Chapter 3: Stockpiling

Song Jinxi said, “That would definitely save trouble! Alright, give me 1 million jin* each of your five best-selling types of white rice and flour. For grains like millet, corn, cornmeal, red rice, black rice, purple rice, sorghum—pick five brands and give me 500,000 jin of each. For legumes like soybeans, mung beans, red beans, black beans—300,000 jin of each. As for boxed noodles, the ones with 40 packs per case—give me 50,000 boxes of each type… I remember you said you also had seafood and fruits? Where are those?”

(*jin = Chinese weight unit, ~0.5 kg)

“Miss, are you joking with me? With that much, you’ve basically bought out all my stock! I’ll have to transfer goods from other places just to fulfill your order!”

“Follow me and you’ll definitely make money. Calculate how much this’ll cost, I can pay a deposit. Send someone to start preparing, and we’ll move on to the next place. But you must cover delivery—and no giving me second-rate goods. Also, how soon can you deliver? Here’s my warehouse address.”

“Oh, you’re a god of wealth—I mean, Miss! Here, take this tablet and choose. All our stores are listed in it. Sit down and take your time. Whatever catches your eye, just select it and speak aloud, I’ll keep up with your pace and start issuing the invoices to save time.

Of course, if you’re still interested after selecting, I’ll take you to see the samples. To show our sincerity, you only need to pay 20% of the total upfront, and the rest upon delivery. If your purchase exceeds 100 million, we’ll even send someone to help move the goods for free. One shipment goes out tonight, the rest within two days. Is that okay?”

Song Jinxi nodded and started swiping on the tablet, narrating as she went. The constantly lengthening invoice made the store owner grin wider and wider, so wide her gums showed.

Gotta say, her teeth had pretty wide gaps.

Soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, peanut oil… 100,000 barrels each, all in 100-liter drums. Fragrant oils like sesame oil, chili oil, and others were ordered in boxes of 20 bottles—20,000 boxes of each.

Soy sauce (light and dark), aged vinegar, cooking wine, sesame paste, oyster sauce, etc.—she didn’t even need to read from a list—20,000 boxes of each.

Hot pot soup bases, every flavor—20,000 boxes each. Star anise, cinnamon, bay leaves, fennel, cassia bark—60,000 jin of each. Seaweed, dried wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, tofu skin—all 60,000 jin each. Same for all types of glass noodles—60,000 jin. Brown sugar and white sugar—600,000 jin each. Fine salt—600,000 jin, coarse salt—200,000 jin.

For fruits like apples, bananas, lychees, bamboo shoots, durians, mangoes, strawberries, cherries, etc.—300,000 jin of each. Coconuts, jackfruit, durians, watermelons, Hami melons—30,000 each.

“Oh! And crab, mantis shrimp, crayfish, black fish, ribbonfish… 200,000 jin of each. As for the pricier ones like abalone and sea cucumber—20,000 jin each. And for things like king crab—just get me 200 of each. I see they’re all live—I want them live and fresh.”

She thought: If I’m hoarding king crabs by the hundreds, forget doing anything else! And the space assistant doesn’t seem like it was lying—there should be king crab in that space too.

“You even contract out farms—business really is booming! Then give me a few dozen live pigs, cows, and sheep, and 10,000 live chickens. Beef—40,000 jin, lamb—40,000 jin, pork—200,000 jin. Slaughtered chickens, ducks, and geese—20,000 of each. Chicken eggs—100,000 jin; duck and goose eggs—50,000 jin each; quail eggs—50,000 jin too.”

Toffee, corn candy, chocolate, all kinds of hard candies… and most importantly, White Rabbit Milk Candy—200,000 jin total.

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By the time Song Jinxi left the wholesale market, she was completely exhausted! She headed straight home. But rest? Not yet.

She grabbed a quick bite and jumped right back into the shopping battle.

For the first time in her life, she felt nervous because she hadn’t spent all her money yet.