162: Hurry, or you'll miss out, old lady!
Chen Kai scratched his head in confusion, his face full of bewilderment.
Logically speaking, this shouldn't be happening, right? He had come two hours early, so he definitely shouldn't be late.
So, did he come too early? Has this woman not brought the fish tank out to throw away yet?
That was very possible. The more Chen Kai thought about it, the more certain he became; that was most likely the case.
Since he had arrived too early, he simply propped his feet up on his Electric Scooter, kicked down the kickstand, and slumped over the Electric Scooter while scrolling through his phone.
He had just opened TikTok, and the first video it pushed to him was actually about a major surge in jade prices across the country—was this the degradation of morals or the distortion of human nature?
Chen Kai instantly became interested. With curiosity filling his eyes, he even sat up straight to watch the news.
On the news, a female host was holding a script, indignantly explaining the reasons behind the recent surge in jade prices.
However, it was all just empty rhetoric; everyone knows how these little news videos are nowadays.
Especially those with few followers, they were no different from the universally despised clickbait accounts—starting with a single image and making up the entire content.
The news content was full of various speculations about the reasons for the jade price hike, blaming it on unscrupulous merchants or claiming it was a scheme orchestrated by capital.
They just didn't mention a single word about how jade from Myanmar couldn't get into the country.
The people in the comment section actually knew more, though the situation regarding jade they described was far more severe than the intelligence he had gathered.
They said that Myanmar was in turmoil, and at the very least, no jade had come in for a month. Now, Old Pakan had raised prices, and it might increase tenfold in the future.
Because only jade from Myanmar was Grade A, jade imported from other places couldn't be considered legitimate Grade A jade; it wasn't recognized by the market and was cheap.
Chen Kai smiled faintly. If it continued to develop at this momentum, the price of jade might rise even further.
The problem now lay with the consumers, the buyers.
If the buyers were willing to accept paying 100,000 yuan for jade that could originally be bought for 30,000 yuan, he didn't doubt for a second what these jade merchants would do.
They would all raise their prices. Even if goods from Myanmar came in, they would lie and say they hadn't, and raise prices anyway.
The money earned from this would be too much; it was equivalent to earning double, and there would still be people willing to pay for it.
If he, Chen Kai, were a capitalist, he would earn this money too.
But current consumers weren't that stupid. Quality that could be bought for 30,000 yuan before, and now you want me to buy it for 100,000? Are you kidding?
What if the price drops in the future? If you wanted to sell it, that extra money paid would be a pure loss; the recycling merchants wouldn't factor that part of the price in either.
Therefore, the current jade price hike only meant smaller profits for these small jade merchants, and the price consumers paid was only slightly more expensive; it wasn't as exaggeratedly expensive as that.
Just as Chen Kai was deep in thought, two figures walked out of the unit door in front of him.
It was a woman leading a little girl. Judging by the little girl's height, she was probably only five or six years old, still in kindergarten.
The little girl was being pulled by her mother, crying as she walked. Her tears couldn't stop, and in her other hand, she held a small cream bun, taking a bite after crying for a while.
"Wuwuwu... I don't want to go to kindergarten... Wuwuwu..."
"Since when does a child not go to kindergarten? You just stay home all day looking at your broken fish. Hurry up, we'll be late if you keep dawdling."
"Wuwuwu... But, but I just don't want to go... Kindergarten isn't fun at all, and I have to study, and learn math... Wuwuwu, I don't want to go to kindergarten..."
"Hurry up, the school bus is almost here, move it!"
The woman pulled the little girl quickly toward the entrance of the residential complex.
Chen Kai was in a straight line with the North Gate of the complex, so he could easily see the woman put the little girl on the school bus.
After watching the school bus slowly pull away, she bought breakfast at a steamed bun shop at the entrance of the complex and returned to the building entrance without haste, carrying the breakfast.
Chen Kai was stunned for a moment, a bit unsure if the bargain was something this woman had thrown away.
After all, the characteristics matched, and he could tell from the conversation that the child was raising fish.
But...
Why did she just go straight home? And ten minutes had passed, yet she still didn't seem like she was coming back downstairs?
Chen Kai scratched his head, his face full of bewilderment, feeling that something wasn't quite right.
He continued to sit on the Electric Scooter and wait. Half an hour passed slowly.
Chen Kai was scrolling through his phone when he suddenly heard footsteps coming from the hallway.
He quickly turned his head to look, and his mouth instantly couldn't help but curl up. The woman was holding the finished breakfast bag and trash in her left hand, and holding one corner of a plastic fish tank in her right hand, walking slowly toward the outside.
After first throwing the plastic bag and other trash into the garbage bin, she scanned her surroundings.
Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one around, the woman placed the small fish tank directly on the edge of the Flowerbed.
"Sigh... It's easy to get caught if I throw it in the trash can. Whoever wants to take it, take it."
The woman muttered a sentence and turned to go upstairs.
Chen Kai was overjoyed. Just as he was about to get off the scooter to pick up the fish tank, an Old Woman who moved like a flash of lightning appeared from nowhere, leaning on a cane and walking quickly toward the direction of the fish tank.
"Damn it!"
Chen Kai's heart tightened instantly. This Old Woman was going to snatch the fish tank from him! What kind of fish was she raising at her age?
Moreover, seeing that the Old Woman was almost at the fish tank, in his urgency, Chen Kai immediately twisted the throttle of his Electric Scooter and, with lightning speed, dashed to the side of the fish tank.
He grabbed it in his hand and carefully checked inside the fish tank. Sure enough, there was a piece of jade glowing, mixed in with the plastic stones.
"Hey, what are you doing, Young Man!"
As soon as the Old Woman saw that the plastic fish tank in her hand had been snatched away, she immediately got anxious.
She still wanted to use the colorful little stones in the fish tank to coax her grandson! If it was snatched away, she would have to spend money to buy more!
Chen Kai smiled faintly. "Too slow, and you lose it. It's all junk; things that have been discarded belong to whoever grabs them first."
"You...!! How can you be like this? You don't know how to respect the elderly at all!"
The Old Woman was so anxious that she tapped the ground twice with her cane, her mouth constantly making 'oy vey, oy vey' sounds.
Seeing this, Chen Kai couldn't be bothered to talk nonsense with her. He directly took ten yuan out of his pocket and threw it casually behind him.
If he just drove away, this pestering Old Woman might follow the vehicle.
If there was ten yuan, the Old Woman might go pick up the money first.
Just as he thought, as soon as he let go of the ten yuan in his hand, it drifted away with the strong wind.
The Old Woman was stunned for a moment, her eyes fixed on the ten yuan, and she immediately followed the ten yuan to the side.