Chapter 84 - 82: Fishing
Chapter 84: Chapter 82: Fishing
As for calling the police and having them arrested, he knew it would be of little use.
The Magong Town government would certainly side with Hailufeng Company, but arresting these thugs disguised as fishermen would only make matters more difficult.
After all, once the people behind the scenes saw that this tactic wouldn’t work, they would surely continue to secretly throw money around, trying to bribe the company’s farm technicians to obtain the confidential feed. That would be even harder to prevent.
Therefore, after discussing it, Zhang Xincheng and Jiang Miao decided to hold off for now to avoid tipping their hand.
In any case, it would take the people behind this at least a few months, perhaps even more than half a year, to analyze Hailufeng Company’s confidential feed from the discharged wastewater.
By the time they realized something might be wrong with the wastewater, Hailufeng Company would have already made several more months’ worth of profit.
As long as they could buy time, the company would accumulate more capital, making them less afraid of the negative repercussions of flipping the table.
In fact, Jiang Miao already had a plan. As soon as it was confirmed that someone had successfully stolen the confidential feed formula, Hailufeng Company would immediately announce that they would drastically cut their prices the moment any other company’s eel fry hit the market.
This move would undoubtedly make the vast majority of hatcheries hesitant to act rashly.
Stealing Hailufeng Company’s confidential feed formula was merely the first step in replicating the technology.
During that time, they would still need to research the formula for any potential issues. After all, the bloody cautionary tale of West Sea Company was right there for all to see. If you went all-in without proper research and things went south, it would mean a loss of tens of millions. Unless you were a major corporation with deep pockets, losing tens of millions was no small matter.
Thus, it would take more than half a year just to verify the confidential feed formula, and that was assuming there were no issues with it.
But reaching mass production would require a huge capital investment to build fully automated, climate-controlled indoor farms and purchase a large stock of mature eels. This would cost at least tens of millions and take another six months or more.
After over a year of research and investment, having spent tens of millions, they would finally succeed in mass-producing eel fry.
And then, Hailufeng Company would slash the price of their eel fry, dragging the market down to a low-profit margin. How’s that for despair?
A few smaller hatcheries were still banking on luck, thinking Jiang Miao would never be willing to engage in a price war. They believed that as long as they could maintain an initial wholesale price of 20,000 per kilogram, they could recoup their costs within a few months.
However, they didn’t know that Jiang Miao had already completed his initial capital accumulation. With the company’s other ventures also developing rapidly, he wasn’t worried about a price war in the slightest.
Now, it was just a matter of seeing which thick-headed fool would dare to invest in producing eel fry.
...
「On a road in Magong Town.」
A man nicknamed Big Bird, disguised as a fisherman, glanced at the pile of water bottles in his electric scooter’s cargo box, a trace of excitement on his face. He looked up toward the breeding base and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He quickly tossed his fishing gear onto the scooter, twisted the throttle, and vanished from the scene in a flash.
「Inside a quiet home late at night.」
Big Bird, having had a little beer, opened the freezer before heading to bed. Inside were a dozen or so 300ml plastic water bottles. After six or seven hours in the freezer, the water inside had turned to slush.
This was the wastewater he had collected from the drainage outlet of the Salt Town Breeding Base that evening.
When he opened the refrigerator compartment, he saw several boxes of strawberries—the very same Jasmine Strawberries from Nanhu Farm.
Looking at the strawberries in the box, he couldn’t help but gulp. He shut the refrigerator door. The beer starting to hit him, Big Bird muttered to himself:
"Why is it I can barely afford three meals a day, while the Jiang Family blows millions on a single wedding? It’s my turn to get rich, hahaha..."
As he mumbled on, his eyes grew heavy. He staggered over to a nearby sofa, collapsed onto it, and was soon fast asleep, snoring loudly.
While he was sound asleep, a slightly hunched-over old woman tiptoed down from the second floor. She opened the freezer and stared at the dozen or so bottles of water, her expression unreadable. Then she glanced over at her son on the sofa.
She sat down on a chair. In the dim light, her eyes were filled with pain and helplessness.
「Over an hour later.」
The old woman sighed and lamented in a low voice, "It’s all my fault for not raising him right. This is a sin of my own making. I can’t let you go down the wrong path any further..."
Picking up her keys, the old woman walked to the door. She paused just before leaving, her eyes filled with conflict and reluctance.
"Heh heh... Ah Guang..."
"I’ve got tons of money..."
"This time, I’m gonna win for sure..."
"Hahaha... a pure flush... I win!"
Hearing her son’s sleeptalk, a look of resolve and utter disappointment washed over the old woman’s face. Without a backward glance, she stepped outside, closed the large iron gate, and rode her small electric scooter away through the alley.
「A few minutes later.」
She arrived at the entrance of the Magong Town police station.
The officer on duty saw the old woman and recognized her immediately. "Sister-in-law Xiuqin, is something wrong?"
"I’m here to file a report," Zhou Xiuqin said, her voice trembling slightly.
The officer frowned and quickly asked, "Sister-in-law Xiuqin, what happened?"
"Sigh... my worthless son... these past few days, he’s been sneaking over to the Jiang Family’s farm in Salt Town and stole more than a dozen bottles of water. I, Zhou Xiuqin, have been an honest person my entire life! How could I have given birth to a son like him! What a sin!" Zhou Xiuqin cried, tears streaming down her face.