Chapter 87 – Meeting in Humble Beginnings

“Shujie, how did the talk with Manager Ma go?” Cheng Xiaolin asked.

Cao Shujie smiled and nodded. “Pretty good.”

“We’ve got solid content here, detailed planning, clear goals. As long as we follow the plan step by step, the future looks bright. Our repayment ability isn’t an issue either. With a high-quality client like me, why wouldn’t he agree?” Cao Shujie arched his brow at his wife.

Cheng Xiaolin rolled her eyes, not in the mood to deal with his smugness. “So according to you, the bank agreed to continue the loan?”

“Mm.” Cao Shujie nodded. “The day after tomorrow, Manager Ma will bring over Manager Song from the appraisal company. We’ll sit down and go over everything in detail then.”

At that, Cao Shujie remembered something and said to his wife very seriously, “Honey, you should start preparing the relevant documents later, especially the details of how we used the funds from the last loan. The more complete the data, the better.”

“Anything else?” Cheng Xiaolin asked.

Getting a specific task from her husband made her tense up—worried that if her materials weren’t thorough or reasonable enough, they might not get approved, which could affect their future development.

Cao Shujie thought for a moment, then said, “Not for now. If something else comes up, I’ll let you know.”

“Alright then. Are you tired? If not, could you watch Mengmeng? I’ll start preparing the documents right away.”

Before Cao Shujie could respond, Cheng Xiaolin had already turned and gone back into the bedroom, laptop in hand, ready to start sorting through the paperwork.

They’d already applied for a loan once before. Although she hadn’t directly handled it, she’d heard her husband explain the basic process. Plus, the bank already had their orchard’s basic information from before. This time’s requirements weren’t nearly as extensive.

At dinnertime, Cao Shujie called her out to eat, but Cheng Xiaolin insisted she’d rather finish working on the documents first, not wanting to delay what she considered real business over something as small as dinner.

For a moment, Cao Shujie felt overwhelmed with gratitude—*With a wife like this, what more could a man possibly want?*

In the end, he half-dragged, half-carried Cheng Xiaolin into the sitting room and forced her to eat with him.

Afterward, while Cao Shujie played outside in the courtyard with their daughter Mengmeng and their dogs Daha and Erha, as well as Little Wild Cat Huahua, Cheng Xiaolin continued working late into the night. She was determined to finish and polish the documents, even if it meant not sleeping.

Around nine o’clock, Mengmeng dozed off in her father’s arms. Cao Shujie gently patted her back until she was fully asleep, then carried her back to the bedroom.

He laid his daughter on the bed. Meanwhile, Cheng Xiaolin was still glued to her computer screen.

“Honey,” he said, “you’ve still got tomorrow to prepare. Do you really have to finish everything tonight?”

“Better to get it done early. That way I won’t worry,” Cheng Xiaolin replied without looking up.

Hearing that, Cao Shujie pulled a chair over and sat beside her. “Alright then, let’s do it together.”

Her face lit up. “Sounds good!”

The couple worked side by side until almost eleven. Finally, Cao Shujie put his foot down, closed the computer, and insisted they get some rest, leaving the rest for tomorrow.

The next day, the two of them stayed home to continue preparing everything. During the day, Cao Shujie even drove into town to find his classmate Shao Guobang, who helped him draw up a certificate.

“Ah, this is the good thing about being back home,” Cao Shujie sighed. “No matter what you need done, there’s always someone you can call on.”

If you haven’t been through it yourself, you really can’t grasp the relief he felt in that moment.

By late July, Ma Changrong, the credit manager of Yiling City Rural Commercial Bank’s Qingshi Town branch, arrived along with Song Zhichao, the head of a third-party appraisal and guarantor agency.

It wasn’t their first meeting—business dealings and earlier chats had already made them familiar with one another.

When Ma Changrong and Song Zhichao reached Cao Shujie’s orchard in the mountains, they were stunned. Compared to their last visit, the place looked utterly transformed.

They tried to find something familiar in the landscape—but the only spot unchanged was the old orchard that hadn’t yet been heavily altered.

The barren slopes they had once seen were now filled with neat rows of young fruit trees, surrounded by a protective blue iron mesh fence. Automated irrigation equipment dotted the fields. A new paved road now stretched from the base of the mountain to the orchard, complete with a wide turning platform halfway up—big enough for semitrailers to maneuver.

All of it left the two men thoroughly impressed.

“Mr. Cao, I have to admire you!” Song Zhichao finally said, searching his brain for the right words but finding nothing better.

Ma Changrong chimed in as well. “Mr. Cao, you have no idea. On the way here, Manager Song and I were discussing what your place might look like now. We thought we were imagining big—but what we’re seeing here has exceeded anything we pictured.”

After about ten minutes of chatting, Cao Shujie led them deeper inside, explaining all the changes and improvements, showing them the newly planned livestock area, and sharing his idea of planting seasonal fruit in one section to keep cash flow moving.

“Manager Ma, Manager Song,” he said confidently, “once all of this starts running according to plan, within just one year I’ll be able to make the whole operation self-sustaining, with funds cycling back into growth.”

The two men exchanged glances. They each had their own thoughts about the risks, but neither could deny it: at this pace, it wasn’t crazy to imagine that Cao Shujie would secure a place for himself in all of Pingyuan County.

Talented people like this—men who clearly had vision and follow-through—were exactly the kind they wanted to cultivate ties with.

Standing in the newly planned livestock area, Song Zhichao asked proactively, “Mr. Cao, is your next step to buy calves?”

Seeing Cao Shujie nod, Song Zhichao smiled and said, “What a coincidence. I happen to have a friend in the livestock breeding business. I’ll introduce you to him another day.”

Cao Shujie couldn’t quite tell what Song Zhichao really had in mind, but he didn’t reject the gesture.

“Alright, I’ll wait for Manager Song’s call,” Cao Shujie replied.

“I heard from my friend that a calf under 300 jin costs about 800 to 1000 yuan. How many are you planning to raise, Mr. Cao?”

Cao Shujie thought for a moment and then answered seriously, “I’m thinking… within a hundred head.”

“One hundred calves… Let’s calculate based on a market weight of 1300 jin per adult cow, at the current price of 9.8 yuan per jin. That would mean the revenue from one hundred cows is…”

Song Zhichao’s mental arithmetic wasn’t great, and he looked a little embarrassed. Fortunately, Ma Changrong—who truly lived up to the reputation of someone working at a bank—immediately chimed in smoothly: “If my math isn’t off, that comes to 1,274,000 yuan.”

“Over a million just from a hundred cows?” Song Zhichao seemed to finally catch on and stared with open envy. “And that’s not even including the seasonal fruits or orchard produce. Mr. Cao, you’ll be making quite a lot in a year!”

At this point, Song Zhichao deliberately glossed over both the upfront investment and time costs involved.

But Cao Shujie also began to see through it—this was Song Zhichao’s way of helping him, inflating the scale to maximize the loan amount.

Once he realized this, Cao Shujie’s thoughts grew sharper. Bragging? That, he was more than capable of.

He wasn’t any weaker than the next man!

(End of this chapter)