Because the man wanted so much jam, Wang Cheng checked the stock and discovered there was not much left. They had sold quite a lot recently, and he had not brought much to the shop in the first place. He had temporarily stored the rest in the warehouse for emergencies, never expecting it would actually come in handy so soon.
Wang Cheng called Papa Wang and told him he needed to go out for a while and asked him to come watch the shop. Before he could finish, however, Mama Wang took the phone.
“Chengcheng, what happened? Did the shop run out of jam?”
“No. A customer heard our jam was good and came over wanting a lot of it. There isn’t enough in the shop, so I need to go to the warehouse to get more.”
“He wants that much?” Mama Wang had been to the shop before and knew Wang Cheng had stocked more than a hundred sets of jam there, enough to sell for a month.
“Mr. Zheng said he needs it for a banquet and for a business he’s opening, so he needs a fairly large amount. Mom, don’t worry. This is a good thing. We should be happy to sell so much all at once.”
“All right, hurry up and go. Don’t keep him waiting too long or the customer might get angry.”
“Okay, I’m hanging up.”
Wang Cheng drove his truck as usual, except this time Mr. Zheng was sitting in the passenger seat. Wang Cheng had originally planned to go alone, but Mr. Zheng asked to come with him, saying he wanted to see where the Wang family had their jam packaged so he could feel reassured.
Hearing that actually put Wang Cheng more at ease too. At least the other man was cautious. Otherwise, he might have wondered whether Mr. Zheng was genuinely serious about buying their jam. It was not particularly expensive, after all, and even a hundred or more sets would not cost an enormous amount.
It took half an hour to drive from Chengping to the packaging factory’s warehouse. Along the way, Mr. Zheng occasionally chatted with him. He spoke elegantly and appropriately, with the occasional witty joke thrown in. Even someone bad at socializing would probably lower their guard around him without realizing it. Wang Cheng was not easy to coax, but he could tell there was no malice whatsoever in Mr. Zheng’s words.
“There are three children in my family. The other two are away from home, one working and the other at university. I’m the only one who stayed behind in this backward place,” Wang Cheng said.
Mr. Zheng smiled. “I don’t think your hometown is particularly backward. Its economy may lag behind, but the environment is beautiful and the air is much fresher than in those big cities. Your hometown is actually a very nice place. It would be perfect for retirement.”
Wang Cheng could tell he was not merely flattering him, and his smile deepened.
When they reached the packaging factory, Wang Cheng contacted Manager Xu. Manager Xu came down and immediately took them to see the packaging line. Customers had asked to inspect the production line before, so they had experience handling such requests. Since this was food processing, the factory paid particular attention to sanitation. It was a properly regulated packaging plant and valued its reputation highly.
After looking around, Mr. Zheng was very satisfied with the production line. The group then went to the warehouse. After taking inventory, Wang Cheng found that there were more than a hundred sets left. Together with the jam at the shop, they had around two hundred sets in total, which was not a small amount. Even if all of it was being bought for a banquet, it would take quite a while to finish.
“Mr. Zheng, take a look and tell me how much more you want and which kinds of fruit jam. I’ll load them into the truck,” Wang Cheng said, turning to him.
“As long as it tastes good, I don’t care what fruit it is. Why don’t you load another thirty sets of each kind for me?”
“Thirty sets of each? We may not have thirty of every kind. There are only a little over ten sets each of apple and grape jam.” Wang Cheng did a quick count. Most of what they had was plum and persimmon jam.
“Then make up the difference with the others. Use more of whichever kinds you have the most of.”
“You’re certainly decisive, Mr. Zheng. I’ll load the jam into the truck now.” Since Wang Cheng had started doing business, this was the first time he had encountered someone so straightforward. Even Lin Yue, whom he had thought fairly well of, had not been this crisp and decisive.
“Need any help?” the man asked.
Wang Cheng smiled. “No. How could I make a customer do the lifting? I’ll ask Manager Xu to call two workers over to help.”
In fact, there was no need to ask. Two workers had already come over voluntarily. There were only five kinds of fruit jam, but thirty sets of each made one hundred and fifty sets altogether. By the time they had loaded everything into the back of the truck, very little jam remained in the warehouse. Selling so much in a single transaction was completely beyond Wang Cheng’s expectations. He had originally planned to take things slowly, but now it seemed he would have to ask Mama Wang to speed up jam production.
After they returned to the shop, Mr. Zheng did not ask Wang Cheng to deliver the jam to a designated location immediately. Instead, he asked for Wang Cheng’s contact number, saying he would call him when the time came, and handed him a business card.
Wang Cheng glanced at the card. Like Chu Yifeng’s, it had a simple design. The only difference was that one was black and the other white.
“Zheng Jingen? That’s a pretty distinctive name.”
After work, Wang Cheng drove home. Papa Wang was already back and sitting in the living room with Mama Wang. The atmosphere seemed a little strange.
“Dad, Mom, what’s wrong?” Wang Cheng asked, but neither of them answered. The two older people seemed lost in thought. He immediately turned to Papa Wang. “Dad, didn’t you go with your friend to meet that merchant today? How did it go?” His instincts told him it had something to do with that.
Papa Wang still said nothing.
“Don’t even mention it. The deal fell through,” Mama Wang said. “That merchant your dad’s friend introduced is no good at all. He wants to buy our medicinal herbs, but the price he offered was actually a third below market price. He claimed our herbs weren’t very good and that after testing them, they found the medicinal effect was weaker than normal herbs. He thought your dad knew nothing about medicinal herbs and just lied straight to his face. Everyone knows plenty of wild medicinal herbs are more effective than cultivated ones.”
“What did Dad’s friend say?”
“What else could he say? Of course he sided with that merchant and even helped persuade your dad. Does he think he’s the only person we can sell to? If you ask me, there’s an eighty percent chance he and that merchant have some kind of arrangement.”
Mama Wang could hardly be blamed for judging them harshly. Before Wangjia Village disappeared, something similar had happened there. One villager had planted many fruit trees and harvested a large quantity of fresh fruit when the season came. Soon afterward, rumors began spreading that something was wrong with his fruit and that someone had gotten a stomachache after eating it. Somehow the story snowballed until nobody would buy his fruit. Just when the villager was so worried his hair was turning white, a friend introduced him to a merchant who specialized in buying spoiled fruit. The villager was overjoyed at the time because at least he would not lose everything, so he sold all his fruit at an extremely low price. Only later did he learn that his friend and the merchant had been working together. They had deliberately ruined the reputation of his fruit so they could profit from it.
The incident had spread widely at the time and left a deep impression on Mama Wang. Now that something similar was happening to their family, it naturally came to mind. Papa Wang had remained silent because he did not want to believe that his friend could be the same kind of person.
“Dad, Mom, don’t worry about this. It won’t be hard to find out whether they’re plotting something. We just have to wait. If that really is their plan, they’ll definitely make another move. The moment even a little rumor appears saying our medicinal herbs are bad, we can basically be certain.” Wang Cheng had not expected anyone to dare scheme against his family, but perhaps it was not surprising. Their family had been doing very well lately, and envy was inevitable.
“Chengcheng, if they really do that, won’t we be unable to sell our medicinal herbs?” Mama Wang understood the logic too, but they were trying to find a buyer for those herbs. The villagers might know there was nothing wrong with the Wang family’s stock, but the villagers were not the ones buying it. If outside merchants believed the rumors, it would put them at a serious disadvantage.
“Mom, have you forgotten Big Brother? You know where he works. All he has to do is say a word, and those medicinal-herb merchants will definitely give him face.” Wang Cheng grinned.
Mama Wang froze. Papa Wang had clearly not thought of it either. The two exchanged a look. “That’s right. Ning’an works at a pharmaceutical company. He must know plenty of medicinal-herb merchants.”
Two days later, Wang Cheng received several calls one after another from the supermarket managers he had dealt with before. They wanted to place another order, and this time the quantities were indeed larger. Wang Cheng told them the jam had already sold out and they would need to wait a while for the next batch. They all sounded disappointed.
That afternoon, Mama Wang went out to buy groceries and came back furious. Someone really had started spreading rumors that there was something wrong with their medicinal herbs. The person who told them about the rumors was not a villager from Guanjia Village but a young man who had returned from the city. He had heard the story and, because he knew about the Wang family’s situation, told his parents. His mother happened to be on good terms with Mama Wang, which was how Mama Wang found out. Otherwise, they might not have learned about it until much later.
Papa Wang sighed. Now he had no choice but to believe that his friend truly had been after his family’s medicinal herbs. He had always thought he was a good judge of people. In the end, he had still judged this one wrong.
Wang Cheng told his parents not to be angry and called his big brother that evening.