Chapter 129: The Five Star Wholesale Market
Translator: Lan Editor: Efydatia
Qin Guan was so shocked that his eyes filled with tears. Before going to bed, he called Cong Nianwei secretly and expressed his emotions and love for her. Cong Nianwei shouted at him angrily, "It’s two o’clock in the morning! What are you doing? Go to sleep!"
Yes, madam! Qin Guan bowed and went to bed.
Happy days always went by quickly. It was time for Qin Guan to return to college.
Before leaving, his grandma stuck jars of pickled duck eggs and radish into his luggage.
Old people were easy to satisfy. Their children’s appreciation of their homemade pickles was more than enough to please them.
From the bus, Qin Guan watched his grandparents, who were standing close to each other at the entrance of the village. His nose was running.
I will live this life as well as my last one. At least I’ll give you a great-grandson!
Then he forgot about his sentimentality and got lost in fantasies of Cong Nianwei and their future offspring.
In early 2000, most people felt lucky. They believed that they had been chosen by the gods to witness the new millennium. The concept had exceeded its religious connotation and become a celebration of all human beings. The original meaning of the end of an era was replaced by the pleasure and expectation of a new century.
Qin Guan was pleased with the good start of the year. Li Hui from Rayli magazine had called Sister Xue to confirm that LEE jeans would enter the Chinese market in March.
Qin Guan had been lucky enough to be chosen as the first LEE model in printed media. They had chosen US models for their TV advertisements, but a small spark could start a fire. Qin Guan had gradually attracted some attention in the modelling circle thanks to the inner pages of ELLE and Rayli.
Some offers from unknown brands had been rejected tearfully by Sister Xue.
That was one of the shortcomings of rising to fame. The wrong representative could cause a rising model to fall off the map. Even though the J shirts were in the Plaza now, Sister Xue still refused to shoot posters for their formal shirts.
It's too low for Qin Guan! A formal shirt costs below 200 yuan. It would influence Qin Guan's luxury-oriented career in the future.
Qin Guan had no time to care about other things. The first half of the semester would be his busiest period, as the accounting exams and the CET 6 would both take place during the first half of the year. For fear that he might be discovered by female fans and his studies would be influenced, Qin Guan planned on buying black-framed glasses in the Five Star Wholesale Market to change his image.
(He was overthinking things. Not everyone read fashion magazines.)
The name of the Five Star Wholesale Market made it sound luxurious, but it was actually just a wholesale market hundreds of metres from Qin Guan's college.
Crossing the railway from the Beijing North Railway Station to the Jiayu Pass, Qin Guan arrived at the crowded market. He saw the meat sellers right away. (Who had thought of such an evil thing?)
It was a large farm product fair with stands with fresh pork, entrails, living fish and shrimp. Considering its reasonable prices, the market was convenient for most people.
After one made their way through the crowd of old people, they got to the second part of the market, the dried fruit market.
After fighting with the over-enthusiastic wholesalers, one still wouldn’t get to their destination. They would only get to the third part of the market, the fruit wholesale market.
Seasonal fruit was sold in piles at such low prices that one couldn’t leave right away. When one went through the fruit market, they ended up carrying several bags in their hands.
Finally, Qin Guan reached his destination, the Five Star Wholesale Market. When he got to the entrance of the warehouse, he initially thought it was the wrong place.
There were stands selling fried pancakes, noodles and other instant meals. They provided food for a large quantity of sellers in the market.
Swallowing his saliva, Qin Guan went deeply into the warehouse, staring around him.
He was dazzled by the electronics, shoes, bags, accessories... After several minutes, he finally found the glasses.
A young man spoke to him while he was scanning the stands one by one.
"Hey handsome, do you want to buy glasses?" Qin Guan recognized his Y city accent. That young man was from his hometown. He answered in his native dialect, "Yes, I want to buy a pair."
The young man understood him immediately. "Do you want to look like a scholar? What do you prefer? Golden glasses or black ones?"
Thanks to Professor Li’s training, Qin Guan's taste had improved a lot. He shook his head at the ordinary items on the counter. Square frames had been in fashion at the time, but the showy pairs would be on sale after several years.
The young man was not surprised by his behaviour. After looking around to make sure that no one was watching them, he lowered his voice and said, "I have some good products here. Do you want to have a look? They are more expensive though."
Qin Guan smiled at him in understanding. "Fake ones?"
The young man brought his head closer to Qin Guan and squeezed the words out from between his teeth, "Fake ones!"
Qin Guan was straightforward, "I’ll take them if I’m satisfied with the style."
The young man squatted and pulled a long leather case from under the counter. The case was elegant with metal European style engravings.
He opened it behind the counter to show him the frames, which were arranged in perfect order on the velvet.
There were coach frames on the first row, Ports on the second one, and Dior on the third one. There was every famous brand one could think of. All top ten international brands were in that case.
Qin Guan selected a black Dior pair and a white Gucci one. The first one was of primitive simplicity, and the second one was fine and delicate. I’m rich enough to buy both.
What was the most interesting thing in the wholesale market though? Not enjoying the stands full of beautiful things, or taking advantage of the reasonable prices. It was experiencing the satisfaction of bargaining with the sellers. New visitors hardly knew the market. The key was to bring the price down to one third of the original offer.
If the dealer refused, you could add one more yuan. If he said yes, congratulations. You’d just made a successful bargain!