Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 728 - 365: Selling Meat on the Street_1

Chapter 728: Chapter 365: Selling Meat on the Street_1

By the time Yan Fei returned home that evening, Old Ou and Pang Fa had just arrived home too.

It’s hard to say whether these two were down on their luck or fortunate this time. They had dropped off some beef for Fifth Brother in the county town, and without wasting any time, they proceeded straight to the city. It was still early when they arrived, and the first few establishments they had arranged to visit agreed to purchase their beef on sight.

All of the establishments were very interested, leaving the two of them feeling absolutely thrilled and excited.

What they didn’t consider was that the quality of the beef is not just determined by the size of the cattle, but also by its fat content. Usually, when these beef restaurants buy cattle, they usually get those with average fat content. Plus, as they often slaughter young calves, the lean meat rate is not high, not even achieving forty percent. Even when they slaughter grown cows, the lean meat rate is only around forty-five percent.

However, the lean meat rate of grown cows that have been fattened can reach fifty-five to sixty percent.

They know how to do the math; if you slaughter a cow weighing a thousand catties, there is a major price difference for that hundred catty difference.

Cattle farms know their fattened cattle yield more meat, but they’ve never bothered with the exact calculations. Without a professional statistician, they only know they earn more money than others, without knowing the specifics.

These restaurant owners are well aware of this. They roughly know how much money they make after selling a slaughtered cow. When they compare those figures to the prices of the beef from the cattle farm, it’s clear what the better choice is.

Pang Fa and Old Ou were off to a great start, driving their large truck around the city and selling much of their beef. They could sell the beef bones too, as restaurants use them to make soup — no beef restaurant would be complete without bone soup.

Plus, essentially all professional beef restaurants like Fifth Brother’s also wholesale beef to smaller restaurants.

Wan City only had a few bustling streets at the time. They could make a round relatively quickly, but no matter how quick they were, they still needed to weigh the beef and settle the finances, right?

In their excitement, they lost track of time, and their truck was eventually pulled over by traffic police — during non-working hours, large trucks could drive freely in the city, but once the traffic police were on duty, these large trucks were not allowed to drive unless there were special circumstances.

The traffic police in the city were enforcing laws in a civil manner. For instance, if someone was caught cycling with a passenger, that person would have to stand at the intersection and conduct traffic with a small flag. If they were lucky, another lawbreaker would soon take their place, allowing them to leave. If not, they’d have to stand there for at least half an hour.

Only one group of people was exempted from this — students. Even if they were caught, they’d simply be warned and sent away.

This rule did not punish the dutiful or the lazy; it only targeted those who lacked awareness. If you couldn’t even notice the traffic police ahead while cycling, you deserved to be caught — even if you dismounted two minutes ahead, the traffic police wouldn’t say anything.

When Old Ou and Pang Fa’s truck was stopped, they thought they would have to pay a fine. However, after inquiring about the situation, the traffic police pointed them to a nearby intersection that had a spacious area for parking that wouldn’t obstruct traffic, telling them to park their truck there.

Only during those years could one find a spot in the city to park a large truck without causing a traffic jam. Twenty years later, even parking a bike along the street could cause a traffic jam in no time — even with nothing parked on the road, traffic would still be congested!

They had no choice but to stop, it was their own fault for not paying attention to the time!

Now, all they could do was leave Old Ou to guard the truck, while Pang Fa borrowed a bike from a nearby store, offering to pay for it, and went to contact the restaurants. There was no need for a deposit; their large truck was parked there, and traffic police were on duty nearby — they wouldn’t be able to run off.

Selecting a bicycle to borrow, the store owner inevitably asked what they were transporting. Upon hearing it was beef, the owner, having just opened the store, went over to see for himself. He asked for the price, which Old Ou casually shared.

The owner was taken aback, "Is there something wrong with your beef since it’s so cheap?"

Offended, Old Ou rebuked, "What are you trying to imply? Our beef is from our own cattle farm and fully certified. We’ve already sold more than half of our shipment. If there were any problems, the whole city would be eating tainted beef. We wouldn’t survive doing business like that!"

The store owner seemed doubtful, but he also didn’t see anything wrong with the beef himself. Not wanting to argue with the young man early in the morning, he went back to his store to wait.

Soon enough, Pang Fa brought over a customer, and they began weighing and portioning the beef by the roadside.

This method even saved them time. Pang Fa brought the customer over, left Old Ou to weigh the beef and settle the account, then promptly left to find the next customer.

There was no room for bargaining over the prices; they simply needed to weigh out the requested amount and calculate the cost, which Old Ou could handle all on his own.

Once the beef was loaded onto the restaurant’s tricycle, the store owner who had lent them the bicycle couldn’t sit still any longer. After asking a few questions and finding out the buyer was from a local beef restaurant, he was reassured and immediately bought a catty of beef without further discussion.

When Pang Fa came back with more people, Old Ou caused quite the commotion from a distance, attracting a crowd to the car. Once closer, people realized they were selling cheap beef.

Normally, the townsfolk would go to the wet market to purchase beef at higher prices, so when they came across inexpensive beef and heard that it was problem-free, many decided to buy some on the spot. Especially the stallholders who had free time in the early morning came to watch the excitement and ended up buying some. Passers-by also joined the throng, further swelling the crowd.

After Pang Fa had called over a few more major buyers and most of the beef had been sold, seeing that the remnants were not many and the traffic police were not letting them leave, they simply started selling the beef right there.

Of course, that they were able to do this at all was thanks to these good times - selling stuff on the street without having city management chase you around. However, the two were warned by the traffic police, that what they were doing wasn’t right.

Today was a special case, with the hot weather and the inability of their cars to gallivant around, selling here was fine, as they did not want the meat to spoil in a day, leading to considerable losses. But going forward, it would be best to sell at the Market, or at the city’s periphery. After all, this area was the city center, and while small stalls selling a few things on the street were fine, their large van was somewhat obstructing traffic.

All the bits and pieces of meat and beef offal did sell, mainly because they were cheap. Shop owners, needing to make profits, and considering the expenses of running a shop in the city for a month, were not comparable to these two who were profiting from all sales.

When it was afternoon and time to stop working, there were even more people. It was nearing lunchtime and the sun was beginning to shine onto the beef. The two men and the traffic police discussed and decided to move the truck a little to be under the shade of a tree. The traffic police simply agreed, as long as their van wasn’t running rampantly around the city, moving it a little wasn’t an issue.

Working as traffic police is also strenuous, with a shift change in the afternoon with others taking over until the end of the working day.

Pang Fa and Old Ou didn’t even have lunch, they genuinely didn’t anticipate the purchasing power in the city was so strong. Just because prices were more affordable, they managed to get off on the right foot on their first day.

In the second half of the day, they managed to sell all the beef. After the excitement of making the sales, they realized they were starving. With so much money in their pockets, they didn’t dare to go out for a meal. They sent someone to buy some flatbread and took out cold water to eat.

Once they started eating, they regretted their actions. As Yan Fei had said, they should have kept the leftover beef and planned to give some to this family and that family. They sold all the meat, not even leaving a bone behind. Now, there was no talk of giving any away, let alone having some for themselves.

Because they were constantly busy, they didn’t even have time to give Yan Fei a call. Now, with a pocket full of money, when Pang Fa went to buy the flatbread, Old Ou was worried about being suddenly ambushed while sitting in the car and getting robbed. They decided to hold off on any more complications, and observed that the traffic police were almost off duty, and decided to head home later!

Thus, the two of them sat in their truck, pockets full of money, ensuring that the car doors were locked securely on both sides, watching the traffic police not too far off. As soon as the shift of the Traffic Police ended, they drove off towards home.

When Yan Fei and Ma Yongming came back, they saw a group of overly excited individuals, all expressing their astonishment and awe. Most of them were simply marveling at the wealth of the city’s residents and their willingness to spend on food.

It was Ma Yongming who saw things more clearly, "This was the first day, and the meat was inexpensive so a lot of people purchased out of frugality. I reckon next time you will not sell as much."

Once Pang Fa calmed down, he also realized this. He had been hawking beef for a while and could tell that was indeed the case. After all, beef would never sell as regularly as pork. If he had two good sales days, he would expect two poor ones. Most people, even beef lovers, would not eat it every day. Once a week was considered frequent; ten days or more just to eat once was normal.

And that’s just for the people who can afford it and love it, some people in the countryside wouldn’t even eat beef once a year, which was also considered normal.

But regardless, this first day was undoubtedly a good start. All of them had been working without rest since last night and had no free time. Yan Fei gestured, and they all took the night off to drink, rest well, and get ready to continue buying cattle tomorrow. He knew they would be busier with this routine every other day.

Because of the excitement, Yan Fei didn’t say some things.

When the new greenhouse is finished, twenty new greenhouses will certainly need more hands to help. According to the calculation of one person for four greenhouses, five more people are needed. As to how to find people, or who to find, Yan Fei hasn’t thought it over, but one thing is clear - he must find someone who can learn the technology and in the future can take his place in spreading the technology. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to handle everything himself!

But there was also a problem, if there are more people, would it be inconvenient to do certain things in the greenhouse?

While pondering, Heizi led his wife over to propose a toast. This fellow, who had been pretending to be lightly drinking at noon, was now full of enthusiasm. Yan Fei followed through with his toast and drank it. In fact, drinking didn’t really matter much to him now. He had never been drunk, so the feeling of liquor in his stomach was much like water.

When it was Old Gao’s turn to toast, Old Gao, never missing an opportunity to tease Heizi, finished his drink and immediately switched to a tea cup: "Pour it! Whatever you pour, you shall match!"

Heizi, shocked back to clarity from his excitement, filled the cup and then turned to leave: "Forget it, it’s meaningless to drink with an old virgin like you. I won’t bully you anymore, I’ll fill your cup and you can drink at your own pace."

Heizi went on to Pang Fa, Pang Fa grinned, "Heizi, aren’t you saving some energy for tonight?"

Someone murmured from the side, "In any case, they’ll just be sleeping in the bridal chamber, no strenuous activities... "

The crowd immediately burst into laughter...