"Little Zhou has just acquired a new batch of honeydew that's mainly supplied to high-end restaurants. They're not available elsewhere. I managed to get 50 of them. Due to the limited quantity, Little Zhou and I discussed and decided to set up a flash deal on Jiaduoduo. The honeydews are limited to one purchase per person." Huang Fang sent that voice message to the chat group, after which numerous members who usually did not speak, suddenly surfaced.
"Only 50? Isn't that too little?"
"I snatched those 50 from an order meant for a restaurant. They're not ordinary honeydews. Each one costs 300 yuan."
"The price of 300 yuan is not an issue. How is the quality? The quality of the grapes that we bought previously is really superb. If these honeydews are of the same standards as those grapes, I will definitely be the first to snatch one," said old Mrs. Gu who was about to introduce her niece to Zhou Kun. However, she had sent a voice message. After all, she couldn't type as fast as Huang Fang.
"I'm going to buy it!" Old Mrs. Gao sent an emoticon of a little boy, on which there was the word 'buy'.
Due to the fact that old Mrs. Gao didn't know how to type, she got her grandson to help her make a set of emoticons, which helped with daily communication. Many of the elderly ladies who were members of the group chat felt that the emoticons were great, so they were using them as well.
As a consequence, many other elderly ladies who could not type fast enough had all sent out such emoticons.
Of course, there were countless others who were silently paying attention to the messages sent to the group.
"The flash deal will begin at eight o'clock in the evening. Remember to give Little Zhou a good review. After all, if this goes through smoothly, Little Zhou will be posting his goods on Jiaduoduo for sale in the future. That would make it easy for us to purchase fruit in groups."
Everyone sent a "sure" emoticon.
"The honeydew costs 300 yuan each. How much does each one weigh?" asked the owner of Daily Vitamin C fruit store who interrupted.
"They're not too large. They weigh about 1 to 1.5 kilograms each."
The owner of Daily Vitamin C Fruit Store was so shocked that his mouth was wide open. Although the customers from Jinlan Residences had higher standards of consumption and spending power, it was rare for them to purchase honeydew that cost 100 yuan per 500 grams without hesitation.
What grapes were they talking about? Seems like this group must have something to do with the lack of sales in the fruit store lately. Who is this Little Zhou whom they've been mentioning?
The surname of the owner next door is 'Sun'. Could it be that he had hired someone to manage his business?
The owner of Daily Vitamin C Fruit Store continued to stay in hiding in the group, in a bid to figure out what was going on.
Mr. Sun, the owner of the snack store, did not say much in the chat group, but he was paying attention to the news.
The flash deal on Jiaduoduo would begin at eight o'clock in the evening. He secretly noted down the time and prepared to try and snatch a honeydew. He wanted to know what the 300-yuan honeydew looked like. Even at this point, he still felt that Mr. Qian, owner of the other store, was the one who started the group.
Jinlan Residences was destined to have their peace disrupted that day. The children of the elderly ladies would return home to see their mothers holding onto their mobile phones, staring at the screen intently while wearing their presbyopia glasses.
"Mother, why aren't you watching TV anymore?" The children felt that their mother was behaving strangely because she would usually watch family dramas on TV during that time of the day.
"Talk to me later. I'm busy with the flash deal on Jiaduoduo!" the elderly lady exclaimed while looking at her son impatiently through her presbyopic glasses.
The elderly lady's son, Gao Dongming said smilingly, "Mother, you know how to use Jiaduoduo too?"
"What's so hard about it? I got a lot of garbage bags and umbrellas that we have at home from Jiaduoduo. However, the item today is a flash deal, so I don't know if I can get it."
"What is the flash deal about? Do you want me to take a look for you?" asked Gao Dongming.
Although Gao Dongming was just making a casual remark, old Mrs. Gao took it seriously.
Although she was using a smartphone, it was usually extremely slow. She felt that her son's mobile phone would definitely work faster.
"Hurry, I'll send you the link. There are only a few minutes left. I mustn't miss it this time."
The other Gao Family in the estate, which was the family of old Mrs. Gao, who used the emoticons, had already reached an agreement with her grandson during dinner. He agreed to help her with the flash deal later on.
Her grandson was extremely tech-savvy, and he could often manage to buy the items sold during flash deals.
Old Mrs. Gao's grandson, Gao Jiyang was an avid fan of sneakers. In order to purchase sneakers, he had explored various ways to snag flash deals on the Internet, and it was a common thing for him to use a software to snap up the items he wanted.
On that evening, Gao Jiyang did not have any sneakers in mind that he wanted to snap up. Hence, he patiently helped his grandma launch the software for snagging flash deals.
As soon as he did, Gao Jiyang received a great shock because the item that his grandmother was clamoring about and wanting to snap up turned out to be honeydew that cost 300 yuan each.
"Grandma, how many crates of honeydew will there be per order? Can we finish all of them?"
It was no wonder that Gao Jiyang would think that way. After all, one could usually get 10 crates of honeydew for 300 yuan on Jiaduoduo. He was afraid that they might not be able to finish the honeydew.
"Silly child, these are not sold in crates. They're clearly sold individually, aren't they?"
"What? Each honeydew costs 300 yuan?"
Gao Jiyang was rather shocked. It was not that they could not afford to eat such expensive honeydews. However, it was rare for upscale fruit to be sold on Jiaduoduo. The price of 300 yuan per honeydew was extremely high, considering the fact that the most famous local honeydew would cost at most 1000 yuan, which was caused by the hype.
"It's expensive, but this honeydew is especially delicious."
"How delicious can it be? It's just honeydew after all."
"I haven't tried it before, but Little Zhou's fruits are definitely superb. The grapes that you've had previously were purchased from this store."
Gao Jiyang remembered the grapes that his grandmother was talking about. Indeed, they were much better than the grapes available on the market. 300 yuan would not be considered too expensive for a honeydew if it could reach that standard.
Soon, it was 7:59 pm. Plenty of the residents in the estate had already been waiting for a long time.
At 8 o'clock sharp, the page began to crash as there were overwhelming orders. By the time the owner of Gluttony Place Snack Store logged onto the page, the group-buy flash deal for honeydews had already ended. Mr. Qian, the owner of the store next door, also faced the same predicament.
"The group-buy for the honeydews this time has ended. Those of you who have managed to snap up an order, come to my place later to collect your honeydew." Huang Fang sent a message to the group chat.
"It was sold out as soon as I logged onto the page."
"Yeah, fifty is too little."
"I was lucky enough to have snatched one."
"Me too. Shall we collect the honeydew together later?"
"I'm so envious. I can only wait for the next opportunity."
Before 8:30 pm, the new variety of honeydew was already served on the tables of various households in Jinlan Residences. The crowd once again expressed their approval for the quality of the new variety of honeydew.
Apart from the elderly ladies, their family members had also eaten the honeydew. Aside from feeling shocked, they also left reviews for the product, which was rather important.
"Take at least five photos and write a good review that's at least a hundred words long. Do not be perfunctory."
After receiving the other from their elderly mothers, plenty of big bosses of corporate companies who used to be secretaries began writing their essays attentively.
Zhou Kun looked at the honeydews that had been sold out. He was in a good mood. Soon, he received a notification from the system.
"We've detected an unusual amount of orders for your product. If this activity does not stop, your account will be blocked."
"Damn it!"