Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Future Tycoon Wu Dongjun

"Ye, you’re here." Liu Guangxiang steadied his bicycle and walked up to Zhang Ye, looking a little uneasy.

"Ye?" Zhang Ye was taken aback. Since when had he been promoted to ‘brother’?

He cleared his throat. "I think you’d better just call me Zhang Ye, or Xiao Ye works too. Honestly, ‘Brother Ye’ is too much for me." Zhang Ye waved his hand with a joke.

He understood, probably Liu Wentao had said something to them, but he wasn’t used to this. Being seen as the boss might look impressive, but it rarely ended well.

"Then we’ll call you ‘Little Brother Ye’," Liu Guangxiang said, scratching his head and grinning sheepishly.

"Suit yourself." Zhang Ye rolled his eyes, but in the end he accepted it with resignation. Although being called ‘brother’ felt a little awkward, he couldn’t deny a slight sense of elation as it continued.

Despite having a mature mind, he was now a young man, that age when one cared most about appearances. The feeling of being admired and respected was naturally pleasant.

Soon, everyone began unloading the watermelons, filling the once-empty shop to the brim again.

It was still early morning, not yet the busiest time of the day, as he’d heard. Zhang Ye wasn’t in a rush to take care of his own affairs, so he sat around and chatted with the others, helping out whenever customers arrived. It was a leisurely atmosphere.

By the time the clock struck a certain hour, the housewives began to appear, and business at the fruit shop picked up. Though some grumbled about the price of watermelons rising to forty cents a pound, they still bought them, albeit grudgingly—after all, Zhang Ye’s was the only place selling watermelons in the entire Lihua County.

"Tao, that man is here again," a thin, agile-looking young man said, nodding toward a short, chubby middle-aged man out front.

Because of his slight and nimble build, everyone nicknamed the young man ‘Little Monkey’. His real name was Chen Fang. He talked a lot, though mostly it was boasting.

"Who is he?" Zhang Ye asked.

"He’s a vendor who took a liking to our watermelons and wants to buy from us. If he hadn’t come, I’d have forgotten—yesterday I called you, but your mom answered, so I didn’t dare say anything," Liu Wentao chimed in quickly. He left unsaid that with business booming, selling watermelons to this man would only cut into their profits, so he was firmly against it.

"What’s his name?" Zhang Ye’s interest was piqued.

To have spotted the business opportunity in watermelons so quickly—this was no ordinary person.

"He said his name is Wu Dongjun," Zhao Haidong replied at once.

"It’s him." Zhang Ye frowned, immediately recalling who this man was.

"You know him?" Liu Wentao looked at Zhang Ye in surprise. He wanted to warn him not to sell any watermelons to Wu, but hesitated.

Zhang Ye shook his head and said, "I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him." Of course, he didn’t know him now, but Zhang Ye was well aware that Wu Dongjun would become a notable figure in Lihua County in the future.

At present, Wu Dongjun was an unknown vendor dealing in scrap goods, but in two years, with the advent of computer cafes, he would abandon his still-profitable scrap business to open the county’s first computer house—the forerunner of the internet café.

With his earnings, Wu would continuously buy more computers, expanding from a handful to hundreds, becoming one of the first proprietors of large-scale internet cafés.

He then opened branches, expanded steadily, and established a foothold in neighboring county-level cities before boldly moving into Guangyang City. Though he stumbled amid the city’s tangled web of interests, the setback was minor.

Had that been all, Zhang Ye would have simply considered him talented, but not admirable. What truly impressed him was that when the internet café business started to decline, Wu once again gave up a still-profitable venture and plunged into the materials and pipeline industry, collaborating with the government. His assets soared beyond one hundred million, making him one of Guangyang’s material moguls.

In just ten years, Wu Dongjun leaped across three industries, succeeding in each one, going from penniless to a fortune in the hundreds of millions. A man like this was either exceptionally lucky or truly capable. Zhang Ye believed it was the latter.

In his previous life, Zhang Ye was merely a small business owner with assets barely over three hundred thousand. He knew of Wu but had never met him. Now, seeing him in person, Zhang Ye felt not only admiration but also a peculiar thrill, as if he were traversing the corridors of history.

"Boss Liu, about yesterday…" By now, Wu Dongjun had hurried over, beaming as he shook Liu Wentao’s hand enthusiastically.

"Well... I can’t make that decision. You’d better talk to him," Liu Wentao said awkwardly. He would have liked to refuse outright, but it was hard to turn down someone so polite, especially since the decision wasn’t his to make.

To outsiders, Liu Wentao was the owner of the fruit shop, but only those involved knew who the real boss was.

"So, you must be Wu Dongjun. I wonder what brings you here today?" Zhang Ye led Wu Dongjun into a small bedroom at the back of the shop, motioned for him to sit, and asked with feigned ignorance.

Wu Dongjun chuckled, a little surprised that such a young man was the boss, but quickly collected himself. "I’ll be frank—I’d like to buy your watermelons."

"Oh?" Zhang Ye replied noncommittally, glancing at him. "And what price are you offering?"

"Twenty cents a pound. Considering you bought them at seven cents, you’re already making more than half the profit. After all, your only extra expense is the transportation," Wu Dongjun said, his small eyes glinting with shrewdness.

Zhang Ye almost laughed out loud. "Do you take me for a fool? Sell my watermelons to you so you can become my competitor? I could sell them for forty cents a pound, and you want them for twenty? Do you really think I’m just a kid you can trick?"

He was disappointed. He’d thought Wu Dongjun had some real ability, but this narrow-mindedness—how could you do business like this?

"Haha, just kidding. Actually, I’m here to propose a partnership. I know you won’t sell now, but with only this one stall, even if there’s great demand, you won’t be able to sell much because of the distance. I know you’ve basically bought up all the watermelons in Qiyuan Town, and if you want to sell them all, it’ll take time. Why not let me take a portion off your hands? I’ll sell them for you at a ten percent markup. What do you think?" This was Wu Dongjun’s real plan.

As for what he’d said to Zhang Ye before, that was just over-cautious calculation, perhaps underestimating him because of his young age and trying to take advantage. After all, at this point, he was still just a small-time scrap dealer, not the future Wu Dongjun, the renowned tycoon.

PS: Thanks for the rewards: Dance of the Firmament, 400 starting coins; Qi Sha Hao Shi Ya, 200 starting coins; Carefree Little Liang, 100 starting coins. Thank you all for your generosity... I’ll repay you with even more diligent writing...