Chapter 19: Buyers Can Never Outsmart Sellers

At least a dozen of the rice discount coupons were not made by Li Jixiang herself. These coupons were cut from graph paper to match the size of the original ones, and the stamp was applied almost identically. Yet on the back of the graph paper, the small LJX characters found on the genuine coupons were missing.

Quite a convincing imitation! Li Jixiang stared at the coupons, smiling.

Grandma Li had never seen her granddaughter smile quite like this; she watched Li Jixiang’s face anxiously. “Is something wrong? This morning, everyone who bought rice used a coupon. The number of coupons matches the money from rice sales.”

“That’s right.”

Li Jixiang kept smiling. The rice business had grown so popular that townsfolk had started forging coupons—evidence of its demand. Originally, it was a costless enterprise, though, thinking about it, boosting her popularity took considerable effort and ingenuity.

“This afternoon, let’s give a coupon for every bag of rice purchased,” Li Jixiang said, slipping the counterfeit coupons among the genuine ones and handing them back to Grandma Li, who carefully tucked them into her fabric pouch.

With these imitations, there’d be no need to tear graph paper into slips or labor over genuine coupon stamps in the future. The rice price had always been set at seven yuan in her mind; she quoted eight to match the other shops.

Buyers are never savvier than sellers! In business, one must grasp the consumer’s weaknesses and squeeze them for all they’re worth.

“Oh, when will I ever clear out these little goods?” Grandma Li fretted over her backlog of merchandise. Inspiration struck Li Jixiang: if Mrs. An’s bean sprouts could be bundled with coupons, so could Grandma’s small goods be promoted alongside rice sales.

Of course, the aim wasn’t profit; she simply didn’t want Grandma Li to worry about those unsold items.

If someone bought rice without a coupon, they could choose any five small items. If their rice purchase totaled fifteen yuan, they could also select any five small goods.

“Will this work? How do we count the money?” Grandma Li was a bit puzzled.

“See, the average price of these goods is about twenty cents each—five items make one yuan. If someone buys rice without a coupon, we can charge an extra yuan, which matches the price of the goods.”

“Ah, ha!” Though uneducated, Grandma Li was no fool. With a little guidance from Li Jixiang, she quickly realized her small goods could now earn her something.

Who can resist something given for free? Marketing tricks run deep; at their heart, they’re just the same old moves—free, gift, and discount.

That afternoon, heading to school, Li Jixiang hoped to hitch a ride on the An brothers’ bicycle, but after walking quite a distance, she saw no sign of them.

The marketplace was bustling with people and thriving business. Mrs. An and Mr. An had gone out early to sell bean sprouts and hadn’t returned home for lunch. The brothers likely ate at the staff canteen near the school.

Her steps unconsciously wandered into the department store again. After admiring the lady’s slant-bar bicycle she coveted, she browsed the TV and radio counters.

The television was broadcasting an afternoon performance; a man and woman sang in a style much like the actors on the town’s stage, though their costumes on TV were more splendid.

“Excuse me, how much is a TV?” asked an aunt beside her.

“Nine hundred eighty,” the attendant replied enthusiastically, explaining the features of the latest color TV, available only with a purchase ticket. Many people had already replaced their black-and-white sets with color ones.

A TV purchase required a ticket! The picture quality was snowy, the design was clumsy and heavy, and yet it cost nine hundred eighty! Clearly a rip-off.

The aunt paid and handed over her ticket, and the young man with her picked up the twenty-one-inch transistor color TV that Li Jixiang had dismissed, smiling as he carried it out of the store. Someone hopped out of a gray van waiting at the entrance and hurried to open the door for her. The aunt watched as the young man loaded the heavy TV into the van’s trunk, then calmly got into the vehicle herself.

Two young wives passing by whispered, saying the mayor’s family had upgraded to a color TV. In the whole town, perhaps only the mayor’s household could afford such a purchase.

“My family doesn’t even own a black-and-white TV!”

“Don’t sound like mine does, either. The radio I brought as dowry keeps jamming tapes lately—every song sounds warped. So annoying!”

The two wives gazed enviously as the mayor’s wife drove away, then continued chatting as they entered the store.

So that was the mayor’s wife!

Grandma Li often mentioned that the mayor’s monthly salary was eighty yuan, yet his wife spent nine hundred eighty on a TV in one go. By the mayor’s earnings, that would require saving for a year without spending a penny. He had two sons studying in the provincial capital and a daughter who graduated high school last year and was awaiting a job at home.

Where did the mayor’s wife get her money? An imbalance between income and spending always hints at something amiss!

That afternoon, during class, Li Jixiang habitually lay on her desk, dozing. Years of midday naps were hard to break, and since neither the homeroom teacher nor the discipline supervisor was present, no one disturbed her rest.

Half-awake, half-dreaming, she felt herself drifting, floating high above the ground. The sensation of her feet touching earth was lost, and she heard someone calling her name.

Li Jixiang felt someone was waking her; she squinted, seeing a dry, small face suddenly magnified before her.

“What are you doing, trying to scare me to death!”

Her voice, usually graceful and soft, was drowned out by the classroom’s clamor. She sat up and slapped Ma Hongmei’s arm. Ma Hongmei didn’t dodge and smiled. Having enjoyed two meals of rice, her heart was sweet and her chest felt light; after her mother ate rice, she seemed less troubled by her illness. The morning math test, in which Li Jixiang had helped her score well, made Ma Hongmei feel as if Li Jixiang were her ancestor—she’d kneel for her if asked.

“I just heard that Teacher Zhang’s husband wants to divorce her…” Ma Hongmei whispered into Li Jixiang’s ear.

“Who told you that?”

“There.” Ma Hongmei nodded toward the front of the classroom. Only then did Li Jixiang notice that Huang Li and Luo Wei had arrived. Some classmates said they visited Zhang Chunfen’s home at lunch.

With the homeroom teacher absent for unknown reasons, it was the perfect time for the class monitor and vice monitor to show their support.

“If they’re divorcing, so be it. Forcing themselves to stay together only brings more pain.”

For some reason, a face flashed in her mind—Chen Haoan’s, serene and peaceful, so different from the cold, domineering impression she had. Li Jixiang shook her head, banishing the image, as Ma Hongmei’s chatter drifted to her ears again.

Teacher Zhang Chunfen’s husband had another woman, a younger, more attractive colleague at the county middle school.

Middle-aged men—promotions, money, and new wives! No matter the era, some things never change. Men remain boys until death; they need to be put in their place.