Richest Rag-picker

Chapter 304: Chapter 303: Treating the Whole Country to Coke

Fang Chenyi froze when he heard the voice.

’What the fuck is going on? I was rewarded with one billion yuan worth of canned Coca-Cola?’

’A can of Coca-Cola costs 2.5 yuan right now. One billion yuan means four hundred million cans!’

’Four hundred million cans of Coca-Cola... How the hell am I ever going to finish drinking all that?!’

Meanwhile, at the Coca-Cola Huaxia headquarters, a woman in glasses and business attire rushed into the president’s office.

"President! President! A huge order! A huge order!"

Xia Huren, the Executive President of the Huaxia Region, was at his desk, nursing a headache over the month’s sales report. He frowned at his female secretary’s words and looked up at her excited face.

The female secretary excitedly waved the folder in her hand at her boss.

"President! The company just received a huge order! Someone just ordered one billion yuan worth of canned Coke!"

Xia Huren had been completely frazzled about failing to meet his sales targets for the month. If this woman hadn’t been from headquarters, he would have certainly berated her.

But upon hearing her words, he froze for a moment before a wave of elation washed over him. He excitedly snatched the folder from her hands and murmured to himself as he flipped through the pages:

"A one-billion-yuan order? This is fantastic! We can finally surpass Pepsi!"

In recent years, Coca-Cola’s sales in Huaxia had been declining, and for the past two years, they had even been surpassed by Pepsi.

Currently, their annual sales were only around thirteen billion yuan, which averaged out to just over one billion a month.

Their old rival, Pepsi, however, had annual sales reaching seventeen to eighteen billion yuan. Because of this, headquarters had started issuing mandatory quotas.

Monthly sales had to break one billion yuan. Otherwise, if they failed to meet the target for three consecutive months—an entire quarter—the head of the Huaxia division would be replaced.

As luck would have it, sales for each of the past two months had been just over nine hundred million. This month was even more dismal, having only reached a little over six hundred million so far.

This one-billion-yuan order, at this very moment, instantly secured Xia Huren’s position as the head of the Huaxia division.

Thus, Fang Chenyi had become Xia Huren’s greatest benefactor.

After the initial joy wore off, Xia Huren faced a new problem. A sudden one-billion-yuan order was one thing, but if the customer wanted immediate delivery, the Huaxia factories, which had already laid off half their workers, would struggle to produce it within a month while still maintaining their regular market supply.

With this in mind, his gaze fell upon the buyer’s information in the folder. He saw Fang Chenyi’s phone number, pulled out his own phone, and dialed.

Meanwhile, Fang Chenyi was worrying. ’Where on earth am I going to put one billion yuan worth of Coca-Cola?!’

Just as he was thinking this, his phone suddenly rang.

He pulled it out and saw it was an unfamiliar number.

"Is this Mr. Fang? Hello, I’m Xia Huren, the head of Coca-Cola Huaxia. We’ve just received your one-billion-yuan order, and I’m calling to coordinate with you. Where should we deliver this shipment?"

Before answering, Fang Chenyi had already guessed it might be someone from Coca-Cola calling. After all, this was no small sum.

"Ah, hello. Sorry about this, but I must have dozed off. My finger was resting on the zero key when I placed the order."

Xia Huren, on the other end of the line, was stunned. ’What is he talking about? He dozed off and his finger landed on the keypad? So he placed the order by mistake?’

But on second thought, it made sense. No matter how rich a person was, it was impossible for them to buy a month’s supply of Coke for the entire country in one go.

To be more precise, annual sales of canned Coke in Huaxia were less than six hundred million yuan. The rest of their revenue came from bottled Coke and other Coca-Cola products.

At this, Xia Huren couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment.

"Er, so, Mr. Fang, you’re saying you’ll be canceling this order, correct?"

Fang Chenyi was about to say, ’Yes, cancel it. I’ll give you an account number so you can refund the money.’

But before he could speak, the system’s prompt sounded in his mind:

"Host, if the order is canceled, the system will consider it a rejection of the special reward. All future special rewards will be revoked!"

Hearing this, Fang Chenyi swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue and replied calmly:

"No, don’t cancel it. What’s done is done. Since I placed the order, just go ahead and ship it."

’Since there’s no changing it, I’ll just have to take it,’ Fang Chenyi thought. But to Xia Huren, those words painted a clear picture of Fang Chenyi: ’He’s rich! Unbelievably rich!’

’He accidentally orders a billion yuan worth of Coke, and he’s just going to roll with it? If he’s not in the beverage business, what use could he possibly have for that much Coke? Is he planning to drink it for the rest of his life?’

Just as Xia Huren was rendered speechless, a flash of inspiration struck Fang Chenyi. Before the other man could speak, he continued:

"Oh, by the way, President Xia, since this is such a large order, I was wondering... could you create custom packaging for the cans? You know, like how I’ve seen some of your products with advertisements for game characters on them."

Hearing this, Xia Huren replied without the slightest hesitation:

"Absolutely! That’s not a problem at all! Mr. Fang, we have professional designers. You can share your ideas with us, and we can handle the design for you!"

Fang Chenyi just smiled and shook his head. "That won’t be necessary. How about this: add me on WeChat, and I’ll send you the finished design. You can just manufacture the cans according to my artwork. Oh, and one more thing. After this batch is produced, don’t ship it all to me. Just have your downstream distributors handle it."

After hearing Fang Chenyi out, Xia Huren started to understand. ’Maybe his story about making a mistake was just an excuse. His real goal is to advertise something.’ But he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. ’There’s no need to go to such lengths. He could have accomplished the same thing by just paying us a few tens of millions in advertising fees, couldn’t he?’

With these thoughts in mind, Xia Huren said hesitantly:

"That shouldn’t be a problem, but Mr. Fang, any custom artwork would have to be reviewed by us. After all, designs that people find offensive could potentially impact our future sales."

Fang Chenyi was taken aback. He hadn’t expected so much red tape. After a moment of thought, he said:

"I doubt that’ll happen. I’m giving away free Coke. People aren’t going to turn it down just because of the design on the can, are they?"