Rebirth 1983: Building My Business Empire

Chapter 48: Chapter 44 Reason_3

At home, they sell for ten cents a pound, and during a bumper harvest, they can’t even sell for ten cents. Selling to the little girl for twenty cents a pound is clearly ripping her off.

The little girl lowered her head and said nothing.

Lu Jiaxin, smiling, pulled out a handful of money from her pocket, counted eight yuan, and stuffed it into big sister’s hand. Seeing her reluctance to accept, Lu Jiaxin explained, “The price for selling at home is different from selling outside. Like in the Forty-nine City, such good pomegranates would go for fifty cents a pound.”

The big sister gave back the extra three yuan, “Miss, the Forty-nine City is the Forty-nine City, we sell for ten cents a pound here, and I can’t rip you off. If you insist on giving eight yuan, then I won’t sell.”

Lu Jiaxin, unable to refuse, could only accept it and then she took a handful of candy from the bag for the little girl, “Here, big sister gives you candy to eat.”

A flash of longing appeared in the little girl’s eyes, but she still looked towards the big sister nearby.

...

The big sister didn’t want to accept it, but she couldn’t bear to see her daughter disappointed, and embarrassedly said, “Miss, the milk candy is so expensive, how could we accept it?”

Lu Jiaxin stuffed the candy into the little girl’s pocket, “It’s fine, if the children like to eat it then let them eat. Big sister, your pomegranates are so delicious, you could totally pick them and sell them in the provincial city! At twenty cents a pound, there would definitely be a lot of buyers.”

The big sister shook her head, “Someone from our village went to sell pomegranates in the provincial city not long ago. They came back saying no one wanted them, and in the end, they were all dumped.”

Upon hearing this, Lu Jiaxin felt it couldn’t be possible. After some thought, she said, “What others say may not be reliable, perhaps the person who said this was afraid if everyone rushed to the provincial city to sell, his own fruits wouldn’t sell? With these sorts of things, you only know the truth after you try it.”

“If they can’t sell in the market, they can still go to the families’ courtyards of those big factories. As long as the product is good, there’s no worry about sales.”

The big sister naively said, “It was my older male cousin and his wife who said it, they couldn’t possibly deceive us.”

Lu Jiaxin smiled and said no more. People die for wealth, and birds die for food; not to mention older male cousins, even blood brothers turn against each other for the sake of profit.

An hour later, the car arrived in the district. When Zhao Dajun got off the car, he was carrying luggage in one hand and pomegranates in the other. The way he lifted the fifty-plus pounds of pomegranates as if they were nothing attracted the gazes of passersby.

Lu Jiaxin thought the bus from the provincial city to the district was already crowded, but it was not until she boarded the bus heading to the county town that she realized her naiveté. On the bus, people brought chickens and ducks; it was so crowded that even the place to set your feet was hard to find, not to mention the mix of sweat odor, foot odor, and the smell of chicken and duck droppings, it was indescribably nasty.

Lu Jiaxin threw up after not too long. Thankfully, she had prepared a bag; otherwise, given the situation on the bus, she would’ve vomited on someone else.

She threw up everything she had eaten at noon and felt dizzy afterward, but subconsciously, Lu Jiaxin still clutched her canvas bag tightly. Zhao Dajun stood by her side, which probably discouraged anyone from trying to snatch her bag.

When the bus reached the station, Lu Jiaxin’s legs felt so weak that she couldn’t stand up. It was only with Zhao Dajun’s support that she managed to get off the bus. Once outside, she vomited again, this time even bile coming up.

Zhao Dajun, looking at her pale face, couldn’t help but say, “If you can’t handle riding the bus, why did you still insist on coming to catch the trafficker by yourself?”

With this feeble state, she couldn’t catch a trafficker even if she saw one.

Lu Jiaxin, feeling drained, weakly said, “Let’s go stay at the hostel first, we’ll head back to Lu Family Village tomorrow morning.”

With her in this condition, even if she wanted to return, she couldn’t.

When they stepped out of the bus station and asked around, they discovered that they would have to walk a bit to get to the hostel. There were no rickshaws available for hire at this time, so they had to walk there.

On the way to the hostel, they had to pass by the post office. Seeing the post office reminded Lu Jiaxin of something she had forgotten, “I called my eldest brother yesterday, and he said he would ask Fifth Brother to pick me up. If we go to the hostel, and Fifth Brother can’t find us, he’ll be worried sick.”

Zhao Dajun said, “If your Fifth Brother was picking up people, we should have seen him when we got off the bus. Maybe something came up and he couldn’t make it?”

Lu Jiaxin, feeling exhausted, dropped her package on the ground and sat down, “You go back to the station and check. If you don’t see Fifth Brother, forget about him.”

Running back to search and still not finding the person, one should indeed be worried.

Zhao Dajun rejected the suggestion. Lu Jiaxin had been abducted before, and when she came out, Gu Wenfeng had cautioned him countless times that they should not let Lu Jiaxin out of sight when outside. If she got lost, not only would his job be on the line, but Brother Feng and his cousin would also be dragged down by his mistake.