Chapter 104: If You Buy, Buy a Hundred Tons

“Oranges from Five-Star Township aren’t selling well again this year, are they?”
Chen Huajiang paid no mind to her provocative tone, smiling as he asked.
Yet, to Zhao Hongmei, his words stung worse than any insult.
There’s an old saying: never expose someone’s weakness when insulting them, and for Five-Star Township, oranges were exactly that weakness.
The township was mostly mountainous, making farming inherently unsuitable—costs were high and large-scale mechanized cultivation impossible. Only a few terraced fields relied on human labor and water buffaloes.
So, in previous years, Five-Star Township had vigorously promoted the cultivation of orange trees, with impressive results and abundant harvests.
But these days, fruit is hard to sell. Even in later generations, with advanced logistics and transportation, fruit often went unsold and growers needed help. Let alone now.
“It’s none of your business!”
Zhao Hongmei’s eyes reddened instantly, her words biting as she gripped her carrying pole tightly, veins throbbing on her forehead.
“Kid, don’t think you can swagger around here just because you canceled your membership fee!”
“What are you so smug about? If you mock our oranges again, I’ll smash your head!”
“Who do you think you are, just another rotten capitalist! Sooner or later, you’ll get what’s coming to you!”
The villagers’ faces were filled with anger as they glared at Chen Huajiang, cursing. The hot-tempered ones even approached him, wielding tools.
This made Black Tiger and his men rush forward, standing behind Chen Huajiang to support him.
“Everyone, calm down.”
“Captain Zhao, why are you so quick to anger? I was actually planning to discuss some business with you.”
“If these oranges aren’t selling, I intend to buy some to make juice.”
Chen Huajiang waved his hand, signaling Black Tiger and the others that everything was fine, then addressed Zhao Hongmei.
The idea had just come to him. Five-Star Township produced a huge quantity of oranges, and every year, some growers would sell them on the street.
Even in later generations, this problem couldn’t be entirely eradicated. At present, consumption levels weren’t high enough to absorb the yield; in later years, the yield was simply too great, and Five-Star Township oranges faced competition from oranges nationwide, so there were always some left unsold.
“Your restaurant?”
“How many oranges can you buy? At most, a hundred pounds.”
“Go on, go on. I thought you had something serious to say, but you’re just full of yourself.”
The team members sneered, partly because they already disliked Chen Huajiang, and partly because they thought he couldn’t possibly buy much, so there was no reason to indulge him.
“How much can you take?”

Zhao Hongmei hesitated for a moment, but the annoyance on her face faded as she looked at Chen Huajiang.
He raised a finger.
“One hundred pounds?” Zhao Hongmei scoffed, then added disdainfully, “Fine, a hundred pounds. Come to Five-Star Township yourself, three cents a pound, no haggling.”
She turned to leave, thinking a hundred pounds was barely a drop in the bucket.
“One hundred tons,” Chen Huajiang said with a smile.
Immediately, Zhao Hongmei and her team stopped in their tracks, turning to stare at him in astonishment.
Black Tiger and his men were equally bewildered.
A ton was a thousand kilograms, a hundred tons was a hundred thousand kilograms—they could all do the math.
“Brother Chen, did you misspeak? One hundred tons? A ton isn’t a pound, you know—one ton is a thousand kilograms, or two thousand pounds.”
“Exactly, Boss Chen. Two thousand pounds of oranges would feed us for a month.”
“One hundred tons would fill our entire shop—we couldn’t even fit them all.”
Black Tiger grabbed Chen Huajiang’s arm, speaking in a low voice, thinking his “math” was off and he didn’t understand how much a hundred tons really was.
His men chattered, eager to teach Chen Huajiang some arithmetic.
Meanwhile, Zhao Hongmei and her squad eyed him with amusement, convinced he must be confused about the numbers.
“Boss Chen, are you sure you want a hundred tons?”
Zhao Hongmei laughed, looking at Chen Huajiang as though he were insane, glancing at his shop behind him.
In her mind, there was a fifty percent chance he was simply bad at math, and another fifty percent chance he was just showing off.
A hundred tons—aside from the city’s canning factories and a few successful enterprises, she’d never seen a single private business owner take that much.
“Of course,” Chen Huajiang nodded with certainty.
“In that case, since you’re buying in bulk, we’ll give you a better price. Two cents a pound, and I guarantee you’ll get only large, quality fruit—no bad or undersized oranges.”
“But the accounts must be clear: a hundred tons means two hundred thousand pounds, totaling four thousand yuan.”
Zhao Hongmei announced proudly, arms crossed and chin lifted.
She believed the figure of four thousand yuan would shock him, forcing him to back out.
Then she could mock him, belittle him, and have the last laugh.
“Fine, but you’ll need to deliver them to my door.”

“I’ll pay half up front—two thousand yuan as the initial payment. When the oranges arrive and are confirmed as large, quality fruit, I’ll pay the remaining balance.”
Chen Huajiang nodded, smiling.
He wasn’t an idiot. Even Black Tiger and his men understood the conversion between tons and pounds—how could he not?
What a joke.
“Really?”
Zhao Hongmei was dumbfounded, never expecting Chen Huajiang would actually buy a hundred tons.
“Do I look like someone who’d lie about something like this?” Chen Huajiang rolled his eyes.
Now Zhao Hongmei felt a bit awkward.
Her team members were abuzz, chattering excitedly.
Though a hundred tons was nothing compared to Five-Star Township’s total orange output—last year alone, they produced eleven thousand tons—
But that was the entire township: one hundred and thirty thousand villagers and over a hundred production teams.
If they secured this hundred-ton deal, their Third Major Production Team could sell almost all their oranges, maybe even source some from other teams.
For them, growing orange trees was always the easy part. The real headache came every harvest: how to sell the oranges.
“All right, but how can you guarantee you aren’t tricking us? The harvest is still two months away.”
Zhao Hongmei nodded, then looked at Chen Huajiang with suspicion.
She still couldn’t quite believe he could handle a hundred tons, or that he had that much money.
“No problem. I’ll pay you a deposit of two hundred yuan. Surely I wouldn’t waste two hundred yuan just to prank you—I’m not burning money.”
Chen Huajiang smiled.
This finally set Zhao Hongmei at ease, and she nodded.
Two hundred yuan was no small sum. Even if Chen Huajiang ended up fooling them, it wouldn’t matter to the Third Production Team—they’d just go back to finding buyers as usual.
And so, both sides returned to the shop, drew up a provisional purchase contract, signed and fingerprinted it, and Chen Huajiang handed Zhao Hongmei the two hundred yuan deposit.
When they left, the atmosphere between them had become extraordinarily amicable.