Chapter 123: Chapter 122: The Origin Story of AW Company
[Host has picked up one ’AW’ water bottle, triggering a special system reward. Awarding 49% of the shares of Huaxia’s AW Company. The share transfer agreent has been placed in the woven bag. Please retrieve it.]
Fang Chenyi was stunned as he listened to the special reward notification in his mind.
’What the?? What’s going on? The Huaxia AW Company?? Made in China??? Wait, this ten-thousand-US-Dollar bottle of water is actually made by our Great Huaxia?? Now *this* is getting interesting!’
Giving Demo Did an odd look, Fang Chenyi opened his mouth. In the end, he couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked:
"Um, let
ask you sothing. Where is this incredible water made?"
Demo Did, however, shot him a disdainful look and said smugly:
"Oh, Mr. Fang, I know you’re very wealthy, but you should just give up on this. AW water is supplied exclusively to our circles of Middle Eastern nobility. I can tell you right now, even if I gave you the company’s contact info, you wouldn’t be able to buy any. Oh, unless, of course, you manage to beco as rich as I am soday. To be honest, even I am limited to a hundred bottles a month."
A mont ago, Fang Chenyi might have agreed with him. After all, he would never do sothing as brainless as spending ten thousand US Dollars on a single bottle of water.
But now he was a major shareholder of the AW Company. If he wanted to, he could afford to drink this water even if it cost a hundred thousand US Dollars a bottle.
Once Demo Did had finished, Fang Chenyi shrugged. With an apologetic look, he said:
"Haha, sorry, Old Di, but as of right now, your monthly supply of one hundred bottles is gone."
Demo Did stared at the apologetic Fang Chenyi in confusion and asked:
"?? What’s that supposed to an? Are you trying to take my supply for yourself? Haha, that’s hilarious."
"We’ll see if it’s funny in a minute."
After saying this, Fang Chenyi reached into his woven bag and pulled out a docunt. He flipped through it briefly, found a string of numbers, and dialed it on his phone.
The phone rang twice before it was answered. But it wasn’t the foreigner’s voice Fang Chenyi had been expecting. Instead, a man with a very standard regional accent spoke.
"Hello? Hello! Is this Mr. Fang?"
Fang Chenyi froze. He glanced at Demo Did, and so the man could understand, he casually switched to English. "Excuse , are you the chairman of the AW Company?"
However, the person on the other end was taken aback by Fang Chenyi’s fluent English. A mont later, a quiet mutter ca through the phone:
"Damn it, the file clearly says he’s one of our Huaxia people... Xiaoliu! Xiaoliu, get over here and help
translate! He’s speaking that foreign gibberish!"
Erm...
Fang Chenyi was speechless. ’Did I dial the wrong number?’ he wondered. ’If I didn’t, then for soone who managed to sell water to foreign nobility, his language skills should be top-notch. But from the sound of it... this guy doesn’t know any English?’
"Hay-lo, ek-scuse ee..."
While Fang Chenyi was still processing this, the voice on the phone changed to that of a much younger man.
Fang Chenyi shook his head with a sense of resignation and switched back to the Huaxia language.
"Uh, could you put Chairman Zhou Shuren on the phone? I have sothing to discuss with him."
There was a pause for a few seconds, and then the original voice ca back on the line.
"Ah, haha! I knew it! I saw from your file, Mr. Fang, that you were one of our Huaxia people! If you were a foreigner, I never would have sold you the shares. But I’m truly grateful that you chose to invest in our company during such a critical financial crisis. I’m sure that with this money, we can grow even bigger. This ti, I’m confident we can capture the European and Arican markets too! You just sit back and wait for the profits to roll in!"
"Heh, I thought you guys were a foreign company. I didn’t realize you were one of us. That’s even better. But I have to say, your marketing tactics are truly incredible. You’ve managed to sell water to Middle Eastern nobility."
He was being sincere. Fang Chenyi genuinely admired the man’s business prowess. To sell a single bottle of water for ten thousand US Dollars was a feat unparalleled anywhere in the world.
"Haha, well, since we’re partners now, I’ll be straight with you. To be honest, I have no idea how I did it. I’m not being humble, that’s the honest truth.
"Heh heh, in the beginning, our company was just a tiny workshop. I bottled all the water myself. To make it seem more high-end and classy, I decided to use two letters for the brand. To be honest with you, President Fang, back in the day, I just wrote them down because I thought they looked cool."
As Zhou Shuren continued, the story of how his small workshop struck it rich gradually unfolded before Fang Chenyi’s eyes:
"I rember that year, I had a stall selling chilled mineral water by the beach. A group of foreigners wearing long white robes and white cloths on their heads ca up to my stall. They asked if I had any more... distinguished water. The mont I saw them, a lightbulb went off in my head. I decided I was going to rip these foreigners off good."
"So, I took out my water. The foreigner at the front took one look at the letters on the bottle and the fancy, custom-made bottles from my little factory, and the whole group started nodding enthusiastically. They were chattering away in a bunch of foreign gibberish that I couldn’t understand a lick of, but I definitely heard the word ’good’ in there."
’Well, damn!’ I thought. ’That much, I can understand!’
"I could see they were interested, but since I couldn’t speak their language, I just held up one finger. My original intention was to charge them a hundred yuan a bottle. But I never expected the leader to just nod, wave to soone behind him, and hand
a thick stack of crisp US Dollars!"
"Let
tell you, Chairman Fang, at the ti, I didn’t even recognize they were US Dollars! I thought they were those legendary Moon South Shields or sothing, and figured the whole stack was only worth about a hundred of our yuan. But the bills looked pretty nice, so I just reluctantly tossed the stack into my cash box. Who knew that my casual attitude made them misunderstand? They must have thought I didn’t care about such pocket change, which convinced them my water had to be worth that much. And after that, the whole group behind him ca up one by one to buy water with their own stacks of US Dollars."
[To be continued...]
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