"Hello! Mr. Wang, how do you do? Mr. Zheng Shouye recommended you to me..."
When the other party heard that he was an acquaintance of Mr. Zheng's, his voice became very warm. On the phone, the two simply decided on a batch of goods to be wrapped up and sent to Cheng Xu's scrapyard.
As soon as he hung up, Cheng Xu received another call.
"I haven't called you in a long time, and once I did, you answered immediately. You must be quite busy now, aren't you, little orange? "
"Not really. It's only my second phone call of the day, including yours."
The call was from Li Mengqing. "Little orange" was the nickname she had given Cheng Xu in high school. Hearing it again after so long made him miss his innocent high school days.
Cheng Xu continued, "What's wrong? Is there something you need from me, young missy?"
"Young missy" was likewise used by Cheng Xu to address Li Mengqing. Because her father was a district leader in the county, no one but Cheng Xu would dare call her that.
"What? I can't call you unless I need something? I do have something to tell you though."
Li Mengqing's tone sounded a little tsundere, and Cheng Xu immediately admitted defeat.
"I was wrong. It's fine, it's fine. You can call me every day and it would be fine."
"Who would call you every day? You think phones don't come with bills? At most... I'd just text you on QQ."
Cheng Xu did not know whether to laugh or cry as she continued.
"By the way, I heard that a few high school classmates want to have a meal together. Do you want to go? "
"I can. If you go, I'll go."
"I'll go if you go!"
After a few rounds of bickering, the two of them reached a consensus to go.
After hanging up the call, Cheng Xu hummed a song and rushed to the bathroom. After a busy day, Cheng Xu almost could not remember how much he had sweated. Taking a shower was his priority.
The next morning, Mr. Wang personally drove the Wuling MINIEV car to deliver the goods to Cheng Xu.
"Mr. Cheng, I could tell you were young on the call yesterday, but I did not expect you to look even younger in person."
The delivery man, Mr. Wang, was very thin. His skin looked like he was in his early forties, but his hair had mostly turned white.
Cheng Xu chuckled but did not reply. Instead, he focused on the goods that Mr. Wang had brought.
He first carried down a box of screws that had a yellowish glint to them.
"Mr. Cheng, my goods look pretty good. These goods carry a high gold content. If it were not for the fact that I don't have the energy, I'd do it myself."
Cheng Xu naturally did not pay much attention to what he said.
He touched the so-called gold-plated components and was a little speechless.
"Mr. Wang, how much are you planning to sell this for?"
"I've calculated it at the market price: 120 yuan per 500 grams. If you buy a huge amount, the price can be negotiated."
Cheng Xu shook his head. "I don't dare ask for a large amount. Even if I had more money, I can't afford to spend it all like this."
Mr. Wang chuckled. "We can still negotiate if you're not satisfied with the price. Name a price, and I'll see if I can accept it."
"You want me to name the price? 2 yuan per 500 grams then."
Mr. Wang's smile disappeared, and he asked tentatively, "Mr. Cheng, you're just pulling my leg, right? Even the price of scrap metal elsewhere is more than 1 yuan per 500 grams."
Cheng Xu unhurriedly said with a smile, "That's right. I even took into account that there might still be some copper in there, so I raised the price for you. This way, everyone can make a profit."
"Mr. Cheng is an expert, young and promising! It's my mistake today. How about this, you can also take these goods"—as Mr. Wang spoke, he took out a box of dazzling gold probes from the car boot—"for 100 yuan per 500 grams, and I guarantee you'll make a profit. Have a look at these goods, Mr. Cheng. These are definitely good wares."
Cheng Xu carefully sensed the metal probes' weight and metal content with his mind and began to do some mental calculations.
Mr. Wang looked at Cheng Xu's frowning face and did not dare to disturb him, but he also was a little nervous.
A moment later, Cheng Xu's brows finally relaxed. He estimated that he could earn more than 30% of the profit at this price.
"This box of goods is not bad indeed. We'll go with your price."
Mr. Wang then looked at Cheng Xu in surprise.
Cheng Xu brought the electronic scale over. The gross weight was close to 6 kilograms. Minus the 1 kilogram for the box's own weight, the net weight was around 5 kilograms.
Mr. Wang had, of course, weighed them with his own scale before he came, and he could see there was nothing wrong with Cheng Xu's electronic scale.
When Cheng Xu's grandfather was still around, he had never tampered with the scale, there was really no need to do so since everyone was in the same industry.
After taking out twenty 100-yuan bills, Cheng Xu did not ask for change. This price was already profitable enough.
After the transaction, Mr. Wang was quite impressed with Cheng Xu. It was not easy to acquire such knowledge and ability at this age.
He thought about his own son, who was also a college student. It was currently the semester break and all he did at home was sleep and play games. No, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
"By the way, Mr. Cheng, do you want chemicals like gold-dissolving water, oxidizers, and reducing agents? I have my own channels."
Cheng Xu smiled and waved his hand, indicating that there was no need.
Mr. Wang's opinion of Cheng Xu increased a little, but he did not stay any longer.
Cheng Xu closed the door, deftly separated all the gold from the probes, and put it into his dimensional pocket.
"It's exactly 8 grams of gold. According to the market price, that's more than 2,800 yuan. That's pretty good."
Mr. Wang did not shortchange him this time. This batch of gold materials would definitely fetch a fine price even if he had used chemicals to treat it. Of course, there would be some loss in the metal's density.
Now that Cheng Xu thought about it, he finally understood what Mr. Wang's intentions were.
He had first used the copper plated materials to test him, and if he had been a gullible layperson, Mr. Wang would have made a massive profit from him and left.
If he knew his stuff, but could not estimate exactly how much gold was among the box of quality goods, in the negotiations, he could use this box of good wares as bait.
After he had alchemized this box of goods and tasted the benefits, there would be many opportunities to slowly use the low-gold wares and make money.
In the end, if it was someone like Cheng Xu who could distinguish genuine and fake items, then he would use this box of goods to form a good relationship, and do some proper business in the future.
Before coming here, Mr. Wang had heard that it was a young man's voice, so he had not taken it to heart. However, Cheng Xu's ability to distinguish the materials between the two boxes really surprised him.
If nothing else, just that batch of copper-plated materials alone would have been difficult for an average person to distinguish without using any chemical reagents.
Usually, people would sell this kind of material on the second-hand trading platforms online. There were many people who saw others making money from alchemy, and rashly decided to enter the business.
In the end, they ended up merely paying the tuition fees for alchemy classes. Speaking of which, it was much more profitable to collect these tuition fees than to run a business that only earned profit margins.
It had to be said that there were too many idiots and not enough scammers.
Another way to make money was to sell them the chemical agents used in alchemy. Many people could only break even with the gold they refined, which was equivalent to doing free work for them...
Meanwhile, Cheng Xu's phone rang.
"Eh? Why am I getting more calls?"