Chapter 23: Satsuma Mandarins Increase By Over 100%!
*Ring ring ring—*
Jiang Tao was woken up by the alarm clock at 7 AM.
No intelligence that could help him make money was refreshed today.
So, he had no choice but to go to the second-hand furniture market to wait for work again.
Fortunately, the more than 80,000 yuan in external debt he owed at home had already been paid off.
He also had tens of thousands of yuan in deposits left, enough to have a good year.
Therefore, although he was still waiting for work, Jiang Tao’s mood at this moment was completely different from before.
With no debt weighing him down and not a trace of anxiety, he was in an exceptionally good mood.
He had a simple breakfast of steamed pork dumplings and wonton soup at a small eatery in the village.
Full and satisfied, he returned to his usual line of work.
He could earn 80,000 yuan in an hour, or 800 yuan in a day.
Jiang Tao had a very good mindset and wouldn’t feel unbalanced due to huge fluctuations in income.
He started work at 8 AM and was busy until 5:30 PM when he finished.
In total, he earned 625 yuan for the day, which was about the same as usual.
After work, he parked his car at the Xiao Shahe Village Entrance.
On his way home, Jiang Tao stopped by Pang Dongdong Supermarket to buy a pound of fresh noodles, two tomatoes, and a carton of eggs.
He planned to have tomato egg noodles for dinner tonight.
“Master Jiang, want another bottle of Qinghua Lang to try your luck?”
Yu Dongdong asked Jiang Tao every time he saw him if he wanted to buy Qinghua Lang, to the point where Jiang Tao was developing Qinghua Lang PTSD.
“My luck isn’t good today. Has Boss Yu become a liquor salesman now? You try to sell me liquor every time you see me.”
Jiang Tao smiled and waved his hand to refuse, not forgetting to tease Yu Dongdong.
“Haha, I’m just kidding, Master Jiang, please don’t mind. Honestly, the chance of winning with this stuff is indeed not high.”
“Except for the three first prizes you won that day, Master Jiang, I’ve sold six or seven cases in the past two days, and the biggest prize was only second prize.”
Yu Dongdong was quite honest and spoke his mind. He wouldn’t offend a long-time customer like Jiang Tao just to sell liquor.
Although Jiang Tao was frugal, his total consumption at his small supermarket amounted to over 10,000 yuan a year.
Yu Dongdong changed the subject and asked, “By the way, Master Jiang, I have a small job tomorrow, are you interested?”
Jiang Tao smiled, “Sure! What kind of job? How much does it pay?”
Yu Dongdong said, “Tomorrow morning, Master Jiang, please help me pick up 200 cases of Satsuma Mandarins from the Huilongguan Fruit Wholesale Market. Including loading and unloading, it’s 600 yuan.”
Generally, those boxes of Satsuma Mandarins weigh about 10 catties each, so 200 cases would be around 1 ton.
Jiang Tao calculated and thought the job was doable, so he readily agreed, “Okay, I’ll take this job! What time do we leave?”
Yu Dongdong said, “5:30 AM.”
“Great!”
To make money, Jiang Tao could handle getting up a little earlier.
“Then it’s settled. We’ll leave here at 5:30 AM sharp.”
“Alright! Boss Yu, do you have any other instructions?”
“Here are the delivery address and the driver’s phone number. Master Jiang, just go there tomorrow morning and use my name.”
Yu Dongdong said, picking up a carbon pen from the counter and quickly writing down the pickup address and the driver’s phone number, handing them to Jiang Tao.
“Okay! Then I’ll head back. I’ll eat something and go to bed early.”
After getting the address, Jiang Tao stopped idle chat with Yu Dongdong and turned to leave, carrying the eggs and noodles.
Having arranged tomorrow’s job with Yu Dongdong, he had secured 600 yuan in income in advance.
Jiang Tao’s mood became even better, and he hummed a little tune on his way home.
He first used the rice cooker to stir-fry the tomato and egg sauce, then added water and cooked the noodles.
In a short while, a large bowl of steaming hot tomato egg noodles was ready.
After eating his fill, Jiang Tao had a video call with his wife, Xu Li.
The couple chatted aimlessly until past 9 PM when the call ended.
He had to get up early tomorrow morning, so Jiang Tao didn’t read novels tonight.
After washing up, he set his alarm for midnight and went to bed for a short nap.
*Ring ring ring—*
At exactly midnight, Jiang Tao was woken up by his mobile phone alarm.
He rubbed his eyes and sat up from under the quilt.
Jiang Tao had a thought and checked today’s intelligence.
【Today’s Intelligence】: You reached a preliminary agreement for cooperation with Yu Dongdong yesterday, obtaining related intelligence—
Due to weather conditions, Satsuma Mandarins will usher in a wave of price increases in three days.
The increase will exceed 100% and last for a week, so it’s advisable to stock up.
……
“An increase of over 100%?”
Seeing the information refreshed today, Jiang Tao’s expression was one of surprise!
This is too crazy!
Boss Yu from Pang Dongdong Supermarket was indeed prescient to purchase 200 cases of Satsuma Mandarins at once.
However, he likely never expected that in three days, the price of Satsuma Mandarins would soar by as much as 100%!
Otherwise, forget 200 cases, he would probably dare to buy 2,000 cases!
In winter, it’s the season when Satsuma Mandarins are in abundant supply.
In the Capital City, you could see scenes of Satsuma Mandarins selling well in supermarkets and markets of all sizes.
Jiang Tao also had a few fellow villagers who were doing small fruit wholesale businesses in Pingchang District.
They also rented places in the Xiao Shahe Urban Village.
Every morning, they would go to the wholesale market to buy a truckload of fruit and sell it at nearby morning markets and bazaars.
When business was good, they could earn six to seven hundred yuan a day, but it was tiring to get up early and go to bed late.
They also had to play cat and mouse with the urban management, which was mentally tiring.
Although Jiang Tao’s relationship with those fellow villagers wasn’t as close as with Wang Lianming, it was still pretty good.
A few days ago, Wang Lianming had even thought of gathering everyone at his place for drinks.
They were all neighbors from the same village and were around the same age.
They were all “north-drifters” in the Capital City, so seeing each other felt very familiar.
Jiang Tao had never bought fruit before, but there was always fruit at home, all sent by his fellow villagers.
Those few fellow villagers were all small individual retailers, so they naturally didn’t have hardware like cold storage.
Whatever little was left, they would take home to eat themselves.
If they couldn’t finish it, they would share it with fellow villagers who lived nearby, like Jiang Tao and Wang Lianming.
Seeing the intelligence refreshed today, Jiang Tao’s first thought was to cooperate with his fellow villagers.
Without those fellow villagers who sold fruit, he, a complete outsider, would just have to watch helplessly even if he knew prices would skyrocket in the next two days!
Knowing about the price increase was one thing, but if you stocked up, you had to be able to sell it to make money!
As an outsider, if he acted alone, he probably couldn’t sell much in a day.
“Boss Yu said that the current wholesale price of Satsuma Mandarins is 3.5 yuan per catty, and the retail price is 5 yuan, with a profit of 1.5 yuan per catty.”
“If the price increases by 100%, won’t it be able to sell for 10 yuan?”
“One catty would earn 6.5 yuan! The profit would directly multiply several times!”
Of course, this is only if Jiang Tao could get the Satsuma Mandarins before they increased in price to maximize his profit.
Otherwise, if the retail price doubled, the fruit wholesalers wouldn’t be foolish enough to still sell at the original wholesale price!
“10 catties for 65, 100 catties for 650, and 1000 catties would yield a profit of 6500…”
“Huge profits, huge profits!”
Jiang Tao had discussed fruit sales topics with his fellow villagers during their previous gatherings.
When their business was good, selling around 1,000 catties of Satsuma Mandarins a day was not a problem for those fellow villagers.
Of course, when they sold them, the profit wasn’t as huge as Jiang Tao calculated.
Selling 1,000 catties a day would only earn them about 1,000 yuan at most.
“With the price increase in 3 days, there’s still time to prepare.”
“Tomorrow morning, when I go to the market to pick up goods for Boss Yu, I’ll inquire about the prices first.”
“In the evening, I’ll call Xiao Liu, Xiao Dan, and Xiao Zhang to discuss it.”
After a brief mental plan, Jiang Tao looked at the time on his phone and realized half an hour had passed without him noticing.
He quickly turned off his phone and the intelligence system interface, lay back down, and started to sleep.
