To be honest, he wasn’t that close with Old Walker, and it’s not like there aren’t people in business who like to take advantage of acquaintances.

Inside Old Walker’s truck, dozens of plastic crates were stacked neatly, all filled with bright red crawfish. David Thompson casually grabbed a few to weigh them in his hand—they were pretty big, about half and half in size.

The main thing was to check their vitality. If they died before reaching the provincial capital, he’d take a big loss.

He did a spot check all around. Fortunately, Old Walker was a reputable businessman; the crawfish were lively, and not many had died. David Thompson nodded to indicate everything was fine.

Weighing, settling accounts, a flurry of activity.

After removing the dead ones, it still came out to about 11,000 jin.

Old Walker casually brushed aside a few dead crawfish, leaned over the bench to do some quick calculations, then looked up at David Thompson and said, “Dongzi, it’s a total of 11,096 jin. I’ll round off the extra for you—22,000 yuan, sound right?”

“That’s right, thank you, Uncle Walker.”

Without waiting for Old Walker to say anything, David Thompson continued, “I’ll write you an IOU, put my fingerprint on it, and settle up in three days.”

Old Walker smiled and said loudly, “Straightforward! You’re a forthright guy. If this batch sells well, come to me again next time. Uncle Walker guarantees you the best price!”

As they talked, the two of them wrote out the note, David Thompson pressed his fingerprint, and Old Walker called over some people to help David Thompson load the goods.

By the time everything was done, dawn was breaking. David Thompson checked his phone—it was 6:10.

After saying goodbye to Old Walker, David Thompson got into the truck he’d rented and quickly headed toward Pingchuan.

As for the truck driver, he didn’t ask why David Thompson wanted to ship the goods to the provincial capital. The 1,000 yuan shipping fee wasn’t cheap, and as for not telling anyone else, he didn’t care.

These days, everyone minds their own business. As long as he made money, that was enough. David Thompson said if things went smoothly, he’d use him again in the future. If he could make ten trips a month, he’d be making a killing.

……

By the time they reached Pingchuan, it was already 9:30. On the way, David Thompson had already called Big Beard, the boss.

The truck stopped in an open area behind the South Gate Market. Big Beard was already waiting, with a few people behind him—probably his cousins.

As soon as the truck stopped, Big Beard hurried over to check the goods, and David Thompson didn’t stop him.

They unloaded a crate of crawfish. Big Beard looked them over, poked around a bit, then nodded to the people behind him.

The others quickly came forward to inspect. After five or six minutes, Big Beard finally said with satisfaction, “Not bad, they look lively. Can you guarantee this quality in the future?”

“Don’t worry, would I ever cheat Boss Brooks?” David Thompson laughed too. “It’s getting late—how about we unload and weigh the goods? Any dead ones are on me. It’s our first deal, I can’t let Boss Brooks take a loss.”

“Haha, straightforward! Then I’ll take you up on that, let’s unload!”

With a shout, there was no need to call anyone else. The guys were all seafood sellers and very skilled at this.

They were even faster than in Dongping—about half an hour and everything was counted.

Some died from the bumps on the road, but not many, just a few dozen jin.

With a bit of shrinkage, the total was just under 11,000 jin. Big Beard and David Thompson didn’t care about a few jin, so they settled at 11,000 jin.

Big Beard’s family business wasn’t small, so taking out tens of thousands in cash was no problem.

They settled up with David Thompson on the spot. After deducting the 3,000 yuan deposit, the remaining 52,000 was wrapped in newspaper and handed to David Thompson, along with his ID card.

David Thompson took the money and counted it himself. Once he was sure it was all there, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Immediately, he couldn’t hide the joy on his face. 22,000 yuan for the goods, 1,000 for shipping, and he didn’t have to pay the workers for loading and unloading. Just like that, he’d made over 20,000 yuan in one go.

It felt unbelievable, almost too good to be true. How could no one in all of Dongping be doing something with such huge profits?

This was so simple, no technical skill required. If the fish vendors in Dongping were willing to take a little risk, there’s no way David Thompson would have gotten this opportunity.

But then he thought, it wouldn’t be a monopoly for long, and David Thompson felt a bit down. If he could keep doing this, he wouldn’t need to do anything else. At 20,000 a day, in less than a year he could just sit back and relax.

That little bit of disappointment quickly faded. One should be content—with so much earned in just a day or two, how could he expect more?

He chatted a bit with Big Beard, but the boss was busy and had to go. David Thompson didn’t linger, got in the truck, and headed back to Dongping with the driver.

Good thing he’d just sent the driver away for a bit—otherwise, if he’d seen all that money, who knows what he might have thought.

David Thompson wondered if he should use a different driver next time, but changing too often wouldn’t work, and it wasn’t easy to find that many people.

Then he thought, as long as he could keep things under wraps for another month or two, the business would be over anyway. He was paying high shipping fees, and the driver didn’t know how much he was making, so there shouldn’t be any problems.

……

The trip back was uneventful. Before 2 p.m., David Thompson arrived in Dongping.

He got off near the school and hurried to class—the afternoon session hadn’t started yet.

When William Clark saw David Thompson, he looked worried and quickly said, “Dongzi, you didn’t come this morning. Old Brooks got mad and just came to the class looking for you.”

David Thompson slapped his forehead—he’d forgotten to ask for leave.