Food Intelligence King

Chapter 122 Scavenging for Bargain Shop Equipment: This Time the Intelligence is All Second-hand

Just then, around 10 a.m., before Chen Zhou could go over, Old Meng from the tobacco and liquor store next door came in to buy breakfast.

Chen Zhou then talked to him about the second-hand, nearly new freezer.

I was originally planning to arrange the sources of intelligence.

But Lao Meng wasn't really concerned about where Chen Zhou got the information from. Instead, he was very glad that he had come over this morning.

"Thank goodness your sister-in-law didn't hear, otherwise I would have had to buy another one, my shop is almost full."

Sister Meng is a refrigerator and freezer collector.

Meng Da himself wasn't particularly keen on finding bargains, so he missed out on this nearly new beverage display case.

As Chen Zhou and he were talking, Lao Meng's wife pushed open the door and came in.

Liu Jinyan greeted Aunt Zheng, her junior colleague in the kitchen, with a smile.

Then she asked the two men, "What are you two saying? Are you afraid I'll hear you? What are you adding?"

Chen Zhou: "Electric fan."

Meng Da: "Air conditioning."

Hearing the two contradictory answers, Liu Jinyan sensed something was amiss and asked earnestly, "What is it?"

Chen Zhou wanted to make amends for Lao Meng, but unexpectedly, the two of them blurted out different things.

He glanced at Old Meng.

Meng Da understood immediately and gave Chen Zhou a grateful look.

He took responsibility and explained it to his wife:

"We're talking about the cooling principle of this freezer, whether it's like an air conditioner or a fan."

"What is all this nonsense?" Liu Jinyan said with disdain.

He then gave the two a brief explanation: "Freezers are divided into direct cooling and air cooling. Simply put, direct cooling uses only one copper pipe, while air cooling is more effective and prevents frost buildup."

Sister Liu seemed to know a lot about this. Chen Zhou took this opportunity to casually inquire:

"I've also heard there's a cold wind; is that something new?"

"It's a lie, it's just like direct cooling plus a fan. Hey, you guys were just discussing buying a freezer?" Liu Jinyan basically understood.

She did want to buy a separate beverage cabinet because the brand had placement requirements for the free beverage cabinets, and many smaller brands didn't have a place to put them.

Seeing that he couldn't hide it any longer, Lao Meng took the initiative to explain what Chen Zhou had just said about forming a group to pick up cheap refrigerators.

Liu Jinyan was indeed very interested.

She also ignored Chen Zhou's source of information and did not pursue the matter further regarding the two's concealment.

"Oh, why didn't you say so earlier? It's Tuanyuanfu Supermarket, not far away!"

He immediately wanted to take the two of them to see it.

"Brother Chen, you still have business to attend to," Old Meng quickly stopped his wife.

“Yes,” Chen Zhou nodded and smiled, “We can make it this afternoon too.”

As long as it's before tonight.

So the three of them agreed to go to Tuanyuanfu Supermarket in the afternoon.

After finishing their meal at the restaurant, Lao Meng asked his wife, "Why didn't you stay home and rest today? You came over this morning."

Liu Jinyan replied, "We'd rather order takeout than eat steamed buns here."

"Nothing wrong."

Around 2 PM, Chen Zhou and the Meng couple went to the Tuanyuanfu Supermarket in Guangming District.

Although he provided the information.

But it was Sister Meng who led the way.

Once inside the supermarket, she inquired about the location of the logistics department and led the two of them straight in.

The rest of the process went smoothly.

The three of them met with the manager to inquire about prices and inspect the refrigerator.

The logistics manager said that if they had arrived a day later, they would have had to dispose of the refrigerator.

"We're pretty lucky then." Old Meng offered her a cigarette. "Yeah, thanks. This refrigerator is imported; it cost four or five thousand yuan to buy."

Seeing her husband smoking and chatting with the other person, Liu Jinyan carefully inspected the two beverage cabinets inside and out, checking all the parameters.

She whispered to Chen Zhou, "This beverage cabinet is really reasonably priced at eight hundred yuan. The market price is probably two or three thousand. Let's take it back today."

Chen Zhou lowered his voice: "That's what I think too."

The supermarket had shopping carts, and several deliverymen took them to the back exit, but they did not offer home delivery service.

Old Meng helped find a double cab to transport the goods back to Sunshine City residential area.

Chen Zhou originally planned to split the shipping costs with the couple.

But Lao Meng said that without Chen Zhou, they wouldn't have gotten this benefit, and refused to take it no matter what.

Chen Zhou will have no choice but to source his goods from his family from now on.

The two families helped each other set up their new equipment, and Chen Zhou ended up with some extra labels.

What it says is a promotional slogan like "Every snowflake is wandering the ends of the earth".

The label is sticky but not magnetic, so I don't know if it counts as a refrigerator magnet.

Chen Zhou thought to himself: I'll take it back and let my wife take a look. Let's see what it's like and stick it on.

That evening, after dinner, Chen Zhou showed Ms. Lin the refrigerator magnets.

"Here's a small gift for you."

Ms. Lin frowned slightly; she didn't like drinking.

Seeing that his wife didn't understand, Chen Zhou could only remind her, "Can't these be used as refrigerator magnets? They'd be fine too."

"Hmm," Ms. Lin said after a moment of silence, "that is indeed very good."

Chen Taotao wouldn't miss any opportunity to join in the fun. She went up to her parents and said, "Dad, I want one too."

Chen Zhou grabbed a label:
"Come on, Dad will stick it on your forehead."

"No!" The little guy quickly hid behind his mother, peeking out half of his forehead, but was still slapped by his father.

She ran to the living room mirror and looked at herself. "Dad, are you kidding me!"

Chen Zhou laughed and said, "Alright, I won't tease you this time. Let's see where you can run now."

Ms. Lin took out scissors and stayed in the kitchen to do some crafts. She still stuck the message "Every snowflake is wandering the world" on the refrigerator.

Now that I have a home, I don't need to wander the world anymore.

The house is a bit small, so Chen Taotao needs to run around outdoors.

While taking their child for a walk in the community square, Chen Zhou's family ran into Aunt Zheng. The two families live in the same community and often bump into each other.

Although Zheng Xiufang knew she might not be able to help much, she was quite concerned about the big and small things in the store—her colleague Xiao Ni'er's personal feelings, the boss's cooking skills, and so on.

After exchanging greetings, she casually inquired about the installation of refrigerated display cases in the store.

"Boss, have you bought that refrigerator yet?"

"It's already in the store."

Aunt Zheng strongly agrees with the boss's philosophy of being thrifty and hardworking: This couple is really good at managing a household.

Her own daughter-in-law, Zihan's mother, is somewhat extravagant.

She smiled and said to Chen Zhou:

"Second-hand items are cheaper; buying new ones is too expensive."

That makes sense, but Chen Zhou felt that Aunt Zheng's words contained a bit of social etiquette.

He recalled the "street gossip" from this intelligence report and said to Aunt Zheng:

"Now that you mention it, I'm actually planning to go check out the secondhand market tomorrow."

"Yes, seeing is believing." Aunt Zheng uses a not-so-good phone, but she's pretty good at watching videos. "I've seen ads on several phones, things like 'spinning' and 'recycling,' but I don't know if they're any good."

Chen Zhou smiled and thought to himself:

I wonder what Aunt Zheng's double rolling pin technique is, and whether it works or not.

(End of this chapter)