by N. Heller
Sitting at the table, Lin Sanjiu collected their Stamina Point according to the contract. While she was receiving the Stamina points, she made a clear announcement, "For those with large quantities and large goods varieties order, the lead time is approximately 3 to 4 days. Please make sure you order fast as any urgent order will not be entertained!"
A murmur ran through the crowd as they said, "No problem. A couple of days of waiting is fine."
A total of 17 shop owners had signed the contract with Lin Sanjiu. The amount she received ranged from a hundred to two thousand Stamina Points, and the things they wanted were in large quantity and varied. Holding a massive pile of contracts, purchase orders and name lists in her arms, Lin Sanjiu finally came out from the beverage outlet before the night fell.
"We're lucky that we're in a pocket dimension that all of this went so well." Lin Sanjiu couldn't help but lamented, "Imagine how tough it was for Mr. Scrooge to build up his business empire from nothing. It must have been hell for him those days."
Mrs. Manas wasn't impressed. She snorted, "You are merely taking advantage of the benefit you gained from the trading house to offer them a free service. Even the dumbest person in the world would be able to close the deal." She had this question in her mind, and now, she finally had the chance to ask, "I don't understand why you didn't say 4% instead of 3%. Like that, at least you can still earn the 1% difference in the processing fee."
"That's a way, but it's too slow," Lin Sanjiu kept all the doc.u.ments in a paper bag and turned it into a card. Then, she went into Cloud Gathering Trading House.
"Ah, right on time," As soon as she stepped over the threshold, a sonorous sound that Lin Sanjiu could only ascribe to the waiter came behind the wooden counter, "Our trading house is closing at 7'o clock at night, but the kitchen will still continue to operate. Are you here for dinner?"
Lin Sanjiu smiled to the vibrant young lad and looked at the notice board.
"Another half an hour to go. Like you said, right on time." She tapped on the counter, but her eyes never left the notice board. As if it had sensed her eyes movement, the notice board scrolled downward, and the ink kept reconfiguring, "I can still do trading, right?"
"Definitely," said the waiter as he rubbed his hands, "What do you want to trade?"
"Let me take a look," Lin Sanjiu replied unhurried. She seemed to ignore the fact that the shorthand was already nearing 7, "Okay, so the current price for a chicken egg is 0.6 Stamina Points per pound."
Truth to be told, 0.6 was the mean value between three chicken egg supplier. The price set by high-tier supplier like "Yae Hon" was much higher, that's 0.8 Stamina Points per pound whereas the other two suppliers only needed 0.5 Stamina Points per pound.
"Not only is Yae Hon is pricey, but their output is also pretty low," Lin Sanjiu pointed to the notice board while smiled at the waiter, "The other two suppliers can output 200 pounds daily while Yae Hon can only manage 150 pounds."
The waiter didn't know what was she talking about, so he just nodded.
"Let see how much they left," Lin Sanjiu squinted her eyes as she said. After she saw the number, she was thrilled, "Bingo! It seems like they still have some chicken egg left. Okay then, I want them all."
Mrs. Manas emitted a strange "Eeekkk" sound in her brain.
"A total of 2,100 pounds chicken egg, is that your order?" The waiter repeated her order happily, "Do you want to keep in virtual inventory or do you want to have them physically?"
"Keep them in virtual inventory," Lin Sanjiu waved her hand, "Why do I need so many eggs?"
"That's right," Mrs. Manas couldn't hold herself anymore, "What do you want to do with so many chicken eggs? Although there are orders for chicken eggs, the quantity is not as large as 2,100 pounds—"
"So you understand now?" Lin Sanjiu laughed. She forwent the exchange with Mrs. Manas and looked over to the notice board again. She had the plan in her brain, so she ordered the waiter, without pausing, "Set me an auto-purchase. Starting from tomorrow onward and for the next three days, purchase all the chicken eggs, regardless of their price, on the market once the trading market opens."
The waiter quickly jotted down what Lin Sanjiu had ordered behind the counter.
"And then, can you help me send a few anonymous messages? I'm allowed to do that, right?" Every word that came out from her mouth so fluent it seemed to have been scripted, "The first message: Buying, 1 Stamina Points for a pound of chicken eggs; the second message: Come and grab yourself some great deal. 20% off for sugar, butter, and cream."
Hearing this, the waiter paused. He raised his head and asked, "But you don't have those resources…"
"So?" Lin Sanjiu shrugged, "If somebody wants to buy from me, I can buy from the market with market price and sell my prospect at a lower price. Can't I do that?"
"Of course, that goes without saying. You can do however you want as long as you didn't contravene the law." replied the waiter.
She didn't need a lot of time to finish the task. Just as the shorthand pointed at 6 and the big hand pointed at 57, Lin Sanjiu had exchanged 1,298 Stamina Points for 2,100 pounds of chicken eggs.
At this point, Mrs. Manas finally able to comprehend her plan. She sighed as if she had surrendered in front of Lin Sanjiu's acuity. "So this is what you're planning all along. I guess tomorrow the price of chicken eggs would rise a lot faster."
"Publishing a message and I can ensure the price of the chicken egg to rise at least above 1 Stamina Points. This is such a cost-effective method." Lin Sanjiu's eyes gleamed brightly in the night, "The best part is that there is no interest applied with this method. I'm really a genius!" Then, she paused before continuing, "I can't allow the remaining Stamina Points to go to waste, what should I do with them?"
Chapter 382 - Fortune Favors the Bold
The next day at nine o'clock sharp, Lin Sanjiu stepped through the doors of the Cloud Gathering Tavern the moment the Trading House service started operating. She had been waiting for it to open.
A waiter did not see her and nearly collided with her. He quickly dodged and laughed as he followed behind her, "Dear customer, you're early!"
The female customer ahead was taller than him by a head and was staring fixedly on the notice board in front of her. Even though he could only see her back, the skeletal wings that suddenly burst forth from the bathrobe she was wearing already betrayed the uncontrollable excitement of its owner. The wings seared through the air as they extended outward.
"Wow, that duck's method really works," Lin Sanjiu had already deactivated the ability and was no longer in her mimicry state. As she looked at the notice board, a smile graced her face. "The price has increased to 1.2."
The first piece of information she broadcast had instead generated momentum to push the price up. She didn't even expect that the price would double the moment the trading market opened.
"Just as you've ordered, we have bought all the 350 pounds of eggs from the three egg suppliers," the waiter reported enthusiastically. "When trading started, the price wasn't as high. You managed to buy the eggs at 1 Stamina Points per pound. We need to complete the Stamina Point payment for the transaction."
Before Lin Sanjiu got out of her [Consciousness Mimicry], she had already thought through her plan, so even without imitating Scrooge McDuck's thought process, she was already well-prepared for what she had to do next. "Please remove the first information. Change the advertis.e.m.e.nt to offer 3 Stamina Point per pound of eggs."
After some calculations, considering the cost price of the eggs and the processing fees, Lin Sanjiu still had 19396.5 Stamina Points. She had just enough to manipulate the egg prices a few points upward.
"Other than the matter about buying eggs, other shops have requested for butter," the waiter reminded her. "You can't break your contract so you have to quickly buy some butter."
"Which shops have requested for butter?"
"There are a total of four restaurants or dessert shops. The list is there. Y
ou can have a look," the waiter took out a piece of paper from the counter which he had obviously prepared beforehand.
Currently, butter was priced at 12 Stamina Points per pound. The four stores required a total of 60 pounds of butter. If they only paid 80% of her cost price, she would only make a loss of about 144 Stamina Points. This wasn't much to Lin Sanjiu, however, she frowned when her eyes lingered on the order.
The "Lips" restaurant was listed on top.
Something seemed wrong.
Lin Sanjiu's eyebrows knitted tightly together as she contemplated about the matter while she completed the transaction procedure for the 60 pounds of butter with the waiter. With a loss of 148 Stamina Points, she had 19248.5 Stamina Points left.
After she completed the Stamina Points transfer, she immediately gave a new order to the waiter, "Remove the ad for the 20% discounted butter first, only release the ad when I tell you to do it."
"Okay," the waiter acquiesced readily. Oddly, Mrs. Manas became curious. "Ah, I haven't asked you something. What was that ad for? Why would you sell butter and sugar at a loss?" she asked Lin Sanjiu.
Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself for a while before explaining, "I purposely bought all the eggs so I can hinder the circulation of available eggs in the market. Firstly, I can raise the price of the eggs that way. I also have another objective. If the small shops and stalls don't have eggs for a few days, they can actually wait until there is available stock. On the other hand, for the large franchise stores, they can't even operate for one day without eggs. Can you imagine McDonald stopping their sale of burgers if they couldn't get meat patties? That is the primary goal of my plan. I want to squeeze a large amount of Stamina Points from those major restaurants."
Even though this was a pocket dimension and there were in fact barely any posthumans to make purchases, however, the business economic simulation on the "trading route" was incredibly realistic. Lin Sanjiu had even seen the account ledger belonging to the lady boss of the drink store. The records all looked very logical and realistic, it was as if the shop had transactions every day.
"When I was in the mimicry mode, I had already targeted a few large chain stores. 'Lips' is one of these chains." Lin Sanjiu pulled a chair over and sat down as she tapped the chair's armrest thoughtfully. She continued, "These stores primarily use eggs in their desserts and some of their dishes. 70 to 80% of their baked products are made using eggs and one or more of the other ingredients that I have sold at a 20% discount… For example, to make an egg tart, they would need cream and sugar, for an omelet, they would need butter."
"And, so?"
"I just want them to be less apprehensive. Even though the egg prices may be rising, the other ingredients are cheaper. This would mean that they would have little pressure to raise the prices of their processed products… But, of course, this is just false information. There isn't a large chance of success but if I can stimulate them to increase their production of egg-related end-products, that would be the best."
"Since they want so much butter from you, your plan must be very successful?" Mrs. Manas questioned, "But you mentioned that the large stores cannot stop their operations… I haven't seen any bulk order of eggs."
Lin Sanjiu was actually somewhat also anxious about that.
"I'm going to wait a little more," Lin Sanjiu's eyes had not even left the notice board one second, "They run a large operation. Maybe, they still have stock in their storage. If they don't request for eggs now, it isn't any out of the ordinary. Based on their demand, they might need half a day, I guess?"
Unfortunately, things didn't go according to her wishes. After sitting in the Cloud Gathering Trading House until afternoon, she did not see any purchase requests from any of the large stores."
The sun was starting to set and Lin Sanjiu could not wait any longer. Her plan seemed perfect, yet why weren't those people taking the bait?
The 'Lips' on Pumpkin Route had not started for the day, so naturally, she couldn't get any information there. In the end, she walked out of the Cloud Gathering Trading House decisively and released a paper crane.
"Are you still on Velvet Cake Route?" As Lin Sanjiu was a little anxious, her tone of voice was quite impolite, "Do you know if there is a 'Lips' restaurant on that route? I need your help."
"When do you not need my help when you look for me?" Hei Zeji replied very quickly. His voice sounded very lazy as if he didn't really care about her request, "I know that restaurant. It is on the last section of this route. What do you want?"
"The last section of this route?"
"Huh? Are you at the last section of the route?" Lin Sanjiu suddenly felt a little happier. She didn't expect that she could work together with Hei Zeji on this 'trading route'. "That's fantastic! Can you go to the restaurant and help me check if they still have their Strawberry Lips Cake?"
Even though Lin Sanjiu could also get that information from the trading house and even purchase it directly there, she wanted Hei Zeji to get additional information for her.
This time it took a little longer before the paper crane flew back to her. Hei Zeji answered with a curt "yes". Then, there was nothing else recorded.
"This is weird… It had already been a day, why can they still sell that cake? Did they have leftovers in the morning?" Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself as she grabbed the paper crane again. "Stop eating for a moment… Can you help me ask them how many Strawberry Lips Cake they make every day? How many did they make today? Will they continue making new cakes after they sold out the first batch?"
"I don't even need to ask them. I can answer you," a paper crane flew back five minutes later. The person who had recorded that sounded very satisfied. "They only make about 50 cakes every day. Once they sell all 50, they won't make more. Oh, if you didn't remind me about that cake, I could have missed it today… There were only two left when I came."
"Why do you know that information?"
"I can only get this cake here," Hei Zeji replied as if it was nothing unusual. "That is why I frequently go to this section of the route."
"Frequently?" Lin Sanjiu was shocked. Who would have thought that Hei Zeji was closer to that final pitstop present than any of the other people like Puppeteer and Geran who had been yearning for it. "Why didn't you go to the final pitstop?"
"It's none of your business!" Lin Sanjiu received an irascible reply from Hei Zeji.
"Needless to say, he definitely couldn't amass the 3500 Stamina Points." Lin Sanjiu and Mrs. Manas agreed on that explanation.
After Lin Sanjiu thanked Hei Zeji, she stored her paper crane and continued mumbling to herself as she returned to the trading house.
There was an egg shortage for almost a day now. With the exception of the large stores that Lin Sanjiu was targeting, many small shop owners had made orders for eggs. The price of a pound of egg had risen from 1.2 Stamina Points all the way to 1.9 Stamina Points. Despite her 3 Stamina Points per pound ad, the price probably wouldn't break the 2 Stamina Point resistance.
Sighing, Lin Sanjiu sat down.
"This is why I have to target the large stores." Speaking to herself and perhaps Mrs. Manas, she frowned as she observed the notice board and explained quietly, "The amount of eggs I have is too large. The small shops wouldn't be able to buy everything. They don't have the cash either… The large stores are the only ones who can buy my eggs in bulk at the price I set. However, why aren't they requesting eggs?"
After hesitating for some time, Lin Sanjiu activated her [Consciousness Mimicry] reluctantly as she noticed that the trading house was closing soon.
The waiter who had been sitting with a disinterested face at the counter suddenly let out a startled 'huh' when he chanced upon Lin Sanjiu who was sitting a the corner.
The woman who had a sharp and piercing gaze just a second ago changed before his eyes. She suddenly looked very approachable and crafty. She looked around the trading house with her shrewd eyes. Even though she had the same face, it was as if she had turned into a compl
etely different person.
Lin Sanjiu sat in her chair and remained motionless. She scrutinized the notice board for a few minutes. Then, she suddenly leaped up and hit her own t.h.i.g.h. "Oh no!" she yelled out.
"What—what's the matter?" the waiter almost leaped up, startled.
"An oversight! An oversight!" Lin Sanjiu seemed regretful, angry and even in pain. She rushed to the counter and grabbed the waiter's collar, "It's all your fault! Why did you say that all the transactions are conducted in the trading house!"
"But... but they are," the waiter stammered. "Even when a tourist buys a piece of paper, the 5% processing fee is included… You can take it as a tax."
"Then why are there only 350 pounds of eggs on the notice board!" Lin Sanjiu stared at him with a fiery glare. Lin Sanjiu spotted the issue in just a short time after she entered Scrooge McDuck's frame of mind. "I have bought all the eggs in the market. You shouldn't be able to get even a single shell! If it was just one store with extra stock, it was alright. But, all these chain stores are not even ordering. Yet, there are still baking products on sale. They are definitely getting their eggs from another channel! You better explain yourself!"
"Listen to me, dear customer," the waiter grimaced and replied unhurriedly. "You misunderstood what I said. The demand from the small shops aren't stable, so they get the eggs directly from the trading house. Their demand is unpredictable. However, these large chain stores need a stable source… They have already signed agreements with the egg suppliers. Their order size and price are already fixed. Since they are getting their eggs directly from the egg suppliers, their transaction isn't added to the tradable amount shown on the notice board. However, I didn't lie to you. Even if they are dealing directly, they have to pay the processing fees too. The transaction is also administered by us."