My hometown is far away in Moscow.

Chapter 179 Cut in half

"There's an extra debt to collect." Sun Shoutian waved to him, "Let's go."

Hu Yi agreed and jogged a few steps to catch up with him. Sun Shoutian handed him a slip of paper: "This is the address. I've never been there and can't understand it, but you should recognize it, right?"

"Oh, it should be in the Black Hair District." Hu Yi frowned, examined it for a moment, and nodded. "I don't know where this stall is either. Let's go look for it."

The Black Hair Zone is a sales area located on the other side of the Old Sun Zone. In the past, many merchants from the former Soviet Union set up stalls there. Presumably because most of them were Caucasians with black hair, Chinese merchants were accustomed to calling it the "Black Hair Zone".

The stalls in the Black Hair area mainly engage in the wholesale and retail of various goods, and there is a relatively large flow of people. Each stall's boxes are piled high with all sorts of things, making the roads appear dirty, messy, and cramped. The overall environment is somewhat worse than that of the Sun area.

Hu Yi led Sun Shoutian through rows and rows of shipping containers until they found the stall listed on the address. A short, stocky, middle-aged foreign man was sitting in a rocking chair inside a box, gently swaying his body with his eyes slightly closed while leisurely exhaling smoke rings.

"Friend!" Sun Shoutian stepped into the box. "Hi, hello."

"Ah, it's you, my friend!" The sturdy man steadied himself in his chair, stood up, and opened his arms. "How have you been lately? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Hehe, yes, yes." Sun Shoutian gave a nonsensical reply, then gestured with his hand as if counting money: "Money, money."

"Oh, right, the payment." The sturdy man smiled kindly. "So please tell me, how much money do you intend to ask for?"

Sun Shoutian was taken aback, then turned to Hu Yi behind him and asked, "What did he say?"

"He asked you how much you wanted." Hu Yi was also somewhat vague: "What, didn't you two agree on a price beforehand?"

"It's settled!" Sun Shoutian blinked. "Three hundred and twenty thousand. I don't know how to say it, you tell him."

"Three hundred and twenty thousand rubles." Hu Yi stepped forward, slightly raising his chin at the man. "Don't you remember?"

"Hey, hello there, friend, nice to meet you." The stocky man seemed to have just noticed him and extended his right hand in a friendly manner.

"Hello." Hu Yi was a little annoyed by his feigned ignorance earlier and didn't want to get any closer, so he just shook hands with him briefly: "Can I pay now?"

"No, I'm very sorry." The man shook his head. "Please tell him that 320,000 is too much and needs to be reduced."

"Reduce it a bit?" Hu Yi had been collecting payments in the market for quite some time, and usually customers would discuss prices when buying the goods, rarely haggling over the price at the time of payment. However, he didn't know the details of this transaction, so he simply relayed the information to Sun Shoutian: "He said he wanted you to lower the price."

Sun Shoutian hesitated for a moment: "Lower the price? How much is he planning to offer?"

How much are you giving?

"Sixteen thousand." The man smiled and spread his hands. "That's all I can give."

"What did you say?!" Hu Yiwan was completely taken aback that someone would actually try to haggle over the price, and he immediately flew into a rage: "What's wrong with you?! Are you out of your mind?! The price is 320,000 rubles! You want to pay only half?! Let me remind you, April Fool's Day was yesterday, don't treat me like an idiot!"

"Hey friend, calm down, don't get agitated." The man maintained a friendly smile. "Your stuff is too outdated, it's already past its prime. Nobody wants to buy it in the market, and I'll have a hard time getting a good price for it, understand?"

"Outdated?" Hu Yi was stunned for a moment, then turned to ask Sun Shoutian for instructions: "He said the style is too old and won't sell well, so he can only offer 160,000."

Sun Shoutian frowned and gasped, "Sixteen thousand? You're just asking for half?"

"Yeah, that kid's really dishonest." Hu Yi looked at him and tentatively asked, "What kind of goods did you sell him?"

"What else could it be? It's our pants, of course!"

"Our pants?!" Hu Yi's mind went blank, and he blurted out, "How are our pants outdated? Plenty of people are willing to buy them, why should we sell them to them at a discount?"

"Sigh, these are different from the goods you usually deal with. I'll tell you later." Sun Shoutian pondered for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Hey, tell him the price is negotiable. But we still have some of these in stock. If he's willing to take them, then we'll give him 160,000."

"Sixteen thousand? That's too cheap for him." Hu Yi couldn't comment on Sun Shoutian's decision, but he was still very unhappy, so he took it upon himself to hold up two fingers to the sturdy man: "Two hundred thousand rubles, that's already a very low price."

"Impossible." The other person chuckled, as if they'd heard a funny joke. "Do you expect me to do all this for free?"

"Alright then." Hu Yi was somewhat confused about the current situation, and reluctantly agreed, "180,000, that's the lowest I can go."

"My dear friend, you don't understand." The man sighed, "Your goods are really hard to sell. I'm already being very fair by offering 160,000."

"Difficult to sell? Didn't you sell them all?" Hu Yi stared into his eyes. "You must still be able to make money, right?"

"Of course, but I don't earn much."

"The bigger the volume, the more we can earn," Hu Yi said with a smirk. "You pay 180,000 this time, and we'll supply you another batch later, how about that?"

"Well..." The man rolled his eyes, then pouted helplessly, "Alright! We'll do as you say and send another batch over later."

"Deal!" Hu Yi shook hands with him excitedly, then turned to Sun Shoutian and gestured with his chin: "It's settled, 180,000, you can take the money."

"180,000? Okay, you've got some skills, young man." Sun Shoutian was very satisfied, counted the money, and turned to leave the box.

Hu Yi followed him for a few steps and couldn't help but ask, "Brother Sun, how many packages of goods did you give him?"

"Eight packs."

"Eight packs?! He only wants to give 160,000 for eight packs? That's only 20,000 per pack?" Hu Yi was utterly bewildered. "Our goods usually sell for 50,000 to 60,000 rubles, this is a bit... a bit too cheap, isn't it?"

"Sigh, what can we do? I originally wanted to sell it for a higher price. The initial offer was 320,000, which is 40,000 per pack." Sun Shoutian sighed dejectedly, "But these are surplus stock, so we don't have control over the pricing."

"Overstocked goods?"

"Yes, these are all outdated styles that couldn't be sold in the early stages, so we have to sell them at a discount."

Regarding the issue of overstocked goods, Hu Yi had occasionally heard Fu Jiahui mention it briefly before. Clothing retail mainly sells seasonal styles, wholesalers need to stay ahead of retail, while market owners must start preparing for the next season well in advance, and manufacturers need to constantly collect information to predict fashion trends in advance, which is basically guessing which styles will sell well.

Since it's about "guessing" styles, all those seemingly lofty success factors like keen business acumen and exceptional management skills become less important. Trends often arise without reason; in fact, luck plays the most obvious role in the outcome.

There are countless factors that determine whether clothing is popular. Sometimes a garment that was originally selling lukewarmly can suddenly become a wildly popular, in-demand, and sold-out bestseller after someone takes it and makes some minor alterations—such as adding a button, changing the color scheme, or even just adjusting the direction of the pocket openings. The original style suddenly stops selling, which is both incomprehensible and frustrating.

Given the unpredictable psychology of mass consumption, guessing the style correctly is a low-probability event. This is especially true for women's clothing and summer wear, where you not only have to guess the style but also the color. And even if you guess correctly for a while, it's hard to guarantee how long the current fashion trend will last.

However, it doesn't matter if you guess wrong. For wealthy owners and manufacturers, as long as they can adjust in time and keep up with the trend, they can still make money. It's just that other styles that don't sell well will inevitably become stockpiled goods.

"Should we get rid of all the stockpiled goods? Should we talk to Jia Hui about it?" Hu Yi asked cautiously. He knew that the Fu family had a lot of stockpiled goods in the market's warehouse, but Fu Jia Hui didn't seem to care much about it and had never mentioned getting rid of them.

"Jia Hui isn't interested in doing these things. I've mentioned it twice before, but he's unwilling to lower the price too much and is too lazy to bother with it." Sun Shoutian shook his head helplessly: "Look, we're about to start making spring and summer clothes, and the unsold winter clothes in the boxes will have to go into the warehouse. But the warehouse is almost full now, so I consulted with my family a few days ago before starting to clear out the existing stock."

"Oh, I see." Hu Yi breathed a sigh of relief, then asked curiously, "Brother Sun, how did you get in touch with this buyer? This is quite unexpected."

"Did you think I spend all my time playing games in internet cafes and don't care about anything else?" Sun Shoutian feigned a profound seriousness, his expression turning serious. "Actually, many old-timers in the market like to hang out in internet cafes. I found buyers through one of them; otherwise, how could I have handled so much stock at once?"

"Oh! I didn't expect that, I really didn't expect that." Hu Yi felt a surge of respect for him. "You rarely go into the box, I really thought you just played games in the internet cafe. I didn't expect you to have business matters on your mind, without neglecting them at all."

"Look at what you're saying. What did I come to Moscow for? Was it just for fun? It's just that some things... need to be done according to the circumstances and go with the flow." Sun Shoutian glanced at him intentionally or unintentionally: "Hu Yi, I know you and Jia Hui are close, but I still have a few words I want to say to you."

"Please speak, I'm listening!"

"I'm asking you, are you here to work for Fu Jiahui or for Meng Xuanna?"

"Huh? I..." Hu Yi had never considered Fu Jiahui and Meng Xuanna separately before, and was momentarily speechless, stammering, "Who am I working for? Jiahui hired me in the first place, but if I work for him, isn't that the same as working for Meng Xuanna? Is there... is there a difference?"

(End of this chapter)