“Brother Daniu, my old customer said they have a batch of sweet potatoes and potatoes they want to exchange for refined grains. They asked if we could take them?”

Xiao Lei was very invested in the coarse grain business that Qiao Jiuru and her group were involved in.

One side was his own people, the other was a referral from a familiar contact.

He was helping others while making money—wasn’t that a win-win?

“How much are we talking about?”

Yu Daniu knew that Xiao Lei’s old customer was referred by an acquaintance and they had already done a few trades. He’d made a decent profit and considered them trustworthy.

“About four to five hundred jin (roughly 200–250kg).”

Xiao Lei quoted the number Qiao Jiuru gave. It wasn’t too much, but not a small amount either.

“Oh right, Brother Daniu, they also gave me samples. I looked at them—they’re the biggest and best-looking sweet potatoes and potatoes I’ve ever seen!”

If he hadn’t seen the basket that Qiao Jiuru provided, he wouldn’t have believed sweet potatoes and potatoes could look that good.

The varieties seemed a bit different too.

“Have you never seen these two things before or something?! A sweet potato is still a sweet potato, and a potato is still a potato. What, do you think they’ve grown into new forms or something?!”

Yu Daniu thought Xiao Lei was exaggerating. Did they think they could sell coarse grains at the price of refined ones? Coarse grain was still grain—it had a fixed price.

“Brother Daniu, take a look for yourself. They really do look different. That auntie said their sweet potatoes and potatoes taste way better than the usual kind.”

Xiao Lei wasn’t intentionally exaggerating on Qiao Jiuru’s behalf—it was just obvious that anyone could see the difference.

As he spoke, he quickly brought over the basket of samples.

Seriously? This guy’s overdoing it, isn’t he?!

Yu Daniu still didn’t believe it. What could be so different about sweet potatoes and potatoes? Were they supposed to be three jin each? Or shaped like people?

“Let me see, are they really that good?”

Yu Daniu lifted the newspaper covering the basket, revealing the contents inside.

“Take a good look, Brother Daniu. I think these sweet potatoes and potatoes might taste better than what we’re used to.”

Xiao Lei picked up a sweet potato and examined it under the dim light.

Yu Daniu looked at the one in his hand. It really was larger and better-looking than the average one, and it had an indescribable quality that made it feel… different.

Yes—different.

Hard to say exactly how, but definitely not the same.

“Well, Brother Daniu? That auntie said these are really tasty. Want to try them out?”

“Alright, steam them all. Let everyone try them and see if they’re really that good.”

“You got it, Brother Daniu!”

Xiao Lei responded eagerly and happily went to steam the whole batch.

..

At 1 a.m., deep in the night, Qiao Jiuru and Su Huaiyuan quietly left their home and disappeared into the darkness.

Once they were far away from the residential compound, Qiao Jiuru pulled a bicycle out of her space.

The couple hopped on and headed straight to their first target of the night:

Zhu Family Alley.

At that moment, the alley was pitch-black, everyone fast asleep.

Qiao Jiuru and Su Huaiyuan walked quietly into the alley and stopped in front of a specific house.

After about a minute of observation, the two of them suddenly disappeared from the entrance—and reappeared inside the courtyard.

Then again, they disappeared and reappeared under the main house window.

Crouched under the window, listening to the snoring inside, they exchanged a glance and nodded in sync.

A sharp knife appeared at the window. It poked a hole in the paper window pane, and a lit sedative incense stick was slipped inside…

They repeated the process at the two side rooms.

Once all rooms were confirmed to be filled with the incense, Qiao Jiuru and Su Huaiyuan, fully geared and wearing thick masks and scarves, entered the main house.

Inside, the couple on the bed was already in a deep unconscious sleep, completely unaware that everything they had schemed to obtain was about to disappear.

With experience from looting three other courtyards the night before, Qiao Jiuru gestured at the walls, the bed, and under the bed.

Su Huaiyuan nodded in understanding.

Thanks to his careful nature and keen observation, Su Huaiyuan quickly found what they were looking for:

In the corners of the room—gold, silver, jewels, jade jewelry, antiques.

On Lin Kesheng and his wife’s bed—over a hundred gold bars, rolls of foreign currencies (HKD, USD, GBP, large RMB notes), and over a dozen property deeds.

Qiao Jiuru didn’t miss a single detail.

She even searched the desk and wardrobe, uncovering more money, jewelry, and antiques.

In the side rooms, they gathered another 200 gold bars of varying sizes, all kinds of currencies and notes, more gold, silver, jade, antiques, and 30+ property deeds.

Just from Lin Kesheng’s home alone, they collected almost half of what they got the previous night.

That meant Lin had hoarded more treasure than she expected—which made her wonder if she hadn’t thoroughly cleaned out the previous three places.

But it was too late to go back—they had already spent over an hour in the Lin house.

It was now 3 a.m., and they still had to make a stop at the black market.

Time to go.

..

“Auntie, Uncle, I’ve been waiting forever for you!”

At the black market, Xiao Lei had been anxiously watching the entrance since before 3 a.m.

When he finally saw their familiar silhouettes, he lit up.

“Xiao Lei, do you have the refined grains I wanted?”

Qiao Jiuru was surprised by how enthusiastic Xiao Lei was after only a few hours apart.

“Yes! Yes! My boss said he can offer you 500 jin of rice and 300 jin of flour. If you want other items, you can choose them yourself!”

Xiao Lei beamed as he delivered the news.

The flavor and texture of those sweet potatoes and potatoes rivaled refined grains, so his boss had been extremely generous.

Perfect.

Led by Xiao Lei, Qiao Jiuru and Su Huaiyuan met the black market boss, Yu Daniu.

“Auntie, Uncle, I heard from Xiao Lei that you only have 400 jin of sweet potatoes and potatoes for us?”

Yu Daniu looked at the couple, whose faces were completely covered except for eyes and nostrils, and got straight to the point.

“Actually, we have 5,000 jin, but I planned to reserve 1,000 jin for my relatives.”

Judging from Yu Daniu’s tone, he was clearly very satisfied with the produce and wanted more.

So Qiao Jiuru decided to tell the truth.

The first harvest from her space yielded around 5,000 jin.

She had wanted to save 1,000 for the Song family.

“Auntie, I want that 1,000 jin too. I’ll pay you a bit more for it.”

Yu Daniu had never tasted such delicious sweet potatoes and potatoes—fragrant, soft, slightly sweet, and filling without bloating or causing gas.

He didn’t know what variety they were or where they came from, but he’d never seen or heard of anything like them.

“You can have all 5,000 jin—no need to pay extra.”

After collecting so much gold, jewelry, antiques, and money, Qiao Jiuru felt she could live ten lifetimes without spending it all. Forgoing a bit of profit was no big deal.

“Auntie, you’re generous. Do you have anything else to sell?”

Delighted, Yu Daniu felt a newfound appreciation for the honest deal.

Qiao Jiuru and Su Huaiyuan exchanged a glance and knew they were thinking the same thing.

“Cabbage, radish, chives, lettuce, spinach, garlic.”

“How much?”

“Not much. About 300 jin total.”

“I’ll take it all.”

“Alright, at your usual price. I won’t charge a cent more.”

“Thank you, Auntie.”

Most of her space was planted with sweet potatoes and potatoes.

She’d only grown a small batch of vegetables.

But the magic of the space meant she could harvest them daily, so she was constantly picking vegetables.

Once they finalized the deal for the sweet potatoes, potatoes, and vegetables, Yu Daniu led them into a storage room.

Inside were thermoses, towels, cotton, fabrics, rain boots, gloves, leather shoes, belts, malted milk powder, insulated bottles, mirrors, cold cream, pillow covers, and even liquor, including Moutai…