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Chapter 738: Chapter 728 Sorry, You’re Late
"What exactly do you want from me? Just spit it out, I’m quite busy with work, and there’s a whole lot of tasks waiting for me outside." Shen Yunfang asked impatiently.
Shen Yingxue’s face, which had been exuding a haughty demeanor, stiffened for a moment before she quickly forced a smile, "Yunfang, you shouldn’t be like this. Although you’re still farming, you’re still a boss after all. Why have you become so irritable? That’s not good. I remember back in our hometown, you weren’t such an impatient person."
"Do you remember? We were the only two from our village to go to high school. We did everything together: cut pigweed, go to school, go home after school. You were so amiable back then, and you were good to me too." Shen Yingxue, like a little girl, reminisced about the good old days.
Shen Yunfang’s mouth twitched. It’s as if she missed having a maid after all these years. If she hadn’t arrived late back then, Shen Yingxue wouldn’t have had the chance to take any advantage of this body.
With no one to stop her, Shen Yingxue just sat on the sofa and prattled on about their childhood, of course, focusing on the times the two of them were together, with the goal of making Shen Yunfang reminisce about their past closeness.
One sentence was enough to shut Shen Yingxue up. What more was there to say? Whether or not she remembered their closeness was unclear, but she definitely remembered the grudge. Besides, to Shen Yingxue, it sounded like Shen Yunfang knew about the anonymous letter she and Shen Yunfeng had written to denounce her in the past, which was possible—the present Shen Yunfeng was capable of anything.
Obviously, it was no longer appropriate to keep reminiscing after Shen Yunfang had brought that up, so the office fell into an awkward silence for a moment.
"I see you’re doing quite well since you left Zhao Dahai. Is your daughter living with you or with her father?" It was Shen Yunfang’s turn to make small talk.
But each question stabbed at Shen Yingxue’s heart. The last thing she wanted to hear mentioned in this area was her past marriage and having a child; she would angrily reflect on how shortsighted she had been, thinking that being with a leader from the revolutionary committee was important enough to marry a man who was already on his second marriage.
"I’m here today for business; we can talk about personal matters when we have time." The smile disappeared from Shen Yingxue’s face, leaving a stern expression directed at Shen Yunfang.
"Uh-huh, sure, tell me what you want." Shen Yunfang was secretly pleased but put on an attentive front.
"The thing is, I heard from city leaders that you’ve opened a farm on the outskirts. I thought it might be someone with the same name, but considering this place is close to your husband’s military district, I decided to drive over and see if it was really you. And here you are."
The amount of information in that sentence was significant. However, Shen Yunfang didn’t even look up as she mulled over which city leader Shen Yingxue could be referring to. She mentally reviewed all the city leaders who had visited for inspection without any clue since they all seemed upright... no, reliably upright—making it hard to guess who it was.
"It’s all the better that it’s you; we’re old classmates, after all, and we can negotiate. I won’t beat around the bush. I’ve done fairly well for myself in Z City over the past few years and have opened a restaurant on the edge of West District. It mainly caters to government officials, and it’s going reasonably well, just managing to scrape by. A city leader came to my restaurant and said that in the future, we won’t need to source vegetables and fruits elsewhere; we can get them directly from your farm. That piqued my interest, so I specifically came to have a look," Shen Yunfang said, her tone softening and a smile appearing on her face.
"When I was coming here, I saw a large stretch of cultivated land out front—it must all be yours, right? Quite impressive, almost as large as our production brigade’s fields back in the day. And the paddy fields at the very end—you’re growing rice there, aren’t you?"
Shen Yunfang nodded. The lands were there for all to see; there was no use denying it, nor did she have any need to.
"Heh, with so much land, your farm must have had a good harvest this year. I heard you even have vegetable greenhouses—that’s even better. My purpose here is to negotiate with you about purchasing produce. It would be a case of mutual benefit: you produce and I sell," Shen Yingxue said lightly about her restaurant, though her pride was evident.
Shen Yunfang frowned upon hearing this. She had not expected Shen Yingxue to come for this reason.
Shen Yingxue, naturally high in emotional intelligence and now schooled in the ways of the business world, saw Shen Yunfang’s expression and knew she might not be too keen. Thinking it might be a matter of price, Shen Yingxue confidently listed her offer. At the end, for some unknown reason, she added, "This price is fairly high for Z Province. You’ve probably researched market prices, so you should know."
Shen Yunfang didn’t think the offer was high at all; she always aimed for premium quality in her products, even with staples like rice and flour, which were processed and packaged elaborately before sale—not at the loose bulk price that had been mentioned.
Of course, because she had been collaborating with enterprises and institutions, she was able to set such high prices. If she had to sell on her own, she wouldn’t be able to get such high prices. After all, not everyone could afford fine grains, so ordinary people still preferred affordable rice and flour.
"Sorry, but you’re too late. All the rice and flour produced by our farm have been sold after the harvest, and we don’t have any inventory left. If you really want to buy, you’ll have to wait until next year. But obviously, the price you mentioned won’t work. I’ll have our farm manager, Zhang, give you a quotation. The prices of all our farm’s products and any discounts are clearly listed there. If you want to buy rice or anything next year, then come back then." Shen Yunfang didn’t want to deal with someone like Shen Yingxue, and even if Shen Yingxue offered a higher price, she wouldn’t consider selling to her. However, business is business, so she couldn’t say this outright and had to find a pretext to fob her off, hoping that Shen Yingxue would take the hint.
The farm’s rice and flour were slightly more expensive than the market average, so it seemed unlikely that a restaurant would focus on quality over purchase price. Shen Yunfang figured that once Shen Yingxue saw the price list, she would back off.
