There has never been a shortage of jealous people—especially in a place like Huashenbei, where news travels fast and nothing stays secret for long. With Xu Duo making such bold moves—buying up massive quantities of scrapped iPhone 4 batteries and screens—and claiming it was all for raw material recycling, people naturally grew suspicious. After all, if it were just for materials, why bother putting out products that were 80–90% new? Clearly, something was fishy. No one was dumb, and while doubts spread, they remained just that—doubts.
Reprocessing scrap batteries wasn't unheard of. Some had tried it, but the high costs made it less viable than simply using cheap domestic batteries. So, most people buying scrap batteries really were just extracting raw materials. But reprocessing scrapped LCD screens? That sounded like a fantasy. The difficulty of repair aside, even reclaiming raw materials wasn't worthwhile. The core of an LCD screen lies in its electroluminescent materials—once those are crushed or shattered, they become virtually worthless. The recovery process was riddled with challenges, the costs sky-high, and the returns negligible. In short, not worth it.
"It's fine," Xu Duo smiled gently, her expression calm and composed, seemingly brushing the matter off lightly, though she was silently taking note. "By the way, Brother Dong, do you know who's behind this? Could you help me dig around a bit? I just want to be mentally prepared. If they can't pull it off and end up stockpiling screens, they might come running to you again. Just make sure you don't buy at full price."
"Don't worry, I'll find out for you. It's on my radar now too." He Dong patted his chest, full of promise. Seeing Xu Duo like this, a lot of the suspicions he had harbored were dispelled. He offered a friendly warning, "You really need to guard that supply chain of yours. Total secrecy. If someone gets wind of it, they might swoop in and snatch it right out from under you. When money's involved, people may not fight to the death, but they'll stoop to just about anything. Stealing your business would take them no time at all."
He Dong's words weren't just for Xu Duo's benefit—they were also for his own. After all, he was the one distributing the products and pocketing the price difference. He was a man of loyalty and knew when to be content. More importantly, he had a tidy operation: goods in with the left hand, goods out with the right. He didn't earn a fortune on each item, but the sheer volume made it lucrative. He made five yuan per battery, and so far had helped Xu Duo sell over 110,000 units—keeping an extra 20,000 for himself. That alone had brought in 550,000 yuan!
The screen business was even more profitable. On average, he made 125 yuan per screen. After subtracting what he kept for himself, he had sold over 100,000 units—raking in over 12.5 million yuan. All of this in less than two weeks—more than he would've made busting his back over his old business for a whole year.
"Don't worry," Xu Duo said with a wry smile. "These are no ordinary connections. If they were, they wouldn't have come to me—they'd have gone straight to Huashenbei and found someone else easily."
Still, she couldn't help but feel that every lie required a thousand more to cover it up, yet she had no choice but to keep weaving them. "From now on, I'll split up the handovers. Even if someone goes crazy enough to try tailing us, they won't find anything. No face-to-face transfers—there'll be nothing to trace."
"Exactly! That's the way to go!" He Dong nodded approvingly. "You have no idea—over at SEG, there's a new gadget called a GPS tracker. Tiny little thing—you stick it on a car, and it tracks everything. Doing business these days, people pull all kinds of stunts just to steal clients. It's absolutely insane. And this is only the beginning. In a couple of years, this kind of thing will be rampant in Huashenbei and spread to every industry."
"Heh… yeah, I've heard of those," Xu Duo said calmly, already familiar with such tactics from her previous life. She then shifted the topic, "By the way, I might need your help moving stock in the coming days. I've got a warehouse set up over in Haibei Village. If I'm too busy to handle it myself, I'll need someone to pick up the goods from there."
"No problem at all!" He Dong waved it off with a hearty laugh. "Honestly, I've been preparing for this. Just bought a 60 Ling truck yesterday, and during the New Year, I even brought in a driver from back home—just for deliveries."
"Wow, that saves me a lot of trouble!" Xu Duo laughed along, genuinely pleased. "Thanks so much, Brother Dong!"
"You've made me a lot of money—it's the least I can do," He Dong replied, brushing off her thanks. He then brought up another matter, "About those scrap batteries… do you think you could raise the buyback price a bit? My cousin dropped out of school and followed me here. If it works out, I can have him help you collect batteries over at Longsheng Tower. Just give him a cut."
"Sure, no problem. I was paying 2.5 yuan per pound before—how about I raise it to 4 yuan?"
"Four's a bit steep. I think 3 yuan is good. Give him 50 cents per pound, that's already pretty nice."
"Alright, no more haggling—3.5 yuan it is. If someone's helping out, that saves me the hassle."
"You sure your margins can handle that?"
"Not a big deal. With the tech constantly improving, costs are dropping, and my profit margins are getting better too. It's all manageable."
"Then I won't be polite about it!"
"Come on, with our relationship, what's there to be polite about?"
"Alright, I'll shut up now. Oh right—tonight, just tonight—Luo Ye is treating us. I'm tagging along thanks to you. I'll call him later to make a reservation. Let's go together."
"Sounds good!" Xu Duo didn't turn it down—this dinner had been promised before the New Year anyway.
…
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]