Charles Thompson was just about to head out when he saw his son, already dressed, come out. He paused for a moment and asked with concern, “Did we wake you up? You have the day off tomorrow, go back and get some more sleep, it’s only a little after two.”

“No, I got up on my own.” David Thompson hurriedly washed his face with cold water and said, “Dad, I’ll go with you!”

Mom wasn’t up yet, so David Thompson lowered his voice.

Usually, Dad would go get the goods first, and then Mom would follow to open the stall, so she always got to sleep a bit longer than Dad.

“What are you coming with me for? Go back to sleep, it’s cold outside…”

“Dad, I just want to see. After all these years of selling fish, I’ve never been to the place where you get the goods. Anyway, I can catch up on sleep during the day when there’s nothing to do.”

Without giving his dad a chance to refuse, he pushed him out the door together. Charles Thompson had no choice but to let his son tag along.

The weather in April wasn’t too cold, but it was still a bit chilly with the dew at night.

David Thompson pulled his clothes tighter around him as Charles Thompson took out the pedal tricycle used for transporting goods, which was parked downstairs. He called for David Thompson to get on, then started pedaling the tricycle toward the outskirts.

The father and son didn’t talk much along the way; there was always more silence than conversation between them.

It wasn’t until they had ridden for nearly twenty minutes that a cluster of lights appeared in the darkness, and faint voices could be heard.

Charles Thompson found a place to park the tricycle, patted David Thompson on the shoulder, and started explaining as they walked.

“This is Dongping Wholesale Market. We always get our goods here—not just us, but all the vegetables and fruits come from here too. The big trucks deliver at night and leave at dawn.”

“Usually, there are also middlemen from the countryside selling here. If you come early, sometimes you can find some good stuff. Not only is it cheap, but it also sells well.”

“But you have to be careful. These guys aren’t easy to deal with. Passing off inferior goods as good ones happens all the time. It’s easy to get fooled under the dim lights. For example, mixing dead shrimp in with the live ones…”

“And sometimes, some wholesalers arrive late, so the early ones set high prices. If you don’t buy, you’re afraid the later ones won’t show up and you’ll run out of stock, so you grit your teeth and buy at a high price. But then the other wholesalers arrive, the price drops, and those who bought early lose money because they can’t sell at the high price and have to take a loss…”

Charles Thompson explained everything to David Thompson along the way—not because he wanted his son to take over, but so he could gain more life experience.

Only veteran vendors like them knew these things. Otherwise, if everyone made money, why would so many new stalls go out of business?

No matter what job you do in the future, having more experience is always a good thing.

David Thompson listened obediently, occasionally glancing at the seafood in the various big trucks.

Charles Thompson had a familiar supplier and led David Thompson for a few minutes before stopping at a truck around the corner.

“Old Wang, got any good stuff this time? Half your shrimp were dead yesterday and you still ripped me off—I lost over a hundred yuan…”

From a distance, Charles Thompson called out loudly. A few people were squatting by the truck inspecting the goods. A short, chubby middle-aged man quickly turned around and joked, “I knew it was you, big mouth! You happy messing up my business? I told you some shrimp died yesterday, didn’t I give you a discount…”

While the two of them chatted, Charles Thompson started checking the goods. The Li family’s stall wasn’t big, so they didn’t need much and didn’t have to visit several suppliers—this one was enough.

David Thompson didn’t just stand around. While his dad was checking the goods, he wandered off to see if anyone was selling crayfish.

After checking seven or eight stalls, he found that crayfish really weren’t popular in Dongping. There were some, but very few.

All the stalls together probably didn’t even have five hundred jin. This was the biggest seafood wholesale market in Dongping, and the whole county’s daily crayfish sales were only this much.

Even if it wasn’t peak crayfish season yet, with nearly 400,000 people in Dongping County, that was still too few eating crayfish.

David Thompson was a bit disappointed. Did he really have to go to the countryside to buy them?

Although Dongping was inland, there were plenty of rivers and lakes, and crayfish bred quickly and were easy to raise.

There were plenty of them in the countryside, but not many people sold them. Rural folks liked to feed them to their chickens and ducks, and the rest were just eaten at home. Hardly anyone raised them specifically.

“Sigh!”

He let out a sigh. Was he really going to have a rough start and have to find another way to make his first pot of gold?

Just as he was frowning, Old Walker, who had just been talking to his dad, came over, handed him a cigarette, and said with a smile, “Kid, you’re from the old Li family, right?”

“Yeah, thanks!”

He took the cigarette naturally, lit it, and took a deep drag before realizing that since he’d come back to life, he’d actually forgotten to smoke.

That was a good thing. In his previous life, he smoked a lot working in sales, and the smell of smoke clung to him no matter how much he washed. He’d even lost several deals because of it.

“I saw you making the rounds—are you planning to take over your dad’s stall?” Old Walker noticed how skillfully the young man smoked and couldn’t help but smile. Clearly, he was an old hand at it.

“Heh, I haven’t really thought about that yet. Just looking around. By the way, Uncle Wang, I noticed there doesn’t seem to be much crayfish here?” David Thompson said casually, knowing that Old Walker was an expert and would definitely know better than he did.