11: Chapter 11 Huge Sum of Money Arrives

“Haha! Old classmate, I didn't expect it to really be you. You work here? President Hao is your eldest uncle? I came here to talk about some business,” Cao Xiao stood up and said, feigning surprise.

“Oh! You've become a big boss! It looks like you're doing quite well for yourself. Don't forget your old classmates now that you've made it big. You haven't shown up to a single class reunion in all these years; I thought you'd gone missing. So, where have you been all this time?” Hao Linger completely forgot about the contract and walked up to Cao Xiao, speaking happily.

“I'm no big boss, I'm just working for one. Some things happened at home these past few years, so I wasn't in contact with everyone. This is my uncle-in-law; he brought me here today to talk business with your uncle. If I'd known this was your family's company, I wouldn't have had to trouble my uncle-in-law,” Cao Xiao said self-deprecatingly.

“Oh my, what a coincidence. I didn't expect you and my mischievous niece to be classmates. I was a bit abrupt today; I'll set a table later so we can all have a good chat,” Hao Daqiang said. Seeing that he was his precious niece's classmate, his attitude immediately became three points warmer.

“Thank you for the kind offer, President Hao, but I have things to take care of today and need to rush back. I'll host a drink for you another day. Hao Linger, I'll have to trouble you to prepare a contract. I don't have time today, but I'll come find you to hang out next time,” Cao Xiao politely declined. He still had to rent a warehouse today and buy some packaging bags for the coal powder to clear out the space. It was already past two o'clock; if it got any later, it would be hard to get things done.

“Alright, I'll let you off the hook today. Give me your phone number in a bit. I'll go get busy first; just give me ten minutes,” Hao Linger said before turning and leaving the office.

After Hao Linger left, Hao Daqiang and Cao Xiao chatted idly. In less than ten minutes, Hao Linger returned. There were templates for procurement contracts, so they only needed to make a few changes before it was ready to use.

Cao Xiao read through the contract carefully and let Liu Zhigao take a look as well. There were no issues. Both Cao Xiao and Hao Daqiang signed it, and Hao Daqiang stamped it with the official seal. Cao Xiao didn't have his own seal and wanted to use a thumbprint instead, but Hao Daqiang said it wasn't necessary—given Cao Xiao's relationship with his niece, the contract was just a formality.

Once the contract was signed, Hao Daqiang went to arrange the payment. A short while later, Cao Xiao's phone received a text notification. Five thousand tons of anthracite coal powder at one thousand one hundred yuan per ton totaled 5.5 million yuan; half of that was 2.75 million yuan.

With the money credited, Cao Xiao needed to hurry and rent a warehouse. He exchanged numbers with Hao Linger, agreed on a pickup time with Hao Daqiang, and then left with Liu Zhigao amidst Hao Linger's complaints.

“Uncle-in-law, do you know where there's a large warehouse for rent? Preferably somewhere close to here,” Cao Xiao asked Liu Zhigao on the way back to Jinghu City's urban area.

“Then let's take the fork in the road up ahead. There's a pier over by the Dachu River with a storage area. Inland river shipping hasn't been doing well these past few years, so a lot of places there are empty. It's only a ten-minute drive from that fork,” Liu Zhigao said after thinking for a moment.

“Knowing the location is enough, no need to go there. When the time comes, I'll just have my friend use river transport directly. I'll drop you off first, and then I'll head straight home,” Cao Xiao hadn't expected there to be a warehouse for rent nearby, but he couldn't let Liu Zhigao know about storing the coal powder. He couldn't have anyone present when he took things out of the space. Everything regarding the Intelligent Industrial Mother Machine had to remain his eternal secret; he couldn't let anyone see even a hint of it, not even his closest relatives. It wasn't that he was selfish, but rather that it would put their lives in danger.

Cao Xiao was in a hurry, so he drove very fast, dropping Liu Zhigao off at his apartment building in less than forty minutes.

Cao Xiao called out to Liu Zhigao as he was about to get out of the car. He pulled out his phone and transferred ten thousand yuan to Liu Zhigao via WeChat, then said earnestly, “Uncle-in-law, I've transferred ten thousand yuan to you. Don't refuse it yet. This money isn't to pay your family back, nor is it a cut from this deal. You know I just received a large sum of money. Actually, besides the eight percent commission for taking goods from my friend, the base price he gave me was one thousand per ton including shipping. That means I can make another hundred yuan per ton. I didn't know I'd be so lucky today to sell five thousand tons all at once. My friend was also swindled; he listened to someone and bought a set of second-hand imported equipment, but there isn't much demand for this fine coal dust domestically. He can only sell it at the price of secondary anthracite powder, barely maintaining production. So, I've helped him find a good sales channel this time; at one thousand per ton, he’s making a profit even after my commission. I can get a total of nine hundred thousand this time, and half of that upfront is four hundred and fifty thousand, which is enough to pay off almost all the debts at home. I don't know how much my parents took from you, and you won't tell me when I ask, so I won't give you a cut this time. I've thought it through: we're family, we don't talk business. I'm not going to work at the coal mine either; I'll just run a few orders during this period. When I make enough money, I'll buy you a car. Consider this ten thousand yuan as my way of showing respect to you and Second Aunt. Just take it!”

Cao Xiao had gone to great lengths to fabricate a reasonable excuse. He knew that if he tried to give Liu Zhigao a direct cut, Liu Zhigao would never accept it. So he only gave a moderate amount of ten thousand yuan, calling it a gift of respect. Cao Xiao didn't know exactly how much his family had borrowed from Second Aunt's house, but he imagined it wouldn't be less than a hundred thousand. Cao Xiao didn't plan on paying it back in the future; instead, he planned to buy Liu Zhigao a good car and a house in the provincial capital after some time.

“You brat! I'll take this money then. Sigh! The family is full of big eaters, yet they're all picky. If you really do get rich, I don't need you to buy me a car. Just take care of Xiao Chang and Xiao Yang's meals, and buy some nice things to show respect to your Second Aunt,” Liu Zhigao said with a sigh. He knew this nephew of his was a man of few words but had a very stubborn temper. Since he had said so much today, it was hard to refuse again. Besides, with this business deal, the issues with Cao Xiao's family could basically be resolved.

“Then I'll be going. I still have to go home and share the good news with my parents,” Cao Xiao said as he bid farewell to Liu Zhigao.

Cao Xiao drove toward the pier Liu Zhigao had mentioned, finally arriving at the warehouse area half an hour later. It was already 3:30 PM. Adding in the time needed for packaging, he had to get the warehouse settled as quickly as possible.

He found the pier warehouse management office. After explaining that he wanted to rent a warehouse, the staff received him very warmly. Cao Xiao told the other party his requirements: first, it had to be large, and second, it had to be in a quiet, peripheral location. After checking, the staff member led him to the outskirts of the storage area.

This was an independent storage area consisting of five large warehouses in a row. It was several hundred meters away from the other warehouses, and one didn't have to pass through the main gate of the storage area to enter or exit. Cao Xiao was very satisfied with this point alone; it was safe and secluded, and his future movements here wouldn't be monitored by the management office.

This warehouse was reportedly built by a logistics group ten years ago. Before it could be used, the logistics group went bankrupt, and it was eventually handed over to the pier warehouse management.

All five warehouses were the same size: sixty meters long, twenty meters wide, and eight meters high. If goods in regular packaging could be stacked neatly, each unit could hold nearly ten thousand cubic meters of cargo. Of course, for things like minerals that were piled directly without containers, they wouldn't hold as much. Each warehouse was equipped with a crane capable of lifting containers.

Cao Xiao was very satisfied with the place. The administrator quoted a price of two hundred thousand yuan per year per unit, with a minimum three-month lease. Cao Xiao only wanted to rent one, and he wouldn't even need it for three months, but renting one didn't cost much, and he might use it again sometime.

After some haggling, the rent was lowered to one hundred and sixty thousand a year. For a three-month lease, Cao Xiao only had to pay forty thousand yuan, plus a forty thousand yuan deposit, totaling eighty thousand. He urged the staff to sign the contract, registered the utility meters, and transferred the eighty thousand yuan rent to the management office's account via his phone, after which he received the warehouse keys.

He inquired at the pier management office about where to buy woven packaging bags in bulk. In a place like a pier where goods circulated, there would always be packaging supplies for sale. After finding the location, Cao Xiao ordered one hundred thousand large, blank plastic woven bags—specifically, snakeskin bags. Each of these bags could hold a hundred kilograms of cement, and coal powder was about the same. One hundred thousand bags would be enough for ten thousand tons of coal powder. They sold small portable electric sealing machines there, but Cao Xiao didn't buy one. Sealing them all by himself would be too much work; sealing thirty-five thousand snakeskin bags alone, even at ten seconds per bag without eating or sleeping, would take nearly four days. Cao Xiao didn't plan to do it that way because he had another solution. He urged them to deliver the goods to his warehouse immediately while he went to a store to buy several different padlocks and returned to the warehouse to wait. The merchant selling the bags dawdled for half an hour before finally delivering them by truck. Buying in bulk, one hundred thousand average-quality snakeskin bags cost twenty thousand yuan. Including the warehouse rent and deposit, a hundred thousand yuan had been spent just like that.

Once the delivery people had left, Cao Xiao closed the warehouse doors tightly and took all the snakeskin bags into his space. The coal chunks in the space had already been completely turned into coal powder. He glanced at the energy gauge; it was five percent lower than before the processing. For crushing and processing three thousand five hundred tons of coal, a five percent energy consumption was acceptable.

He set a program in the processing space. Before long, all the coal powder in the space was packed into the snakeskin bags. They were put into the Synthesis and Decomposition Furnace in batches of one hundred tons to heat and fuse the plastic at the bag openings, completing the sealing. Cao Xiao released all the packed bags and stacked them layer by layer on the warehouse floor until they were five meters high. Then he transferred the coal powder from the other spaces to the processing space for packing and sealing. After more than an hour, this batch of three thousand five hundred tons of coal powder was fully packaged and ready for direct sale. Next time he came, he could just call Hao Daqiang to haul it away.

He checked the time: 5:00 PM. He estimated it would be nearly 8:00 PM by the time he got back to the county town, so he had to leave quickly. He closed the warehouse doors and locked them with all the padlocks he had bought. There was no one guarding the place, and Cao Xiao didn't want to hire anyone. To avoid arousing suspicion, he couldn't install surveillance either.

He got in the car and drove hurriedly toward the nearest highway entrance. The car windows were open, and not far from the pier area, Cao Xiao caught a whiff of a foul stench. It was incredibly thick, the smell of rotting biological matter. Cao Xiao almost gagged; the smell was practically a biochemical weapon. He quickly rolled up the windows and accelerated away. However, after driving a short distance, a thought struck him, and he immediately turned back.

This stretch of road was very remote with little traffic. Cao Xiao parked by the roadside and endured the stench to find its source. He found the origin in a small mountain hollow not far from the highway. The moment he saw it, Cao Xiao could no longer hold it back; he doubled over and vomited a large amount. The scene before him was simply too disgusting: piles upon piles of rotting meat—pork, beef, mutton, fish, shrimp, and ham—all decayed beyond recognition, swarming with maggots and rats, with filthy water flowing everywhere. This was likely the handiwork of some unscrupulous food companies.

Cao Xiao vomited endlessly until his stomach was empty, but the urge to retch remained even though nothing more would come out. Holding his nose tightly with his hand, he walked over quickly, collected all the rotting meat into the energy space, and then fled as if for his life.

Back in the car, he drove away quickly. His clothes were covered in the stench. He set the air conditioning to fresh air intake, but even after blowing for a long time, the smell wouldn't clear out. He felt a deep sense of regret; even for the sake of energy, he should have come better prepared instead of making himself smell like a sewer rat.

His stomach was empty and he was starving. Once on the highway, he drove at maximum speed, returning to the county in just over two hours. He left the car at a car wash, requesting they clean it thoroughly inside and out, and that he would pick it up tomorrow.

When he tried to hail a taxi, the drivers were unwilling to take such a smelly passenger. It was only after he added a hundred yuan for a car wash fee that a driver let him in. This feeling of being shunned made Cao Xiao feel quite aggrieved; he felt he had made an outstanding contribution to environmental work, so why wasn't he understood?

However, seeing the energy space filled to capacity with a small portion of the rotting meat still unconsumed, the grievance was worth it. At least he didn't have to sneak around stealing straw anymore. It was already 7:30 PM when he got home, and his parents weren't back yet. Usually, this was just past the peak time for office workers to buy groceries, so his mother should still be closing her stall. He had called his father today, so his father should also be on his way back. Cao Xiao quickly found a change of clothes and went to the bathroom to shower. Ten minutes later, he came out, threw his dirty clothes into the trash bin outside, and started some rice in the rice cooker. Opening the fridge, he saw the dishes he had brought this morning were untouched. It seemed his parents hadn't come home for lunch either, which made Cao Xiao's heart ache. He took ingredients from the fridge and whipped up two dishes, which, along with the wild game, was enough to eat. Just as he finished cooking, his mother and father returned at the same time. His father was holding a bottle of white liquor, and his mother was carrying a fish and some vegetables. At that moment, Cao Xiao was so moved he almost shed tears. This was what parents were like!