4: Why don't you just get a signature from the milkman?
Chen Kai quickened his pace for a couple of steps, closing the distance to Auntie Liu to just over a dozen paces before deliberately slowing down and greeting her.
"Morning, Auntie Liu."
He gave a slight smile, a friendly facade masking the utter disdain in his heart.
He intentionally raised the hand holding the two bags of eggs a little higher and tugged at his sleeve.
Auntie Liu, cradling a stack of books with her chin resting on top, turned her head slightly with a dismissive expression. The thought of her grandson's recent mock exam score made her itch to show off.
She also gradually came to a halt.
"Up so early to make deliveries, huh? Not bad this time, you didn't park that little rickety thing of yours in here.
I'm just saying, a young man like you doing this kind of work—couldn't you have studied a bit harder?"
"Look at my grandson. He scored over four hundred on his mock exam. A future top scholar."
Chen Kai nodded with a surface-level smile, while inwardly snorting with contempt. Over four hundred points makes him a top scholar? He'd struggle to get into even a decent university.
Money's hard to earn, and shit's hard to eat. For seven thousand two hundred, he'd just have to play along!
"You're absolutely right, Auntie Liu. Carrying this stack of books, are you taking them to your grandson? He's really diligent and hardworking."
Flattered by the praise, Auntie Liu's mood visibly improved, and she adopted a lecturing tone once more.
"Of course he is. My grandson's about to take the college entrance exams. He doesn't need these extra books anymore. Selling them to the Scrap Recycling Station will earn a bit of cash, buy my grandson a few more eggs to nourish his brain."
"Auntie Liu, I think you're spot on. While I'm young, I really should read more. Since you're selling these to the Scrap Recycling Station anyway, why not sell them to me?"
Auntie Liu was taken aback. Her beady little eyes darted back and forth before suddenly landing on the two bags of eggs in Chen Kai's hand.
"These books of my grandson's weren't cheap, you know."
"Could I pick out a couple then? I'll buy them at market price. Mainly, I'm just too lazy to go to the bookstore."
Auntie Liu almost laughed out loud in excitement but quickly stifled it, pretending to ponder for a moment.
"Alright then, I suppose I can reluctantly sell you a few."
She hurried to the roadside, placed the stack of books on the Flowerbed, and eagerly waved Chen Kai over.
Such a sucker wasn't easy to find. Selling to the Scrap Recycling Station would only get her eight mao per jin, and she'd have to walk six or seven kilometers under the scorching sun.
Buying at market price? She'd make a killing. Young people were so easy to fool. Not only were they easy to fool, but they'd even thank her for it!
"Okay, thank you, Auntie Liu. I'll pick a few to take home and read."
Rubbing his hands together in feigned excitement, Chen Kai walked to the Flowerbed, set the two bags of eggs aside, and divided the stack of books into two piles.
He glanced up at Auntie Liu's smug, grinning face and snorted quietly to himself. Who was really getting the better deal here remained to be seen.
He started by examining the pile on the left side of the Flowerbed, flipping through them one by one. Several were just workbooks and exam papers from the high school entrance exams years ago.
Picking up the other pile, he removed the top two books to find various paperback novels underneath.
"Not this one..."
"This one either..."
"Found it!"
Chen Kai's heart leaped with joy. Opening the cover of the harry potter novel, sure enough, on the blank first page was a signature from J.K. Rowling!
He silently set that book aside and then symbolically picked out a few other novels.
Better not to raise Auntie Liu's suspicions. Spending an extra few dozen bucks to net seven thousand was nothing. He couldn't risk the big payoff for a small loss.
"Just these three. How much, Auntie Liu?"
"These three? Give me fifty. Only your Auntie here would sell them to you at this price. You should be thanking me properly, kid."
Auntie Liu said this as if she'd done him a great favor, her eyes gleaming as they fixated on the eggs still sitting on the Flowerbed.
While Chen Kai wasn't looking, she quickly snatched them up, hid her hands behind her back, and then adopted an impatient expression to hurry him along.
"Alright, hurry up and pay. I need to get home and cook for my good grandson."
Chen Kai nodded quickly, a barely perceptible smile curling at the corner of his mouth. He'd clearly seen a wrinkled hand sneakily make off with his eggs.
He pulled a hundred-yuan bill from his pocket and handed it to her.
Auntie Liu's eyes darted. She directly stuffed the red bill into her bosom, turned to leave, and as she did, she shifted the eggs to her front.
Chen Kai initially planned to just walk away, but remembering this Old Woman was a crafty one among the crafty, he quickly called out to stop her.
"Auntie Liu! You haven't given me my change! And these two bags of eggs seem... to be mine, too?"
Auntie Liu spun around instantly, her face a mask of impatience. With a huff, she rummaged for a long time in a pocket that seemed to have come from who-knows-where, finally producing two ten-yuan notes and one twenty.
"That's it! That's all I have!"
"Your Auntie already sold you the books cheap. What's the big deal giving me two bags of eggs? Young people shouldn't be so stingy. In society, you need to understand that sometimes taking a loss is a blessing!"
Seeing this, Chen Kai shook his head helplessly, deliberately putting on an unwilling expression as he took the forty yuan. "Fine, fine," he said.
Hugging the three books to his chest, he quickly turned and walked away.
The moment his back was turned, he gave a cold smirk. That Old Woman thought she'd scored a huge bargain.
Meanwhile, seeing Chen Kai turn away, Auntie Liu lowered her head to look at the two bags of eggs she held, a sly grin she couldn't hide in her eyes.
"Young people these days, just keep learning. So easy to fool."
"These worthless books would've only fetched five or six yuan. Now, I sold them for fifty, made an extra ten, and got two bags of eggs for free."
She hurriedly pulled the hundred-yuan bill from her pocket, added a few fifty-yuan notes to it, stacked them together, counted them once to confirm, and then hummed a little tune as she headed home.
As soon as she got home and saw her grandson still 'studying' at his gaming desk on the computer, she couldn't resist sharing, hoping to teach him a lesson about not being easily deceived.
"Good grandson! Guess how much Granny sold your old books for today? A full sixty yuan! And I even got two bags of eggs from someone! Isn't your granny amazing?"
Auntie Liu boasted proudly, even holding up the two bags of eggs.
Hearing this, the teenager immediately showed an incredulous expression, quickly taking off his headphones. "Granny, you touched my books? You didn't sell that harry potter novel, did you?"
Auntie Liu scratched her head, seeming to recall. "Think I sold it? Anyway, your granny scored a bargain today, made over sixty!"
"Granny! You sold harry potter?! That book had J.K. Rowling's signature on it!!!"
The teenager looked utterly distraught, his anger rising a notch.
Auntie Liu was confused. Why wasn't her grandson happy about her scoring a bargain?
"What J.K. Rowling signature? Granny doesn't understand. If you like it, I'll sign one for you. I'll sign two for you!"
The teenager's voice rose two pitches. "That signature is worth money!! It sells for several thousand on the market! How could you just sell it! I can't believe this!"
"What?! Several thousand? Granny will go downstairs right now and demand it back! No!"
The teenager slapped his forehead in frustration. "It's useless! You already took the money. Even if we reported it to Hat Uncle, he'd be in the right! He'd never give it back to us! Ugh!"
Upon hearing this, Auntie Liu's mind went blank. She plopped down on the floor with a thud, blinking her eyes as a few tears streamed down, her mind filled with nothing but regret.
...
On the other side, Chen Kai casually found a trash can and tossed the other two books into it.
He cradled the harry potter book protectively against his chest, afraid of accidentally creasing a corner—apparently, that could drastically reduce the price!
After a moment's thought, he got on his little electric donkey and headed towards the antique street's Pawnshop. His buddy worked there as a senior manager; surely they'd take this kind of thing, right?