Chapter 1518 - Chapter 1518 All Stones
Chapter 1518 All Stones
Given the volume of seeds, most people would not check too thoroughly since it was a waste of time. However, Qiao Mei was not like most people!
“Look at the amount of seeds. It’ll be a cold day in hell when you finish!” Zhao Kai said unhappily.
“No worries, we have plenty of time. Moreover, we’ve brought many people with us and 10 weighing scales. If we operate all the scales at the same time, we’ll probably be able to finish before dark. We also have people to record all the weights. Once it’s done, we’ll be able to match them with the amounts you have. Everyone, you can go home for now. We’ll send someone to inform you once all the weighing is done,” Qian’e said with a smile.
The people who had nothing to hide all went home. They still had a lot of things to do at home! Those people with a guilty conscience stood around to watch Qian’e and the others do the weighing. They wanted to see if Qian’e would cheat and falsify the numbers.
Qian’e did not care about them. There were more than 20 young men in her team and she asked them to start work. They split into pairs with one person weighing the seeds and the other person checking if there was anything else mixed in with the seeds. They could work very fast this way.
Even before the sun set, all the seeds had been weighed. There was not much difference in the reported and actual weights for the entire village, except Zhao Liu’s family. They had stated the weight of their seeds to be 4,000 pounds, but the actual weight was only 2,300 pounds. The difference was huge. This was not just about mixing small stones in with the seeds, but using stones to commit fraud!
“Village Chief, you have supervised our work the entire time. We did not play any tricks. How do you think we should calculate the payment?” Qian’e asked with a smile.
Zhao Kuo did not know how to resolve the matter since it was obviously Zhao Liu’s fault. She had already placed the evidence in front of him. If he still refused to acknowledge it, it would look like they were in cahoots.
“Just do it your way! Do whatever you need to do. We’ll go along with it,” Zhao Kuo said.
“Alright. In that case, this marks the end of our business deal. We’ll load up the goods and leave. Here’s the payment. I know that there’s a very fair and just woman in your village called Auntie Zhuang and I want to ask her to be the witness. Otherwise, what will happen if anyone claims that there’s lesser money than expected? If that happens, the two of us won’t be able to explain ourselves,” Qian’e said.
Qiao Mei had taught her to say all these and she did not expect them to really have to put it across this way. It seemed that she still had more to learn from Qiao Mei in the future!
Zhao Kuo looked at Qian’e in shock. He did not expect them to have so much information and know everything about their village like the back of their hands. It must be Zhao Fei who told Qiao Mei and the rest! Otherwise, how could these people know about such trivialities!
He had no choice but to ask Auntie Zhuang to come over and act as a witness. The two of them formalized the process of the exchange of goods for payment and declared the deal done.
Qian’e went back to the factory with all the factory workers and the goods. Zhao Fei also left the village overnight. The atmosphere in the entire village was as festive as the new year. Every family started to slaughter chickens or geese to celebrate the fact that they had made a lot of money. Only Zhao Liu’s family members were feeling down.
“I already say that we can’t do this! Look at what has happened now! We were caught!” Zhao Kai said unhappily.
“You little brat, now you suddenly feel bad. Weren’t you very happy when you put the stones in! We only have 230 dollars now. I want to see how you can afford to get married!” Zhao Liu said.
The more Zhao Liu thought about it, the angrier he felt. His family had so much seeds and only received so little money in return. However, if he went to argue with Qiao Mei right now, it would mean the end of any civility between them. He still wanted to marry Li Gui!
Their family had actually kept aside a big pile of seeds to use as planting seeds for the next season. They would not need to deal with Qiao Mei’s factory next season. They could make a lot of money on their own by planting and selling the seeds.
He did not care about the popcorn business. Even if they sold a lot of popcorn, they could only earn a little bit of money. How could it be more profitable than selling seeds?
Xia Zhe went to pick up the children and then headed back to the courtyard house with them. The two children already knew how to flip themselves over now and could even babble some incomprehensible sounds, especially Xia Fan. In the past, this child was always in a daze and did not like to talk. In front of Xia Zhe though, he had become quite a chatterbox.
Whenever he saw Xia Zhe, he would smile and babble away and even reached out to Xia Zhe all the time. This was exactly how Xia Xing behaved whenever she saw Xia Wen.