Much Potential!

Bai Yang looked at the other man and said, "What I mean is, I want to buy your factory. Are you selling?"

"N-no..."

Xiong Da shook his head, then nodded. The two words came out with such dramatic ups and downs that he sounded like he was singing an opera.

"..."

Bai Yang was speechless. What was wrong with him? What did it mean to nod and shake his head at the same time?

"So are you selling or not?"

Xiong Da looked at Bai Yang, utterly torn. "Honestly, we urgently need a large sum of money right now. If we can sell the factory, we definitely will. But we've all worked with machinery for so many years. If we sell it to you, what are we supposed to do?"

"Heh, you want to leave? I wouldn't let you."

Bai Yang grinned from ear to ear.

He didn't actually care about the factory itself. What he cared about was the people. After all, he didn't know how to use the equipment. It would be useless to buy it, and it wouldn't even look good just sitting there.

The rest was simple. They hastily wrapped up the meal and got down to business.

Bai Yang didn't know anything about the procedures for transferring factory ownership, but someone else did. He found a law firm and a financial appraisal firm online, and after a flurry of activity, everything was taken care of. All he had to do was sign the papers and make the final payment...

A few hours later, the Giant Bear Metal Processing Plant had become the Bai family's property!

It was worth mentioning that the factory's dozens of brawny workers, all of whom looked like troublemakers, now belonged to Bai Yang too. He went all in, signing a twenty-year labor contract with every one of them. A lawyer was present throughout, and the breach-of-contract penalties were high enough to make a person want to jump off a building. Just like that, the lot of them had sold the rest of their lives to him.

At first, the workers had refused. But Bai Yang offered them twice the market rate for similar work, plus five kinds of insurance and a housing fund, year-end bonuses of at least a hundred thousand Yuan each, and raises whenever wages for similar jobs went up. One by one, they promptly sold themselves to him...

Bai Yang couldn't help sighing. Money really was a wonderful thing. If money could solve a problem, then it wasn't a problem!

Even so, watching his account shrink by nearly fifty million Yuan made his heart ache. His money was going way too fast...

"It's fine, it's fine. My money might as well have blown in on a gale. I make tens of millions every minute. This is nothing!"

That was the only way he could console himself.

But Xiong Da and the others were even more conflicted than he was. They should have been thrilled to receive nearly fifty million Yuan from Bai Yang in one lump sum, yet every one of them wore an expression like they were constipated.

"What's going on with you guys?"

Bai Yang asked, curious.

"Boss, we're working for you from now on. To be honest, that money is already someone else's," Xiong Da said miserably, looking like a bear.

"I don't quite follow. Can you explain it to me?"

Bai Yang shook his head.

The group of big men exchanged glances, embarrassed and helpless. In the end, Xiong Da spoke up. "Boss, it's like this. After we delivered the goods the other day, you paid us the rest of the money, right? We were so happy that everyone went drinking. On our way back, we ran into a bunch of brainless rich kids racing their cars. We'd been drinking, so we yelled at them. They heard us, and then we got into a fight..."

"And then?"

Bai Yang's mouth twitched, but he was dying to know.

"Then we beat the crap out of those hollowed-out rich kids. Most of them ended up in the hospital. Worst of all, the brothers got carried away and smashed more than ten sports cars..."

"What happened after that?"

Bai Yang swallowed. Even his eyelids were twitching now...!

"After that, the medical bills, emotional-distress damages, settlement fees, and compensation for the sports cars all added up to more than eighty million Yuan. We have to pay. Otherwise, those rich kids can get us all thrown in jail, and we probably won't see sunlight again for the rest of our lives," Xiong Da said, deeply embarrassed.

"And what happened in the end?"

As Bai Yang asked, he thought, Serves you right. Of all the people to provoke, you had to pick a bunch of rich kids who had nothing better to do than look for thrills. You were asking for trouble.

"In the end, the money from selling the factory and the money from our last deal with you have already gone to them. We scraped together everything we had, and we're still short by more than twenty million. So, uh, Boss, could you lend us some? No, I mean, could you advance us ten years of wages..."

"..."

It took Bai Yang a while to piece it all together. So this was why they'd invited him out. They must have run out of options and figured he was easy to talk to, so they'd hoped to land another deal and raise the money...

Just as Bai Yang was considering whether to find a way to kill these money pits, his phone rang. He pulled it out and saw it was Song Yidao, who had called and texted him countless times.

"What's up, Young Master Song?"

"Bai Yang? You little bastard! You finally answered..."

"Get to the point, or I'm hanging up. I make tens of millions every minute. Can you afford to waste my time?"

The other man nearly choked.

"...Ahem. So, a few days ago, we ran into a bunch of morons. We were having a perfectly good car race when they started insulting us. We couldn't let that slide, so my buddies and I fought them for three hundred rounds. We left them lying in the hospi—er, that's not the point. The point is, they smashed my brand-new car, which cost more than fifteen million Yuan. It'll take half a month to get it repaired by the manufacturer overseas. So I was thinking, could you lend me your Bugatti for a few days?"

"..."

Bai Yang gave Xiong Da and the others a strange look. There was no way this could be such a coincidence, right? It couldn't be...

Of course it could. It was right there in front of him!

Song Yidao and his crowd were the ones who'd been beaten up. No wonder these guys owed so much money and didn't dare run. Where could they even run?

The fact that they hadn't been dragged straight to jail and thrown to the wolves was a blessing for Xiong Da and the others!

Bai Yang's eyes shifted as he realized there might be something in this for him!

He stepped away from Xiong Da and the others and went to a corner. While Song Yidao kept calling out "Hello?" on the other end, thinking the call had dropped, Bai Yang lowered his voice and said:

"Young Master Song, want to make a deal?"

"Are you trying to swindle me out of more money?"

The other man sounded extremely wary.

"Ahem... Don't put it so harshly. It's not a swindle. It's a good deal... Didn't you really want that wine? Heh, I've still got a jar..."

That was all it took. Song Yidao sprang to life, peppering him with questions. "Bai Yang—no, Brother Bai, Lord Bai! Where are you right now? I'd crawl all the way to you if I had to! You have to save that wine for me. Money's no problem! You have no idea. I sneaked a tiny sip of that wine my grandpa bought from you. I nearly got beaten to death, but oh my god, I felt like I was flying. It was a hundred times better than Tiger Penis Wine. After a whole night, I wasn't sore or aching at all—I felt refreshed and full of energy..."

So anything good that came his way was an aphrodisiac, huh? Bai Yang was utterly speechless...

Bai Yang and Song Yidao whispered back and forth for a while. The deal was that Bai Yang would trade him the wine on the condition that Song Yidao and his friends wouldn't go after Xiong Da and the others later. They were Bai Yang's people now!

Song Yidao and the others had originally planned to teach those muscle-bound, brainless brutes another lesson after they received the compensation they were owed. But only Bai Yang had that wine, and he wouldn't sell it unless they agreed. In the end, they had to abandon their original plan.

Hundred Fruit Brew still went for one million Yuan per hundred milliliters. Bai Yang refused to lower the price by even a single Yuan. Song Yidao couldn't afford a whole jar alone, so he had to get his friends to chip in. Nearly half the money came from the factory-sale proceeds that Xiong Da and the others had barely had time to touch...

That was how it all went down. In short, the tens of millions Bai Yang had just spent not only came right back to him, but doubled, sending his bank balance climbing! On top of that, he got a metal processing plant and a group of workers who owed him nearly ten years' wages...

And all he'd paid was a jar of fruit wine brought over from "the other side"...

He was so happy he could have burst!

In the end, Song Yidao still didn't get to borrow Bai Yang's car. Xiong Da and the others not only failed to land another order, but got themselves further into trouble...

After spending most of the day getting everything sorted out, Bai Yang hurried to the metal processing plant and gathered the workers.

Then the black-hearted boss showed his true colors. He waved his fist and hollered at the top of his lungs:

"Where is everybody? Where'd you run off to? Get over here and line up, move it! You're workers who owe me ten years' wages. Don't even think about slacking off...!"

Xiong Da and the others had no idea their black-hearted boss had schemed to get the money back from them. Even if they had known, they could only have been grateful. Otherwise, who knew what might have happened to them later?

That was why drinking got you into trouble...

Once the workers had gathered, Xiong Da stepped forward and asked, "Boss, what do we do now?"

"What do we do? Heh, I've landed an order for props for an epic movie, and everything has to be the real deal. They're investing hundreds of billions of dollars! Get moving. I'll transfer fifty million Yuan to you. Use it all to buy Titanium Alloy. Make armor and warblades using the same molds as last time, and add two more things: a Titanium Alloy longsword about two meters long, and some Triangular Arrowheads. Use all fifty million Yuan worth of Titanium Alloy to make this stuff! Want to see an epic blockbuster? Then get moving!"

Bai Yang went all out with his bluffing. He'd said his piece; whether they believed him was their problem...

"Uh... All right, you're the boss."

Xiong Da was completely taken in.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Bai Yang asked as Xiong Da turned to leave.

"To get the Titanium Alloy, Boss."

"We're not done yet. While we're waiting for the materials to arrive, have the guys clean out the warehouse. Here, take this list and buy everything on it. Remember, buy directly from the manufacturers. Make sure none of the items have any pictures, words, or logos on them..."

Xiong Da took the so-called list from Bai Yang, bewildered. The more he read, the more speechless he became.

Salt, lighters, Yunnan Baiyao, pots, bowls, and pans...

Was the boss planning to open a supermarket?

"Xiong Da, tell me honestly. Can you guys get your hands on that kind of stuff?"

Bai Yang leaned closer to Xiong Da and asked in a mysterious whisper...

This chapter was hard to write. I rewrote these three thousand words several times over four or five hours, then revised them again. Even now, I'm still a little uneasy about the final version. The pace is a bit fast, and I've cut some unnecessary parts that would've just been padding, but that's the sort of thing readers often complain about... Sigh... Please keep supporting me with recommendations and favorites.