With business out of the way, Liu Gaolou drank another half cup of tea, refilled it himself, and only then began to complain:
"I'm telling you, Boss Li, that uncle of mine really put me to the test. Once he'd driven the cars over and transferred the white sugar to haul it away, he washed his hands of everything. Finding enough drivers for seven cars took everything I had!
"Do you know how much each driver charged?"
"How much? Fifty?"
Just driving them over should not have cost much. After all, however bad Guozigou was, the drive from there only took two or three days.
"A hundred!" Liu Gaolou held up one finger. "You could barely find anyone who could drive in all of Khorgos! I had to go to Yining to find people, and they wouldn't do it for any less!"
A hundred yuan-more than an ordinary worker's monthly wage!
Those people certainly had the nerve to ask!
"Did the cars have any problems along the way?" Li Long asked.
"Heh, they did. One leaked oil, and another lacked power." Liu Gaolou did not hide anything. These cars were being sold as a package anyway. However stupid he might be, he knew Li Long would certainly make money at this price, and the cars would certainly sell, so he told the truth:
"But they're all minor problems. Some repairs will fix them, or at most, a few small parts will need replacing."
Repairing cars was skilled work at the time. One reason was that even when parts needed replacing, some replacements did not fit properly, and the mechanic had to find a way to make them fit.
Before car problems were diagnosed by computer, the parts really were not all that specialized.
Li Long could not quite decide whether