"Nian’an, I, I really have no other way, if I don’t pay back the money, Brother Niu is going to kill me. I still have two daughters to support, please, can you help me?" Ji Shuqin pleaded earnestly to Xu Nian’an.
If it were before, Ji Shuqin would definitely not have asked, but since his parents came back from South City saying that his aunt’s family was doing well, even affording to send two kids to school in Ningbei and considering the beautiful new clothes Xu Nian’an and Xu Nianhua were wearing, they certainly didn’t look poor.
Moreover, Xu Nianhua’s partner didn’t seem like an ordinary person just by looking at his presence.
Xu Nian’an didn’t rush to answer, he exchanged a glance with Xu Nianhua before asking, "What did you borrow those two hundred bucks for?"
"For business." Ji Shuqin sighed as he mentioned it, "I previously met a friend who brought several radios from Yangcheng, claiming they sell incredibly well there. He said each could be bought for fifty and sold for eighty-one, so think about it. I could buy four units with two hundred bucks, make thirty on each, and just like that, earn a hundred and twenty bucks!"
Ji Shuqin was truly tempted then, enticed by the easy money.
Who would have known that he would buy the radios, but couldn’t sell them!
Forget selling them for eighty-one, he couldn’t even sell them for fifty-one each; everyone thought they were too expensive.
When he thought to find that friend again, the guy had vanished without a trace, leaving him with those four hundred unsold radios.
"Didn’t you check the market before buying those radios from someone?" Xu Nian’an, hearing about this, couldn’t help but be astonished; just based on someone’s word, you went to borrow two hundred bucks to buy radios?
Ji Shuqin chuckled sheepishly, scratching his short hair and confessed rather abashed, "Well, I thought it was a profitable venture, and I got excited, so I, I just..."
Thinking about the quick profit of one hundred and twenty bucks, Ji Shuqin believed that the business was viable. Thus, without inquiring further into the market situation and being pushed by his friend not to miss out on such a lucrative opportunity, Ji Shuqin was preoccupied with the money he thought he would earn and was swayed without much consideration.
"If there really was a profit of one hundred and twenty bucks and it could be earned in just a few days, is your friend a fool then, not keeping it to make the money himself?" Xu Nianhua, sizing up Ji Shuqin, who was fair and handsome and not particularly uneducated, couldn’t believe that he had been foolish enough to think of selling radios.
But Ji Shuqin had recklessly invested in four radios without even knowing where to sell them; wasn’t the stock now stuck on him?
From two hundred to a thousand, earning money is really that easy.
"My sister is straightforward, don’t take it personally." Xu Nian’an discreetly gave his little sister a look, noticing that Ji Shuqin was nearly in tears.
Better not to twist the knife in his heart any further.
Xu Nian’an asked, "Where are those four radios now?"
At my place," Ji Shuqin said with a drooping face, "but I took them to sell, and nobody wanted them."
"Where did you try to sell them?" Xu Nian’an asked curiously.
Ji Shuqin replied, "The farmers’ market, where there are lots of people, but still, no one wanted them."
Xu Nian’an almost burst out laughing but held back as he saw Ji Shuqin wasn’t looking too cheerful. He lowered his head to hide his smile, then contained his laughter before saying, "A radio for eighty bucks, that’s more than two months’ wages for some people. Do you really think someone at the farmers’ market would buy it?"
Those frequenting the market to buy groceries were mostly elderly ladies and daughters-in-law, there to buy vegetables. If Ji Shuqin had been selling food or something, it could have been different, but radios? No wonder they thought he was a scammer.