3 Hey, Driver, Give Me A Ride

"Cheng Xu!"

The pure and bright girl in front was waving at him. It was already too late for him to lower his head and avoid Li Mengqing when he first noticed her.

Cheng Xu immediately yanked the brakes and forced a smile. "What a coincidence to meet you here."

"Sanlin county is only so big. It would be even stranger if we didn't bump into each other during the whole summer vacation." Li Mengqing continued as she played with her hair. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, I'm going to the packing station to sell some scrap."

Not wishing to talk more, Cheng Xu pressed down his helmet more securely.

"Wow, then this must be fate. I want to go there, too. Can you give me a ride?"

Before Cheng Xu could think of what to say, Li Mengqing had already raised a long leg and climbed onto his three-wheeled motorcycle.

If it were his past self, he would definitely have been able to figure out why this person would be going the same direction as him. But at this moment, he could only utter two words. "Oh... Alright." 

A moment later, he managed to say more, "Hold on tight, this ride could get a little bumpy."

"Yes, it's fine. I feel at ease with you around."

The sound of Cheng Xu's motorcycle engine revving to life was not inferior to a tractor engine. It drew people's attention all the time.

Of course, the main highlight was probably Li Mengqing, who straddled the seat behind him.

A passerby in a sedan took a deep puff of his cigarette.

"D*mn, how did I lose to him?"

The accomplice beside him said, "It's love." 

Along the way, the two of them chatted a lot about how they were recently doing, and Li Mengqing laughed during the whole ride.

"Alright, you can drop me off here. Be careful on the road."

Li Mengqing waited for the motorcycle to stop before jshe jumped out of the seat with one vigorous movement.

At this moment, Cheng Xu was still thinking about whether his speech was really that humorous. 'Why had no one ever mentioned it before?'

"Ah... Alright, see you."

"By the way, your style today is quite handsome."

Cheng Xu's face was red as he recalled Li Mengqing's words. When he looked up, she had already walked far away.

Li Mengqing was his desk mate in high school. After the college entrance examinations, Li Mengqing went to a key university in Beijing. Cheng Xu, who had a similar score, had chosen an ordinary university close to his home to take care of his grandfather.

Cheng Xu had actually secretly liked her before, but the precocious boy was well aware of the insurmountable gap between their families. Thus, there were some things that he never dared to say.

When he arrived at his destination, Cheng Xu forced himself to recollect the thoughts that were flying in his mind.

"Mr. Zheng."

"Young Xu, what are you selling today?"

A middle-aged man with a square face saw Cheng Xu arrive and greeted him with a smile.

Cheng Xu had often followed his grandfather around when he was young, and over time, he had become familiar with his peers.

"I'm here to sell some metal. Business has been good recently, right?"

"The business has always been like this, neither hot nor cold..."

The two of them chatted as they unloaded the goods from the side-cart.

"Hey, where did you get these steel ingots? It's pretty good."

Zheng Shouye touched the steel ingots and knocked on them with his hand. He was pleasantly surprised.

"Heh, heh, I got lucky. I received them."

Seeing that Cheng Xu had no intention of explaining in detail, Zheng Shouye did not inquire further.

"Sure, today's goods are not bad. I can give you an additional 200 yuan for each ton."

When he heard that Mr. Zheng could indeed pay more, Cheng Xu smiled and thanked him. "Thank you, Mr. Zheng."

Zheng Shouye, on the other hand, waved his hand. "It's only right that the price is high when the items are good. There's no need to thank me."

"Mr. Zheng! Come over here for a moment."

Young Li called for Zheng Shouye from the other side. He looked as if he had encountered some difficulties.

"Young Xu, wait a moment. I'll go and see what's going on over there. I'll pay you right after that."

"It's fine, I'm not in a hurry."

Cheng Xu followed out of curiosity.

Zheng Shouye was pulled aside by Young Li.

"Mr. Zheng, I suspect there's something wrong with this batch of aluminum alloys, but I can't see what's wrong with them," Young Li whispered to Zheng Shouye.

"Oh? What's the problem?" Zheng Shouye frowned.

"The weight of this batch of aluminum alloy doesn't seem right. Based on my experience, this amount of aluminum alloy shouldn't reach this weight."

Zheng Shouye's face darkened after he heard what Young Li said. He walked to the pile of aluminum alloys and squatted down to observe them carefully.

"Hey, mister! Are you going to accept the goods or not? If you think the price is wrong, we can negotiate again."

"That's right. Hurry up. We still have other things to do later."

The two sellers who stood at the side were getting impatient and started hustling Zheng Shouye.

Zheng Shouye's brows furrowed even deeper after he inspected the goods. His intuition told him that there was something wrong with the goods, but he could not tell what the problem was.

It was impossible for a human to inspect all the different types of aluminum alloys. Their recycling center did not have any high-end testing equipment.

This put him in an awkward situation.

If he accepted it, and there really was a problem with this batch, then if he sold it to the factory and got found out, it would ruin his reputation as a recycling center.

If he did not accept it, he had no real reason not to accept their goods. Besides, Young Li had already spoken with them, so all he had to do was to weigh them and pay.

Cheng Xu was keenly aware that Mr. Zheng's expression was not quite right, so he quietly went over to ask about the problem.

"How about this, Mr. Zheng? Can you let me take a look at the goods? Maybe I'll find something new?"

Although Zheng Shouye did not quite believe that Cheng Xu would be better than these old masters, he still wanted to make a last-ditch effort and let Cheng Xu take a look.

Cheng Xu first touched a large piece of aluminum alloy material with his hand, then knocked on a few other pieces with his hand.

"I say, do you have to check the goods so many times? What's the meaning of this?" The seller could not help but ask.

"The test is done," Cheng Xu responded as soon as the seller finished speaking.

"There's no problem, right? Then let's quickly weigh them and settle the accounts," the other seller said.

Of course, there was something wrong with this batch of aluminum alloys, but they did not believe that the people at the recycling center could see anything wrong with it.

Not to mention, Cheng Xu had only been there for less than two minutes.

Zheng Shouye sighed.

He might as well accept the batch and examine them one by one later. At most, he would lose some money.

He had no choice. If he could see the problem, he could naturally do whatever he wanted. But he had not found any problems as of this moment, he naturally could not refuse to accept the goods based on a hunch.

Zheng Shouye waved his hand and motioned for Young Li to weigh them and settle the bill.

"Wait a moment."

He saw Cheng Xu take out several pieces of aluminum alloy.

Looking at the aluminum alloys that Cheng Xu had brought out, the two sellers wiped the sweat off their faces and said, "What are you doing, little brat? Go play somewhere else and don't waste our time."

Cheng Xu ignored them and turned to Zheng Shouye.

"Mr. Zheng, do you have a pair of hydraulic forceps?"