Once the leader had finished speaking, the other four underlings began brandishing their rock-hard fists and sturdy muscles at Lu Xuan, the threat obvious.
“Kid, be smart and hand over the silver immediately, or suffer a beating.”
Lu Xuan gave a light snort. Who will be the one suffering is yet to be determined.
Ten-plus seconds later.
The five arrogant thugs were lying on the ground, bruised and swollen, groaning in pain. Lu Xuan held a few purses, dumped out the silver bits and copper coins inside, and counted them. The five of them combined didn’t even have two taels of silver. He clicked his tongue in disdain, “So poor.”
The viewers in the livestream couldn’t help but burst into laughter; the host had truly destroyed them—and their dignity! They looked with sympathy at the wretched robbers; tsk, tsk, to be counter-robbed and then mocked for being poor, truly pathetic.
Actually, that wasn’t quite fair. Recalling how the wolf pack in the mountains had died, the host had clearly shown mercy. He had only used his fists to give them a thrashing, leaving only minor skin injuries that would heal in a few days. If the host had used his mutant blood-sucking vines on these people, the scene would have been too beautiful to imagine.
Lu Xuan pocketed the silver, tossed the purses casually to the ground, turned, and left the alleyway to continue his shopping as if nothing had happened.
Next, he toured the vinegar mill, the soy sauce shop, and the bean paste workshop. He bought fifty 100-jin capacity jars of vinegar, soy sauce, bean paste, and soybean paste, totaling one hundred taels.
After that, he went to buy salt. Because overseas trade was well-developed and sea-salt production technology was mature, the dynasty didn’t place too many restrictions on salt, and the price wasn’t exorbitantly high. Fine salt was fifty wen, and coarse salt was only twenty wen. Lu Xuan bought 1,000 jin of each.
People lacked strength without salt. While salt prices were usually stable, during disaster years, cities and towns might not be able to maintain stability. Aside from grain, salt would become a major difficulty, so stockpiling more was never a bad deal. However, demanding 2,000 jin of salt in one go was too conspicuous, so Lu Xuan had to visit several different shops to gather the full amount. Even so, he still drew strange looks from the shopkeepers.
With salt secured, sugar was, of course, indispensable. Sugar-refining technology in this era was quite advanced, but the price remained high—one hundred wen per jin. Since sugar was, in a sense, a hard currency, Lu Xuan bought a large amount: white sugar, brown sugar, and rock sugar totaling 1,000 jin.
With the staples, salt, sugar, and condiments mostly taken care of, Lu Xuan moved on to various butcher shops to buy meat. While the mountains were full of wild game, the taste didn’t compare to domestic poultry and livestock, and domestic pork, in particular, was an essential supply. Ancient pigs didn’t grow as fat and sturdy as modern ones; on average, a pig weighed only about one hundred jin, far smaller than a wild boar.
Lu Xuan checked the prices—a domestic pig, skin and bones included, was three taels. He ordered three hundred pigs in one go, practically clearing out all the hogs that the local butchers’ suppliers could deliver in a short time. He also ordered one thousand “earth chickens” (free-range chickens). The mountains had no shortage of wild pheasants, but domestic chickens and wild ones had different flavors—he needed both.
The spatial ring couldn’t hold living creatures, so these pigs and chickens had to be slaughtered before delivery. Due to the massive quantity, the delivery time was extended to the evening of the day after tomorrow.
When buying pork, the butcher noticed Lu Xuan’s lavish spending and specifically asked if he wanted mutton. Honestly, Lu Xuan’s feelings about mutton were indifferent; he would at most eat it as lamb skewers or well-prepared roast lamb chops, but the others in the Lu family might enjoy it. “Give me one hundred of them.” Averaged over five years, that was about two per month—not much, but enough. If it wasn’t enough, they could still hunt wild sheep in the mountains later.
Pork, mutton, and chicken combined cost 1,400 taels—far more expensive than the grain.
After buying the mutton, Lu Xuan suddenly thought that his indifference to mutton was mainly due to its gamy smell compared to pork, and when it came to removing that odor… that naturally required alcohol! The system store did unlock alcohol, but that was for disinfection purposes; the alcohol content was too high for consumption. So, he went to a distillery.
Lu Xuan didn’t intend to buy expensive varieties like “Zhuangyuan Red” or rare grape wines; he mainly bought the most common yellow wine, rice wine, and shochu. Alcohol was also sold by the jar, 100 liters per jar, ranging from thirty to fifty wen each. Lu Xuan bought fifty jars, costing two hundred taels.
While Lu Xuan was busy scattering money everywhere, dusk arrived unnoticed, and the day drew to a close. Many items still needed to be purchased, so he would just have to continue tomorrow.
Back at the inn, Lu Xuan had the waiter prepare hot water for a bath. After a busy day, if asked if he was tired… the answer was naturally no. An ability user’s physique was much stronger than a normal person’s. The reason he’d rested early at an inn yesterday was ultimately due to the exhaustion of trekking. Today, he’d been wandering around the city, and the road conditions inside the city were much better than the imperial road outside.
Furthermore, spending money… the process of stockpiling itself was quite satisfying. When the modern world entered the apocalypse, because it happened so suddenly, no one had time for preparations. Lu Xuan, a wealthy heir, saw his bank deposits—which he’d never been able to spend—turn into useless paper in the blink of an eye. He’d never had the chance to hoard supplies, which was a source of great regret he’d mulled over for many years.
Now, this uninhibited, frantic stockpiling served, in a way, to compensate for his regrets. Lu Xuan felt a great sense of spiritual satisfaction; he didn’t feel tired at all.
Lu Xuan calculated his total spending for the day. Grain and meat prices were the highest, followed by sugar, and the rest of the miscellaneous items combined cost less than 3,000 taels. This level of spending genuinely shocked the viewers in the livestream.
[The host really knows how to spend money!!!! He really knows how to spend money!]
[I thought earning millions in a single day was badass, but I didn’t expect him to spend nearly half of it in the blink of an eye!]
[Although today’s stream lacked heated battles, I inexplicably couldn’t stop watching.]
[Can’t stop watching +1. It made my desire to hoard supplies explode. I couldn’t help but order a bunch of nutrient solutions on the Star Network store—enough to last me several years.]
[Yes, but spending aside, the host bought so much grain! That’s all natural food! Tens of thousands of jin! Converted into star coins, that’s way more than a few million—the host is making a killing!]
[The key is that even if you want to buy it, you can’t. But for the host, as long as he has money, he can buy as much as he wants. I’m naming my envy.]
[I don’t know whether to feel sorry for the host’s money or envious of his grain.]
[I know the host is buying essentials, disaster-preparedness supplies. I understand the logic, but I still can’t help but say: the host really knows how to spend, he’s such a spendthrift!!!]
[Who’s to say he isn’t!]
Lu Xuan raised an eyebrow.
A spendthrift? This was nothing.
According to his estimates, today’s purchases occupied the bulk of his planned spending. Yet, by the end of the day, he hadn’t even spent half of what he’d earned from selling herbs. This was far less expensive than he had anticipated.
At this rate, he might still have quite a bit of silver left over. During a famine, silver is just like modern money—useless, as you can’t buy food even with it. If he really had silver left over later, he would find a way to spend it all.
Perhaps the people of the Interstellar era really had an innate desire to hoard. Even though today’s livestream lacked any combat content, the viewership was surprisingly high. Concurrent viewers, followers, and gifts all rose significantly.
After converting all the gifts into points, Lu Xuan checked the daily discount items once more, still resisting the urge to buy anything. It wasn’t that he was being frugal; he simply wanted to save up a bit more points before blowing them all at once.
On the third morning, after a simple breakfast, Lu Xuan went to the temporarily rented courtyard to start receiving the first batch of supplies.
The grain arrived first. It was supposed to be delivered by noon, but in reality, to get the final payment as quickly as possible, the grain shop’s staff arrived almost immediately after Lu Xuan. Perhaps because they were worried about errors in such a large transaction, the manager of the grain shop had even come in person.
Lu Xuan stood aside, counting the quantity while occasionally checking the quality of the grain in the bags to ensure they weren’t cheating him. Only after confirming there were no issues did he settle the balance with the manager.
While the manager was counting the banknotes, he asked casually: “Speaking of which, Young Master, buying so much grain at once—are you planning to use it for business?”
Lu Xuan glanced at him as if looking at a fool.
If I were doing business, would I look for a retailer like a grain shop instead of a wholesaler? Am I brain-dead?
The manager actually understood this logic, which was why he was all the more curious about the reason. He had even resorted to conspiracy theories, wondering if Lu Xuan was someone sent by a competitor to cause trouble. But retail prices, even discounted, weren’t that cheap. Why would he spend a massive amount of money to gift them a profit?
Moreover, over 30,000 jin of grain was no small amount. With the new harvest arriving in two months, if he couldn’t offload this grain in the short term, it would rot on his hands. He couldn’t wrap his head around the trick, which was why he couldn’t help but ask.
Lu Xuan wasn’t blind to the manager’s probing. He first asked the manager to verify the banknote amount, and after receiving confirmation, he said nonchalantly: “I’m buying this much grain naturally to deal with the impending natural disaster.”
The manager, who had just tucked the banknotes away: “…?”
The manager asked blankly: “A natural disaster? What natural disaster? Isn’t this year’s harvest looking quite good?”
Lu Xuan: “Just because it was good before doesn’t mean it will be good afterward.”
Manager: “…” That seems to make some sense.
But even if there were some natural disaster, who hoards tens of thousands of jin of grain? Not even a family of a dozen people could finish that much grain. The manager felt more and more that Lu Xuan was just teasing him because he didn’t want to reveal his true purpose.
He gave a dry laugh: “Young Master really knows how to joke.”
Forget it. He had already earned the silver; what did it matter to him why someone bought the grain? Even if it really rotted on their hands, it had nothing to do with him.
Determined that the money and goods were settled without any disputes, the manager took his unloading crew and left. The people delivering the first batch of meat had arrived.