The moment Ding Ding finished speaking, bids rang out from the crowd.
The man offering fifty thousand called the one offering thirty thousand stingy, while the one offering eighty thousand accused the fifty-thousand bidder of trying to snag a bargain.
Watching Li Hao's expression grow uglier at the back of the crowd, Ding Ding felt a little better.
"Well, if it isn't President Li!"
Ding Ding decided to make him uncomfortable too. "I didn't see you there. What's this? Come to watch the show?"
Li Hao: "..."
That was indeed why he was there, but he couldn't admit it.
"I saw smoke coming from your factory, Boss Ding, so I came to see if there was anything I could help with."
"Is that so?" Ding Ding drew the words out, tipping his chin toward the female worker beside him. "What a coincidence. There actually is something you can help with."
Ding Ding said, "President Li recently landed a big order. As the saying goes, when you prosper, help others prosper too. Surely you wouldn't stand by and do nothing, President Li?"
"Of course..." Li Hao gritted his back teeth. "Not."
As he spoke, Li Hao took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out all the cash inside. Judging by the thickness, there looked to be several thousand.
"A small gesture." Li Hao handed the money over. "Take this to tide you over."
The female worker shook her head as she backed away. "No... no... I can't take this..."
"Why can't you?" Ding Ding snatched the stack of money and pressed it into her hands. "Keep it! Medical treatment comes first."
Tears welled in the female worker's eyes as she accepted the money after some hesitation. "Thank you... thank you, Boss Ding..."
"Don't thank me." Ding Ding gave a derisive laugh. "Thank President Li!"
Only then did the female worker turn a grateful look toward Li Hao. "Thank you, President Li."
"...It's nothing."
Everyone else merely thought Li Hao was generous. Only Ding Ding knew that the order was too big for Li Hao to handle alone.
Raw materials and outsourced processing both cost money. Add in all the trouble he had gone to lately to bring Ding Ding down, and he probably didn't have much cash to spare.
Losing these few thousand would leave him stewing for a good while.
While they were talking, the bidding among the onlookers had already reached a hundred and eighty thousand.
For ordinary people, that price was about the limit. Any higher, and it was no longer a decision one person could make alone.
True to his word, Ding Ding took the documents out of his large bag on the spot.
"Let me know when you're free, and I'll go with you to transfer the ownership."
The bidder was a mid-level supervisor at the factory. He hadn't been there when the fire broke out and, like Ding Ding, had been called over at short notice. He hadn't expected to stumble onto such a good deal.
"Are you serious, Mr. Ding? It may be secondhand... but it's a Land Rover!"
Ding Ding raised his chin. "I keep my word."
In front of the media, the two drew up a simple written agreement and settled the arrangements for transferring ownership. Within an hour, the hundred and eighty thousand had reached Ding Ding's account.
After receiving the money, Ding Ding settled the wages of the female worker worrying over medical expenses, then transferred another ten thousand to her.
This time, the female worker refused to take it, no matter what he said. "I only want what I'm owed... things aren't easy for you now either..."
Ding Ding waved a hand. "Just take it. Medical treatment comes first."
Seeing someone receive money, the workers in the crowd could no longer stand still.
"What about ours?"
"Pay ours too!"
"Exactly, exactly... we're waiting on that money too!"
There were quite a few workers present, and funds were limited, so Ding Ding first settled the wages of some of those making the loudest fuss.
In the blink of an eye, almost nothing remained of the hundred and eighty thousand.
The others were more or less dissatisfied, but continuing to make a scene wouldn't do them any good. Instead, they pestered Ding Ding for a promise.
"Don't worry, everyone. Everything will be settled by the end of this week."
An empty promise was still a promise. Having one was better than having none.
The fire had been put out. The factory building that had once roared day and night was now a stretch of ruins, with only an empty frame left, moaning in the hot wind.
The crowd dispersed. For the next few weeks, the fire would be something people talked about, then it would fade away.
Watching Ding Ding's back from a distance, Li Hao thought the man who seemed able to handle everything with ease looked a little more stooped.
He blinked, and it seemed it might have been an illusion.
"What a shame..." Li Hao walked over.
"If you'd known it would come to this, you might as well have sold it to me from the start. At least you could have gotten some money back."
Ding Ding kept his gaze straight ahead. Even a glance at him was sickening.
"This isn't how you do business."
"Oh?" Li Hao raised his eyebrows. "You've lost everything, and you're still trying to lecture me?"
Ding Ding gave a derisive laugh. "It's not the first time."
Of his thirty years of life, he had spent more than half making his own way in the world.
When Ding Ding first left home, he had little education and was small and thin. He could only do manual labor to make a living.
Fortunately, he was quick-witted. Little by little, he worked his way up from hauling goods to managing a warehouse, then began learning the fabric trade and dealing with sales.
He had hit plenty of walls and failed many times. Every step he had taken counted toward where he stood today.
After all those twists and turns, he would merely be starting over.
Li Hao choked for a moment, but he was also certain that Ding Ding could no longer make any waves, and his words grew increasingly rude.
"It certainly isn't the first time, but it's definitely the last," Li Hao said. "With things as they are, what options do you have left?"
"You'll have to pay for the fabric you were processing for others, won't you? Then there are payments owed to those raw material suppliers, the workers' wages, and Zixin Textiles' breach-of-contract lawsuit. Even selling your house and car will probably only cover the wages."
Ding Ding said nothing. Li Hao seemed to suddenly remember something.
"Oh, right, there's also the twenty-three thousand you owe me." Li Hao paused, then spoke as though he were being very generous.
"Of course, if you're really strapped for cash, Mr. Ding, I can let that little sum go."
The snide remarks were unpleasant, but they were also an accurate account of the situation Ding Ding now faced.
Four months earlier, Zixin Textiles had tossed Ding Ding an order.
Fifty thousand metric tons of Roman fabric made with specialty yarn, to be delivered in three months. It was a truly tight deadline and a heavy workload.
Ding Ding hadn't intended to take the order at first. Specialty yarn was expensive, and he had never worked with the raw material supplier before. Their requirement for payment upon pickup left no room for negotiation.
If Ding Ding accepted, he would have to sink every cent in his account into it. The risk was simply too high.
But Zixin Textiles was a longstanding client Ding Ding had worked with for years. If he turned down this order, their future cooperation might suffer too.
In the end, Ding Ding decided to take the gamble.
Completing the order would not only bring in money but also take the company to the next level.
He had never expected that, after making it through the three-month deadline and absorbing a ten-percent wastage rate, Ding Ding would ultimately be ruined by his own documentation clerk.
The customs declaration had failed to list the specialty yarn content as required, holding the goods up during customs inspection and preventing them from entering the warehouse on time. In the end, the shipment had to be returned, and an entire shipload of Roman fabric was brought back just like that.
A delayed delivery was a very serious matter. Without the fabric, the garment factories downstream couldn't deliver on time, and the brand would miss a release cycle. Those losses were equally incalculable.
And at that moment, Mingpin Textiles, a company registered just three months earlier, presented Zixin with a shipment sample from its bulk production.
Only then did Ding Ding discover that the documentation clerk and Li Hao came from the same place.
And behind Mingpin Textiles, which had appeared so suddenly, lurked a scoundrel like Li Hao.
Years of nurturing had raised a tiger that brought disaster. Once it turned against him, it gouged at his heart and stripped his bones, tearing a bloody chunk of flesh from Ding Ding.
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