“What? You want this batch of cloth?”
The head of the Sales Department, Liu, stared at the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law pair in front of him with complete disbelief.
He pointed at the piles of fabric stacked like a mountain in the corner of the warehouse—colors chaotic and messy—and looked at them as if they were two fools voluntarily jumping into a trash heap.
“Comrades, I need to make this clear. This batch of cloth… has serious problems.”
Liu was an honest man. He picked up a roll of bright yellow fabric and pointed at a clearly visible black weaving defect running straight across it.
“Look at this defect, and that batch over there has uneven dyeing—light in some places, dark in others. If you turn this into clothes, people will laugh at you!”
“Our factory doesn’t even dare to hand this out to workers as benefits. We’ve been worrying about how to dispose of it. Are you really sure you want it?”
Lin Fen looked at the colorful but obviously defective cloth and began to hesitate.
She cared about appearances, but she wasn’t foolish.
If they bought this home, it really couldn’t be worn.
She tugged at Li Zhihuan’s sleeve and whispered, “Zhihuan, how about… we go check the supply and marketing cooperative instead? This cloth is just too poor in quality.”
But Li Zhihuan seemed not to hear her. Her eyes were shockingly bright as she stepped forward and ran her hand across the “waste” that both Liu and her mother-in-law despised.
Her fingers traced the black weaving flaw, then pinched a piece of unevenly dyed blue fabric, examining it under the light.
In everyone else’s eyes, these were defects—failures.
But in her eyes, a former 21st-century office worker who had seen all kinds of wild modern designs, these were nothing less than natural design elements.
That black weaving flaw—if cut cleverly and placed on sleeves or hems—wasn’t it exactly the future trend of “color-block patchwork”?
And the uneven dyeing—wasn’t that a ready-made gradient “tie-dye style”?
This wasn’t trash. This was treasure waiting to be awakened.
“Director Liu,” Li Zhihuan turned around with a confident smile, “we want all of it. Name your price.”
“All… all of it?”
Both Liu and Lin Fen exclaimed at the same time.
There were at least thousands of feet of fabric here!
“Zhihuan! Are you crazy!” Lin Fen grabbed her anxiously.
“What are you going to do with all this junk? Wei Guo’s salary can’t withstand you wasting it like this!”
“Mom, please trust me this once.”
Li Zhihuan held her mother-in-law’s hand firmly, her gaze steady.
“I guarantee that once these fabrics are in my hands, they’ll become something valuable.”
“But—”
“Director Liu.”
She cut off her mother-in-law’s protest and turned back to Liu.
“We sincerely want to help the factory solve its problem. Please give us a fair price. If it’s reasonable, we’ll take it today.”
Liu looked at her serious expression, then at the anxious mother-in-law beside her, and began to doubt himself.
Was Captain Qi’s wife… mentally sound?
But since there was a willing “foolish buyer” offering money, he had no reason to refuse.
These fabrics were already waste taking up warehouse space—anything he got for them would be profit.
After thinking for a moment, he raised two fingers.
“Two cents per foot. No lower. That’s almost the scrap-collection price already.”
Two cents per foot!
That price made Li Zhihuan’s heart skip a beat.
Ordinary cotton cloth at the supply and marketing cooperative cost thirty to forty cents per foot—and required cloth coupons!
She forced down her excitement and put on a troubled expression, bargaining back and forth for a long while.
In the end, the deal was struck at an astonishing price of “one cent per foot,” plus the condition that it was handling factory waste and required no cloth coupons.
Li Zhihuan paid on the spot and even hired a factory handcart to transport the mountains of “junk cloth” back to the military compound.
When the cart loaded with colorful fabric arrived at the gate of the compound, it immediately caused a sensation.
The afternoon was the time when the military wives gathered to chat in the shade.
Everyone crowded around, pointing at the cart full of garishly colored fabric with obvious defects and gossiping loudly.
“My heavens, has Li Zhihuan gone crazy? Buying so much junk cloth?”
“Look at that red one—it has a white streak like it’s faded. Can that even be made into clothes?”
“How much money did that cost? Captain Qi is really unlucky to have married such a spendthrift woman!”
Lin Fen’s face turned red and pale under everyone’s stares. She wished she could find a hole to crawl into.
How glorious she had been when she left home that morning—now she was utterly humiliated.
At that moment, an unfriendly voice rang out sharply.
“Oh my, Sister Zhihuan, did you strike it rich? Buying so much beautiful fabric.”
Meng Yao appeared from nowhere, walking up to the cart and deliberately picking up a piece of cloth with a surprised expression.
Then she gasped, pointing at the defect.
“Oh no, this cloth is damaged! Sister, did someone trick you? This is all Wei Guo-ge’s hard-earned money from his sweat and blood—how could you treat it so carelessly!”
Her words sounded like concern on the surface, but every sentence was a hidden knife.
Not only did she firmly pin the label of “wasteful woman” on Li Zhihuan, she also placed her in opposition to Qi Weiguo, implying she did not care about her own husband at all.
The surrounding military wives’ murmurs grew louder.
“So it really is like that. Comrade Meng Yao is such a good girl—so considerate.”
“Exactly. Unlike some people who only know how to enjoy life and spend money recklessly.”
“Captain Qi must have been blind…”
Each comment struck like needles into Lin Fen’s heart.
She trembled with anger, just about to explode, when Li Zhihuan stopped her.
Looking at Meng Yao, who was still performing enthusiastically, Li Zhihuan showed no trace of anger. Instead, she smiled.
She stepped forward, picked up a bolt of the most garish, flawed peach-pink fabric from the cart, and held it up in front of Meng Yao for comparison.
“Comrade Meng Yao is right. My taste really isn’t very good.”
She looked at Meng Yao with a bright, smiling expression.
“This fabric suits your temperament perfectly—bright and passionate. When I turn it into a new outfit, I’ll give it to you first. How about that?”
Meng Yao’s face instantly turned green.
Wear clothing made from this garbage? Was this not public humiliation?
Yet Li Zhihuan’s sincere smile made it impossible for her to lash out.
She could only watch helplessly as Li Zhihuan shoved that “useless cloth” into her arms.
“Take it, sister. Don’t be shy. What’s our relationship!”
The surrounding military wives looked at Meng Yao hugging that hideous piece of fabric, wanting to laugh but not daring to, their faces turning red from holding it in.
Meng Yao felt like a clown, being played around by Li Zhihuan.
She couldn’t throw it away, nor could she keep holding it. Her pretty face turned the color of pig liver.
Without paying her any more attention, Li Zhihuan directed the cart driver to unload all the “junk” into her own courtyard.
Standing in front of the pile of colorful fabrics, under the gazes of ridicule, sympathy, and schadenfreude from the entire compound, she still wore that mysterious and confident smile.
She said softly to her still-seething mother-in-law, Lin Fen:
“Mom, don’t rush. Just wait and see.”