Chapter 14: Those Reporting You Are Your Peers
Uncle Guo unlocked his phone, opened the payment page, and held it up for Shou Jiaxun to see.
Barely over four digits. After deducting costs, a large several hundred remained.
Uncle Guo was very satisfied. “Caught up to two days of my morning market sales.”
President Shou, however, seemed slightly disappointed, only letting out a soft “Tsk~”.
Seeing him like this, Uncle Guo chuckled and comforted him while packing up the cart stall. “It’s very good already. We didn’t have any expensive fruits, and besides, we only sold for two hours.”
“That is true…” Shou Jiaxun helped pack things up.
Just as the two finished tidying the fruit boxes and started the cart to go home, a white-canopied security patrol vehicle for mobile law enforcement blocked them with sirens wailing.
Two security officers, one fat and one thin, stopped the tricycle aggressively, shouting grumpily, “No setting up stalls here! Can’t you see the warning sign?”
Uncle Guo practiced shamelessness skillfully. “Passing through! Can’t even pass through?”
Mainly because right now their cart stall had the boxes tied and covered with cloth, riding on the road. They weren’t caught in the act, so they had nothing to fear.
Shou Jiaxun also raised a likeable little face and chimed in with a grin, “Uncles, we didn’t violate regulations; we’ve been riding in the non-motorized vehicle lane.”
The security officers insisted on intercepting. “Get off the vehicle. Let me see what you’re selling.”
Uncle Guo had to get off, uncovering the rainproof cloth to show them the fruit cores and peels left from peeling.
There was also half a stack of unused plastic cups, as well as bamboo skewers and fruit forks.
The short, thin security officer stretched his neck to take a glance, scolding expressionlessly, “Fresh cut fruit, right? Let me tell you, someone reported you.”
Uncle Guo insisted, “We really were just passing through, didn’t sell here.”
The tall, fat security officer also had an unkind expression. “Doesn’t matter where you sell. Making and selling processed food requires a Health Certificate. Do you have one?”
“Yes! I have it.” Shou Jiaxun hurriedly fished in his pants pocket and handed over the small blue booklet. He had only gotten this thing two days ago; it hadn’t even warmed up before coming in handy.
It showed how much foresight he had.
After looking at his certificate, the fat officer jerked his chin at Uncle Guo. “Where’s yours?”
Uncle Guo shrugged innocently. “I’m the driver. You don’t need a Health Certificate to ride a bike, right? I have a driver’s license; do you want to see?”
The thin officer frowned and clicked his tongue. “So much talk.” Then, glancing at the certificate in the fat officer’s hand, he asked Shou Jiaxun, “You’re only eighteen?”
Shou Jiaxun nodded with a smile. “Adult, not child labor.”
The fat officer returned the certificate to him, gesturing with his mouth toward Uncle Guo but locking eyes on Shou Jiaxun. “Is he your dad?”
Shou Jiaxun shook his head. “He is a kind person who took me in.”
The thin officer chattered on, digging for gossip. “Which school are you from?”
Shou Jiaxun smiled sheepishly, but his attitude was very calm. “Used to be at Li Mai International High School. Family had some trouble recently, not studying anymore.”
“Mmhmm.” The thin officer made a noncommittal sound, emphasizing again, “Stalls aren’t allowed on this street. It’s full of bars ahead, lots of cars at night. If you set up a stall here and someone stops to buy things, the road gets blocked immediately. Besides, it’s not safe. If a car scrapes you, whose fault is it?”
Uncle Guo insisted firmly, “We really didn’t set up a stall here.”
The fat officer shouted loudly with anger on his face, “Don’t quibble! Told you someone reported you; otherwise, would we come over?”
But he was only fierce for a moment, then raised his hand to point. “To set up a stall, go south. There’s a pedestrian street over there that opens a free market after 7:30 PM. If you don’t want to rent a stall, you can also look for spots in the alleys on both sides of the main street. However, tricycles can’t enter the main road of the commercial street. Go from the side, look for entrances on the side streets, and go around inside.”
The thin officer chimed in, “There are way more people strolling over there at night than here. Business is better than here. Don’t set up here next time. Set up again and we’ll fine you and confiscate the vehicle, understand?”
Uncle Guo and Shou Jiaxun were both surprised and dumbfounded.
“You have a cold face but a warm heart.”
“Warm-hearted and kind.”
The big and small stall owners each expressed their gratitude to the fat and thin officers. After promising never to set up on this street again, they were soon let go.
Uncle Guo got back on the tricycle, fished out a cigarette, and sighed while smoking, “That kid surnamed Xiao hates you out of love, sigh! This character… no wonder you look down on him.”
Shou Jiaxun laughed along, “Not necessarily him.”
Uncle Guo curled his lip. “If not him, who else? Let me tell you, strangers passing by don’t care about you setting up a stall. Unless it’s reporting for shorting weight, it’s always people you know causing trouble for you. Ninety-nine percent are peers, and the remaining 0.1 percent are people like surnamed Xiao, stuffed and having nothing better to do.”
Shou Jiaxun sighed and comforted his older partner. “Anyway, we didn’t lose anything. Forget it, no need to get angry with that kind of person. I scolded him once last time, he reported me once today, consider it even.”
“That’s because the people we met today had good hearts. What if we met someone who confiscated the vehicle and fined us?” Uncle Guo still felt unconvinced.
Shou Jiaxun was unhappy too, but didn’t want to discuss this matter further, so he simply stopped making a sound.
Not hearing the kid respond, Uncle Guo pondered and felt he might have spoken too harshly, as if taking anger out on Shou Jiaxun.
So he hurriedly changed the subject: “Hey? How about we go check out the pedestrian street right now?”
“Sure, just what I intended.” This time he responded quite quickly.
Uncle Guo turned around immediately, taking advantage of the night to investigate the pedestrian street on the bike.
The pedestrian street’s foot traffic mainly relied on several large comprehensive shopping malls on both sides of the street.
The malls closed at ten o’clock, while the free market’s closing time was relatively free.
So while pedestrians on surrounding streets decreased sharply after ten, there were still many people eating at small food stalls in the night market.
Among them were two fruit mix stalls. Fruit combinations were self-selected, and sago, shaved ice, or yogurt could be added to the cup—eatable and drinkable. The price was about the same as what they just sold, around thirty yuan.
Shou Jiaxun and Uncle Guo stood aside watching for a long time, feeling their business was just so-so, seemingly not even as good as Shou Jiaxun’s sales just now.
Uncle Guo couldn’t see any special novelty and asked Shou Jiaxun, “Seen enough? Going?”
Shou Jiaxun also asked, “Uncle, why do you say they aren’t selling well?”
The two spoke almost simultaneously, looked at each other, and started picking faults with their peers one by one.
Uncle Guo said, “Their fruit cups aren’t as big as ours.”
Shou Jiaxun said, “Ingredients aren’t worth money but take up one-third of the cup, treating customers like fools.”
Uncle Guo nodded. “Fruit isn’t freshly cut, presentation is a bit worse.”
Shou Jiaxun suddenly sighed. “This business isn’t easy to do. To give customers a sense of satisfaction and surprise, merchants must put in enough cost.”
Uncle Guo nodded again. “Thankless effort, high spoilage.”
Shou Jiaxun sighed again. “Let’s go look at the alleys.”
Uncle Guo naturally nodded and agreed.
The alleys on both sides of the commercial street were actually streets too. Because the land development was ancient, the roads were just narrower. Compared to the mainstream six-to-ten lane roads in the city now, they became small alleys.
The end of the alley near the commercial street had low-to-mid-end business office buildings, and further in were residential areas. The ground floor commercial spaces of office and residential buildings were mostly restaurants, followed by convenience stores, which were divided into fresh produce and daily sundries.
In addition, there were clothing stores, toy stores, stationery stores, pet shops, vintage second-hand stores, luxury repair shops… Overall, it was a rich and exciting leisure district.
The key was that at this hour in other places, stationery stores and vegetable shops would mostly be closed, but here, customers were still coming in.
Although the houses and streets weren’t as exquisite and shiny as the pedestrian street, the flow of people wasn’t much different.
Uncle Guo couldn’t help but sigh with emotion: “Opening a shop here, even collecting scrap would be more profitable than elsewhere.”
“Haha!” Shou Jiaxun felt the same way.
Then the two stopped in front of a pet shop.
Working people rushing on the front lines of making money usually had no interest in raising pets.
The two stopped here because a piece of paper was pasted on the glass door of this pet shop: Shop Transfer.
Shou Jiaxun chuckled. “Seems like opening a shop here doesn’t mean making money doing just anything, huh?”
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