Everything is developing in a good direction.
Although there are other sugarcane stalls competing for business with them now, it has not had a significant impact. They earn hundreds of yuan in income every day. As summer comes to an end, they have also negotiated with three hotels to agree to place unmanned vending machines. According to Zhou Jianguo’s estimate, they will open a second store at the latest by the end of the year. Roughly calculated, the net profit will also be close to ten thousand per month, not counting the income from selling sugarcane.
Zhou Jianguo discussed with Luo Bei and decided that when they opened their third store, they would quit their jobs together and develop the unmanned store as their main business. At that time, they also planned to start an online store. Online shopping is also a big pie, and everyone wants a piece.
Although Luo Bei has become much more diligent now, she still sleeps an extra hour on weekends.
It was just 8 o’clock when her phone rang. It was Zhou Jianguo calling.
Shouldn’t he be at the construction site now?
She answered the phone groggily, but before she could say anything, she heard Zhou Jianguo say, “I’ll give you half an hour. Meet me on the first floor, and I’ll take you to see the car.”
Luo Bei immediately woke up. A few days ago, Zhou Jianguo said they made money from stocks and in a short while, they would have enough money to buy a car worth a hundred thousand yuan.
Are they going to see the car today?
This is too fast! It hasn’t been too long since she last discussed buying stocks with Zhou Jianguo!
While brushing her teeth, Luo Bei felt a bit skeptical about life. She had only graduated for a year, and now she was already developing until she could afford her own car? It’s unimaginable.
Will she be able to save up for a down payment and buy her own small apartment next year or the year after?
Just thinking about it is exciting!
Luo Bei went downstairs in just 20 minutes. Zhou Jianguo glanced at the time and sighed again, “If I take you to see the house next time, I think you will be even faster. You really need to be motivated to move.”
“That’s for sure.” Luo Bei only wore light makeup, but she was beautiful enough.
Neither of them had time for breakfast, so they had a snack at the stall. While eating steamed buns, Zhou Jianguo said, “What I’m thinking is, many car models now offer two years of interest-free financing. If we find a suitable car and the 4S store agrees to two years of interest-free financing, we can just pay a down payment. We can use the remaining money for something else. What do you think?”
Luo Bei nodded, “That’s fine. What do you want to do with the remaining money? Are you still interested in unmanned stores?”
“No, the development of unmanned stores has exceeded my imagination. I’m afraid that if I invest too much, it will be a headache if I can’t recover the cost later. This scale is already good for this stage. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If we have the capital and ideas, I think we can develop another business.”
If someone else said this, Luo Bei would definitely think that this person is too unreliable and unstable. But when it came from Zhou Jianguo, she followed his train of thought, “What kind of business do you want to do?”
“Forget about the real estate industry if you’re not a big shot. We only have a few tens of thousands of yuan on hand…” Zhou Jianguo slowly thought, “Do you know that the consumption of fruits in our country is increasing every year? Now there are more and more fruit stores, what does that mean? It means that this is a huge market, but fruit stores cannot do without people to watch over them, and we don’t know much about this field.”
In fact, Zhou Jianguo had many ideas in his mind and he had carefully thought about them. They were feasible, but the only problem was that they didn’t have sufficient funds. It was like taking one step at a time.
After selling sugarcane on the stall, Luo Bei no longer underestimated these small businesses. She also learned that the profit margin of fruits was quite high.
However, what Zhou Jianguo said also made sense. Fruit stores cannot do without people, and they currently do not have the capital to hire someone to watch the store. The most important thing is that there are already many fruit stores and stalls, so it would be difficult to stand out from the crowd.
Zhou Jianguo shook his head, “Forget it, just ignore what I said. I’ll think about it some more. But it’s better to keep a few tens of thousands of yuan on hand.”
Luo Bei always listened to him, so naturally she had no objections. Besides, the two tens of thousands of yuan had turned into a hundred thousand yuan, all thanks to him. He could decide how to use it.
They bought a car quickly without much hesitation and chose a Volkswagen that was fuel-efficient and cost-effective, even though it cost over 100,000 yuan including insurance and purchase tax. However, they only paid a down payment and financed the rest over two years, leaving them with tens of thousands of yuan in hand in case the unmanned store needed capital turnover.
The car was also registered under Luo Bei’s name. That day, she couldn’t resist and did something common, posting a photo of her new car on her social media account. If it weren’t for Zhou Jianguo stopping her, she would have wanted to take a picture by the car as her WeChat profile picture! Upon further thought, she realized she wasn’t much different from those men who use car logos as their profile pictures. Whether male or female, there is no one who doesn’t love cars!
Looking back, Luo Bei is now very confused. She almost didn’t spend a penny, but she has her own store and a car…
She was thrilled and loved to take her grandmother out for a drive.
To put it bluntly, in the days when the car was first mentioned, Luo Bei couldn’t wait to sit in the car every day and take her Grandma and others out for a ride.
Luo Bei’s grandmother was very happy, especially when she heard that the car was registered in her granddaughter’s name. She even regarded Zhou Jianguo as a potential grandson-in-law. Even Zhao Pianpian looked at Zhou Jianguo differently. Everyone knew that the money for stocks was shared equally between Luo Bei and him, but when it came to buying the car and running an unmanned store, only Luo Bei’s name was written.
According to normal thinking, one would surely think that Zhou Jianguo liked Luo Bei so much that he was crazy about her, or else why would he do such things?
He was not a foolish person with too much money.
In the eyes of outsiders, how did Zhou Jianguo, who liked Luo Bei so much that he seemed to be going crazy, think? Although he had some things that he couldn’t handle in person due to his identity, he was indeed unguarded towards Luo Bei, which is why he included the store and car in her name. It can be said that among the many people Zhou Jianguo has met so far, although he seems to have a good relationship with many people, Luo Bei is the only person he truly trusts.
A more romantic way of saying it is that he is willing with all his heart.
He knows Luo Bei’s temperament very well. Of course, there is also a kind of inexplicable aura on Luo Bei’s body that makes him involuntarily believe in her. Even when they were not very familiar with each other, he could work with her and even put the store under her name. Although he has known some of his colleagues for longer, he only trusts her. Even now, when they are familiar with each other, Zhou Jianguo feels that if he wants to buy a house, he is willing to put it under Luo Bei’s name, which is very safe and secure. He doesn’t even know how he has such an inexplicable confidence in Luo Bei.
However, he believes in his own judgment, and the fact proves that Luo Bei is worthy of his trust.
Although she doesn’t know why Zhou Jianguo would do this, since he believes in her, she cannot let him down.
Even if the unmanned store expands nationwide one day, in her opinion, it is something that she and Zhou Jianguo own together, not just her own.
Luo Bei had promised Fang Jingzhou before that if she bought a new car, she would go and pick him up to hang out. Although Fang Jingzhou has been living well with his grandparents, he has always missed Luo Bei and sometimes can’t help but ask her when she will come to hang out with him. He has grown taller now and has more pocket money. He can take her out for ice cream too!
Now Fang Jingzhou’s motivation to save money in his piggy bank is to take Luo Bei out for ice cream and buy her snacks, just like how she is good to him.
With the National Day holiday approaching, Luo Bei originally planned to take Grandma Luo and Zhao Pianpian out for a trip. However, Grandma Luo didn’t want to go out, and Zhao Pianpian thought that the holiday would be crowded with people, and the baby had just turned one and was too young to travel. So only Zhou Jianguo has time to go with Luo Bei to see Fang Jingzhou.
During this holiday, the highways were free of charge. Luo Bei planned the route to the small county where Fang Jingzhou was located. If there was no traffic jam, it would take about six hours to get there. If there was, it would probably take ten hours, which would be very difficult to endure.
She wasn’t sure if she could handle driving on the highway, so she thought about trying her luck and seeing if she could book train or high-speed rail tickets, which would be much more convenient.
Luo Bei didn’t remember Zhou Jianguo’s ID number, so she called him, but he didn’t answer. He was probably busy. Fortunately, she had a rental agreement with a copy of his ID card.
It was a holiday, and she wasn’t sure if she could get a ticket. If she couldn’t, she could only drive there.
Luo Bei logged onto the ticket booking website, where adding passenger information was required before booking. It required a name and ID card number. If the information was correct, tickets could be purchased easily. It’s very convenient now.
The strange thing was that after she entered Zhou Jianguo’s ID number, there was a circle of red text on the side that read: “Please enter a correct 18-digit ID number!”
Did she enter it incorrectly?
That was possible. Luo Bei entered the number again, but the same message appeared! She checked the number again and found that she hadn’t entered it incorrectly.
Luo Bei thought it was an error on the booking website and called to ask what was going on. The person on the other end answered her in a very official manner that if there was an error prompt, it meant the ID number was incorrect.
But she didn’t enter the wrong number! Where could the problem be?
Luo Bei sat in front of her computer, lost in thought.