Chapter 26: The Wealthy Persona Remains Unshaken
Faced with Boss Tang’s self-satisfaction, Huai Yu opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say, so she could only give a shy smile.
To Boss Tang, that smile said it all!
So, he suddenly grew bold:
“Xiao Yu, don’t worry! Since your brother trusts me, I’ll make sure you won’t lose out — I’ll buy all these wild vegetables for 25 points per jin. How’s that?”
He quickly explained:
“Actually, if these really hit the market, they might sell for 30 or 40 points per jin. But it’s all about freshness — if they’re delayed a bit, the quality drops. I have to collect them quickly and then immediately reach out to others. There’s still some risk.”
“Xiao Yu, please understand.”
Of course, Huai Yu had no problem understanding.
In business, both sides need to profit for it to last. If Boss Tang made nothing, why would he be so warm and welcoming?
From a previous purchase price of 8 points for mutation level 11 goods, to now 25 points for mutation level 9, it really was a qualitative leap below level 10.
She nodded:
“Thank you, boss. I still have some wild mushrooms and pearl flowers. No need to weigh the mushrooms — I’ll gift them to you, Boss Brother.”
Boss Tang was overjoyed, practically dancing:
“Aiyo! Aiyo! How can I accept that… Well, alright! Since Xiao Yu personally came to deliver them, I can’t take advantage of you.”
While talking, he spread out a cardboard sheet and quickly emptied the wild vegetables onto it. Then he whipped out his phone to send a message:
“I’ll notify the buyers right away.”
Huai Yu looked at him with a bit of envy — business seemed so easy for him!
Still, she had a good harvest too.
Even though shepherd’s purse was light, she had stuffed three plastic bags full, adding up to more than 13 jin.
Huai Yu packed everything carefully, hardly bringing any damp soil along with the roots, which Boss Tang didn’t even count.
There was quite a bit of fiddlehead fern too — about twenty-plus jin filled up the large back basket.
Pearl flowers were less than five jin, and the mushrooms exactly two jin.
Boss Tang rounded it up to 41 jin total, amounting to 1,025 points.
Huai Yu kept checking her contribution points repeatedly, suddenly feeling a sense of getting rich overnight.
Truly, if you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools.
If she had a back basket and plastic bags two days ago, she might have sold another 10 or 20 jin of wild veggies — she could’ve saved up enough cement for a few bags for building her house!
But now…
“Xiao Yu,” Boss Tang glanced at the mud sticking to her snowy-white shoes, “how do you usually get around? By bus?”
Huai Yu nodded:
“Yeah. My brother won’t let me drive.”
“You’re still young, and the roads aren’t great these days. Not driving is smart… But hey, Old Tang here has a treasure—”
“Come, stand over here. I’ll open the warehouse door for you.”
Huai Yu, curious, took a few steps forward as instructed, standing to the side of the showroom.
The next moment, the warehouse door opened, and the walls were covered with brightly colored objects, instantly catching her attention.
“Look! A batch of bicycles we just got, supposedly from a film set’s warehouse. See the tulle flowers tied on them, the fake flowers in the baskets, the colorful paint… Pretty, right?”
He thought of Huai Yu as a pampered little girl — small in size and even younger mentally. Wasn’t it natural for her to like these colorful things?
But Huai Yu’s gaze was fixed on two very plain, black bicycles.
“I want that one! It looks so big and cool! I’ve never ridden one like that!”
Boss Tang looked where she pointed — oh, the classic 28-inch heavy-duty bike!
These were also from the film set warehouse, apparently rented by a retro drama crew. The quality was top-notch.
Honestly, the 28 heavy-duty bikes were still super practical — fast, strong, and capable of hauling goods.
Nowadays, motorcycles lacked fuel, e-bikes were hard to charge, and pedestrian zones didn’t allow cars, so riding a bicycle in the city was actually pretty common.
Though most people were riding around on those blue and green shared bikes — which had since become personal property.
Just yesterday, two of these heavy-duty bikes had already sold.
Boss Tang hesitated:
“This bike isn’t as easy to ride as the smaller ones… How about you check out the 26-inch or 24-inch bikes?”
Huai Yu did look.
The 26/24-inch bikes were easier to ride and fit her better, but her plan was to mainly haul goods around Rose Corridor. She still needed to take the bus into the city.
For example, yesterday — imagine if she could strap heavy tree branches onto a bike instead of dragging them herself — wouldn’t that be way easier?
At this moment, she acted like a willful little girl:
“We have bikes at home, but my brother never bought me one this big… I just want this big one.”
With how often she mentioned her “brother,” even Huai Yu sometimes blurred the line between truth and fiction.
But it worked perfectly to deal with Boss Tang.
He nodded:
“Alright! I usually sell the bike for 899 points, but you can have it for 650.”
“Then you can walk around for a bit. Just let me photocopy your ID card. I’ll have someone take the bike to the registration office and get a steel stamp to bind it to your ID.”
“Steel stamp?” Huai Yu was curious. “Like getting a license plate?”
Boss Tang nodded:
“Exactly! Satellites aren’t that reliable now. The tracker on your family’s vehicles probably only works inside the city. Bikes use an old-school method. My dad said this was how they registered bicycles a hundred years ago.”
Huai Yu half-understood. She watched him return her ID after copying it, and couldn’t help but frown a little:
“I still have 400 points left. What should I buy?”
Boss Tang couldn’t help clicking his tongue — no wonder she was called the family’s little princess.
Selling wild vegetables for 1,000 points, buying a bicycle without blinking, and now thinking about how to spend the last 400 points all at once…
Tsk tsk! Some people in the city hadn’t managed to save 400 points even after six years of natural disasters.
Well, rich families were different!
Holding his phone, he saw buyers frantically messaging, “Save me some wild vegetables!” and felt very pleased.
He planned to keep three jin of fiddlehead ferns and three jin of shepherd’s purse for himself. In the evening, his family would bring a bag of flour and a piece of meat home — a big dumpling feast!
As for the two jin of mushrooms? Of course, they’d be used to stew a pot of fresh chicken soup.
Tsk! Just one meal like that would cost four or five hundred points now!
Meanwhile, Huai Yu’s eyes lit up as she thought of something:
“I want to plant flowers and vegetables in my courtyard and build a house… Maybe I’ll just buy some tools and materials.”
Boss Tang nodded and smiled approvingly—
Ah! A big courtyard to plant flowers and grow crops… Her two “brothers” probably had a whole team backing her.
In these times, it wasn’t just the scarcity of big courtyards, but the security force needed to guard them was even rarer!
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