Ye Huan couldn’t persuade them, but she didn’t want them to live uncomfortably, so she found soone to renovate all four rooms of the reversed house. After all, for her, this house was eventually going to be tidied up; previously it was not inhabited, and now that everyone had moved in, she might as well spruce it up inside and out.
The back room was previously a place for carriages to stop, but after her renovations, it beca the future tofu shop.
Of course, buying all the equipnt for making tofu was paid for by Third Brother and his wife, including the tricycle, various large items, and electrical modifications, which altogether cost US$ 2,000. However, after such renovations, the back room also looked more presentable.
They didn’t sell the bean dregs from making the tofu. Instead, they cleared out a room in the back room to raise chickens and ducks, thus securing their protein source, and they might even earn a bit of money.
Of course, to ensure the cleanliness inside and outside the house, Ye Huan transford the back room into tiled floors, which could be hosed down at any ti.
The rinsed wastewater flowed into the septic tank built beneath the toilet of the reversed house, and periodically, soone would co to collect the wastewater. To encourage them to co more often, her family paid one yuan each ti as a service fee. Other families generally didn’t pay because they needed these organic fertilizers for the rural fields, fulfilling mutual needs.
The current Beijing still had those public toilets, so Ye Huan spent quite a bit of money renovating the bathroom, including digging a pool, paving floor tiles, placing a water storage barrel on the roof, and painting it black. This way, they could shower in the sumr.
In short, she invested all twenty thousand yuan earned from last year’s business profits into renovating the house. The five or six hundred square ters house was completely renovated for twenty thousand yuan, achieving a level where it had floor tiles, whitewashed walls, rewiring, and new clean curtains. The main house and the two side rooms had ceilings and furniture, which required so special thought compared to the reversed house.
In the courtyard, there were stone tables and benches, the flower beds were remodeled, and vegetables and grapes were planted along with the grape arbor and so on.
Even Tong Zhan and Ji Huzi ca to look, clicking their tongues in wonder at how money is truly a good thing; wherever you spend it, it makes an impact.
With renovation workers busy with the construction and family mbers watching over the house, Ye Huan and Ye Yu’s store opened its doors on the ninth day of the first lunar month.
While selling the New Year’s goods, Ye Huan hurriedly went to Guang City on the tenth day, borrowing ten thousand yuan from Ye Yu’s family for purchasing goods. Because she’d spent all her money on renovations, spring fashion has a short lifespan, so she dared not get too much. These winter clothes from before New Year could at least last until mid-March, so this ti, her stock consisted mainly of windbreakers and coats. Within two months, maybe even one month, she might have to switch to sumr clothes. Ten thousand yuan was sufficient.
Ye Jiazhe and his wife weren’t in a hurry to make tofu; instead, they waited until March when everything inside and outside the house was tidied up before starting the tofu production.
To sell tofu, they hung a sign at the Ye Family’s doorway to facilitate nearby neighbors in purchasing tofu from the house.
Once the house was tidied up, they also invited nearby neighbors for a al during which they tasted various tofu dishes from the Ye Family as a form of advertisent. Thus, when Ye Family’s tofu shop opened on March 1st, neighbors started coming to buy.
Heading into 1984, pork was priced at 1.75-1.9 yuan per jin, while tofu was sold at eight cents per jin by their family, two jin for 15 cents, without needing food stamps.
Compared to the market price of seven cents with 2 liang of food stamps required, it was still cheap. People would naturally compare, so even if Third Brother and his wife went out to sell tofu and tofu pudding, the Old Lady and Old Man helped weigh and collect money at ho.
As for tofu pudding, after adding various seasonings, it sold for five cents a bowl. As for the tricycle, Ye Huan drew the design and found soone to specially modify it, welding the iron fra particularly sturdily with a large bucket for tofu pudding placed at the back and tofu board stacked at the front. Third Brother pedaled for a while, then his wife took turns pedaling, and when not pedaling, they sat on the fra at the back.
The tricycle cost US$ 200 to US$ 300 to build, expensive but very practical, much better than them struggling out on bicycles.
With the electric millstone, they saved a lot of effort and ti. On average, they could make four to five hundred jin of tofu plus tofu pudding daily, with tofu divided into firm and soft varieties. It calculated to daily sales of 30 to 40 yuan, which may not seem much but was quite remarkable compared to the era where one could earn a monthly salary of 30 to 40 yuan.
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