The pork wholesale section was a sensory overload. Every stall was draped with whole carcasses or cuts of meat so dense it obscured the counters inside. The market was a cacophony of shouting vendors and jostling crowds. As Qiao Xin stepped in, she was immediately swarmed.
“Boss, looking for meat? Come inside and take a look!”
“Right here, boss! Freshly slaughtered this morning!”
She picked a stall at random; the entire district was selling pork, and to her eyes, they all looked much the same. She inquired about the prices: belly pork was fifteen a jin wholesale, front and back legs were fourteen, tenderloin sixteen, ribs eighteen, and trotters twenty.
“Boss, what’s the price if I take the whole hog?” Qiao Xin asked.
“I’ll give you a flat rate of fifteen for the whole lot, including the ribs and trotters,” the owner replied, his voice booming with the confidence of an honest businessman.
Qiao Xin wasn’t a professional, but she cooked daily and knew supermarket prices usually hovered between twenty and twenty-two. The meat looked fresh, so she nodded. “Deal. Give me ten whole hogs, but you have to help me break them down.”
Realizing this was a major sale, the owner beamed. “No problem at all. We’ll make sure not a scrap is wasted and pack everything separately for you.”
She also bought an extra hundred trotters, ten racks of ribs, one hundred jin of marrow bones, and ten pig heads. The final bill came to 38,740 yuan, and the boss threw in ten jin of pork fat as a bonus. Qiao Xin realized she’d almost forgotten the lard, so she bought an additional five hundred jin of pork fat at eight yuan a jin, transferring another 4,000 yuan.
While the workers were busy butchering, Qiao Xin casually asked where she could buy piglets. The owner laughed heartily. “I own the farm myself! How else do you think I have so many pigs to sell every day?”
Qiao Xin immediately ordered five female and two male piglets, grabbed the address, and agreed to pick them up tomorrow afternoon.
With the pork settled, she moved to the poultry section. She ordered five hundred of each—slaughtered chicken, duck, and goose. Since the market also sold live poultry, she bought ten females and one male of each, planning to collect them after she finished with the meat transport.
She drove out, circled the block, and returned to the alley that led to the beef and lamb section. Beef was forty-five a jin, and lamb twenty-eight.
“Five cows, fifty sheep. Let’s do it.”
She skipped the offal for now—she told the owner she also wanted five calves, two dairy cows, and five lambs. If Lin Qing wants beef or lamb offal, he can process it himself once these grow up, she thought.
The payments flowed out: 75,000 for poultry, 53,000 for the cows, 100,000 for the fifty sheep, and 18,000 for the calves and lambs. Qiao Xin kept a running mental tally as she drove, terrified of forgetting a single transaction.
Once the meat was loaded, she hit the seafood section. Carp, crucian carp, snakehead, silver carp, yellow croaker, sea bass, blue shrimp, crayfish, crab, clams, scallops…
She ordered one hundred jin of each, plus ten live specimens of every fish variety and twenty jin of each type of live shrimp. She “loaded” these into the van—in reality, they were whisked into the space. She planned to dig a pond for them that night; she needed to keep the stream water pristine for drinking and wouldn’t have it contaminated.
Near the seafood stalls, she found dried goods: kelp, dried fish, frozen hairtail, dried scallops, dried squid, baby shrimp, and agar, along with specialized seasoning packets for seafood. She couldn’t resist and bought three boxes of everything.
The seafood bill came to 20,500 yuan.
Despite her frantic pace, it was already 11:00 AM. She called the owners of the live animals to confirm she would collect them that afternoon. The cattle and sheep were still at the ranch, so she planned to swing by there tomorrow after picking up the piglets.
Qiao Xin finished off her cup of milk tea in a few quick gulps and drove her van back into the market, this time heading for the grain and oil wholesale district.
She chose the largest shop she could find. Most of the early morning buyers had already dispersed, leaving only a few scattered retail shoppers. Perhaps due to the intense competition in the market, the shopkeeper was incredibly welcoming, having just sent off an auntie who had bought a bag of rice with a bright smile.
When he saw Qiao Xin approaching, his smile widened—she carried herself like someone who meant business. “What can I get for you, boss? Come inside and have a look!”
Qiao Xin smiled back. “I want to check out your rice and flour first. Could you give me a rundown?”
As they stepped inside, the owner pointed to the pallets stacked on the right. “Beautiful, what price range are you looking for? Daohuaxiang, Panjin, and Wuchang rice are all excellent. For the higher end, I have 50-jin bags ranging from 220 to 260 yuan. I also have the standard stuff for 150. Plus, I’ve got Northeast pearl rice, Thai jasmine rice—all different prices.”
Qiao Xin walked over to inspect the goods, taking a whiff of the grains. Not wanting to run all over the market, she cut straight to the point. “Boss, I want one hundred bags of your best rice. Also, one hundred bags each of the best pearl rice and Thai jasmine. Add one hundred bags each of low-gluten and high-gluten flour, and two hundred bags of bread flour. Give me your best wholesale price.”
The owner grinned, promising the best rate, and dove into his computer keyboard. Three minutes later, he handed Qiao Xin a printed invoice.
She glanced at the final figure: 125,800 yuan.
“Boss, this price isn’t very realistic,” she said coolly. “The total should be 110,000. If that works, I’ll pay right now. If not, I’ll try another shop.”
That’s a brutal cut, the owner thought, but seeing as he hadn’t had a major order all day, he gritted his teeth. “Boss, that is really squeezing me—you’ve wiped out my entire profit margin! Fine, fine… consider it making a friend. But you can’t do this next time, okay?”
Qiao Xin knew when to stop pushing. “As long as the quality holds up, I’ll have plenty more for you to handle.”
“You can count on that! I’ve been in this market for over a decade; I wouldn’t dream of ruining my own reputation,” he said, his smile becoming almost sycophantic. “What else do you need, Miss? Let me guide you.”
Qiao Xin had already been eyeing the oils. “Boss, what are the current rates for rapeseed and soybean oil?”
“I can give you fifty for five liters of rapeseed oil and forty-eight for the soybean oil. I also have the large wholesale drums—146 for rapeseed, 140 for soybean. That’s what the big hotels use; it’s absolute top-tier quality. Many locals come here to buy it for their own kitchens, too. I guarantee the quality,” he said with a look of utmost sincerity.
Qiao Xin thought for a moment. “I want the five-liter versions. One thousand drums of rapeseed oil, five hundred of soybean, and three hundred of the sunflower oil next to it. And how about you throw in some of those small sample bottles the manufacturers give you as a bonus?”
The owner had been beaming at the volume of the order, but Qiao Xin’s request for freebies made him wince. He gave a helpless smile. “No problem. I’ll send three cases of the two-liter bottles your way.”
Without waiting for him to tally the total, Qiao Xin began pointing around the shop like a commander marking a map: 1,500 bags of salt (each containing fifty smaller packets), 100 cases of soy sauce, 200 cases of 10-liter drums of vinegar, 100 cases of oyster sauce, 50 cases of steamed fish soy sauce, 100 cases of dressing sauce, 50 cases of red-braised sauce, 50 cases of dark soy sauce, 200 cases of cooking wine, 100 cases of chicken broth, 100 cases of chicken bouillon, 100 cases of MSG, 200 cases of bean paste, 200 cases of hot pot base, 200 cases of Lao Gan Ma, 100 cases of pickled mustard, 100 cases of chili sauce…
She added 100 jin of chili powder, 100 jin of dried chilies, and 100 jin each of cumin, Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, bay leaves, star anise, cardamom, galangal, white pepper, black pepper, and angelica root.
“Boss, I’m buying a massive amount, so give me your absolute best discount—and don’t forget the gifts.”
The shopkeeper’s scalp tingled with shock. Even his biggest clients didn’t order like this. He stared at her, stunned. “Miss… are you sure you want all of this?”
“Positive. Go ahead and ring it up. Oh, and my van can’t fit all this. Do you have a large delivery truck? Can I borrow it? I can leave my van here as collateral and pay a deposit if you need.”
The owner waved his hands dismissively. “Just take it and use it! You’re even saving me the trouble of delivering it myself; the truck is a small matter. Just hold on a second. I’ll print the invoice, and I’ll call my guy to drive the truck over from the warehouse—he’s just unloading there now.”