Chapter 107 Mountains and Rivers

  It was very late when Du Huajia sent Ning Qingmian back home. Ning Qingmian knew that tonight was a victory, and Du Huajia had successfully confirmed to their friends and family that she was his girlfriend. Now all they needed was the recognition of Du Huajia's parents, and as long as they didn't object, their love should be able to triumph. As for her own grandmother and mother, Ning Qingmian wasn't too worried - they were now in contact with many people, and over time, they would naturally see whether Du Huajia was a good match or not.

  The car drove to the downstairs of the residential area, Du Hu's family leaned over, gently kissed Ning Qing on the forehead and said in a low voice: "Really can't bear to let you go home!"

  "I don't want to part with you either!" Ning Qing's face turned red as she smiled sweetly, opened the car door, thought for a moment, then turned back and threw herself into Du Huo's arms, giving him a fierce kiss on the lips before thinking of jumping out of the car.

  Du Hua grabbed her hand and said in a low voice: "You didn't ask for my consent, but you kissed me. This sudden attack is not allowed!"

  "What do you want to do?" Ning Qingming's eyes met Du Hujia's deep black eyes, and she somewhat understood what Du Hujia wanted to do. However, her mouth said coquettishly: "You didn't ask for my consent when you kissed me either!"

  "Oh, didn't I ask?" Du Huajia said, embracing Ning Qingmian and kissing her lips, rolling over, his fiery tongue probing into her mouth, unable to stop.

  "No, no! This is a residential area, if someone sees us it won't be good!" Ning Qingming was half-pressed under the car seat by Du Hujia, sweetly dying, but afraid of being seen, she ruthlessly pushed away Du Hujia, "It's late, my mom might be waiting at the door, I have to go up!"

  Du Hu's family reluctantly let her go, watching as she opened the big door and went in, before driving away.

  After the National Day, Li Zili invited Ning Qingming to the factory to discuss some matters. Ning Qingming took the opportunity to ask Li Zili to buy more machines and expand the production line.

  Li Zili has invested a lot of heart and soul in the factory, and has always been meticulous in managing it. The quality of the products is also guaranteed. Ning Qingmin has been cooperating with him for some time and has been very satisfied, so he also wants to invest more money to expand the scale. Who knew that Li Zili listened to Ning Qingmin's suggestion and smiled, saying: "Little Ning, I'm already over 60 years old, if I were a member of the working class, it would be almost time for retirement. To be honest, at my age, there are no grand ambitions left, as long as the factory can maintain normal operation in all aspects, I am content. Moreover, my son and daughter are both abroad, so naturally, I will go to join them when the time comes, so expanding the scale is meaningless to me."

  Ning Qingmin was startled and exclaimed: "Director Li, you're going abroad to be with your son and daughter, what about this factory?"

  "So, I have to tell you first. When the time comes, if you want to withdraw your investment shares, that's fine. If you're interested in this factory, I can also transfer it to you. There are still a few years left, and you can think of ways to deal with the funding slowly. But I myself won't take out money to buy machines anymore." Li Zili said slowly: "Now, one less thing is better than one more thing for me!"

  Ning Qingmin was stunned for a moment, thinking that in the next few years, Li Zili would not only fail to expand the scale of the factory but might even gradually shrink its business scope, only taking on guaranteed orders and avoiding risky ones. This would result in the factory earning much less money and being unable to compete with other factories. When Ning Qingmin initially invested his own money, the contract stated that he could withdraw his investment at any time within five years after one year had passed. However, after careful consideration, Ning felt that although Li Zili's business approach was somewhat conservative, the factory's personnel and operational model were very stable, making it a decent choice among similar factories. Therefore, Ning did not plan to withdraw his funds and instead wanted to collaborate in the long term. But now, with Li Zili harboring emigration plans and unwilling to expand the factory's scale, Ning's secretly planned development strategy had temporarily fallen through.

  Li Zili saw Ning Qingming hesitating and patted him on the shoulder, saying: "Little Ning, although this factory is small in scale, it's currently very stable. Suddenly expanding to a large scale actually has risks too. With oil prices skyrocketing, clothing costs and labor costs are also rising. Recently, several business districts have opened new clothing wholesale markets, and merchants are increasing rapidly. To get orders, merchants are fiercely competing on price, repeatedly lowering clothing prices, which in turn puts pressure on factory prices. It's really a lose-lose situation. In this case, expanding the scale is not wise." Li Zili has been running the factory for over a decade and has a lot of experience. Some of his words made sense, so Ning Qingming had to give up his idea of expanding the factory. Since it was impossible to expand the factory for now, he could only focus on making his own brand famous first.

  "Xiao Ning, I've sent a few winter clothing samples to Chaozhou Embroidery Factory for embroidery, and they've been returned with the embroidery done. Do you want to take a look? Li Zili stood up, "I don't agree with expanding the scale, but if we can invite some embroidery workers to come to our factory, do the embroidery work ourselves, and not have to send them to Chaozhou every time, I'm in favor of it."

  Ning Qingmin had mentioned this matter of inviting pearl embroidery workers to Li Zili before, but it was delayed because it was difficult to invite skilled pearl embroidery workers.

  The bead embroidery in Chaozhou is not bad, but after making good products here and transporting them to Chaozhou for beading, the back-and-forth process wastes time and increases transportation costs. In the current situation of intensifying competition, this is very unfavorable for shipping goods.

  "Director Li, the Chaozhou side has an obvious advantage in complex craftsmanship for pearl embroidery products, and the quality is also extremely guaranteed. For more complicated and time-consuming pearl embroidery, it's still better to have it done in Chaozhou. As for simpler pearl embroidery patterns, we can hire workers to do them ourselves, which saves labor and cost, making it a more economical option.

  Moreover, the pearl embroidery workers on the Chaozhou side, whether they are working on complex or simple patterns, need to first disassemble the garment's seams, fix the garment on an embroidery frame, and then perform the embroidery. After completing the pattern, they need to re-sew the garment's edges, which adds an extra step of labor and increases the labor cost.

  Here, some pearl embroidery factories have already started working on simple patterns without disassembling the garments. Instead, they let the workers hold the garments in their hands for direct embroidery, which saves time and reduces costs. We can try to have some simple patterns made by these local pearl embroidery factories. If we find suitable pearl embroidery masters, we can also invite them to our factory to create samples. For large quantities of goods, we can then let the local pearl embroidery factories handle them. They usually have their own vehicles for pickup and delivery, which would save us transportation costs."

  Li Zili nodded and said, "For some simple crafts, it's true that they have to be done here in order not to lose money. The several orders we received recently had very low prices, if we were to transport them all to Chaozhou for pearl inlaying, there would definitely be no profit."

  Ning Qingmin said to Li Zili, walking over to the edge of the embroidery frame to take a look at the already completed sample. Nodding in satisfaction, "Not bad, the pearl embroidery masters from Chaozhou still have an eye for aesthetics. This 'Mountain and Water' pearl pattern is exactly what it should be - with this color combination, it's beautiful. It looks just like a landscape painting."

  "For such a complex pattern, it must be sent to Chaozhou for beadwork. Just the color matching has over a dozen varieties, with intricate branches and leaves in red and green. Even if we were to fix the seams on an embroidery frame, it would still be impossible to create this pattern. And even if we managed to make it, I'm afraid it wouldn't be exquisite." Li Zili looked at the sample's pattern and smiled: "Although the pattern is complex, using matte beads doesn't make it dazzling, but rather gives it a sense of being an art piece. Nowadays some foreign merchants like our domestically-made, purely handmade, and exquisite clothing."

  "Yes, so this sample is pushed out, and the order will definitely not be less." Ning Qingmin saw that the sample was beautiful and was also very happy. He was discussing with Li Zili about launching a series of "Mountain Water" products. The phone rang, and it was Du Hua's number. Ning Qingmin quickly walked to the corner to answer it. When talking to Du Hua on the phone, he always unconsciously used a coquettish tone. If Li Zili heard it, he would definitely make fun of him, so it's better to avoid it.

  "Xiao Min, didn't you say you wanted to learn how to swim last time? It just so happens that I'm free this afternoon, want me to take you to learn?" Du Hujia smiled lightly: "But today is Saturday, do you have time?"

  "Yes!" Ning Qing's extremely quick response, after saying it she felt a bit regretful, herself couldn't learn to be reserved even a little bit, in vain Zhou Ling had taught her many experiences, for example saying that one can't be too indulgent with the other party, and must occasionally learn to tease them a bit, but as soon as she heard Du Huo's voice, these teachings were thrown away without a trace.

  "Where are you? I'll go pick you up!" Du Huajun's voice was relaxed. "I'm your private driver now!"

  Ning Qing smiled sweetly and said in a soft voice, "I'm at the Li Zili factory. Oh, where are you going to learn swimming?"

  "Our private club." Du's mother said with a smile: "We have a private swimming pool in the club, exclusively for the Du family. You can come with me, and even if you don't know how to swim, no one will laugh at you."

  Ning Qing heard the private club, and immediately thought of Du Hua sitting by the large swimming pool in a swimsuit, looking stunning.

  Good heavens, what's wrong with me? Lately I've been having such lustful tendencies, and whenever I think of Du Hua's family, I start imagining all sorts of romantic scenarios. Ning Qing was so mortified by her own impure thoughts that she turned bright red from head to toe.

  "Xiao Ning, what's wrong?" Li Zili saw Ning Qingmian speaking in a low voice on the phone from the other side, suddenly blushing and looking puzzled, wondering if she was arguing with someone on the phone?

  "It's nothing, it's nothing!" Ning Qingming put away the thread and said with a covering tone: "I'll go have a cup of tea, this weather is still a bit hot."

  The weather outside is a bit hot, but the air conditioner in the factory is on, so why are you still flushed? Li Zili was puzzled and smiled. Nowadays young people are really hard to understand!