Chapter 32: The "God" of Tangerines! (Please Follow)

Staring intently at his phone, Jiang Tao watched the time hit midnight. He couldn't wait to open the intelligence system to check the information for the day.

[Today’s Intelligence]: You interacted with your landlord, Lu Qian, yesterday. You have obtained the following information—

72-year-old Lu Qian appears optimistic and cheerful on the outside, but he has always been lonely at heart, often lying awake at night. He longs to find a perfect love in his remaining years, but he has yet to meet the right person.

According to system analysis, Ma Dongmei, who sells roasted sweet potatoes outside the Red Star Second-hand Furniture Market, has a 98% compatibility rating with Lu Qian!

If you facilitate their marriage, you will receive an 88,888 yuan reward from Lu Qian, as well as a permanent reduction in your rent.

...

Seeing the information refreshed, Jiang Tao’s eyes lit up.

"Our landlord is certainly young at heart; over seventy and still believing in love..."

"Still, a reward of 88,888 yuan—he’s quite generous!"

"I’m definitely helping the old man with this!"

After reading the intelligence twice, Jiang Tao felt that the task of playing matchmaker for his landlord shouldn't be too difficult. It was just a matter of playing "matchmaker" and connecting the landlord with that auntie named Ma-something-mei!

Besides, the system indicated a 98% compatibility rating—just 2% away from a perfect match. They could be considered a match made in heaven! With such high compatibility, it shouldn't be hard to bring them together. It would be like throwing a burning torch into a pile of dry firewood; it was bound to ignite instantly!

"There seem to be three people selling roasted sweet potatoes near that wholesale market."

"If I can find the time today, I’ll head over to see which one is Ma Dongmei and get a sense of the situation. If I’m busy, I’ll wait; there's no rush."

"It’s getting late. Time to sleep. I have to go out and sell oranges tomorrow when the timing is right."

"It’s already the 18th day of the twelfth lunar month. In ten days, it’ll be time to head home for the New Year. I need to make some extra money so I can have a good holiday this year!"

Thinking about the important business for tomorrow, Jiang Tao plugged his phone into the charger, turned off the lights, and crawled under the covers. Lying on his pillow, he wondered what exactly "the right timing" would be. He had just checked the weather forecast on his phone. For the next ten days or so, Beijing would be mostly cloudy or sunny. Aside from two blue alerts for strong winds and cooling, there was nothing unusual.

"Forget it. If the system says the price will go up, it will go up. I’ll know why tomorrow."

Unable to figure it out, Jiang Tao stopped thinking about it, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

***

*Ring-ring, ring-ring—*

At 6:00 AM, the alarm on his phone went off. Jiang Tao reached out from under the covers to turn it off, planning to doze for a few more minutes. However, things didn't go as planned; as soon as he silenced the alarm, the phone rang again.

*Ring-ring, ring-ring—*

He opened one eye to glance at the screen. The caller was "Little Liu."

"Hey, Little Liu, it’s too early to be up."

"The wholesale price went up? By how much?"

Hearing the excitement in Liu Zhiyuan’s voice, Jiang Tao’s sleepiness vanished instantly, and he sat bolt upright in bed.

"It hit six yuan?"

"Haha, of course! You finally trust your brother’s business instincts now!"

"Let’s meet at Old Guo’s shop. Breakfast is on me today—eat up, because we’ve got work to do!"

"Gotta go, see you in a bit!"

After the brief call, Jiang Tao hung up and walked over to the window to look outside. At 6:00 AM, Beijing hadn't fully awakened from its slumber, and the sky was still dim. Jiang Tao had dreamt of snow last night, but outside, everything was the same as yesterday. There was no extreme weather like the blizzard he had imagined.

He opened his weather app and took a look. It showed another sunny day with temperatures between -3 and 5 degrees Celsius. This year in Beijing was several degrees warmer than the same period last year; it was a genuine warm winter.

"Whatever, who cares about the reason! The price is up, and this money is meant for us to make!"

Unable to fathom why the price of sugar mandarins had fluctuated so wildly, Jiang Tao gave up on trying to understand. He washed his face and hands with water from his thermos, applied some Dabao moisturizer, threw on his thick black cotton coat—his usual attire for work—and headed out.

Within the time it took to smoke a cigarette, Jiang Tao arrived at "Old Guo’s Shop." Liu Zhiyuan, Shan Yufei, and Zhang Chao were already waiting inside, chatting away happily.

"Our very own Zhuge Liang has arrived!"

"Brother Jiang, your foresight is truly divine! How did you know there would be a massive blizzard in Guangxi and that the sugar mandarins couldn't be shipped out?"

"Our fruit wholesale group is flooded with people looking for sugar mandarins! Even if we just sold them to those middlemen, we’d make a fortune!"

Seeing Jiang Tao, the three of them were incredibly excited, explaining the cause of the price fluctuation in a few short sentences.

"Heh, it was mostly thanks to my friend. If you want to talk about foresight, he’s the one who’s truly divine."

"Listen to good advice and you’ll be well-fed. He may be young, but he’s already worth tens of millions, so he definitely has real talent."

Jiang Tao sat down at the table calmly, though he was just as thrilled inside! He had invested the most money in this sugar mandarin project, and he was about to make so much money he’d get tired just counting it!

"If I’d known it was this reliable, I would’ve cashed out that 100,000 yuan fixed deposit I had!"

"Tell me about it! But it’s too late now; all of Beijing is looking for sugar mandarins."

"In just this short while, the price in the group went up by another five 50 cents. It’s already at 6.5 yuan!"

Liu Zhiyuan and Shan Yufei truly regretted not going all-in like Jiang Tao! To play it safe, they had only invested 50,000 yuan each. If they had invested over a hundred thousand like Jiang Tao... Of course, it was too late to say anything now. The world didn't have that many "what ifs." Some opportunities are fleeting; if you catch them, you catch them. If you miss them, you’ve missed them for a lifetime.

As for the most regretful one, it had to be Zhang Chao. He had watched his friends make a small fortune, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it!

"Brother Jiang, if there are any more opportunities like this in the future, you have to bring us along!"

"That goes without saying. We’re brothers; we make money together. Order whatever you want—eat up, then we’ll go load the oranges and get ready for battle!"

The others didn't stand on ceremony and ordered their favorite breakfasts. Once they were full, the four of them drove their trucks to the small courtyard Jiang Tao had rented and started loading the cargo.

It was the 18th day of the twelfth lunar month, which happened to be a Friday—the day of the Shahe Great Market. The market covered an area of over 60,000 square meters and saw an average daily foot traffic of over 60,000 people. Especially at this time of year, as the New Year approached, there were even more people out shopping for supplies.

The market was bustling, with crowds shoulder-to-shoulder, browsing various stalls for what they needed. The four of them drove their trucks one by one into the fruit section. Usually, there were at least ten fruit vendors selling sugar mandarins in this area. Today, the four of them had become the "gods" of sugar mandarins at the Shahe Great Market.