RING RING RING~
Wu Jun’s phone rang while he was in the middle of a meal.
He pulled out his phone and saw it was a call from Bian Xuedao. He answered, put it on speakerphone, set it on the dining table, and went back to eating.
"Boss Wu! I have some great news! I just sold 520 bags of rice!" Bian Xuedao’s excited voice erupted from the phone on the dining table.
"GACK—" Wu Jun had just taken a bite of bread and started to choke.
"Brother Wu, quick, drink some soup!" Xu Fei shot up in a panic, rushing behind Wu Jun to pat his back and hold a bowl up for him.
"Boss Wu, is everything okay over there?" Bian Xuedao asked, confused by the commotion.
"It’s nothing. Great job, Brother-in-law," Wu Jun said, praising Bian Xuedao after taking a couple of sips of soup to recover from the shock.
He’d only been out making sales for one day, and he’d already landed such a massive order first thing in the morning. His brother-in-law’s sales skills were truly exceptional.
bags of rice. That was 130,000 yuan. Wu Jun glanced at the time—it wasn’t even 6 a.m. yet.
After asking Bian Xuedao for the details, Wu Jun learned what had happened. Yesterday morning, after picking up the rice, Bian Xuedao had made a few deliveries. Then, when it was time to report to his job, he drove straight to his office with the remaining rice and resigned.
Bian Xuedao worked at the district management committee. After several years of solid work, his sudden announcement that he was resigning to sell rice left his old boss completely dumbfounded.
’Giving up a perfectly good civil servant position to go sell rice? What’s gotten into him?’
After quitting, Bian Xuedao had a clever idea. He gave his boss a bag of the rice, telling him to take it home and try it.
Bian Xuedao told him that once he tasted the rice, he would understand why he’d quit. Selling rice had a much brighter financial future than being a civil servant!
There was a recent nationwide initiative for companies to establish trade unions. The district’s main union frequently visited various enterprises for goodwill purposes, often distributing gifts and other items to the employees.
His old boss happened to be the chairman of that union. If he liked the rice enough to use it for the union’s gift-giving, Bian Xuedao figured he could sell at least several dozen bags, maybe even more.
The Hongyun Rice did not disappoint. Early this morning, he got a call from his old boss, who placed an order for 520 bags all at once!
On his second day in business after quitting his job, he’d earned 5,000 yuan. It was like free money!
After hanging up with Bian Xuedao, Wu Jun hastily finished his meal. He went to the warehouse to summon Little Red and No. 2, then called Wang Qidong and asked him to line up some temporary delivery drivers.
At 7:10 a.m., Wang Qidong brought over a few friends he used to wait for gigs with. They loaded up six trucks and headed for the Xiqiao District Management Committee, where Bian Xuedao was waiting to receive the delivery.
Just as Wang Qidong’s crew departed, Ma Chunmei and Ma Chaoyun called in. Both of them had landed their first sales of the day.
Ma Chunmei’s first sale was for 10 bags, and Ma Chaoyun’s was for 12. It was nothing compared to Bian Xuedao’s order of over 500 bags, but they were still thrilled.
Before, they’d wake up every day already in debt to the bank for their mortgage of over a hundred yuan. Today, they’d earned enough to cover that debt the moment they woke up.
Making sales on just their second day on the job, everyone’s morale soared. Before 8 a.m., they were already driving over to pick up rice, leaving as soon as they were loaded, too busy to even chat with Wu Jun.
Wu Jun was stuck in the warehouse all morning, fielding one phone call after another.
At noon, Wu Jun checked the figures in his notebook. That morning, in addition to Bian Xuedao’s 520 bags, another 360 bags had been sold and delivered. They had earned 220,000 yuan in a single morning, setting a new retail record.
It was true: there’s strength in numbers.
At 12:30 p.m., Wang Qidong returned with the truck convoy after a busy morning. Wu Jun handed his uncle 1,000 yuan and told him to take the drivers out for a meal.
Wu Jun called his mom and told her to wait for him to eat. He then ordered takeout on his phone, setting the delivery address as his dad’s hospital room number.
When Wu Jun arrived in his pickup truck, the takeout was delivered at the exact same time. After eating with his mom and Aunt Xu and chatting with his dad for a bit, Ma Dongmei started ushering him out.
Ma Dongmei smiled and said, "I heard from your aunt that you’ve gone from a small-time supermarket owner to a company CEO. Go on, get back to your work. Your dad needs to rest."
Wu Guangqiang added, "Jun, go do what you need to do. I’m fine. Your mom and Aunt Xu are here with me."
"When did the doctor say he can go outside for a bit?" Wu Jun asked Ma Dongmei as he stood up. "As soon as Dad’s allowed out, I’ll buy a wheelchair and take him out for some fresh air."
Ma Dongmei and Wu Guangqiang just smiled knowingly at each other. It was a pleasant surprise to see their son being so considerate, but... he was a step behind.
Xu Xiulan chuckled and said, "Jun, your aunt called this morning. She said she already bought one and that it’s being delivered this afternoon."
"Ma Simai bought one?" Wu Jun was momentarily speechless. ’That woman,’ he thought, ’always had to compete with me for everything when we were kids. Now she’s even trying to one-up me on being a good son!’
"Alright, now go on and get back to work. Don’t keep running over here unless you have to." Ma Dongmei walked Wu Jun to the door and saw him into the elevator.
After taking the elevator down, Wu Jun drove off in his pickup.
He still had a lot to do that afternoon.
He had rented the company’s office space yesterday—a villa—but aside from the new renovations, it was completely empty. He still needed to procure all the basic office equipment.
After leaving the hospital, Wu Jun called his aunt, Chen Lin, and another relative. He figured women were more meticulous when it came to tedious tasks like this.
Wu Jun drove them around all afternoon on a shopping spree, buying everything from large items like air conditioners, sofas, desks, chairs, and computers, down to smaller things like a water cooler and a time clock.
By 6:30 p.m., the villa that had been empty just yesterday was now cluttered with their new purchases. In a single afternoon, Wu Jun had spent nearly 100,000 yuan just by scanning QR codes with his phone.
It was getting late, and they hadn’t had time to organize the mountain of new items in the villa. Wu Jun took his aunt and Chen Lin out to eat, then put them in a taxi home.
It was after 8 p.m. when he got back to the supermarket. Seeing the store was empty, Wu Jun decided to close up for the night.
The warehouse had sent out another 200-plus bags of rice that afternoon. In total, over 1,000 bags had been shipped from the warehouse that day, bringing in 260,000 yuan in revenue. Compared to that, the supermarket’s sales seemed completely insignificant.
Seeing that they were closing early, Xu Fei said to Wu Jun, "Brother Wu, I’m going to go upstairs to my aunt’s place and relax for a bit."
Hearing Xu Fei mention her aunt reminded Wu Jun that he hadn’t been in the supermarket much lately. Always running around, he hadn’t had many chances to see Xu Minli, and it had been a few days.
He was reminded of the saying: relationships are built on visits, teams on activities, wealth on cash flow, life on exercise, and success on action.
Ms. Xu had always been very good to him, and they had a great rapport. He couldn’t let his business endeavors cause that friendship to fade.
"I’m free right now, I’ll go with you," Wu Jun said. He grabbed a case of Kefir yogurt from a nearby shelf and gestured for Xu Fei to head out with him.
The two of them left the supermarket, took the elevator up to the 20th floor, and arrived at Xu Minli’s apartment.
Wu Jun raised his hand to knock, and Xu Minli opened the door from the inside.
"Feifei! Little Wu! Come in, come in!"
Seeing the case in Wu Jun’s hands, Xu Minli protested, "Oh, you two didn’t have to bring anything! You’re treating me like a stranger. Take this back down with you when you leave and put it on the shelves to sell."