Chapter 380 - 380 Uneasy
380 Uneasy
“I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it. I just looked at this month’s order schedule. It can be arranged, but their requirements are indeed strange.”
Xiao Sheng thought for a moment, but still couldn’t tell what the other party was up to. Hence, he said to Yu Bing, “Since you’ve signed it, don’t worry too much about it. Hurry up and prepare the ingredients. The amount of flour needed for the egg yolk pastry is very large. This order is too sudden, so you have to request ingredients from the flour factory.”
Yu Bing nodded and suppressed the uneasiness in her heart. She ordered the raw materials first, but soon, their uneasiness proved to be well-founded.
After Yu Bing hung up, she looked at Xiao Sheng helplessly. Xiao Sheng’s heart skipped a beat. Then, he bent down and patted the top of Yu Bing’s head as he asked gently, “What did the flour factory say?”
When Yu Bing heard Xiao Sheng’s calm voice, she calmed down. Then, she licked her lips and looked into Xiao Sheng’s black eyes as she replied, “The flour factory said that they have received a notice from the higher-ups that the flour produced is now under comprehensive control. The flour produced for this month has to be supplied to the army at any time. After this month, if it’s confirmed that it’s not needed, it can be imported into the market.”
Such a notice meant that the country was preparing for war. Such an urgent notice meant that it was very difficult for the food factory to obtain flour.
Xiao Sheng thought of the batch of flour that had just arrived at the warehouse at the end of last month and asked, “The factory ordered flour last month. How much is left?”
Yu Bing had just read yesterday’s newspaper, so she immediately blurted out, “There’s still 4,680 catties of flour, but the amount required for this month will take up 3,000 catties. Completing the steel factory’s order will take 6,800 catties. Putting aside some other consumption requirements, we must prepare at least 5,300 catties of flour.”
This amount was usually fine, but now, it wasn’t enough.
After Yu Bing thought about how the flour rationing was this month, and the other party had also requested that the goods be delivered this month, she looked up at Xiao Sheng and speculated, “I think there must be something fishy about this matter. I don’t believe there’s such a coincidence.”
With that, Yu Bing picked up the phone and called Feng Cai back. After telling him the current situation, Feng Cai broke out in cold sweat. One had to know that three times 20,000 yuan was 60,000 yuan!
After hearing Yu Bing ask him to investigate the steelworks, he also realized that he might have really fallen into someone else’s trap. Hence, after hanging up, he immediately began to investigate. He also called all the offices and informed everyone that he wouldn’t take urgent orders for the time being on the grounds that there were many factory orders. Moreover, he informed them that they couldn’t change a single word on the contract template when signing the contract.
The two of them continued to think of ways in the office, but they both thought of buying it from the black market. Even if the price was higher, it was better than paying three times the compensation.
However, with such a large quantity, they still had to ensure that production wouldn’t be delayed. This meant that the time left for them was very tight.
At this moment, Xiao Sheng suddenly thought of the 10,000 egg yolk pastries order he and Yu Bing had placed last week. “Move my order to next month. Supply the production of the steel factory first.”
There were a total of 68,000 egg yolk pastries. Although these 10,000 were a drop in the bucket, they still resolved one-seventh of the urgent need.
However, Yu Bing was a little worried. “Then what about the orders on your side?”
Xiao Sheng smiled and said, “Don’t worry, these are just the normal unstable factors of the black market’s supply, so things have always been quite flexible in this regard. I’ll replace it with other products.”
Yu Bing was relieved when she heard this. Then, she thought about whether this method could be used for other orders, so she immediately called them to negotiate.
The people Yu Bing communicated with were all old customers who had ordered from her a few times. Because they had a certain level of cooperation and personal relationships, after Yu Bing mentioned the difficulties, many people were willing to exchange for products that used less flour or postpone it until next month.
Yu Bing used this method to gather another 1,200 pounds of flour.
Now that the shortfall of 5,300 pounds had been reduced by 1,200 pounds, they still had to find 3,100 pounds of flour.
The supply company required stamps to buy flour, so this method wasn’t feasible. Yu Bing and Xiao Sheng decided to gather supplies from the black market, then go to the villages further away to collect them.
Going straight to the door to collect goods was opportunistic, so the two of them definitely couldn’t collect the goods in any nearby villages, in case they were recognized and reported.