“Still not done?” It was past eight in the evening when Zhou Haoting drove over in his car to pick up Tian Tian. He found there were still customers in the shop.
Tian Tian turned her head, gave a few instructions, and then walked over. “Not yet. But this is the last batch of customers. You came at the right time. Take these back with you.”
As she spoke, Tian Tian opened the cabinet door under the counter. Inside, two bulging duffel bags were neatly stacked. They were filled with today’s sales revenue.
Zhou Haoting understood immediately.
He waved at Niuzai, who had just become free. The other man was sharp and came over at once. Seeing the two duffel bags, he nodded. Then he lifted them and carried them out to Zhou Haoting’s car.
“I’ll come back to pick you up after the money is delivered.”
Tian Tian didn’t refuse. All their employees lived in the village. It was already past eight, and taking the bus wasn’t convenient. Waiting for the car to take everyone back in one trip was just right.
After watching Zhou Haoting drive off with Niuzai and the money, Tian Tian finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Honestly, having so much cash in the shop had kept her on edge all day. In this era, home invasions and robberies were not uncommon. Her shop’s cash flow was too large. Although the police station was at the end of the street, money stirred people’s hearts.
The problem was, the nearest bank was three bus stops away. And the shop was crowded. There was no way to send someone to deposit money midway.
But this problem still needed to be solved as soon as possible. The sportswear hype wouldn’t last just one or two months. Once the Olympics opened in July and our athletes won medals, the popularity would definitely rise another notch.
But these were sweet worries! Having made so much money, the problems that came with it were nothing.
Tian Tian perked up and saw off the last customer. Then she closed the shop and did a simple inventory count. She waited for Zhou Haoting to come back and pick her up.
—
For the next week, this was basically the state of things. Very busy, very fulfilling, but also especially tiring. If not for that vegetable plot dangling in front of her eyes, Tian Tian felt she would have wanted to lie down and not move.
As for the daily revenue transport problem, it was solved but not completely solved. Every day between past three and four in the afternoon, Zhou Haoting or Hui would come by and, together with Niuzai, escort the money to the bank for deposit. The money received afterward would be left for the next day.
Once this problem was solved, there weren’t any major issues left. As long as the factory produced the goods, they could sell them here, and all would be well.
Just as she was thinking that, something went wrong at the factory again.
This time it wasn’t a counterfeiting problem. Mainly because her sportswear had already made a name for itself. The styles were many, good-looking, and inexpensive. Other shops couldn’t compete. But no matter how good the clothes were, without raw materials, it was all for nothing.
Yes, the problem the factory encountered this time was none other than a fabric shortage.
“Didn’t we sign a supply contract? If they suddenly cut off supply, can the textile factory bear the loss?”
In the office of Ye Lifeng’s factory, Tian Tian sat with an ugly expression, not even in the mood to drink water. Anyone called over early in the morning only to hear bad news wouldn’t be happy.
Hearing Tian Tian’s question, Ye Lifeng was also furious. Of course, not at Tian Tian—at the textile factory.
“We did sign a supply contract. But the textile factory is being tough. They said they’ll pay us the penalty for breach of contract. But they won’t supply us fabric anymore. I already went to see their factory director. The attitude was very firm.”
Tian Tian knew this matter couldn’t be blamed on Ye Lifeng. The one who had made the final call to use this factory’s fabric was her and Zhou Haoting.
“Did you ask anyone else at the factory about the reason?”
Ye Lifeng said eagerly, “Yes. I already asked several people in the sales department and got it clear. They said the factory director went out to dinner with someone a couple of days ago. The very next day after coming back, he announced that this fabric would be suspended for us.”
Tian Tian knew immediately there was something fishy going on.
“Did you find out who exactly had dinner with the textile factory director?”
Ye Lifeng nodded. “I heard it was someone from Hong Kong. He knows the boss behind the textile factory.”
Tian Tian was puzzled. Could she have unintentionally offended some Hong Kong person?
Ye Lifeng saw her confusion and said directly, “It happened suddenly, so for now we haven’t found out where that Hong Kong person comes from. I’ve already asked someone to look into it. The soonest it’ll take is two days.”
“How much stock does the factory still have? How many days can the remaining fabric sustain production?”
Ye Lifeng said, “We still have twenty thousand sets of clothes. As for fabric, we can make another ten thousand sets.”
The factory’s production capacity had been upgraded and could now produce about a thousand sets of clothes a day. That was the result of running three shifts. And the fabric sufficient for ten thousand sets would take ten days to use up. That meant they had ten days as a buffer. If the fabric problem wasn’t solved after ten days, the factory would have to stop production. And the wholesale shop wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer either. Right now, they were wholesaling several thousand sportswear sets a day.
“Keep producing according to the production plan for now. As for the fabric, you keep following up with this textile factory. I’ll go look for other suppliers.”
Back when she had decided to order fabric from a single textile factory, Tian Tian had already prepared herself for the possibility of being choked off.
Yes, in business, the biggest taboo was relying on a single supplier or customer. Because it was easy to end up in a passive position. Like today—as soon as the textile factory stopped supplying fabric, their garment factory fell into a production crisis.
But at the time, given the circumstances, they really could only find this one textile factory that was suitable in every way.
The fabric was suitable, the distance was close, the price was favorable, and they could sign a proper contract. Those advantages were rare in the current environment.
Of course, a big part of that was because this textile factory was Hong Kong-invested.
Although foreign-invested enterprises had this or that problem, they were relatively contract-abiding and followed labor laws. That was something many domestic private enterprises couldn’t even come close to at present.
This time, the other side had directly torn up the contract but very proactively offered to pay a high penalty for breach of contract—that was their version of honoring the so-called spirit of contract.
Although in Tian Tian’s view, that spirit of contract existed, but not much. If there were really a lot of it, they wouldn’t suddenly tear up a perfectly good cooperation.
She hadn’t thought about trying hard to salvage it. Otherwise, she’d only be at their mercy.
After leaving Ye Lifeng’s place, Tian Tian went straight to find Zhou Haoting.
Zhou Haoting had been busy with the new factory recently. He had also arranged unpaid leave from his secure job at the city machinery factory. Seeing Tian Tian come looking for him during work hours, he knew something was wrong.
“Where’s the problem?”
Tian Tian smiled and took the bottled water he handed her, drinking a couple of sips. Looking up at the greatly transformed factory before her, she sighed. “Your place here is really a big operation!”
Zhou Haoting found it amusing. “This is nothing. The production line I brought back this time is all old equipment retired from Japan.”
He wanted to produce small home appliances, so naturally he needed production lines. The original production line at this district machinery factory couldn’t produce small home appliances. And it was outdated too. After buying the whole factory, Zhou Haoting sold that equipment to a relative in the village. The relative hauled the old production line back to the village and set up a small screw-tightening workshop. Business was doing alright.
Meanwhile, he had invested heavily here and still hadn’t even gotten the factory building in order. It was a bit funny when you thought about it.
Tian Tian didn’t beat around the bush with him. After chatting a bit about the factory, she brought up the fabric issue.
“I figured as much. But based on our earlier estimate, the textile factory should have waited until this contract expired to squeeze us into signing the next one. Pulling something like this mid-contract definitely means it’s because of that Hong Kong boss or whatever. Want me to have someone look into it?”
Tian Tian shook her head. “I’ve got Ye Lifeng working on it.”
Anyway, Ye Lifeng was a local, and his future achievements wouldn’t be small either. He could definitely handle this matter well.
“Just focus on your own stuff.” Tian Tian glanced at the faint dark circles under Zhou Haoting’s eyes and advised him a couple of times. Then she continued, “Didn’t you say you’d contacted several classmates before? Are any of them still sending you fabric samples?”
After deciding to make sportswear, Zhou Haoting had mobilized his connections and contacted quite a few textile factories. Although they hadn’t ended up cooperating, several of them would send samples to Zhou Haoting whenever they developed new fabrics.
Last time, Tian Tian had noticed a new fabric sample similar to the one they were currently using. At the time, she’d been busy with the sportswear and hadn’t asked for a quote. Now was the perfect time to ask for one and see.
Zhou Haoting said, “The samples are all at home. Let’s head back early tonight and discuss it.”
“Alright.” Once they agreed, the two went back to their separate busy work.
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