After receiving 200 Talers, Huang Xuan easily found a Commerce Chamber in Hamburg and rent one of their warehouses at the port. Huang Xuan had been so familiar with this kind of procedure that everything went smoothly.
“The Chamber of Commerce of Honeywell is supposed to be able to buy some grains.” Rolin’s means of investigation was directly scanning the safe, which was special. Since there was no credit in plane travel, as long as the payment could be made in cash, everything was OK.
“Which one is it?” The chambers of commerce at the port didn’t have big signs. Even if they did, Huang Xuan wouldn’t have been able to recognize any of them.
“The third one straight ahead.”
Huang Xuan straightened his clothes. He had just bought a tight blue short jacket the Prussians often wore. Since he was much thinner than the adults, the jacket looked ridiculously loose on him.
The Chamber of Commerce of Honeywell had a dark red gate. On the steps were two Roman columns, making the place look like a lousy hotel without doormen.
The people on the street came and went in a hurry as if they were chasing something. The boatmen started chanting nearby in an accent from the middle part of the country, which was as thick as ink. Huang Xuan looked left and right and then walked in.
“Do you take wheat?” Rolin made Huang Xuan sound like a middle-aged man.
In Germany, wheat was not only used for staple food like bread but also for beer, so it was much dearer than rice that was seldom grown in Rhineland.
Honeywell was an export-oriented chamber of commerce which exported anything people were willing to buy to every part of the world, drawing on the thriving German capital, just as all the other chambers of commerce did at that time.
A sleepy-eyed guy with a quill in his mouth raised his head. He was wearing a dirty hat and dressed like a frustrated sailor.
“We take only staple commodities. Where do you come from, redneck?”
“This guy sounds just as annoying as Huang Jianxuan,” Huang Xuan said to Rolin. He looked at the sleep on the guy’s face in disgust and said, “Can you hold five thousand pounds of wheat?”
That sleep on that guy’s face moved a little as he blinked his eyes. He chewed on the quill and then suddenly spat it out and started yelling, “Redneck, get out!”
Huang Xuan’s face froze. Since nobody had ever scolded him like this and he had always been humored since he had been born, that guy’s words really irritated him. All the frustrating experience in the past days since he had got here flooded in his head. Huang Xuan kicked at the counter so hard that the guy behind it was knocked over together with it. After that, he stepped on the paperwork scattering on the floor, seized the guy by the collar and slapped him on the face. The whole room was dazed, including the few who were having fun at the scene.
Huang Xuan shook his shoulders and said to Rolin, “I am much stronger than before.”
“Every time traveler has a body much stronger than yours.” What Rolin said was disappointing to Huang Xuan. “Your body used to be too weak. You wouldn’t be qualified if you were at the big plane time.”
“Whatever.” Huang Xuan pouted. The guy on the ground was still cursing. Huang Xuan gave him another kick and said, “Idiot!”, which Rolin didn’t interpret.
At this time, the Prussians realized something. Two sturdy men yelled and rushed toward Huang Xuan, trying to grab him. Huang Xuan threw them aside with a single hand, and the room became chaotic.
More and more Prussians were coming.
“I am in trouble.” Huang Xuan was a little scared. It had been said that in Germany, every man was a soldier with biceps.
Several burly men in short jackets blocked the door. Huang Xuan, who was against the wall, said to Rolin, “Shall we go home?”
“There are at least 30 tons of wheat in the warehouse at the port. If we go back now, we will not only lose every cent invested but also waste a lot of energy.”
“Then what shall we do?” Huang Xuan thought Rolin was extremely stingy.
“I believe you can fix it.”
Huang Xuan inhaled deeply. He copied the actors on TV to compose himself, but he was more frantic. Then an old Prussian man wearing monocles walked in from the back door.
“What’s going on?” he asked grimly, looking at the messy room.
“He hit me,” the guy on the ground said with a swollen face and a thick tongue.
Facing the ten-odd sturdy Germanic men who might have become militiamen, Huang Xuan thought it was better to reason with them. He gave a cough and said, “He refused to take my wheat and cursed me.”
“Oh?”
“He said he had five thousand pounds of wheat. Such a trouble-maker…” the guy with a fat face explained right away. His voice went lower and lower and finally stopped. The old man’s face was even grimmer.
Huang Xuan laughed secretly. “Such a stupid guy! If I were him, I would say that he wanted to buy on credit or raise the price instead of talking about what I think.”
Although the old man’s face was as black as if it had been stepped on by someone, he managed to suppress his anger and said to Huang Xuan, “What he said…”
“I indeed wanted to sell five thousand pounds of wheat to you.” Huang Xuan looked at the sturdy men around him and continued, “There are 60 thousand pounds of wheat of mine in the warehouse at the port.”
The old man glanced at the mess on the ground, worried about letting Huang Xuan go. Then he said to a man standing beside him, “Guderian, go and check the port. This mister, which chamber of commerce do you belong to?”
Of course, Huang Xuan didn’t belong to any. He took out the leasing contract and the key. After having thrown the latter to Guderian, he said, “Let him check for himself. We can talk later.”
The Germans in the room were surprised to see Huang Xuan hand over the key.
“Go get a cup of coffee,” the old man said to the guy on the ground with a swollen face and left.
The Germans on the spot cleaned up the room quickly and threw the broken counter out. The place was soon back to its normal order. Huang Xuan sat on the chair next to him with legs crossed. He savored the coffee and looked at the sloppy guy beaten by him provocatively. The environment was pretty comfortable to him except for the three burly men standing in front of the door.
Guderian was back soon. He greeted Huang Xuan cordially, asked others to take good care of him, and then walked quickly into the backyard. Huang Xuan looked at the guy with a swollen face, curled his lips up, and made a gesture of kill.
The guy stood up quickly. The person beside him pulled him back onto his chair. Huang Xuan laughed loudly without a word, but everybody understood the meaning of his laugh.
Before the guy could vent his anger, Guderian walked in. He said to Huang Xuan with a smile, “Mr. Adolf wants to see you.”
Just like other chambers of commerce in Germany, the backyard of Honeywell was made up of bungalows. The warehouse was built closest to the main entrance. In the middle were some flowers and grass, which were of common varieties and were growing well.
Adolf was waiting quietly in the hall of the backyard, in the middle of which were put French style table and chairs. After the episode, he remained calm, savoring the wine in his hand.
Huang Xuan sat casually on the chair opposite Adolf and said, “Shall we do business or talk about something else?”
“Business, of course,” the old man spoke fast but didn’t sound hasty. Although Huang Xuan couldn’t understand what he said, he felt that this was a methodical man.
“What’s the price?” Huang Xuan asked directly.
“52 Talers every 1,000 pounds,” Adolf said with a smile. That was two Talers more that the offer of the former shop.
“Deal!” Huang Xuan held out one hand and said readily.
Guderian looked at Huang Xuan in shock until he walked him out. To him, this kind of style in business was rarely seen in an Asian person. After all, that was a deal of more than 3,000 Talers.
After the clerks of the chamber of commerce had examined the wheat in the warehouse, Huang Xuan smoothly received 3,120 Talers. Although Huang Xuan was alone, Guderian didn’t take all the wheat. It had to be admitted that the Germans were honest in business. If it had been in France, it might have turned out to be totally different.
Huang Xuan rented several more warehouses with the money and sold all the materials he had taken with him after he had approached a few more chambers of commerce. When all this was done, it was already nightfall. Huang Xuan wasn’t relaxed until he had put the last bag of silver coins into the plane passage.