Chapter 322 Being Kind
Fox skin is a precious commodity, especially this pure white fox skin without any spots. Wang Yongfu let the mountain man sit down and rest for a while, then carefully washed his hands in another wooden basin with pancreatin. After drying his hands with a cloth, he carefully picked up the fox skin.
This was all at the insistence of Wang Yongzhu. Ordinary mountain goods were one thing, but with such valuable fur, it was essential to set the tone right from the start, to make it a pleasant and satisfying experience for the customer.
Wang Yongfu first looked at the skin, then felt it, blew on the fur, and after observing it for a moment, he sniffed it for any scent. After pondering for a while, he finally spoke.
"Hmm, white fox skin, shiny on the surface, with thick and coarse leather, but the fur is slightly sparse. There is a slight odor to the fur, which suggests that the processing technique was somewhat lacking. Big brother, this white fox is of a medium grade. If you manage to catch a fox like this in late autumn or early winter when the fur is dense, it would be of the highest quality. I’ll offer three taels of silver, big brother, what do you think?"
The dark-skinned mountain man’s eyes reddened with excitement, "Old brother, I’ll sell! I’ll sell!"
While saying, "Your Old Wang Family’s mountain goods store really is fair. This fox skin was meant to be part of my daughter’s dowry. If I weren’t in urgent need of money, I wouldn’t want to sell it! I just went to that mountain goods store in town, and that shopkeeper was so greedy. After much haggling, he only offered one tael of silver and said that fresh fur is hard to preserve. He criticized that the fur was not well-brushed and claimed that the fox skin smells and is rotting. I was about to leave with the fox skin when he begrudgingly agreed to add half a tael of silver, claiming that’s the price everywhere in town, no difference wherever you go."
"I didn’t believe it, so I went to two more mountain goods stores, got the same price, and was getting disheartened. I was about to settle for that price after one last try when I overheard someone saying that your Old Wang Family’s store is honest and doesn’t exploit people, so I came looking... I was half-doubtful, but now I see, big brother, your store really is sincere. From now on, I’ll sell all our mountain goods to you, and when I go back, I’ll spread the good word about you. No more need to put up with those greedy shopkeepers in town..."
Before Wang Yongfu could respond, the villagers gathered around began to chime in excitedly.
"Those town mountain goods stores are so dishonest, to have a difference of one and a half taels of silver!"