A small plot of land in a mountain village

"Big Beard, you come out here."

Big Beard now acts as the head of security in the market, patrolling the market every day, but mostly he's looking for unlucky extortion targets.

With his feet propped up on the desk and his eyes half-closed, the man with the large beard suddenly heard a sound coming from upstairs.

He opened his eyes to find his glamorous woman standing before him. "Baby, what are you doing? Didn't I feed you enough this morning?"

He stood up and wrapped his arms around the voluptuous woman's waist.

"Stop it, you're just asking for trouble."

The bearded man kissed the glamorous woman on the cheek. "What's up? You're usually putting on makeup at this time, aren't you?" He was still a little surprised that his woman had come downstairs so early this morning; it was quite unusual.

The alluring woman loosened her slender hands, revealing bright red cherries in her palms.

"Why are you taking cherries out of the blue?"

He grabbed one and popped it into the bearded man's mouth. "Huh, this cherry smells good?"

These words earned him a glare from the glamorous woman. "Idiot, you only realize now? I was just asking you where these cherries came from."

He sat down in a chair with the glamorous woman in his arms. "This was just a gift from an old friend. Oh, I have something to do."

He poked the bearded man's head with his finger. "You still have no brains. These fragrant cherries, is this the first time you've ever seen them? Just think about the price if you gave them away or sold them..."

The bearded man hadn't considered that. His woman usually loved giving him advice, so he laughed and said, "That's a good idea, but that person is my friend, so..."

"You know, it's better to be a friend. It's best to bring back more goods, then resell them and you can just wander around inside all day. That's a quick way to make money."

"I'll go out and take a look. When I ran into them just now, they were still preparing to open for business." He recounted what he had just seen.

"Then you'd better hurry up and go! If you run into someone with good taste, they can make a fortune in one go, and we can't compete with that." He whispered in the bearded man's ear.

The bearded man who had just left came over in a hurry with his underlings.

"I'll take this one." A faint voice came from the crowd.

Business is coming in, and Zhang Niu is overjoyed.

I thought it was a middleman, but who knew that a brightly dressed girl would come in.

The stunning girl before him made the fat man beside him quickly put on his tinted glasses and start scanning her. "This chick's hot," he thought, "if only she were my mistress," his mind filled with lewd thoughts.

Zhang Niu immediately snapped out of his daze and asked with a smile, "I wonder how many baskets of cherries this boss plans to order?"

The glamorous girl smiled and said, "It's better not to use the 'boss' term. I work at a beauty salon. I was just passing by and heard the aroma of these cherries. I was quite surprised and decided to buy some to try."

When everyone heard that it was a beauty salon, they knew that everyone there was rich and didn't care about the money.

"Give me a hundred baskets, I'll buy them and try them out." The words escaped her cherry-like lips.

Wow! I didn't expect him to order a hundred baskets right off the bat. He's really rich. Zhang Niu was extremely excited and said with a smile, "Okay, I wonder if you've found any delivery workers yet."

"Don't worry about that, you just need to count out the goods."

Zhang Niu didn't ask any further questions, took the money, and counted out one hundred plastic crates of cherries. Immediately, market porters began loading the crates of cherries onto their trucks.

The glamorous woman opened a basket while loading the goods, and a fleeting look of surprise flashed across her face.

With someone taking the lead in buying, the surrounding vendors are all planning to buy some to take home, so they shouldn't lose money.

The glamorous woman, now seated in the car, glanced at Cherry behind her and chuckled. "My older sister will be so happy to go back this time," she thought.

People around were buying baskets of cherries one after another, and then the bearded man arrived. Seeing so many people busy packing cherries, he hoped that more cherries could be saved!

The fat man had nothing to do; the workers were there to unload the goods. He smoked a cigarette. Looking up, he saw a bearded man approaching from afar. Why had this guy come back again?

"Big Beard, what's gotten into you? You rushed back again. Are you trying to steal my business?" he joked.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that Zhang Niu hadn't sold many cherries; there were still plenty more behind him.

The fat man made a joke, but the bearded man ignored him and said with a smile, "What are you talking about? I came here to discuss something with you."

They pulled the fat man to a corner of the market.

"Why did you come all this way?" the fat man asked, puzzled.

"It's hard to explain when there are too many people here, but it's easier to talk to them here when there are fewer people." A few scattered people walked by, not paying much attention to this.

"Go ahead and tell me, you always have so many tricks up your sleeve."

"Then I'll just say it: these cherries must be being sold by your friend!"

The fat man was very curious why this guy would ask this. "You're not thinking of getting something for nothing, are you?"

Upon hearing this, the bearded man realized that the fat man must have misunderstood, and quickly waved his hand, "How could that be? I just want to buy some cherries from your friend."

"Hey, when did you start doing business?" Wasn't this guy made his fortune through extortion?

"You know that times are changing. If we still follow the old ways, we'll end up in jail sooner or later, right? People always need to find something to do, so I thought I'd start a business."

That's quite a reasonable argument. Didn't you know that getting involved in organized crime would eventually lead to bad consequences, which is why you sold it off?

"I didn't expect you to be able to let it go. Yeah, times have changed. A lot of my old friends are now in jail." The fat man sounded a little sad when he talked about it.

Big Beard knew a thing or two about this in the provincial capital. What city doesn't have gangsters? They're all going to get in sooner or later. There's a saying in the underworld, isn't it? What goes around comes around. Doesn't that perfectly explain this phenomenon?

"Okay, my friend can put in a good word for you, but the money needs to be paid promptly, the young man is just starting out in business." I was quite supportive of this bearded man doing business.

The bearded man laughed heartily after hearing this, "Don't worry about the money. You can get the goods here and I'll pay you right away. I won't embarrass you."

With that answer, the fat man felt relieved. "So how much do you plan to eat? I'm afraid I won't be able to finish it all."

He held up five fingers. "Five hundred baskets, that's my limit. Please be more lenient with the price."

The fat man initially thought that this bearded man could only eat two or three hundred baskets at most, but he didn't expect that this guy would ask for five hundred baskets right away. "Five hundred baskets it is, I'll ask him to give you a 10% discount, is that okay?"

Actually, the fat man didn't realize that the glamorous woman called again on the way, emphasizing that he should eat as much as possible. That's when he finally decided to order five hundred baskets.

"That's good enough, a discount is already a good deal." This saved Big Beard a lot of money.

The two agreed and headed back, eager to make the purchase.

The fat man had only been gone a short while, and had already sold dozens of baskets to small business owners. It was not yet nine o'clock, and none of the big customers had come out yet.

Seeing the two of them walk back with smiles on their faces, I wondered what they were discussing this time.

"Hey Niu, my friend plans to buy 500 baskets of cherries. How about we give him a 10% discount?" the fat man said to Zhang Niu as he returned.

This surprised Zhang Niu a bit. This bearded man really had a good eye; he ate five hundred baskets in one go, which was half of his batch of cherries. He was really grateful for Fatty's help in getting him here; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to handle this guy alone.

"Sure, of course your friend can," he said with a smile.

"Okay, I, Big Beard, have made you my friend. I'll go get the money right away." He called over one of his underlings and told him to go back and get the money.

Many vendors who were still transporting cherries were dumbfounded. How could this big-bearded man have bought five hundred baskets of cherries? Was the sun rising in the west?

Big Beard naturally saw the expressions on the vendors' faces; he knew soon enough they wouldn't buy, and he'd lose a fortune. Big Beard always trusted his woman completely.

A short while later, the younger brother returned with a black nylon bag filled with stacks of brand-new banknotes.

The underlings behind him were all puzzled. Why was their boss doing this this time? Didn't he always buy things at low prices before? But seeing the fat man, they naturally guessed what was going on.

"Here you go, count it carefully, is there any mistake?" He handed the money to the fat man.

"No need to count, I trust your character," he said, handing the money to Zhang Niu.

Since the fat man had said so, Zhang Niu didn't bother to count the stack of fat people. He quickly put the thick stack into his handbag.

The bearded man arrived with his henchmen, so the loading speed was naturally very fast. There wasn't the slightest bit of dawdling.

The big-bearded man quickly hauled five hundred baskets of cherries back to his warehouse. They were neatly stacked together; he'd have to go back and discuss how to sell them.

After loading the goods, Big Beard led his men back first.

"Fatty, isn't your friend in that kind of business? How come he's in this line of work too?" Zhang Niu was full of questions after the bearded man left.

"I'm not really sure about that. Maybe someone around me could give me some advice." The fat man couldn't make a definitive conclusion about it.

The small truck quickly drove into the back door of the beauty salon.

"Mei-hsien's back! How come you're back so soon after going out? Have you bought all the goods for today?" It turned out to be Mei-hsien, a beautiful girl who had just returned from outside.

Meixian chuckled, "We're lucky this time. I'll give you a big surprise later."

This left Huang Feixue, who had just asked the question, a little confused. Could buying things really bring back surprises?

"Come on, help us carry one basket back first."

The two carried a basket of cherries all the way to the third-floor lounge. Several young women were sitting inside, clearly resting.

"Sister Xian, what nice things did you buy today?"

As soon as the cherry basket was put down, the girls who were resting all gathered around.

"Isn't this a cherry?" The cherries had just come out, and the beauty salon had already bought them to use as face masks, and the results were quite good.

"Yes, but these cherries aren't the kind you've seen before. Guess how much this basket costs," he said with a smile to the group of girls in front of him.

"Sister Xian, you're really good at guessing things. This price is around two hundred points," the girl with long, flowing hair said, sitting on the sofa.

"I'd guess it's a little over a hundred."

Everyone took turns stating their prices, hoping their answers would be correct.

Huang Feixue wanted to hear the answer to this price; it seemed like someone would be able to guess it correctly!

Seeing everyone's expectant eyes, he chuckled and mysteriously announced the answer: "You've all guessed wrong. These cherries cost four hundred a basket."

"Ah!" everyone shouted in unison.

"What's all this about that makes everyone so happy?" The person who pushed open the door was a woman with glasses, long hair, and a well-matched outfit. This was their boss, Chen Shimin.

"Sister Min, we're just guessing the price," Huang Feixue quickly said.

"This price is very expensive, a full four hundred for a basket," the long-haired woman on the sofa added.

Four hundred yuan a basket is really expensive, but since Meixian dared to buy it, she must have her reasons.

"Sister Min, you all must be wondering why these cherries are so expensive!" she asked the group.

Even Sister Min was a little curious, let alone the others. Their beautiful eyes were fixed on Mei Xian, waiting to see what she would say.

I lifted the lid of the plastic basket and took out a bunch of cherries. "Try them, and you'll know what surprise I'm talking about."

Could this surprise be hidden in these crystal-clear cherries?

"Wow, Meixian, where did you buy these cherries?" (To be continued. For more chapters and to support the author, please log in and read the official version!)