Chapter 176: Gold Recycling

"Did Comrade Little Li really say that?" Chang Yu was stunned for a moment, his mind racing with a flurry of thoughts.

No wonder Katerina hadn't even blinked when she bought thirty thousand yuan worth of clothes for Yangyang on a whim.

And no wonder Katerina hadn't reacted with the slightest bit of surprise when she carried the Gucci bag Chang Yu had given her.

It turned out... she simply didn't lack money at all!

The things he had sent her were, in her eyes, utterly ordinary trinkets.

To ordinary people, a Gucci bag was exorbitantly expensive—a luxury they couldn't afford in a lifetime.

Yet in her eyes, a Gucci bag was no different from any ordinary bag; they were all cheap.

"Given your current salary, wanting to marry her is completely out of the question."

Chang Yu was shocked at the time, thinking to himself that his little darling Yangyang really had a bit of a leak in her cotton-padded jacket.

"Actually, it's not that difficult for me to make a fortune," Chang Yu said, weighing his words and trying to look as amiable as possible.

"As long as you're willing to part with your daily foot-washing water, I reckon I could become a millionaire before next month."

Yangyang: ?????

Yangyang couldn't figure it out, no matter how hard she tried.

Making a fortune was one thing, but what did that have to do with her foot-washing water?

The adult world was truly far too complicated!

Chang Yu gave a meaningful smile, looking somewhat profound and unfathomable: "Didn't you see how Zhao Dasheng was acting like a total fool with joy just from getting a tiny bit of dirt scrubbed off your body?"

"You must understand that you are different from ordinary people. When ordinary people wash their feet, they're literally just washing their feet to cleanse away the filth. But when you wash your feet, it's equivalent to dropping half a poria cocos mushroom into the water to brew tea! Surely the effect is much better than the dirt scrubbed off someone's body, right?"

"In short, just remember to save the water the next time you wash your feet. The two of us will bottle that foot-washing water into small sealed vials and sell them to the rich later on. Consider it a contribution to a harmonious society."

As he spoke, Chang Yu suddenly grew cheerful again, as if all his previous unhappiness had never existed.

Such a heaven-and-earth defying outrage, when described by him, was transformed into a noble deed that benefited society and mankind.

How utterly shameless!

Taking out his phone, he snapped a photo of the beautiful scenery outside the window.

Chang Yu deliberately made it look like an "accident" that the bottle of 1982 Lafite right beside him was captured in the frame.

This seemingly casual, accidental photo was actually the absolute centerpiece of Chang Yu's photoshoot today.

It was, after all, a world-famous wine that countless people dreamed of but could never obtain. If Chang Yu didn't flex properly, he wouldn't be Chang Yu.

Very Versailles-style, he posted these photos to his WeChat Moments, along with a selfie of himself.

To set the mood even better, he propped his cheek lazily on the back of his hand while swirling the wine glass in his palm.

His expression was melancholy tinged with a hint of loneliness, loneliness tinged with a hint of desolation, and desolation tinged with a hint of elegance.

Ah... truly a quiet and handsome young man!

.........

The next morning, Chang Yu awoke from his slumber.

He clutched a handful of gold beans in his right hand, the unique, noble luster of gold fully displayed on them.

The heavy sensation transmitted from his hand undoubtedly told Chang Yu that he was indeed holding a handful of precious gold.

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Last night, he had dreamed of that exhibition room again. Remembering the lesson from last time, Chang Yu had only grabbed a handful of gold beans this time, not being greedy or taking too much.

Carefully placing the gold beans he held in his right hand one by one onto the bed, Chang Yu examined them closely.

"With so much gold, I should be able to fetch a good price, right?"

"It's just a pity about that scepter. I wanted to take it at the time, but I couldn't move it at all."

That scepter was carved entirely out of solid gold and was simply too heavy; Chang Yu had no way of bringing it back.

Otherwise, the ruby at the top of that scepter alone could have been auctioned for tens or even hundreds of millions.

Taking advantage of the fact that Yangyang was still fast asleep, Chang Yu hurriedly washed up and went out. When he arrived at the gold recycling spot on the street, he saw a familiar figure sitting there.

It was that gold recycling peddler who set up his stall on the side of the road year-round. Right now, he was holding soy milk in one hand and biting into a steamed bun with the other, eating with great gusto.

Chang Yu had dealt with this person before and knew he was a profit-driven, cunning old fox, so he didn't hold any favorable impressions of him.

"Yo, little boss, here to sell some goods, are you?" The crafty merchant greeted Chang Yu enthusiastically.

Since the other person greeted him so warmly, Chang Yu couldn't just act cold, so he smiled: "I do want to sell something. How did you know?"

"Me? I'm not boasting at all, but with this nose of mine, I can smell the scent of gold from hundreds of meters away. I always guess right, it's super accurate."

The crafty merchant patted his chest proudly: "I reckon you definitely have gold on you, and quite a lot of it too. You must be in a rush to cash it out, right?"

"You guessed pretty accurately." Chang Yu admired the merchant's sharp powers of observation; he did indeed have many gold beans on him.

"If you trust me, sell the gold to me. We specialize in buying gold, and the prices we offer are fair." The merchant handed Chang Yu a Zhonghua cigarette and enthusiastically helped him light it.

"But I don't trust you, I'm afraid of getting ripped off." Remembering this guy's shady track record, Chang Yu instinctively didn't want to trust him.

If it weren't for Elder Pei's help last time, I would have been scammed by you long ago.

"I didn't mean to scam you last time! I genuinely didn't recognize that gold hairpin was an antique from the Ming Dynasty!" The merchant panicked instantly, abandoning the soy milk in his hand.

This was obviously just bluster to fool people. In their line of work, the first thing they learned was precisely how to bluff.

"Rest assured, I will never let you suffer a loss this time, and the price I give you will be absolutely fair. If you don't trust me, you can look up today's gold price online, and we'll use today's international gold price as our standard."

Chang Yu pondered for a moment. If transactions for his gold beans were indeed based on the international gold price, then it wouldn't be out of the question to unload his goods with this crafty merchant.

If the price was fair, he could also save himself the trouble of wandering all over the streets looking for a gold shop.

"Alright then, I'll sell the goods here." Chang Yu pulled a small cloth pouch out of his trouser pocket.

The cloth pouch was about the size of a fist and felt heavy. Inside were round, plump large gold beans.

The gold beans he had brought back from his dreams on two occasions were all right here; these constituted all of Chang Yu's current net worth.

"Hof, looks like there's a big deal today." The moment the merchant saw the cloth pouch Chang Yu was holding, he guessed it was full of gold and began rubbing his hands together in excitement.

Even with his years of setting up shop here, he rarely saw such a big setup.

Usually, the people who came to him to sell goods were small-timers carrying at most a few necklaces or rings, with a total weight not exceeding two taels.

But the cloth pouch Chang Yu held was different. Based on the merchant's visual estimate, this pouch had to contain at least a catty or more; otherwise, it wouldn't look so bulging.

It seemed today was truly his lucky day—a big business had just dropped right into his lap! The merchant's heart was overflowing with joy.

"I checked, today's international gold price is 380 RMB per gram. Shall we go by this price?" Pulling a folding chair over from the front of the stall, Chang Yu plopped down onto it.

"Generally speaking, our gold recycling price per gram is about 20 to 30 RMB lower than the international price, so we can make a little profit. Even gold shops follow this rule."

This time the crafty merchant wasn't lying to Chang Yu, because the recycling price of gold was indeed lower than the retail price of finished gold.

If they recycled gold at the full retail price, these businessmen wouldn't have any room to make a profit.

"Let's settle on 360 RMB per gram then. Any lower and I won't sell." Chang Yu had long heard of the unspoken rule mentioned by the merchant and understood it.

"Considering your large volume this time, I suppose I'll just take a bit of a loss..." The merchant put on an exaggerated display of beating his chest and stamping his feet, as if this transaction had become a losing venture with zero profit.

"You might not know this, but making a living in our line of work isn't that easy. 360 is already a very high recycling price."

"Cut the crap and get the scale." Chang Yu was pressed for time and had no intention of endlessly bickering here with this crafty merchant who radiated cunning from head to toe.

"You got it!" The merchant neatly pulled an electronic scale out of a snakeskin bag and placed it in front of Chang Yu.

"Please go ahead." The merchant pointed a finger at the cloth pouch in Chang Yu's hand, signaling him to place the gold onto the scale.

"Your scale... it shouldn't have any problems, right?" Just as he was about to dump the gold beans from the pouch onto the scale, Chang Yu suddenly paused.

"How could that be?!" The merchant turned red in the face, feeling deeply insulted. "I set up my fixed stall here every day. If there were anything wrong with this scale, people would have found out long ago."

"Since I dare to sit here every day without fear of customers coming back to cause trouble for me, it proves my scale is definitely fine."

The merchant wasn't lying about this. Fixed stalls like his that recycled gold wouldn't dare tamper with the scales, as they would easily be caught and beaten to a pulp by cheated customers.

"Wait for me a moment." Even though the merchant spoke with absolute certainty, Chang Yu was still worried about getting cheated.

He stood up and bought a bottle of mineral water from a nearby small grocery store.

"A bottle of mineral water generally weighs one catty," Chang Yu said. "If your scale is fine, the weight of the mineral water it displays will definitely be one catty."

With that, he casually placed the mineral water onto the scale, not caring whether the merchant liked it or not.

He glanced at the number displayed on the scale: 500g, commonly known as one catty.

"Mm, the scale really is fine." Chang Yu finally set his mind at ease and stopped suspecting the scale.

"Look, didn't I say it was fine?" The merchant sighed with sorrow and indignation. "I don't know since when, but the most basic trust between people has vanished completely. Public morals are truly deteriorating by the day."

Ignoring the grumbling merchant, Chang Yu dumped the gold beans from the cloth pouch onto the electronic scale himself.

Clatter...

In an instant, countless gold pieces the size of soybeans flooded the tray, and all that met the eye was a brilliant, shimmering golden radiance.

(End of the chapter) (m.kanshu) Fastest update, young masters and misses remember to bookmark it!