A Child's Play of a Deal

When Bai Yang was jolted awake by his alarm, it was still pitch-dark in the other world because of the time difference. The moon had already tilted across the sky, though, making the night seem even deeper.

He checked his phone. It was already eight in the morning back on Earth.

After turning off the alarm, Bai Yang noticed a faint stir outside the door. He knew the girl out there had been woken by the alarm. He didn't bother explaining; she wouldn't understand anyway. He rubbed his face hard with both hands, then vanished from that world.

It was a strange feeling. One second he was in the pitch-black otherworld, and the next he was standing beneath the bright morning sun on Earth. Life's twists and turns were truly wondrous.

He put the key in the ignition and started the heavy truck, following the directions on his phone to his father's furniture factory.

In Bai Yang's memory, his father's furniture factory had consisted of a few single-story buildings and twenty or thirty workers toiling day and night. But that was how he remembered it from ten years ago. Since starting middle school, he had hardly ever visited his father's factory...

When he drove the heavy truck up to the factory, he stared in disbelief.

The cluttered, bustling scene he remembered was nowhere to be seen. The first thing that caught his eye was a long stretch of wall. Through the retractable gate, which was more than ten meters wide, he could make out a row of factory buildings. The roar of machinery filled the air, and a security guard stood watch at the entrance.

"Whoa, old man Bai's doing pretty well. He's built a place this big without making a peep. No wonder he never seems short of money..." Bai Yang pursed his lips as he looked at the factory grounds.

Something didn't seem right. He'd been thinking of helping his old man out, but at this rate, it looked like he really was going to become a parasite, drumming up business at his father's place.

"Bullshit. With a truckload of precious timber like this, Dad can make a pile of valuable furniture and become one of the top players in the industry."

Muttering to himself, he drove toward the gate, where, unsurprisingly, a guard stopped him.

It was just as he'd expected. He didn't have time to play stupid games with the guard, so he called his father directly.

"Dad, remember what I told you last night? I've brought the stuff right to your gate. Do you want it or not? If not, I'll take it away."

"Oh, you little rascal. You've really gone all out with this act. I want to see what kind of trick you're playing. Wait there..."

Beep, beep, beep...

Bai Yang looked at the disconnected call, pursed his lips, and tossed the phone aside. He leaned halfway out the window and chatted with the guard. After talking him around for a while, he managed to get quite a bit of information about the factory out of him.

According to the guard, the furniture factory was pretty big, with over a thousand employees and more than ten factory buildings. There were raw-material processing workshops, rough-processing workshops, fine-processing workshops, production workshops, assembly workshops, sanding workshops, polishing workshops, painting workshops, and so on. They even had dedicated design, sales, and finance departments. It was a pretty comprehensive, professional operation. Bai Yang's head was spinning by the time he'd heard enough.

He'd only listened to get the general idea. He had no intention of joining the industry and competing with his own father, so he hadn't asked for more details.

Before long, a middle-aged man rode up to the gate on an electric scooter. He exchanged a few words with the guard, and the gate opened. The man gestured for Bai Yang to follow him, giving him a puzzled glance as he wondered why the boss had sent the raw-material workshop supervisor to fetch some young truck driver.

They turned this way and that through the factory grounds and arrived at a noisy workshop. Wood was piled everywhere, workers in hard hats moved among it, saws shrieked as they cut timber, and forklifts trundled around carrying lumber...

Bai Yang's eyes immediately fell on Bai Jianjun, who was surrounded by several people. He parked, turned off the engine, climbed down, and waved to his father.

"Not bad, kid. You even brought a huge truck to pull one over on me. With that kind of effort, even if you'd hauled in a load of sawdust, I'd have taken it off your hands as garbage."

Bai Jianjun came over, clicking his tongue in amazement. He figured his son had gone to great lengths to fool him. Or maybe the "boss" behind Bai Yang was just a weirdo.

Bai Yang waved a hand. "Enough talk. Take a look for yourself. Take it or leave it. If you don't want it, I'll turn around and haul it away."

Bai Jianjun laughed and waved over a few workers who'd been standing around him, telling them to climb up and inspect the cargo.

The heavy truck's cargo doors opened, and several workers climbed inside. Less than ten seconds later, gasps of amazement came from the truck bed, followed by cries of, "Boss, get over here!"

Bai Jianjun's expression shifted. He glanced at Bai Yang, then hurried over to talk to the workers in low, serious voices.

Bai Yang swaggered over, wearing a smug look. He could only make out snatches of their conversation: "good stuff," "too precious," "the best red sandalwood I've ever seen," and "no doubt about it."

Then Bai Jianjun appeared in front of him and pointed at his nose. "You little punk, where'd you get this?"

"I told you I'm in the trading business. Come on, I'm busy. Do you want it or not?" Bai Yang replied smugly.

"I want it! Why wouldn't I? I'd sell the pot and melt down the iron to get it! Tell me, kid, what the hell's your company called? Who's the boss?" Bai Jianjun gritted his teeth as he spoke.

"Dad, what are you doing?"

"I want to hack your boss to death!"

Bai Yang's eyes widened. What was going on?

"Such a waste! You can't find wood this good even with a lantern, and you've just chopped it up into lumber! How much offcut did you waste? The offcuts alone are worth a fortune! What a wastrel, what a blockhead..." Bai Jianjun railed, pointing at the sky and stamping about.

That blockhead was standing right in front of you...!

Bai Yang had thought it was something serious. There was plenty of this stuff in the other world, as much as anyone could want. The offcuts were only good for firewood.

"If you want it, then pay me," Bai Yang said indifferently.

Bai Jianjun froze, looked him up and down, then asked in confusion, "Pay you?"

"Of course! Who else would you pay... Ahem, here's the deal. The company asked me to handle this new shipment of timber. The boss wants to switch to jewelry and jade, and the finance department is swamped. Transfer the money to me first, and I'll settle the books with the company." Bai Yang spun a story that even he didn't believe.

This wasn't how people negotiated a deal. They hadn't even discussed the price!

"Honestly, I give up. You just keep messing around like this, kid. It wouldn't surprise me if I had to bring you meals in jail someday." Bai Jianjun looked at Bai Yang as though he'd given up on life.

Then he turned and shouted, "Get someone over here to unload it and weigh it!"

Only then did he turn back to Bai Yang. "How much are you asking?"

"Didn't I say? The lowest market price, and I'll even give you a discount." Bai Yang raised an eyebrow.

"Top-grade imported red sandalwood goes for eight hundred thousand to one million per ton this year, depending on the transport costs and where it came from. I'm not going to rip you off. This wood you brought is better than top-grade. People would fight to pay over a million a ton for it. What do you say?"

"Since you're my dad, I'll give you the lowest price—eight hundred thousand a ton—and then apply a discount. I'll charge you five hundred thousand a ton. Your son's pretty generous, huh?"

What kind of discount was that?

"..." Bai Jianjun stared at Bai Yang as if he were an idiot.

Then a worker came over and said, "Boss, we've finished counting. Every piece is beyond top-grade. Thirty-one tons and three hundred and fifty jin in total."

Bai Yang looked at Bai Jianjun. "Since you're my dad, I'll wipe off the odd bit. Call it thirty tons. Three times five is fifteen... That'll be fifteen million in all. Pay up."

"You're definitely my own son, but I have to tell you, I don't have that kind of money to give you. And now that it's in my hands, nobody's taking it away!" Bai Jianjun's eyes were bloodshot as he glared at Bai Yang.

"We can still do installments. Three payments, five million each. I can't go any lower, or I won't be able to explain it to the 'company.'" The way he tossed out that excuse was far too casual to be believable.

Bai Jianjun was even more straightforward. He pulled out his phone and called the finance department. "Manager Liu, transfer five million to the XXX Account. I'll come sign the paperwork in a bit!"

Less than a minute later, Bai Yang's phone chimed with a notification that five million had landed in his account. He stared at the long string of digits, grinning. Was this like winning a five-million lottery without having to pay taxes?

"Dad, you get back to work. I'm out of here." Having gotten the money, Bai Yang waved, started the heavy truck, and drove off...

"..."

Bai Jianjun was left standing there, completely bewildered. Even long after Bai Yang had driven away, his head was still spinning. As someone who made solid-wood furniture, he knew exactly how precious this batch of timber was. Once processed, it would be worth at least ten or twenty times more. With the right hype, it could even be worth a hundred times as much. Yet the whole thing had unfolded like a children's game, and the timber had simply fallen into his hands...

Installments, discounts—this was practically a giveaway. With wood of that quality, people would scramble for it even at two million a ton. He'd gotten thirty-one tons for just five million. It was like picking it up off the ground. Sure, he still owed another ten million, but who could make him pay? Where was the contract? Where was the IOU?

"This kid..."

At last, Bai Jianjun laughed. As the saying went, no one knew a son like his father. If Bai Yang dared to act this recklessly, he must have a plan. Why should a parent pry into everything? Everyone had a few secrets, didn't they? Whether the timber had been smuggled or illegally harvested, once it entered his factory, it would be given a new identity, and no one would ever find it!

Bai Yang had no idea what a tangled mess of feelings his father was dealing with. At that moment, he was so happy he could hardly contain himself. The common man had money at last! Five million in hand—wasn't he a millionaire now?

"Dad, go ahead and puzzle it out on your own. You're getting this basically for free, too. In this age of the all-knowing internet, did you really think nobody knew what that wood was worth? Nobody's a blockhead. If it were anyone else, I'd make them cough up blood before I changed my name. What kind of deal is that? If there really were a boss who let an employee mess around like I did, I'd be the first to hack him to death..."