Chapter 123

The friend didn't understand Xia Juhua's question and looked at the translator from her country who had come over with doubt. The translator knew the cashews and didn't translate Xia Juhua's question for the friend. He answered, "This is produced locally, it's fragrant and ripe."

Xia Juhua didn't quite believe his answer. In her memory, there was a big difference between the concept of raw and cooked in foreign countries and in the Chinese concept. But the food was good, so Xia Juhua wanted to buy it: "How much is one pound?"

As soon as money was mentioned, even the friend who didn't understand Xia Juhua's first question understood it. He reached out and grabbed a handful of food from the exhibits and stuffed it into Xia Juhua's hand: "I'll give it to you. It's free."

Xia Juhua looked at the translator helplessly. She really wanted to buy some to bring back for her fellow villagers to taste, not just to satisfy her own appetite, right?

The translator saw Xia Juhua's intention and pointed a finger at her: "Ten yuan, one kilogram."

Ten yuan? Xia Juhua looked at the cashews that were stuffed into her hand, estimated that there were at most sixty or seventy cashews in a pound, and decisively put the cashews in her hand back into the container: such a small thing costs ten yuan, it's too expensive, she will just try it and buy it again when she has a better life.

Seeing Xia Juhua put down the cashews, the friend became a little anxious and grabbed another handful and stuffed them into Xia Juhua's hand: "Taste it, it's fragrant, really." As if he was afraid that Xia Juhua would not like the taste of cashews.

Xia Juhua was just trying to be polite to him when a reporter from Yangcheng Daily appeared: "Xia Tongji, I just went to the L Province booth to look for Lei, and they said Lei was here to make an introduction. Fortunately, Lei didn't go far."

Xia Juhua turned around to greet the reporter, and her friend took the opportunity to give her another handful of cashews. Others grabbed a handful, but Xia Juhua had to hold them with both hands. She smiled helplessly at the reporter: "International friends are too enthusiastic."

The reporter nodded, looked at what Xia Juhua was holding, and said with a smile, "Cashews are delicious. Lei can buy some to take home."

Xia Juhua shook her head and said, "This stuff is too expensive. One pound costs ten yuan. How much do we peasants earn in a day? Let's just forget it."

"Ten yuan per pound?" The reporter felt something was wrong and turned around to say something unhappily to the other party. Soon the unhappiness on his face disappeared, and he couldn't help laughing: "Xia Tongji, Lei misunderstood. They said one kilogram, not ten yuan per pound."

Kilograms? Xia Juhua had to think about it in her mind before she remembered that she had heard of this unit of measurement in her previous life. She asked the reporter a little embarrassedly, "Is it 10 yuan for 2 kilograms?" That's not cheap at all.

As if knowing what Xia Juhua was thinking, the reporter said, "Yes, it's 10 yuan for 2 jin. They are not talking about RMB, but their country's money."

That was even more unacceptable. In Xia Juhua's impression, foreign money seemed to be more valuable than the RMB. She didn't think that anything over five yuan per pound could be considered cheap. Unexpectedly, the reporter gave her a surprise: "The exchange rate of the currency of Country G to the RMB is three to one, which means that with one yuan of ours, we can buy something worth three yuan of theirs."

There is such a good thing? Xia Juhua never expected it. She had forgotten that the economies of the countries friendly to China were also very tense. Their specialties were almost all related to raw materials, and they were naturally worthless without deep processing.

All Xia Juhua could do was to quickly calculate in her mind that if what the reporter said was true, then these cashews were only a little over one dollar per pound, which was still within her affordability.

However, bargaining is ingrained in her nature, so Xia Juhua immediately asked her friend, "Can it be cheaper?"

Before I knew it, some people had stopped in front of my friend's booth to watch, and at least heard half of the conversation between Xia Juhua and the others. Now Xia Juhua was even trying to haggle over the price with them. Someone among the listeners chuckled: This lesbian is so funny, she thinks she is buying vegetables and is bargaining with others?

The friend also found it a little unbelievable, so he picked up a bag and started filling it with cashew nuts. While filling the bag, he asked the reporter to tell Xia Juhua that he was giving the cashew nuts to her to eat, free of charge.

Xia Juhua quickly asked the reporter to tell her friend that if the cashews could be sold to her at a lower price, she would buy some, but if they were given as gifts, she would not look at this booth anymore, as the next booth might also have cashews.

The man who had just laughed stopped laughing, and the look he gave Xia Juhua also changed. Even though the people around him urged him to leave, he did not leave. He just stood there to see who between Xia Juhua and her friend could hold on to the end.

Xia Juhua was determined and could be very stubborn. She wanted to leave the G country booth several times, but was stopped by her friends. Finally, through the unremitting efforts of the reporter, the cashew nuts were sold at a price of one yuan per pound.

After spending so much time haggling over the price, Xia Juhua felt that she should buy a little more, otherwise she would be unworthy of her friend's friendly price, so she asked for 20 kilograms. When she weighed it in her hand, she felt something was wrong and said to the reporter, "Did he weigh it by kilograms again?" This was too much.

The reporter nodded and said, "The scales in Country G are all in kilograms. Lei said 20 kilograms, but they often weighed 20 kilograms, which is 40 kilograms." Worried that Xia Juhua didn't have enough money, the reporter kindly added, "If Lei doesn't have enough money, I can lend it to Lei."

The money was enough, but why was he a little unhappy? Xia Juhua took out 40 yuan and handed it to her friend. Because they had agreed on the price before, her friend didn't refuse and took it directly. He quickly wrote a few lines on a piece of paper and handed it to Xia Juhua. The translator told Xia Juhua that the address on it was her friend's. If Xia Juhua needed more cashews, she could write to him directly.

Xia Juhua looked at the big black hand stretched out in front of her and wanted to tell the other party that even if she wrote a letter, the other party would not be able to understand it. However, she just thought about it in her mind and took it with a bright smile on her face. At the urging of the reporter, she wrote down her address as a reward.

Forty kilograms of cashews was a lot, so Xia Juhua suggested to her friend that she leave them with him first and pick them up when she returned. The friend naturally agreed, and Xia Juhua was able to continue visiting other booths with ease.

However, before going shopping, Xia Juhua still asked the reporter what he wanted to talk to her about - it was not an important matter, and he could have waited until she returned to the booth to tell her, so there was no need to look for him all over the expo.

The reporter then told Xia Juhua that due to his negligence at work, the Yangcheng Daily had clearly reported Xia Juhua's outstanding deeds but did not deliver the newspaper to her. Today he came specifically to deliver the newspaper to Xia Juhua.

Xia Juhua suddenly understood why the reporter made this trip - it was obvious that someone had known about her meeting with the leader, and the reporter was just trying to make up for the loss.

Xia Juhua was not disgusted by the reporter's hindsight - although she couldn't say she liked it either - instead she wanted to thank the reporter for showing up in time today, otherwise she would not have dared to buy the cashews after hearing the price.

So Xia Juhua sincerely thanked the reporter. When she heard that he had left the newspaper at the L Province booth, she praised the reporter for his adaptability, then said goodbye to the reporter and continued her shopping.

After visiting two more shops, she ran into international friends who had been to the L Province booth to see Xia Juhua's weaving products. Xia Juhua no longer had the mood to shop around: the products from friendly countries were all pretty much the same, and the only things Xia Juhua was interested in were the food.

She bought a few bags of cocoa powder and a few kilograms of tobacco leaves for Master Wu. During the purchase process, Xia Juhua first asked whether the goods were sold by kilogram or by catty, and then asked whether they were calculated in the currency of her friend's country or in RMB, and then she bargained with them...

Xia Juhua felt that if the friend who sold her tobacco leaves had not seen her weaving things and placed an order, he would have chased her out of the booth long ago - she didn't buy much and the price was too low, and no one liked such a buyer.

In order to avoid being chased out of the booth and being embarrassed, Xia Juhua, who felt that she had nothing to buy, turned around and wanted to go back to the booth of Country G to get the cashews, and then go back to the booth of Province L to rest.

Unexpectedly, someone stopped her and said, "Hello, Comrade Xia, we are from the XX department. We would like to ask you for a favor. Do you have time?"

The man who stopped Xia Juhua was probably in his early forties. His hair had a little grey tint, but his eyes on his square face were still dark and bright, forming a sharp contrast with his hair which had turned half white.

Xia Juhua was certain that she had never seen this person before, and he had not appeared at the L Province booth in the past few days. Moreover, he always mentioned that he was from the XX Department. Xia Juhua was not worried that he was deceiving her, but she felt that for someone from such a big government, why would she need help?

Perhaps seeing Xia Juhua's doubts, he directly stated his purpose: "I just followed you to visit the booths of two countries, and I found that you are very good at bargaining. It just so happens that we want to purchase a batch of rubber from Country A, and we would like to ask Comrade Xia to help negotiate the price with the people from Country A."

The way Xia Juhua looked at the other person was no longer as if she were looking at a stranger she had never seen before, but as if she were looking at a madman: "Comrade, do you really want me to negotiate the price for you? I'm just a rural woman, counting the money in my pocket. It's ok for me to negotiate the price for some food, but the rubber you mentioned..." Xia Juhua had only seen the finished product, so she didn't even know what the raw material looked like, right?

The person who stopped Xia Juhua smiled and said, "Buying rubber is similar to buying food. You are counting the small money in your pocket, and I am counting the big money of the country. We both want to spend less money and do more things. It's the same."

一樣個……夏菊花從來到羊城之後，努力克制着自己的言行，免得被人說有損國家形象，此時心裏也忍不住想說句粗話，然後問問這人：你是那只眼睛看出一樣來的？

“同志，我真的不行。”最終夏菊花能出口的只有這麽一句。

可人家卻不想放過她：“夏菊花同志，我剛才已經觀察過了，你跟幾個友好國家的友人都很熟悉，他們也願意聽你的意見。所以才想着請你幫一下忙。夏菊花同志，你知道，咱們國家這些年來很多工業制品産量少、價格高，都是因為原料不夠，供應不足。”

“如果這一次我們能用相對低的價格買下橡膠，那麽人民群衆的生活就能得到很大改善，做為人民群衆的一員，你不想看到自己需要的雨靴、自行車，還有我們戰士們穿的解放鞋，價格越來越便宜嗎？”

都上升到人民群衆和戰士的高度了，夏菊花還有啥可說的？她只好問：“領導，那你們想多少錢買，人家想多少錢賣，差多少錢？”

一聽夏菊花有要答應下來的跡向，對方向她伸出了手：“夏同志，我正式向你自我介紹一下，我是XX部的楊得田，負責對外采購工作。”

夏菊花跟他握了下手，等着他接着說下去。人也沒用夏菊花多等，直接說道：“現在華國雖然在海南和西雙版納都種植了橡膠樹，可産量遠遠供不上需求，我們真的很需要向國外購買。”

“這一次A國有一批橡膠，他們要價三百二十元一噸，比國産橡膠高出了兩倍。我們談了幾次，他們都不松口，跟我們希望的價格控制在三百元之內，差的太遠了。我們也是沒有辦法，才想借着夏同志你跟友人們的良好關系，再談一次。”

楊得田越說，眉頭皺得越緊，最後直接擰到一塊去了。夏菊花有理由相信，他頭上早早變白的頭發，都是因為相同的原因。

這讓夏菊花心裏升起一股敬意，想也沒想的說：“那咱們現在就去A國的展位嗎？”

楊得田現在完全是死馬當成活馬醫，哪怕夏菊花參與講價還是不成，這批橡膠華國也得拿下，想想多花出去的錢得來不易，楊得田的眉頭就舒展不開：“走吧，咱們再會會那些人去。”

夏菊花跟着楊得田走，才發現人家身後還跟着好幾個人，可見級別不低。級別不低的楊得田出面，都談不下來的價格，自己答應的是不是有些草率了？

就在自我否定間，楊得田停下了腳步，指着眼前的展位對夏菊花說：“那就是A國的展位，你看看裏頭的人，去過L省的展位沒有？”

夏菊花聽了真往展位裏看了一眼，茫然的搖了搖頭：“不記得了。”博覽會開始以來，到L省的友人太多，在夏菊花看來長的都差不多，還真分不出哪個是哪個。

楊得田微不可察的嘆了一口氣，還是帶着夏菊花等人進了展位。展位裏的人早迎了上來，看起來笑的很憨厚，說着生硬的華語：“啊，楊，我就說你還是會來的。”聽起來有點兒欠揍。

楊得田跟人點了點頭，那個跟他打招呼的人已經放開了跟他握着的手，一臉驚喜的看向他身後：“哦，夏，神奇的夏，你竟然跟楊一起來了。”

說着又向夏菊花伸出了手。夏菊花沖他微笑了一下，并沒有握手的意思——這幾天來L省展位的友人不少，幾乎每一個都想跟夏菊花握下手或合個影。對于合影夏菊花沒啥意見，握手則是能免則免。

而且，夏菊花帶着明顯抗拒的表情告訴友人，她和楊得田只是偶爾走在一起的。

友人大概也見過夏菊花拒絕別人，對于沒能握手不以為意，對于夏菊花鄭重聲明不是跟楊得田一起的，更不放在心上。而是用生硬的華語問夏菊花來他們的展位，有沒有啥喜歡的東西，同樣拿出了腰果請夏菊花品嘗。

夏菊花拿起一顆放在嘴裏，眼神在A國展位上打量着，看不出哪樣橡膠，于是便問友人：“我聽說你有橡膠，在哪兒呢？”

友人哈哈大笑起來，楊得田臉上則是苦笑了：這個夏菊花看來是真不懂，哪兒有人把橡膠原料擺在展位上的？再說，她剛才為啥強調不是跟自己一起的呢？剛想到這兒，友人已經用手指着一個輪胎，告訴夏菊花，那就是他們的橡膠做成的，很結實耐用。

夏菊花裝模作樣的上前摸了摸，唯一的感覺是自己按不動，只好問：“那這個咋賣的？”

跟在楊得田身後的翻譯，替夏菊花把“咋”的意思翻譯一下，又引得友人笑了兩聲，才告訴夏菊花，他不單賣輪胎，而是要成噸的賣橡膠原料。

夏菊花順勢問他要賣多少錢，友人的目光便掃向楊得田。楊得田不經意的回看他一眼，沒有參與他們之間話題的意思。

這讓友人不得不想起剛才夏菊花說過，她跟楊得田不是一起的，就有些拿不定主意，報出的還是三百二十塊錢一噸的價格。夏菊花的眼睛一下子瞪圓了：“這麽貴？你能賣得出去嗎，你手裏有多少呀，賣不出去壓在自己手裏，這玩意變質不？”

一連串的問題，又不是友人簡單的華語水平能理解得了的，楊得田帶的翻譯好心的再次出場，原原本本把夏菊花的話翻譯了過去。

友人臉上帶了些自得：“全世界對橡膠的需求量很大，我不怕賣不出去。我說的價格不貴，是按照國際價格定的。”

夏菊花立刻表示對他話的不認同：“就算能賣得出去，你能保證那些買的人不挑你的毛病，然後給你壓價？他們要是收到貨不給你錢咋辦？”

這個問題一下讓友人和楊得田都愣住了，因為兩人都知道夏菊花說的問題的确存在：友好國家國力并不強，對本國商人的保護力更弱，他們的産品賣給發達國家的結果，往往是被人挑出不是毛病的毛病，然後惡意壓價，甚至因此拒不付款。

正因為如此，友人們才帶着一絲僥幸心理，想在華國的博覽會上給橡膠找個買主，畢竟有華國這個中介平臺在，不用擔心血本無歸。

可是友人們手裏的橡膠量有點兒大，如果分開賣的話成本會增加，不确定因素也會随之增多，這才有了跟楊得田的幾輪談判。

本來一個有心買，一個有心賣，談起來應該不難。難就難在買的人出的價格，達不到賣家心理預期，一直無法談攏。現在夏菊花一個只知道編東西的人，都能看出賣家存在的問題，讓友人不得不認真考慮一下，自己不把橡膠賣給華國，還有人能一下子吃下這麽多橡膠，或者說肯用他的心理價位吃下嗎。

而提出問題的夏菊花，憑借的都是上輩子看電視的經驗，九十年代的電視節目裏，可沒少報道發達國家掠奪非洲國家能源，她在看電視劇的空檔就聽了不少。

楊得田看了友人一眼，想說什麽又停了下來，要聽聽友人咋回答夏菊花的問題。不想友人直接問：“那麽夏，你想買下我手裏的橡膠嗎，我可以便宜一些賣給你。”

自己談了幾次沒談成，友人竟然想直接把橡膠便宜賣給夏菊花？她象是買得起那麽多橡膠的人嗎？楊得田眼裏閃過一絲嘲弄，看在友人眼裏就是他跟夏菊花有着競争關系。

兩人之間為啥出現競争關系，友人不關心，他反而樂見這種競争關系存在——來到華國之前，友人也了解過華國的局勢，知道其中有一些思想碰撞。如果楊得田跟夏菊花存在競争，說不定他可以利用這份競争關系，把橡膠的價格賣得理想些呢。

夏菊花也覺得友人是在開自己的玩笑，毫不猶豫的說：“可以呀，你多少錢賣給我？我可沒啥錢，你要是賣的貴了，我就不買了。”

“三百塊錢。”友人想試試楊得田跟夏菊花之間是不是真的存在競争，咬了咬牙報出讓楊得田想吐血的報價——上一回楊得田報出的最後價格就是這個，可友人愣是不同意，今天竟然直接開給了夏菊花。

更讓楊得田想吐血的話是夏菊花說出來的：“是你們A國的貨幣嗎？”

“不，不，不。”友人堅決的擺手，A國貨幣對人民幣的比價，還不如G國，近乎五比一的比價，他要是按這個價格賣的話，連回國的路費都賠沒了。

夏菊花還一臉不解呢：“不是都按照你們本國的貨幣報價嘛，我剛才買腰果，他們報價就是按本國報價的。”

楊得田很想提醒夏菊花一句：同志呀，你在進行國際貿易的談判，請不要這麽随意好嗎？

The friend had begun to doubt whether Xia Juhua really wanted to buy rubber, but he was the one who invited her in and he was the one who just said that, so he had no choice but to explain to Xia Juhua the difference between the large amount of rubber in his hands and the cashews that Xia Juhua bought by pound at the Country G booth.

Xia Juhua suddenly had an idea: "Why don't I go back and ask my friends in Country G if they have any rubber? If they do, they might be able to give me a price I can accept."