Martial Arts: Starting from a Seemingly Real System

In a remote street in the northwest of Longxing City, you can smell the strong aroma of wine from afar. There is a small winery in front, but after expansion and renovation, it has become quite large.

This is a remote suburb with few people living here and there. It is snowing sparsely from the sky. It is freezing cold and almost no one goes out. There are only two figures running fast on the empty snow, leaving only footprints along the way.

In the winery, Wen Shuyan was pacing back and forth like an ant on hot pot.

Her husband He Peixuan had messy hair and lowered his head in frustration, not knowing what he was thinking.

"Qiao Rui, you are finally here!" Seeing Qiao Rui bringing Huang Jingxuan in, Wen Shuyan hurried forward to greet them.

"What happened?" Qiao Rui asked as he walked up to He Peixuan, patted his shoulder and said, "Peixuan, what's going on?"

He Peixuan raised his head, with annoyance and shame in his eyes, "Uh... this..."

"Let me tell you!" Wen Shuyan looked at her haggard husband, feeling distressed and angry. "We brewed a new batch of wine, but because of his negligence, there was a problem with the sealing of the vat, and the whole batch of wine went bad."

"How much wine is spoiled?" Qiao Rui knew that if the problem was not serious, Wen Shuyan would not be so anxious.

"Thirty...thirty thousand kilograms." Even though Wen Shuyan was straightforward, she felt embarrassed to speak at this moment. After all, Qiao Rui owned half of the winery, and he was suffering a huge loss this time.

"Thirty thousand kilograms? The output of our winery is so large?" Qiao Rui was surprised. He did not blame He Peixuan for wasting the wine. After all, compared with the high selling price of high-quality wine, the cost was actually not worth mentioning. He was just surprised at the output of the winery. Brewing thirty thousand kilograms of wine at one time was a bit unexpected.

"No, we don't normally have such a large production capacity. These 30,000 kilograms of wine were specially ordered by a boss. Peixuan and his people worked day and night without sleep and forgetting to eat, and finally we were able to successfully put the materials into the vats." Seeing that Qiao Rui was not angry, Wen Shuyan breathed a sigh of relief, but she also felt more and more guilty.

"A boss suddenly ordered 30,000 kilograms of wine? But these 30,000 kilograms of wine went bad?" Qiao Rui frowned. It couldn't be such a coincidence. Why did it smell like a conspiracy?

But after changing his mind, he smiled and said, "It's broken, so let's just brew a new batch. At worst, you can just compensate him and return the deposit to him."

Wen Shuyan shook her head. The more calm Qiao Rui was, the more guilty she felt. She smoothed her bangs and suddenly asked a seemingly irrelevant question, "Do you remember before you went north to Shaolin, I told you that someone wanted to buy our winery?"

"Well, you said he looks like a legitimate businessman." Qiao Rui nodded.

Wen Shuyan glanced at Qiao Rui with a guilty look on her face, her face flushed. "That man's name is Liu Qin. After you left, he came to us again. He said he was in the business of distributing famous liquors, and he had taken a fancy to our improved 'Zuixian Brew'. He wanted to buy it directly and sell it himself, but we didn't sell the brewery, so he had no choice.

So he wanted to be our distributor and sell 5,000 kilograms of "Zuixianjiu" to other places to test the waters.

At that time, our brewery had just expanded and its production capacity had increased several times. In addition to supplying the four Yunlai Inns and Yunyu Tower, we still had a lot of spare capacity. I thought the price he offered was pretty good, so I agreed to the deal."

"Yunyu Tower?" Qiao Rui's heart moved and he suddenly interrupted.

"Yes, Miss Yu Lu came to visit us after she won the title of the world's number one courtesan. She said that you helped her a lot during the courtesan competition, so she made every effort to promote the cooperation between Yunyu Tower and our winery."

Brothels have always been big consumers of alcohol, not to mention the Yunyu Tower where Yu Lu is located. The average daily consumption is equal to the total of four inns. Wen Shuyan is naturally happy to see such a good thing that falls from the sky.

After explaining the matter of Yunyu Tower, Wen Shuyan continued, "A month and a half ago, Liu Qin came back and said that the sales of 'Zuixian Niang' were very good. This time he wanted to go big and ordered 30,000 kilograms of wine to sell before the beginning of the year."

"In order to increase our trust, he even prepaid all the money for the goods, but..."

"But he said that he wanted to sign a contract and that the 30,000 kilograms of wine must be delivered before the beginning of the new year. Otherwise, his layout would be disrupted and the impact would be immeasurable. We would have to compensate him tenfold for his losses."

So that's how it is. Qiao Rui sneered in his heart, thinking that guy had such a big appetite that he dared to ask for ten times the compensation and was not afraid of being stuffed to death.

But he couldn't blame Wen Shuyan and her husband. After all, they worked hard and it was inevitable that they would make mistakes. So he asked gently, "How much compensation do you want?"

"Two...two hundred and forty thousand taels of silver!" Wen Shuyan said in a low voice.

"He's a ruthless guy!" Qiao Rui was a little surprised. The amount was so huge that he couldn't afford to pay it back even if he sold Wen Shuyan and her husband. Could it be that he was targeting him?

"The improved 'Zuixianjiu' is of excellent quality and has a good reputation. It is no longer comparable to the previous 'Zuixianjiu'. Therefore, it is sold at one tael of silver per catty. The distribution price to Liu Qin is eight hundred wen per catty. Thirty thousand catties is twenty-four thousand taels, and ten times the compensation will require two hundred and forty thousand taels." Wen Shuyan's voice became lower and lower, and she lowered her head, not daring to look at Qiao Rui.

"Qiao Rui," He Peixuan, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. He mustered up his courage and looked at Qiao Rui, saying seriously, "I caused the loss this time, and we will bear the money. But can you find a way to raise money to pay it in advance? Shuyan and I will definitely pay you back in the future, even with interest."

"You are being polite!" Qiao Rui smiled and waved his hand, then instructed Huang Jingxuan, "Go to the county government office and find Chen Nian. Then go to the Industry Department and find a fat middle-aged man named Yu Deshui. Tell him that I have something urgent to ask him to come over."

"Okay!" Huang Jingxuan took the order and left.

After instructing his apprentice, Qiao Rui turned around and saw Wen Shuyan and He Peixuan looking at him eagerly, so he smiled and comforted them, "Don't worry too much, I'll take care of it."

"I'm sorry, Qiao Rui." Wen Shuyan said weakly. She and Qiao Rui have always been equal. She never called Qiao Rui "Brother Qiao", "Hero Qiao", "Boss Qiao", "Mr. Qiao" or anything like that, just Qiao Rui.

When Wen Shuyan was almost desperate, Qiao Rui helped her, so when she and her husband opened a winery, she insisted on giving Qiao Rui half of the shares because she didn't want to owe him too many favors and affect the pure friendship between her and Qiao Rui.

But now, alas... I owe too much.

A house here costs about two thousand taels of silver. Two hundred and forty thousand taels would mean one hundred and twenty houses. What did that mean in the past?

Looking at Qiao Rui's calm and composed appearance, and then at her husband He Peixuan's anxious and timid expression, Wen Shuyan suddenly felt a surge in her heart.

At the beginning, you were close to the water, so why did you end up looking at the moon in vain?

Ugh……

But fortunately, I lost something in one place but gained something in another.

Wen Shuyan walked to her husband, quietly held his rough big hand, looked at him gently with a smile in her eyes.

After all, your husband is not a bad person. He does not evade others and is responsible. Such a man is a real man no matter how weak he is.