1269: Chapter 625: Who is the Dupe_2 1269: Chapter 625: Who is the Dupe_2 As soon as the middle-aged man climbed into the car, Yan Fei lifted the lid of a case and pointed, saying, “I don’t really understand these, take a look and see if these instrunts are genuine or if there might be any connection to the items lost over there?”
The middle-aged man’s eyebrows furrowed slightly at the sight inside the box, before he began inspecting the contents carefully.
After a while, he finally spoke, “Can I look at a few more?”
Yan Fei nodded indifferently, “Sure.”
As he opened several more boxes, the middle-aged man inspected each one, thought for a while and then said, “These don’t look like fakes to , but whether they are from the sa batch as what was lost over there, I’m not sure.
Are you available to go to the city now?
We could get soone else over there to take a look?”
That was definitely not a problem, seeing that he couldn’t just abandon the car there anyway.
The middle-aged man got on the motorcycle and started making calls as he drove off.
Yan Fei followed in the car listening in, hearing him contacting people to inspect the instrunts.
He couldn’t make out anything else.
When they reached the outskirts of the city, the two waited a while before an older man, looking scholarly with glasses and resembling a teacher, arrived.
Actually, he really was a teacher, which Yan Fei noticed when he got on and saw chalk dust not quite cleaned from between his fingers.
The mont the teacher entered the car and saw the boxes opened up inside, his reaction was similar to the middle-aged man’s, with a slight frown.
Indeed, anyone who knew a bit about how to maintain and handle instrunts would likely frown at the sight of this packaging.
Not to ntion the ordinary wooden boxes, the padding ant to protect the instrunts from jolts wasn’t foam or any proper shock-absorbing material, but re straw stuffed haphazardly – just the way pots, pans, and earthenware are typically cushioned with straw in rural markets.
Like the middle-aged man, the teacher also frowned but didn’t speak; however, he examined the contents more carefully.
After inspecting all the opened boxes, he even asked Yan Fei and the middle-aged man to help test a couple of smaller instrunts before concluding, “The items are good, still usable.”
Yan Fei looked relieved, “As long as they work.
I was worried I’d been conned!
The least expensive of these cost tens of thousands…”
The teacher couldn’t help but laugh, “Tens of thousands for each piece?”
“Yes!
The smaller ones cost tens of thousands, and the biggest ones are even more expensive, costing two to three hundred thousand each!” Yan Fei exclaid, eyes wide.
“Even if they’re second-hand, they’re from Japan.
Isn’t that going to be expensive?”
This imdiately earned him disdainful looks, clearly implying: yet another who thinks the moon shines brighter abroad, not just blindly idolizing foreign products but also a bit foolish.
Who ever heard of pricing experintal instrunts by size?
If small ones are cheap and big ones are expensive, those selling experintal instrunts would have made their fortune and migrated to the moon by now.
Although the disdain from both was fleeting, Yan Fei still saw it and asked nervously, “Did I pay too much?”
“You did!” the first middle-aged man had not spoken up, the teacher did.
“Don’t assu foreign goods are always better.
I don’t know how you got in touch with these equipnt resellers, but similar products are available dostically at much lower prices.”
Yan Fei was sowhat unconvinced, “You haven’t seen everything yet; wait, I’ll open all the boxes for you to check.”
Actually, most of the boxes were already open by now, and the teacher had reached a conclusion: the equipnt was neither old nor damaged, and it was working for sure.
So were labeled as second-hand but didn’t seem to have been used for long.
However, in terms of functionality and technical content, these devices were quite ordinary and common.
High-tech devices, especially those with technology restricted from export, were essentially non-existent.
At that mont, Yan Fei’s actions in opening the boxes beca rather aggressive, resembling soone who bought a bunch of waterlons only to find them all unripe after cutting several open.
Now, he seed to be angrily slicing open the remaining lons with a cleaver, wanting to check if there were any ripe ones at all…
The middle-aged man remained silent, but the teacher gave him so advice, “You’ve already spent the money, and the equipnt still works.
If you handle it too roughly, what if you break sothing?
That would be an even bigger loss.”
Yan Fei exerted force to pry open the last and largest box, tossing aside the wooden board on top with displeasure on his face, “Look at these, all big sizes, and all expensive.
This biggest one cost five hundred thousand…”
The teacher and the middle-aged man couldn’t help but smirk at each other oddly: Nowadays, the nouveau riche make a fortune but fail to acquire so knowledge, making them easy targets for scams, each one a dupe…
Thinking this, the teacher indifferently glanced at the biggest device, which was said to have cost five hundred thousand, and unable to take his eyes off it after one look, he hesitated before saying, “This is a…
high-resolution twin-focus magnetic mass spectroter…”
The middle-aged man looked tense, “What’s wrong, Old Wang?”
Yan Fei was a bit puzzled, “What’s wrong with it?
Is it not worth the money?”
At this mont, the teacher ignored their questions and carefully removed the hay stacked on the device and placed it aside—as if picking it, as if the hay was rooted there, taking each piece carefully.
After cleaning around the device and looking down for a while, he finally said, “Boss Yan, could you remove this side panel too, so I can see the naplate underneath?”
Yan Fei was efficient, “Sure!”
He began moving the boxes around it to one side, watching his actions, the teacher imdiately beca anxious, “Take it easy, easy, these are all precision instrunts, you could damage them this way!”
Yan Fei still carelessly responded, “What’s there to fear?
If it gets damaged, we’ll just buy another.
Didn’t you say we could buy these here and cheaply too!”
Typical nouveau riche attitude.
When the naplate beca visible, displaying a series of Japanese characters, the teacher crouched there, lost in thought.
The middle-aged man didn’t bother him but stood by, occasionally watching Yan Fei’s expression.
Yan Fei started to get cocky again, “Isn’t it great stuff I bought?
I told you, doing business requires sincerity, you can’t just take my money without giving sothing good in return.
I told you, to buy these, I had people spread the word that I was willing to pay top dollar.
The seller would not deliver the goods to my doorstep, and made travel far in the middle of the night just to pick them up, and I endured it…”
The teacher, after much contemplation, finally stood up, exchanged a look with the middle-aged man, and then interrupted Yan Fei criticizing the seller’s service quality, “Comrade Yan Fei, could you please wait a mont, I need to make a phone call…”
Yan Fei, at that mont, was staring at the ‘value-for-money’ device and, without lifting his head, responded with a casual English okay.
Such an air of self-importance!
However, the middle-aged man and the teacher couldn’t care less about his attitude as they walked to the other end of the car compartnt, murmuring softly between themselves, then the one looking like a teacher took the old school mobile phone from the middle-aged man and started dialing.
As the two of them walked away, Yan Fei’s proud expression instantly vanished, disappearing without a trace, as if recalling sothing, he chuckled and sat down on a box, as if the device inside was just a pile of junk—how could he not be clear about the ghost stories of buying such things for tens of thousands?
Having pillaged a few labs, he truly didn’t care about these ordinary goods.
Looking at the blue sky and white clouds, Yan Fei didn’t even need to listen to know what kind of phone call the two were making: most likely, they were first consulting soone knowledgeable about whether this device was the most advanced, and then asking for instructions from higher up on what to do with this device.
Sure enough, after quite a while, the middle-aged man and the teacher ca back, then the middle-aged man said, “Comrade Yan Fei, may I ask, what is the main focus of research in your lab?”
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