After Bai Xiuming returned to the Guesthouse, he went to the front desk to make a call. Long-distance calls were available there, but they cost money.
Money was no longer the issue. Although it was already late back home, he could not worry about that now. He called and got his friend up to ask about prices right away.
"What? You want a thousand pairs of cotton-lined leather shoes and three thousand pairs of Rubber Cotton Shoes?" The other man sounded surprised. "Why such a big order? Are you getting into the shoe business?"
"Never mind that. Help me check the prices first. I need them shipped here to Northern Xinjiang, so ask about freight costs too. They must ship goods this way. It would be best if they could send them straight here!"
Bai Xiuming had only gotten to know this fellow at the last official meeting held to ease the pressure on them. They had hit it off and eaten together twice afterward, making him one of Bai Xiuming's contacts.
He had not expected to need that connection so soon. The man was not specifically in the shoe business; he was a middleman with connections to various factories who helped arrange deals and earned a referral fee along the way.
"All right, all right. Hang on, I can find out right away. This is an order worth tens of thousands!" Naturally, the man took it seriously.
An order worth tens of thousands was not particularly large for a shoe factory, but this was outside the planned quota. For a middleman like him, the referral fee would at least equal one or two months of an ordinary worker's wages.
After hanging up, Bai Xiuming told the attendant to come get him as soon as a call came in. He