Chapter 388: Chapter 141: The Green Tea Female Supporting Character in a Period Novel (28)

Xu Chengfang could only nod blankly. ’Yun’er really has everyone figured out completely!’

Chi Yun’er planned to evenly distribute the products from the forty-eight companies through bartering. Her idea was to offer each work unit a variety of goods. Since the quantity of each item would be small, she couldn’t offer them at wholesale prices, which in turn meant the other side couldn’t drive too hard a bargain either.

Bartering specialty items for locally made goods meant the exchange rate was wide open for discussion.

"There will definitely be a lot of bartering in the future. This time, we’ll each be responsible for contacting local factories and quickly exchanging these goods for employee benefits..."

Although Chi Yun’er had never taken a single step out of Bian Family Village until the day she died, television had been her window to the future’s rapid economic development, which naturally included all sorts of effective sales tactics.

Her head was full of strange and wonderful ideas, so Chi Yun’er used what little free time she had to give Xu Chengfang a comprehensive crash course.

Soon, the goods from the various factories began to arrive one after another. The two of them led the warehouse workers on trip after trip to the station to pick up the shipments. Afterward, they had to count the types and quantities of the goods, registering each one as it was moved into the warehouse.

After four or five days of constant work, Chi Yun’er and her companion finally sorted everything out.

All the hospital employees thought the Huoxiang Zhengqi Water was too cheap. After all, a single vial cost less than three fen. Even if every person was given a box of three hundred vials, what could that possibly be traded for?

But Xu Chengfang and the employees temporarily assigned from the warehouse had witnessed it with their own eyes. A few days ago, the warehouse set aside for summer cooling products had only been a third full. Then, they had spent two grueling hours loading over 2,700 boxes of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water onto a truck.

But now, that same warehouse was completely full!

The sheer visual impact of it all left the young workers’ heads spinning.

"Comrade Chi," a good-natured young man couldn’t help but ask, rubbing his hands together. "Are all these things really going to be distributed to each of us as this year’s summer cooling benefits?"

"Canned fruit from the south, tea, and preserved fruits and all that... you got all this just by trading the Huoxiang Zhengqi Water? Are you sure the hospital didn’t just add extra benefits?"

The others couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity as well.

Chi Yun’er just smiled lightly without saying a word.

Instead, it was Xu Chengfang who puffed out her chest proudly and said, "You bet! This was all traded for the Huoxiang Zhengqi Water. Everyone gets a share. But, there’s still one more step before we can hand it all out. Just you wait!"

"You’ve all been working so hard lately. When the time comes, the benefits will definitely be distributed from the warehouse first..."

Everyone was overjoyed and repeatedly promised to work their hardest.

After they locked the warehouse door and the group dispersed, Xu Chengfang gently patted her chest, feeling as if she were walking on air. "Yun’er, the human heart is a curious thing. I never knew that old story about ’three in the morning and four at night’ could be used like this."

She hadn’t really promised them anything significant. She just changed the distribution order for the benefits, and it was enough to get everyone incredibly excited.

’If this were before, I’d probably be grinning foolishly right along with them!’

Chi Yun’er smiled and raised an eyebrow. "See? Learning is important, but applying what you’ve learned is the hard part. We’re also just feeling our way across the river here. Hopefully, we can complete this task smoothly and get the Benefits Department up and running without a hitch."

Xu Chengfang nodded vigorously. "Just tell me what to do. I promise to follow your lead, no questions asked..."

Chi Yun’er pulled two sheets of paper from her pocket. "Train an army for a thousand days to use it for one hour. Here, it’s your time to shine. We’ll each take one of these lists and contact the work units I’ve selected. We need to see what kind of bartering deals we can make."

"Our guiding principle is this: talk up the value of our goods, talk down the price of theirs, and get as much as we possibly can for our hospital’s employees..."

"And while we’re at it," she said, the corners of her lips curling up, "let’s get friendly with the purchasing departments at these places. Later on, when we open a store at the hospital, we can source our inventory from them."

A store?

Xu Chengfang was stunned. "Yun’er, this is a hospital! There’s a co-op store right outside the gate. It’s not a small one either—it’s three or four times the size of a normal co-op. It’s more than enough to serve the hospital staff and the local people."

"If... if our elders found out, they’d say we’re not focusing on our proper jobs."

A store in a hospital? Wouldn’t we become a laughingstock?

The two had already returned to their office. Chi Yun’er’s finger tapped on the desk calendar. It read 1976. In two more years, all restraints would be swept away.

"As long as the Benefits Department gets established, everything else will fall into place. Think about it, how many times a year can the hospital hand out benefits? We can’t just take a salary for doing nothing, can we?"

"No other work units have a specialized benefits department like this. We don’t have any successful examples to follow, so we have to figure it out ourselves. In any case, any project that can bring advantages to the hospital and its employees is worth trying and fighting for!"

Xu Chengfang nodded. It was true; she didn’t have the gall to coast by so openly. Her stance remained the same—she would follow Chi Yun’er’s instructions completely.

Wasting no time, the two of them went to the hospital’s transportation department and each requested a van with the Capital City General Hospital logo on it. They loaded up a few sets of each type of bartered good and headed straight for the companies they needed to negotiate with.

In the summer, soda was an absolute must. You didn’t even need it to be ice-cold. Just letting it sit in cool water for a while before popping the cap and gulping it down was enough to send a refreshing shiver all the way to your curled-up toes!

A bottle of soda cost anywhere from seven fen to one jiao, and you still needed a soda ticket to buy it, making it a relatively luxurious summer treat.

Therefore, Chi Yun’er’s first stop was the Capital City’s most famous Bingyang Beverage Factory. To make herself look less green, she deliberately dressed up, managing to make an eighteen-year-old girl look like she was twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

She pushed up her black-framed non-prescription glasses and, with a handsome, powerfully built young man in tow to carry their goods, marched confidently toward the purchasing department after the gatekeeper announced them.

"Director Chi, hello," said Director Luo from the purchasing department. Lured by the prospect of goods from the south, he hadn’t dared to leave his office since arriving that morning, afraid that another company would beat him to it.

’This Director Chi is really young and beautiful, though,’ he thought. ’She has a powerful presence. You can tell at a glance she’s a capable career woman!’

Chi Yun’er gave a faint smile and a nod, getting straight to the point as was her nature. "Director Luo, we already spoke on the phone. I won’t waste your time with pleasantries. Please, take a look at the benefits we’ve acquired from the south this time."

She gave a look, and her young assistant immediately understood. He stepped forward, placed the two large boxes he was carrying in front of Director Luo, and opened them.

Chi Yun’er smiled lightly as she introduced the items to Director Luo one by one. "The south has many varieties of fruit, and they taste quite good. There are a lot of canneries, but the one we chose has a great reputation and high sales volume. Normally, their factory’s orders are backed up for half a year before they even have a chance to open up sales channels in the north."

"It’s a good thing we have a good relationship with their deputy director. As soon as he heard we needed to trade for benefits this year, he specially cleared a production line and ran it for two days just to produce these canned fruits for us..."

"Just look at these cans. They’re large, packed with fruit, and the taste is exceptional. Whether for yourself or as a gift when visiting friends and family, showing up with a can of this... how impressive is that?"

"It’s a southern specialty; you can’t even find it here in the Capital City. Every employee at our hospital is getting at least one jar. The remaining quantity is limited. If you’re interested, shall I set some aside for you?"

As she spoke, the young man beside her saw her make a subtle gesture and immediately twisted open a can. The fresh, sweet fragrance of the fruit exploded into the air, tempting even the men who didn’t normally like sweets to swallow involuntarily.

"Why don’t you have a taste?" Chi Yun’er said, pushing the can toward him.

Director Luo paused in thought, then called everyone over to grab some chopsticks and have a taste.

This canned fruit was nothing like what they usually bought!

It was also canned fruit, but the kind they usually bought had soft, mushy fruit with no bite to it after being cooked. The sweetness all seeped into the syrup, leaving only an overpowering sourness that could make you shiver. To compensate, the manufacturers had to add a lot of extra sugar to balance and suppress the acidity.

As a result, their impression of canned fruit was that it was always cloyingly sweet!

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