Chapter 51: Visiting the Test Field

No collateral.

This is equivalent to lending money to Luo De for free.

Dolly, who had encountered contract kidnapping, felt her hand suddenly tremble.

She never expected this.

She, who had been wise all her life, actually suffered a setback because of Luo De.

If it were another merchant here,

then Luo De would surely get beaten for saying that.

They don't care at all about their reputation.

But Dolly is different.

Dolly is someone who places extreme importance on reputation.

In her view, a good reputation greatly helps her business expansion; only then will buyers trust her, and money will flow in abundantly.

Therefore, no matter how bad her other reputations are,

Dolly has always been extremely strict about things like punctuality, quality assurance, and after-sales service—matters that desert merchants basically often neglect to some degree.

Likewise.

As for her negative reputations, aside from the two words "scheming merchant," she cares deeply about all the others.

Now the meaning of Luo De's words is:

namely, if she doesn't lend him money for free, he will pin a big label on her: "signing a contract but deliberately sabotaging the opponent so they can't fulfill the contract."

This is a reputation extremely unfavorable to Dolly.

Once it spreads,

then Dolly's future business will be affected.

Business being affected means she earns less money.

She earns less money.

It would be better to just kill Dolly for satisfaction.

Looking at Dolly, whose lips were trembling from anger at him, Luo De curled the corner of his mouth with a smile, utterly unconcerned about whether he would face retaliation.

This is just an information asymmetry problem.

Dolly does not understand Luo De's modus operandi and thick skin.

But Luo De understands Dolly's character very well.

Simply put.

This is a scheming merchant whose conscience has not yet been completely extinguished and who is very principled and has a moral bottom line.

Last time, Luo De was able to exchange an already activated, completely worthless Vision for a loan.

This was precisely because Dolly's conscience had not been extinguished.

What is worthless to other merchants—future and prospects—is worth her spending money on in Dolly's case.

The same holds true now.

What Luo De is leveraging this time is:

one, Dolly's personality of absolutely refusing to reject a sure-profit, no-loss business;

two, Dolly's very principled demand regarding her own reputation.

She absolutely will not allow herself to bear a reputation that would affect her earnings.

Even under the label of "scheming merchant," amid Sumeru's huge market demand, it would not hinder her from easily selling those high-markup goods.

But if she were labeled as someone who deliberately sabotages contracts, that would be a matter of principle; if the other party balked at doing business with her over that, it would be disastrous.

And Dolly's character, which has a strong moral bottom line,

also guarantees that, under the protection of this contract, Luo De will not suffer retaliation for angering her.

Such an information disparity

is enough to let Luo De not fall behind in negotiations with Dolly, and even allow her to lend money to him again—a stranger—without any collateral.

As expected,

after hesitating, struggling, and feeling resentful for a while, Dolly reluctantly said, "Old Master Sangema Mahabai can only lend you this one more time; any further expenses you'll have to figure out yourself—I won't bother with a single mora."

Having said that,

her cheeks twitched slightly, and she said with a terrible expression, "Still one million mora, no more; the term is the five years in the contract; your loan has now accumulated to two million mora, and if you don't repay it by then—hmph—"

Dolly didn't say anything more after that.

Anyway, in the desert, anyone who borrows money from her and doesn't repay it ends up badly; Luo De just needs to keep that in mind.

"Thank you very much, Old Master Sangema Mahabai."

Luo De doesn't have the habit of getting a bargain and then acting smug; he sincerely thanked Dolly for her generosity.

He also doesn't want to make things too stiff with Dolly.

There will still be many occasions in the future where he'll need Dolly.

And this time he will do so.

Because he is short of money again.

When he first received the one million mora borrowed from Dolly, he thought that, given the spending power of the desert region, this money would be more than enough.

But when he actually put it into practice,

he realized he had still underestimated the money-burning nature of conducting research.

After originally purchasing seeds and saplings from Dolly, Luo De still had over seven hundred thousand mora left.

But after he had fully stocked up on everything he needed,

Half of the 700,000 Mora has already been spent.

Luo De roughly calculated these past few days; if later they encounter a sandstorm or such natural disaster, or are harassed by monsters, causing the test field to be destroyed again, then they'd have to spend a large sum of Mora to replant.

Moreover, he still has irrigation canals and other basic facilities that need daily maintenance.

After careful calculation,

Luo De came to a conclusion: the money he has on hand is absolutely insufficient.

By then he had already thought of going to Duo Li again to borrow a sum of money.

But he now has nothing valuable left on hand.

He also cannot possibly mortgage the fire-element Vision he has on hand again.

Other things.

The only thing that could be considered valuable is the bit of technical know-how he has mastered, but before it's tested in practice, it also cannot fetch a price.

Moreover, he and Duo Li are not exactly close acquaintances.

He, Luo De, also doesn't have Ka Wei's title of "Xu mi's most outstanding youth architect" that would let him borrow money just on reputation.

So after thinking it over, the only way is to exploit this information gap to take another unsecured loan from Duo Li.

In short.

The result is good.

The Mora is in hand, and this bet contract can also serve as his protective umbrella.

Duo Li will not allow any mishap to befall the goods she has invested in before the contract is fulfilled.

This transaction.

Luo De is satisfied.

But Duo Li is not happy.

Originally she was merely curious about how a desert dweller could grow grain in the desert without using the Fertility Blessing.

So she followed her caravan to A Ru Cun, intending to investigate.

In Duo Li's original plan,

This time she came to A Ru Cun mainly to observe Luo De's test field.

If after an on-site inspection she confirms that the plan Luo De showed her is indeed meaningful and valuable to implement,

then she wouldn't mind changing the previous loan contract into an investment contract.

Even saying,

After Luo De's trial planting yields results, she will spare no expense to buy out this technique, making it her exclusive technical means, and then vigorously sell it in the desert regions, using this technique to reap a huge profit.

But after signing this bet contract and adding a new loan contract now,

Duo Li's mood has sunk to rock bottom, and she has no inclination left to go see what Luo De's test field is like.

However, she has no mood.

This does not mean Luo De lacks mood.

"Sangge Mahabadi sir, would you like to visit my test field?"

Luo De's punchable face once again approached the sullen Duo Li: "Good thing the goods I ordered have all arrived; in no more than two days, you'll be able to see the test field's completely new appearance."

(End of chapter)