Wu Renmin hurriedly said, "Ah! How could that be? Old Chang swore to me at the time that he'd bought this from a peasant family whose ancestors had served as high-ranking officials in the Qing court."
Wang Mingcai frowned. He and Wu Renmin had been friends since childhood, and seeing Wu Renmin so distraught, he said earnestly, "Old Wu, making a bad call in our line of work isn't a big deal. As long as you learn from it, that's enough. With your current mindset, you'll still suffer losses in the future."
Wu Renmin felt a little embarrassed after hearing this. He gave an awkward smile and said, "I just didn't expect Old Chang to actually deceive me."
Wang Mingcai shook his head. "You're just too quick to trust people. It's not that Old Chang wanted to deceive you—he only wanted to make a little more money from you. Now that he's made enough, he's preparing to immigrate. Of course he'll cheat you for as much as he can."
Wu Renmin looked quite surprised. "Old Chang is preparing to immigrate? How come I didn't know about this?"
Wang Mingcai said with an exasperated look, "Pretty much everyone around here has heard the news already. How do you still not know?"
Wu Renmin said awkwardly, "I've been in the countryside collecting some items recently. I only got back last night."
Wang Mingcai let out a long sigh. "You went to the countryside to collect things again. I don't even know what to say to you."
Wu Renmin waved his hand. "Old Wang, don't worry. I'm not an idiot. How could I fall for the same trick every time?"
"You..." Wang Mingcai pointed at him a few times and said, "Forget it. I'll talk to you about this after we've looked at