After Ye Xuan said goodbye to Ling Jiaze, he left the city of Australia by plane the next morning with his money increased several times over. He went straight to the neighboring province of C city.
He had no experience in purchasing goods before the end of the world but after the world ended, he often followed the officials during their missions. He knew where there were more supplies, and where to go to find what he wanted. Thinking about it, his previous experience was barely usable.
The province where C city was located was very small, and many items were shipped from the next province. For the sake of convenience, Ye Xuan directly found a food agent in the next province. These agents were used to helping small businesses contact manufacturers to place orders and earn some commission. They placed orders on their behalf, which could be regarded as saving the trouble of running around themselves.
Ye Xuan read out the list sorted out on his mobile phone memo: “Compressed biscuits, chocolate, instant noodles, canned food. I have to place orders for these kinds of things that are very convenient to eat. Grain, oil, vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, fish, aquatic products, dry goods and seasonings are also needed. It would be even better if you could also help me order snacks that are common in supermarkets.”
After listening to what he said, Manager Song thought for a while and said, “I have all the things you mentioned. I will bring you the supply orders and price lists of several companies. You can tick the things you need. How much do you want? Fill it out directly, and then I’d ask them to place an order. Is this okay with you?”
“OK.”
Soon Manager Song came over with a large pile of documents. He put the box full of folders on the ground, took out one and said, “Looks like we are all on the same page. Let’s look at the rice and noodles first. The rice is marked with the origin, variety and price. If you are interested, I also have a sample catalogue here, and I can show them to you.”
Before the world ended, all he did was to pick out a random type of rice to buy at the supermarket. After the apocalypse, it would be a blessing to even have rice.
Ye Xuan: …what is this?
He bit his lip and flipped a few pages, only to feel that the rice on each page was similar. He couldn’t see the difference at all. He could only find out from his memory what kind of rice he used at home and whether there was any in the post-apocalyptic world. Since he didn’t know much, he would just choose which ever one that suited his taste buds. He started looking at the information on the book one after the other one.
Seeing his inexperienced appearance, Manager Song asked, “Is this your first time buying something like this?” Which company was so rude, sending a pure rookie to buy stock?
Ye Xuan explained according to the speech he planned: “I want to start an online store, a small business.”
Manager Song: You really don’t look like you’re doing business.
The customer was always the highest priority. Although Ye Xuan appeared inexperienced, he didn’t plan on ignoring him. He just said a few more words when he showed him the options later, and told him which ones were common in supermarkets. These things were easy to sell, lest this newcomer failed too badly in his new business.
Once Ye Xuan was ready to place his order, he quickly marked all the things he wanted to buy, and because the food distributor had more order options, he also added some things that he didn’t think of. One could never be too prepared.
Of course, his wallet had also shrunk a lot.
The more manager Song looked at, the more he felt that Ye Xuan didn’t seem a business person. He basically chose the common items in the supermarket, such as rice, noodles, grains and oils, and vegetables and fruits randomly based on his personal preferences. As for the biscuits and chocolates, the prices and whether they would be easy to sell were completely out of his consideration, as if he was only buying these things for buying sake.
The most important thing was that he also bought many things that could not be stored for long, as if he had never considered the shelf life.
He said tentatively, “Your order is a little too big. It may take me a while to place all the orders and deliver them.”
“How soon?”
Manager Song said embarrassedly: “One week at the earliest, two weeks at the latest. This is mainly because it takes a certain amount of time for the merchant to deliver the goods to me, and then I have to deliver it to you. Due to the back and forth, the process is a bit slow. In addition, you want a large amount of vegetables and fruits, which will take a while to be delivered after the order is placed.”
This time was barely within Ye Xuan’s acceptance range and he was not sure that everything in this life would follow the same direction as in his previous life. He hesitated for a long time and said, “Well, you place an order for me first, and when anything arrives, let that be the first to be delivered. I will give you the extra shipping cost for whatever you want to send later on.”
“Okay, then give me an address and pay the deposit.”
“Sure, let me write the address.” Ye Xuan’s family had a small warehouse on the outskirts of City C. After the previous tenant left, he hadn’t had time to find the next tenant, and now he could just use it. After writing the address, he swiped his card neatly, and soon his mobile phone received a payment notification, showing that the transaction was partially completed.
Seeing that he was so eager to pay the bill, Manager Song temporarily put down his doubts. It didn’t matter whether this kid run an online store or wanted to do something with these things. Anyway, he would make a profit by doing this business smoothly.
—
Ye Xuan did not return to City C immediately after finalizing the order, but went to the store of another daily necessities agent. His plan included the purchase of daily necessities but originally he was going to find a few more stores and buy them directly from the Internet. However after doing business with Manager Song, Ye Xuan realized that it was faster and cheaper to find an agent for wholesale purchases than to buy them himself, so he simply found a reliable agent on the Internet to place an order.
Toilet paper, tissue, soap, body wash, shampoo, laundry detergent…
Daily necessities were much faster to buy than food. Ye Xuan first placed an order according to the brands he was using at home. After buying enough for him to use for a lifetime, he bought some cheap items in large quantities according to his balance. After the apocalypse, the production of daily necessities was discontinued. These things could be taken out and traded with others in the future, and he would not lose money.
After he paid the deposit, he made an agreement with the agent to have them delivered them three days later. Most of the daily necessities were in stock, so there was no need to wait like with the food items. All it took was the delivery time on the road, which was short.
So far, Ye Xuan’s task of collecting supplies was more than half completed, and he planned to either place an order online for the remaining items or go to the market to buy them after finishing the renovation of the villa.
—
The second day after returning to City C, Ye Xuan drove to the building materials market, preparing to start the renovation of the villa.
He had no intention of turning his home into a fortress. First, it was too ostentatious and would easily cause unnecessary trouble. Second, he was not prepared to guard the villa for the rest of his life. When the situation stabilized, he planned to live in safety like in his previous life. In this way, high-level zombies, animals and plants could be avoided.
All he had to do was to simply strengthen the defense of his own home, get stronger doors and windows and raise the outer walls. To put it bluntly, he wanted to guard against the human beings in the last days.
The early zombies had no brains and only instincts. Ye Xuan was not particularly afraid of them, but of human beings.
Ye Xuan closed his eyes and recalled the atrocious behaviors that he had seen in his previous life. Humans who had lost legal constraints were the most dangerous beings. They could do anything.
Ye Xuan walked around the building materials market and found a shop with good quality materials. He scheduled repairs and placed an order with the other party at a price slightly higher than the market price. He made an appointment for them to come to his house the next day to take measurements and then start work immediately.
He had only two requirements – good quality and quick completion.
The man who sold the building materials was surnamed Zhang. He had been in this business for more than ten years. In the past few years, several new communities with villas had been built around City C. He could be regarded as seeing a lot of strange renovating requirements such as Ye Xuan’s. This kind of high demand for practicality and safety was not rare.
Living in a villa, although there were security guards in the entire community, it would still make people feel unsafe without a unit door and the built-in anti-theft ability of high floors. All he wanted to do was to add protection to the courtyard wall and gate, and thought about making the windows stronger. Wasn’t it normal to prevent someone from breaking in one day?
However, there were few people like Ye Xuan who had been living in a place for only a few years and suddenly renovated again. Boss Zhang saw that Ye Xuan did things simply and did not choose elaborate styles, and he was quite fond of him. “How come you are renovating so soon? Were poor quality materials used or was there a problem during their installation? “
Ye Xuan said half-truths: “I was young at the time and was busy with my graduation. I didn’t have much time, so I made a rough renovation and moved in. The news that a villa was robbed by someone made me think that I should spend more time on security, so as not to have an accident.”
“If you want to be safe, you have to hurry. Safety is a big deal!” Boss Zhang sighed and was afraid that Ye Xuan would feel that he was spending money wrongly, so he explained, “Actually, this is the case for people who are doing renovations for the first time. When it’s your first time and you have no experience in building, you would either install a bunch of useless things or you would forget certain things and you’ll need to renovate it later. It’s not easy for a young person like you to build a house by yourself.”
“Well, it’s not too late to make amends.” Ye Xuan replied to the first half of Boss Zhang’s sentence, but automatically ignored the second half.
In fact, his family’s villa was mainly furnished by his mother in those days. Later, his parents passed away unexpectedly, and the work was hastily ended. During that time, he was busy with graduation while taking care of his parents’ affairs. Because he had too many memories of the old house, he was a little bit attached to it, so he simply bought a few pieces of furniture and moved in. How could he carefully consider security issues?
As far as the security of his villa was concerned, he could live safely for two years because he was conscientious and the security of the community was diligent. Thieves didn’t dare to provoke an adult man like him.
Thanks for the chapter!