Qin You acted quickly and brought the police officers to Alley No. 69 at top speed. As soon as they arrived, they heard seductive noises from inside. Without wasting any time, the officers kicked the door open and went in.
At that moment, Qin You saw a familiar bicycle parked at the entrance, and an ominous feeling came over him. But it was too late—the officers weren’t people who came and left at someone’s command. Holding onto a bit of wishful thinking, Qin You stepped inside, only to feel like the sky had collapsed the moment he saw what was going on.
Inside, Qin Zhenguo had slowly regained consciousness. Apart from a slight headache, he could clearly feel the woman lying on his lap was both skillful and enthusiastic. He shook his head to clear it and gradually regained his senses, finally realizing he had been knocked out by someone.
“Where am I? Who are you?” he asked, his whole body trembling in fear.
The brothel madam who had been busy stopped immediately when she heard him speak. “You’re awake? Damn, you wore me out…” she said.
Hearing a voice that didn’t belong to his usual lover, Qin Zhenguo kicked the madam away and grabbed his pants, trying to flee. At that exact moment, the officers kicked the door in again and caught him red-handed.
“You… you’ve got to let me explain!” Qin Zhenguo stammered. Things were going completely different from what he had expected.
“You were caught with both the person and the evidence. What more is there to explain? Come with us.”
The officers told them to put their clothes on, cuffed them, and took them away.
Outside in the courtyard, Qin You stood there dumbfounded, watching Qin Zhenguo get handcuffed. What was going on? Why had Qin Zhenguo asked him to report him to the police?
“There’s a reward for reporting. Make sure to leave your contact information.”
“I… I…” Qin You stared at Qin Zhenguo, mouth wide open, but couldn’t get any words out.
That was when Qin Zhenguo realized he had been set up by Xu Feng! But could he say that out loud? Of course not. He was full of regret!
Qin Zhenguo could no longer smile. Now it was Xu Feng’s turn to laugh.
This wasn’t just a case of failing to steal a chicken and losing rice—it was smashing his own foot with a rock.
Once the timing felt right, Xu Feng headed to the black market in Jing Alley. When he arrived, the place was fairly crowded, but it wasn’t as magical as he had imagined. It was just a regular market, only operating in the shadows. After wandering around, he saw that everything being sold was related to daily necessities. Some people traded grain for money, others used cash coupons to get food, or bartered tickets for tickets.
Selling agricultural products was common too, but he hadn’t seen anyone selling meat yet. Clearly, city life wasn’t as comfortable as people imagined.
Xu Feng found a corner, took out a deerskin from the System space, and laid it on the ground. He was mainly here to get familiar with black market prices, since the real money-maker was still the grain stored in the System. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
Soon enough, quite a few people came asking about the price of the deerskin, but in truth, they were all aiming for venison. They were all stingy bargain hunters, and Xu Feng didn’t intend to sell to them. Retail was too much hassle—he needed a powerful buyer who could take everything at once.
Luck was on his side. A buyer inspected the deerskin and immediately offered ten yuan. Xu Feng wasn’t sure if it was a good price, but it matched what he had hoped for.
“This hide is fresh. I assume you just hunted the deer in the mountains. But this stuff doesn’t sell easily. If you’ve got venison or something else, I’ll take the hide too.”
The speaker was a middle-aged man with a prominent scar on his face. In an era when food was scarce, he was clearly well-fed and powerful.
“Besides venison, I’ve also got wild carp, eggs, and rice. Are you sure you’ll take them all?”
With every word Xu Feng spoke, the scar-faced man’s eyes lit up more.
“What do you think, brother? This is exactly the kind of stuff the city’s short on! Let me be blunt—however much you’ve got, I’ll take it. As long as the quality is good, I’ll give you a price you’ll be happy with.”
Xu Feng knew immediately—this was the buyer he had been waiting for.
“There’s a lot of it. I stored it in a place only I know. Could you lend me a pushcart? I’ll leave the deerskin here as collateral.”
To avoid suspicion of trying to cheat him out of a cart, Xu Feng offered the deerskin as a deposit.
The scar-faced man waved it off. “A cart’s not worth much. Besides, ask around—nobody dares trick me, Scarface. I don’t deal in dirty business.”
With trust established, things went smoothly. Xu Feng pushed the cart to a quiet place and brought out all the supplies from the System. After deliberately waiting a bit, he returned to the meeting spot with the cart full of goods.
Scarface was already waiting. When he saw the load, he grinned from ear to ear. With a resale, he could make more than a week’s worth of profits in one go.
“Brother, I only took one glance and could tell—this is top-quality stuff. Good goods always come from the countryside!”
“Scarface, this cartload of goods is worth 52 yuan and 80 cents at market price. Tickets will be handled separately.”
Xu Feng did a mental calculation. That sounded about right. Keep in mind, most workers in this era didn’t even earn that much in a month.
“Add the deerskin and deer whip, and I’ll give you 70 yuan plus a variety of tickets. If you get more good stuff, come to me. I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.”
Scarface pulled out a thick bundle of cash, counted out seven ten-yuan bills, and handed them to Xu Feng, along with various coupons.
Xu Feng felt the heavy weight in his hands—he had never held this much money before in his life.
After exchanging some pleasantries, Xu Feng was about to leave when Scarface called out to him.
“Brother, you probably don’t have a place to stay in the capital, right? Come crash at my place tonight. No need to waste money on a hotel.”
Scarface was being kind, but Xu Feng knew not to let his guard down. In the hot summer, it wasn’t hard to find somewhere to crash for the night.
He gave a casual excuse and disappeared into the night.
“Scarface, did we take a loss giving him 70 yuan?”
“You don’t know a thing. Not only is this top-tier stuff, if we keep this supplier coming, we’ll make plenty of money! That deer whip alone—I could flip it for over ten yuan, and people would fight over it!”
…
In these impoverished times, there weren’t many entertainment options at night. Even though Xu Feng now had 70 yuan in his hands, he couldn’t bear to spend it on a hotel room.
This was his first pot of gold—there was no way he was going to waste it.
It wasn’t that he had nowhere to go. After all, Xu Feng had lived in the capital before, so he knew a few people.
One of them, a guy he got along with well, lived right next to Xizhimen in Nanluoguxiang. The guy worked as a cook in a factory and lived alone with only his younger sister, who was still in school. Most of the time, he had the place to himself.