Phi-Fic Chapter 392 The First Wife Comes to Demand Money
Chapter 392 The First Wife Comes to Demand Money
Pang Duolai shouted, "3800? That's the price she offered. We middlemen only care about buying hides from the mountains, we don't care how much the boss in Hong Kong charges, right?"
He shouted in a strained tone, but Li Ju'an just smiled at him.
Pang Duolai wanted to argue a bit more, but seeing Li Ju'an's confident look, he shut his mouth and remained silent.
He glared at Li Ju'an and said, "To be honest, sometimes I feel like you don't look like a hunter from the mountains, but more like a businessman who travels between the mountains and the countryside."
He traveled all over the country, and the price he paid for the hides was naturally different from the price he paid to the merchants. He was in the business of getting the same price. The hunters who brought the hides up didn't know how much the hides would sell for to the final buyer, so the market price for hides in the mountains was very low. But if they went through foreign trade or sold them in Hong Kong, the middlemen could earn a difference of seven or eight times or more.
That's why Xinganling County attracts so many merchants who travel thousands of miles north to buy hides. Moreover, there are few sellers and many buyers, leading to a supply shortage; they buy as much as they can get. That's the reason.
Seeing that Pang Duo had figured it out, Li Ju'an said, "Qin Shuang's offer of 3800 is actually quite inflated. Snow leopard pelts aren't like large pelts, where you can at least hunt them, but they're scarce. Snow leopards are really hard to come by; they only exist in the Gobi Desert, and even fewer people in the Xing'an Mountains. You might not be able to hunt one even if you book a month or two in advance; it's all about luck. If Qin Shuang wants one, you can negotiate with her; she can even raise the price."
Pang Duolai naturally understood this principle, but he still had some doubts in his heart: "Li Pao, you have to make me some money, right? Otherwise, I'll have to spend all this time and effort and end up losing money."
"Shit!"
Li Ju'an retorted with a single remark, effectively shutting him down. Li Ju'an cursed, "Stop pretending to be innocent. You come here by train, and whatever you buy, you sell it south. You only make a little less profit on my hides, not as much as you used to. It's all a sure-fire business. How can a tanned hide be damaged? Don't pretend to be innocent with me."
Pang Duolai grinned and couldn't sit still any longer. His eyes were fixed on the snow leopard pelt, and his greedy gaze was impossible to hide.
He also knew that tanned hides were valuable. Even if they didn't fetch a good price right now, they would only rise in value over a few years. Some people even hoarded tanned hides, waiting for the price to rise before reselling them. They didn't look at the price; they just looked at how much liquid cash they had and whether they had enough to hoard.
He rubbed his hands together, grinned, and leaned close to Li Ju'an, saying, "Alright, Li Pao, name your price, and I'll take it if it's convenient for you."
"3500 yuan."
"3500? Li Pao, you're really asking for the moon."
"Forget it. I'll take the train south to visit my cousin in a while and deliver it to Boss Qin myself."
"No, no, I'll take it, I'll take it."
Pang Duo earns three to five hundred yuan per trip, and with more than just one hide per trip, the hides he brings back from the north sell well and buyers offer high prices. He can easily earn one or two thousand yuan per trip, and if he makes a few more trips every year, he'll be rolling in money.
Li Ju'an patiently waited for Pang Duo to transfer the money these past few days. Even for a merchant, coming up with so much money at once was quite a challenge. Pang Duo made a trip back to the city, selling off a considerable amount of hides and bear bile he had stockpiled, and then took the money to the Postal Savings Bank to transfer funds to Li Ju'an.
After the transaction was completed, Pang Duolai carefully held the precious snow leopard pelt, beaming with satisfaction. He said, "If you ask me, Boss Qin's wife has a good eye. She's hoarding this pelt as a collectible. In ten or twenty years, when the price has risen, she'll still make a profit."
He smiled at Li Ju'an and said, "Right, Li Pao? These days, Hong Kong bosses, especially those in the auction business, all talk about collecting. They're not collecting money, they're collecting treasures that can be passed down for three generations. If you ask me, Mrs. Qin has a good eye; she understands collecting and knows how to invest."
Li Ju'an chuckled to himself and shook his head inwardly.
He nodded outwardly, but inwardly thought, "Old Pang, if you knew that selling snow leopard skins in later generations could directly earn you a silver bracelet, you wouldn't have said that. It's not just a matter of passing it down through three generations; it's about spending your life in jail selling the skins."
Pang Duolai was still smug and said, "I think I should just stop selling it. It's something that even Hong Kong bosses can't buy with a lot of money. I'll just pass it down to my son. My grandson can show it off and brag about it later."
Li Ju'an suddenly took the snow leopard skin back.
"Hey, Li Pao, what are you doing!"
"I won't sell it."
"No, no! There's no one like you, Li Pao. Alright, alright, I'll take it to Mrs. Qin right away. Honestly, why are you in such a hurry? We were just joking, look at you getting all worked up."
Li Ju'an watched as Pang Duolai took away the snow leopard skin and said to him seriously, "These skins are only being collected for the next two years. After the year after next, sell them all. Don't keep a single one. Go do other business."
Pang Duolai didn't understand at the time. But after he did as Li Ju'an said a few years later, he finally realized that Li Ju'an wasn't turning against him; he was clearly protecting him. But that's another story.
……
These days, Li Changqing frequently asks his family for money.
After Li Changqing and Zhang Yingnian went to the south to do business, they earned more and more money, and their ambitions grew bigger and bigger.
He had a falling out with Zhang Yingnian over the cotton hauling from the west, incurring a huge debt. He lost all the money he had earned in the previous year and even mortgaged his father's tenement building in the county town to the bank for a loan.
The old lady received a collection call from Shanghai Bank and at first she couldn't believe it, thinking it was a scam. Then, when Li Changqing asked his second uncle's eldest son, Li Wei, for money again, the second uncle stormed over to his uncle's house, demanding to know what was going on.
“Our eldest son has already given Li Changqing 340 yuan out of his own pocket. When do you think Changqing will pay it back?”
Zhang Cui, the eldest daughter-in-law of the second master, also cried and held her child, saying, "Won't the youth palace need money in the future? How can you keep borrowing money from people and not paying it back?"
The elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs., were both waiting to retire, but now they still had to clean up their son's mess. They hurriedly tried to calm Mr. Er down, telling him not to worry and that they would ask what was going on.
The old woman dialed the landline number Li Changqing had left, but no one answered; the number had long since changed. She had no choice but to call Lijiatun and ask a villager to have Li Ju'an call back so she could discuss the matter with him.
Sun Hao, the kid, ran over with the message. Standing in front of the Li family's self-built house, he shouted, "Brother Li! Captain Yang wants you to answer the phone! It's the grandpa and grandma calling!"
At this time, Li Ju'an was training eagles in the mountains. He and the Lu brothers would spend a day or two in the mountains, and they couldn't find anyone there.
Sun Hao relayed the message for several days, but the old man couldn't find Li Ju'an anywhere. So he dragged his two old bones into the mountains to personally visit Li Ju'an and inquire about the situation. He also thought that he wanted to come to the dry land to see if Li Ju'an was doing well. If he had money, he might be able to lend a hand to Li Changqing.
The old man had a nagging feeling: "If we come to him like this, will Li Ju'an even bother with us? The land division was such an unpleasant affair back then, and all the dry land went to their three families."
The old woman, with her thick skin, straightened her back and said, "So what? If the third son doesn't get the dry land, are we, the eldest and second sons, supposed to get it? The third son received favors from both of our families back then, so the irrigated land should definitely be left for us. That's right."
The old man still felt guilty, always feeling sorry for the third branch of the family. A widow and her child, they were being bullied and oppressed by the other two branches, and now the third branch was even coming to their door asking for money.
The old woman grabbed the old man's arm and rushed into the mountains, shamelessly shouting, "It's only right that Li Ju'an helps our family! We're all family, why are you being so formal?"