Investment Life

Chapter 7

7 - First Profit

　　On New Year's Eve, L City finally snowed for the first time this winter. A full foot of snow covered the entire city, letting all the children have a joyful New Year. However, when it began to snow a few days later, the joy turned into torment. In these years, the cement pavement coverage was too low, and the drainage facilities weren't perfect either. The accumulated snow had all turned into a flowing stream, and the streets and alleys were like mud, making the people in their new clothes who were visiting their friends and relatives miserable [1].

　　With the snow melt, the temperature in the city also dropped by several degrees, and the several street vendors selling New Year's goods were all shivering from the cold. The peak period of visiting relatives had already passed after the fifth day after the New Year, so their businesses also started to decline. They could only place themselves in front of the department store door to squeeze out some more popularity. Before the day had really started, they saw two teenagers carrying a small table to the side of the road and set up a stall.

　　A clean red cloth covered the table top, large posters were pinned to a tree trunk, and group colorful textiles were piled up together. Some of the literate vendors approached the stall with curiosity, carefully looked at the writing that was written out with a brush on the poster, and saw the words "Pure wool, protects against the cold, gloves for learning" on it.

　　"Gloves can even be classified depending on whether they can be used for learning or not?" One person muttered in confusion, looking at the gloves on the table. He only saw that there were around seven or eight pairs of woolen gloves on a small table. They weren't like the usual thick mittens, but were separated into five fingers, with the fingertips left empty and cut off at the first knuckle, like a semi-finished product. The colours and patterns were very cute, and they were placed together in a soft pile. It looked very attractive to people.

　　"Of course." A clear voice replied, and they saw the shorter teenager at the front of the stall greeting them with a smile, "Learning requires writing and doing homework, but how can you write when your hands are frozen in the middle of winter? These are all high-end learning gloves from Shanghai and wearing them is very convenient for writing."

　　As he said this, he raised his right hand that was wearing a coffee-coloured glove, twirling around a ballpoint pen with his nimble fingers. After displaying it a little, he gripped the pen and wrote down a line of characters. The writing was well-proportioned and beautiful, looking not at all like something that was written while wearing wool gloves.

　　"Hey." A man laughed a little, "What do you know, it really does look convenient for writing. Shanghai people do have a lot of ideas. How much is it?"

　　"Eight dollars for the ones with images, five for the ones with patterns."

　　The onlookers suddenly burst into an uproar, "How much money? Eight dollars for a pair of gloves?! Have you gone crazy from thinking too much about money?"

　　He was surrounded by a group of people jeering at him, but the teenager didn't seem panicked at all. He smiled and picked up a pair of gloves, "Uncle, when you're buying something you also have to look at the quality. This is fine Australian woolen yarn, it doesn't irritate the hands or lose colour, and look at this label..." He turned the gloves over and exposed a small brand tag that was embroidered with some rosy clouds and a string of English, "The brand is Dawn, do you know of Chenxi [2]? They're all foreign exports, look at these designs, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Winnie the Pooh, which one of these aren't universally acclaimed? It's both cute and fashionable! This time, this purchase was a factory order that was made based on some of our connections. This is the only batch in our city, there's no other branch where this is available!"