xiaoman might stop collecting goods after a while if it wasn't profitable, villagers have recently been going up the mountain to collect mountain produce, even carrying their children on their backs. In just a few days, people have started bringing their dried mountain produce to sell.
“Grandma Juying, look, this dried bamboo shoot weighs four jin and eight liang, and costs 15 yuan per jin, so it's 72 yuan in total.”
"And this mixed mushroom, remember to stock up more next time and sell the expensive ones separately from the cheap ones! This time I'll charge you 20 yuan per jin, so the total is 46 yuan."
“This dried bracken fern costs 12 yuan per jin (500g), but you only have 1.5 jin here, so it's 18 yuan in total.”
"These three items together, I should give you 136 yuan. Do you want to calculate it?"
Grandma Juying, who was trembling, listened carefully for a while before she realized what she meant. She smiled and shook her head, "No, I can't calculate it. Xiaoman, whatever you say is fine."
"Yeah, I don't have that kind of letter. Xiaoman, can you give me cash?"
Jiang Xiaoman knew that many elderly people in the village only knew how to make phone calls and didn't know how to transfer or receive money. Some didn't even have bank cards. Fortunately, he was prepared and had taken some cash with him. He quickly counted out 136 yuan in cash for Grandma Juying.
Grandma Juying shakily took out a cotton handkerchief from her bosom, unfolded it, rolled the money layer by layer into the handkerchief, picked up the empty woven bag, and left with her cane.
It took Jiang Xiaoman two days to learn from other villagers that Grandma Juying had a son and a daughter. Her eldest daughter had married early and used her dowry to build a two-story house for her younger brother in the village. However, she ran out of money after building the house, and the house had never been renovated.
Now there are no other sisters in the family to exchange for dowry to help their youngest son get married.
Unable to afford the bride price and with the house unfinished, Grandma Juying's youngest son couldn't find a wife, so he worked away from home, only returning once a year for a few days during the Spring Festival. He spent his days lying at home playing on his phone, and after the New Year, he would leave to work again.
Poor Grandma Juying, she's so old and all alone in her hometown, having to save money to support her son. I don't know how shameless that good-for-nothing son is. He doesn't come back all year round, and not only does he not send his old mother any money, but when he comes back for the New Year, he even wants to spend his old mother's money to visit relatives...
At this moment, Jiang Xiaoman had no idea that he would soon be dealing with this "Big Face Brother".
Chapter 154
That evening, Jiang Xiaoman had just seen off two of her sisters-in-law who came to pick up their packages when she saw Grandma Juying slowly walking towards her, leaning on her cane and carrying a large woven bag on her back.
Jiang Xiaoman quickly put down her things, ran over to help her take the woven bag, carried it on her own back, and carefully supported it with her other hand.
He had told Grandma Juying more than once that she should dry wild vegetables and bamboo shoots and store them at home, and he would come to collect them every few days, so that she wouldn't have to come all the way here at her age.
"No, I just like coming here to sit for a while, it's lively here!"
Grandma Juying's words brought tears to Jiang Xiaoman's eyes and made her nose sting.
In fact, ever since he opened a courier station here and also took on the part of buying wild vegetables, he has indeed found that the elderly people in the village really like to come here.
I used to think that the popularity of his express delivery station hadn't died down and that people were just there to watch the excitement. But now that I think about it, it's probably because these elderly people left behind at home are just too lonely.
However, he did not expect that Grandma Juying brought things to sell today not only because she was lonely staying at home alone, but because she really had something to ask Jiang Xiaoman.
"Xiaoman, Grandma has something to ask you."