"This peach still needs another two days before it can be picked. Picking it too early affects the taste, and too late makes it overripe, prone to bruising. In two days, when you pick them, haul them off to the fruit sellers, and then sell them, the flavor will be at its best."
Shen Yunyun looked at the peach orchard, the trees laden with peaches that looked quite appealing.
Moreover, different varieties of peaches ripen at different times, but the difference is only a few days at most.
She nodded and said, "In that case, let's wait two more days to come pick them."
"Miss, I've made you come all this way for nothing," the village chief said, feeling guilty about his poor handling of things.
"It's fine, just take the village's goods away instead."
The village chief immediately went back to pack up the goods, and they hauled them to the cold storage.
As soon as the driver left, Shen Yunyun stored all the goods in her space.
No matter how good the cold storage was, it couldn't compare to the usefulness of her space.
She locked the door and was about to leave when she noticed someone unloading things from the cold storage next door.
Curious, she took a glance.
The person leading the loading was a tall, thin man in his late twenties, wearing a baseball cap that half-covered his face, and he was on the phone.
"Brother Zhang, you can't do this. We agreed to make money together. You can't just quit because the market's bad and leave me to bear all the losses alone. Are you trying to force me into a corner?"
Shen Yunyun couldn't hear what was said on the other end of the call, but she could see the tall, thin man was very angry, and he eventually hung up.
From that one sentence, Shen Yunyun could guess that this man had gone into business with a partner, but when things got tough, the other party backed out, leaving all the losses for the man in front of her to bear.
She felt a bit of sympathy for the young man but had no intention of meddling.
She glanced at the goods they were moving and was surprised to find they were all apples.
She hadn't expected there to be so many apples in cold storage at this time of year.
In a few months, when the new apples came in, these wouldn't sell.
These apples were imported from the Lu region and were of excellent quality.
She wanted to buy some for herself to eat and also give some to Xiao Tangyuan, Karl, Zhang Yifan, and the others.
So she asked, "How much are the apples?"
Liao Zhen, hearing someone ask about the apples, immediately broke into a smile: "These are authentic Cunsan first-grade fruits—big, juicy, crisp, and sweet. Try one."
As he spoke, he quickly tore open a bag, took out an apple, and handed it to Shen Yunyun.
Shen Yunyun took the apple and weighed it in her hand. It was heavy, just as he said, with plenty of moisture.
"How much per pound?"
"Twelve for retail, ten for wholesale. My purchase price from the orchard is eight," Liao Zhen said, gesturing as he spoke.
Shen Yunyun frowned slightly: "Eight when picked?"
"Yeah, if you don't believe me, I can show you the ledger," he said, quickly pulling out his phone. There was a dedicated accounting app on it, and he soon opened the records.
Shen Yunyun glanced at it, then held the apple to her nose and sniffed. This variety didn't have the rich aroma of Huahuaniu apples; its scent was very faint.
"I heard that people in Goose City can't even buy Cunsan apples—they're all sent to big cities. How come you've got a whole storage unit full here?"
"That's right, locals in Goose City can't get Cunsan apples, but these are grown by my uncle. These fruits already had a sales channel lined up for bulk group purchases, meant to be distributed as employee benefits before the Dragon Boat Festival. But the contact we went through got caught up in a scandal, and the goods ended up stuck with us," Liao Zhen said with a sigh.