Chapter 12: No Less Sold, No More Bought

Chapter 12: Didn't Sell Too Little, Didn't Buy Too Much

The receiving clerk watched as Wang An placed the furs, each rolled into a tube, onto the counter.

With a chuckle, he said, "Little brother, are you planning to sell these furs to get married?" Everyone in the supply and marketing cooperative had seen the "performance" between Wang An and Mu Xueqing just moments ago.

Wang An wasn't embarrassed in the slightest; he smiled and replied, "Yes, sir, you’ve got a sharp eye! Since I’m looking to get married, you’ll have to do me a favor and grade these skins well!"

The clerk began untying the thin hemp ropes from the fur rolls, stacking them one by one.

Then, he laughed heartily, "Easy, easy! That’s no problem at all!"

The clerk picked up a pen and a ruler, measured the tiger cub skin, and said, "The base price for this skin is 600. It’s an inch longer than the standard size, so it counts as premium. I’ll give you 630! How’s that?"

"That works! Big brother, I trust you, so just go ahead! No need to be so detailed, just tell me the total!"

In this day and age, there was no point in haggling too much! Take it or leave it—that went for both buying and selling.

In the Northeast, although you rarely saw signs on the walls saying "Do not beat customers without cause," the clerks didn't coddle their customers either.

A price list was posted on the counter facing the customers, and Wang An had read it enough times to have basically memorized it.

"That’s fair, you’re a straightforward guy, little brother! Haha."

The process then sped up significantly.

"Large skin (sable), 370." The base price on the list was 350 yuan.

"Fox skin 60, fox skin 60, fire fox skin 80." The list price was 60 yuan.

"Four complete yellow weasel skins for 32, two damaged ones for 9." The list price was 8 yuan.

"Nine complete grey squirrel skins for 18, four damaged ones for 4." The list price was 2 yuan.

After waiting a little longer, the clerk finished calculating on the abacus. He handed Wang An a slip of paper and said, "Little brother, it’s 1,263 yuan in total. Take this slip to the finance section in the middle to collect your money!"

Wang An took the slip and smiled, "Alright, thanks, big brother!" The clerk didn't say anything, just waved his hand.

Wang An led Mu Xueqing to the medicinal herb counter and placed the two bear gallbladders on the counter. The clerk was very quiet, examining the quality of each gallbladder.

Expressionless, he picked up the scale (a specialized tool for weighing precious items like gold, silver, and ginseng in the early days, equivalent to a balance scale) and weighed them one by one.

He stated the price directly: "Grass gall 210, iron gall 315, total 525."

Wang An replied immediately, "That’s fine, write the slip!" The clerk quickly handed him a slip of paper.

Arriving at the hardware section—in this era, the supply and marketing cooperative both sold and bought guns, but only long guns, as the state encouraged hunting.

Wang An placed the three guns from the animals on the counter. The clerk looked a bit surprised but didn't say anything, instead carefully inspecting the parts and accessories of each gun one by one.

At this moment, Wang An carefully read the price list posted in front of the counter, getting a rough idea of the prices for various guns and memorizing the prices for the ones he had.

A brand-new Type 56 semi-automatic was 1,150 yuan, and a used one was 950.

A brand-new double-barreled shotgun was 550, and a used one was 400.

A brand-new single-barreled shotgun was 280, and a used one was 180.

A used Mosin-Nagant was 650.

He couldn't help but sigh inwardly; guns were never cheap, no matter the time.

After a long while, the clerk finished the inspection and said, "Single-barreled shotgun 120, double-barreled shotgun 270, Mosin-Nagant 300."

Wang An nodded while listening to the first two, but when he heard 300 for the Mosin-Nagant, he couldn't help but ask, "Comrade, why is there such a big difference for this Mosin-Nagant?"

The clerk said expressionlessly, "That’s the purchase price for this gun."

Wang An was conflicted. Selling it felt like a huge loss, but keeping it was useless!

Just as he was struggling with the decision, he felt someone tug on his clothes. He turned around and saw Mu Xueqing saying to him, "Why don't we not sell this gun for now and keep it as a backup?"

Wang An agreed immediately and said to the clerk, "We won't sell the Mosin-Nagant. Write the slip for the other two."

He took the slip, led Mu Xueqing to the finance section, and collected 2,178 yuan! Two full stacks of "Big Unity" (ten-yuan notes) and some loose ones! A massive fortune!! Wang An felt that his happy life had begun! Over two thousand yuan—he really hadn't sold too little!

He whispered a question to Mu Xueqing: "Xueqing, how come you don't seem surprised at all?"

Mu Xueqing didn't even think about it before retorting, "Didn't you say you were following the old hunters into the mountains? Didn't you say you were a real pro?"

"Did I say that?" Wang An couldn't help but ask himself! It had been too long; he had absolutely no memory of the things he said or the bragging he did in his youth in his past life!

He could only mumble a response and then asked, "What about your mother? How did she suddenly agree to our business?"

Mu Xueqing blinked her beautiful eyes: "I told my mother about you a long time ago! If you hadn't kept putting off coming over, none of this would have happened! By the way, if we hadn't run into each other today, when were you planning to come to my house?"

Wang An's brain worked frantically. He couldn't exactly say, "I've been reborn, and I've completely forgotten all the bragging and grand declarations I made in my past life, and I never intended to go to your house to propose in either this life or the last!" Oh my god, this was going to be the death of him!!

Internally panicked, his face remained completely calm: "I was planning to gather some things to sell and save up some money before heading to your place! Probably tomorrow or the day after!"

"Hmph! The matchmaker said that Zheng Fei has been pushing! Either pay back the money or get married! It was driving me crazy. Why didn't you just beat Zheng Fei to death back then? So annoying!" Mu Xueqing said, frowning as if very unhappy.

Wang An said awkwardly, "Uh, beating him up is one thing, but beating him to death... isn't that a bit much?"

In truth, what made Wang An awkward was that in his past life, Mu Xueqing had been forced to marry Zheng Fei precisely because of his own inaction! Sigh! Thinking of his past self, "heartbroken," "helpless," and "devastated"—he was so disgusted with himself he could vomit!!

"Giggle, why are you being so serious? It's not like I'd let you kill someone! Are you done? Shall we go?" Mu Xueqing became cheerful again.

"Wait, now that we have money, it wouldn't be like me not to spend some! Let's go, let's buy something good to eat." Wang An happily led Mu Xueqing to the grocery section.

Wang An whispered to Mu Xueqing, "Once your business is settled, we'll get married! We'll build a new house next spring!"

Mu Xueqing blushed and just gave a soft "Hmph!"

Because many things required ration coupons, there wasn't actually much they could buy.

Canned goods didn't require coupons—1.45 yuan a bottle, an absolute luxury in this era! Get a case! 12 bottles for 17.4.

Malted milk extract didn't require coupons—2.85 yuan a tin, the aristocrat of luxury goods! Get a case! 12 tins for 34.2.

Soda didn't require coupons—20 cents a bottle, with a 5-cent deposit for the bottle. Get two bundles (tied with thin hemp rope, he specifically checked), 24 bottles for 6 yuan.

Biscuits required coupons—60 cents a jin with a coupon, 90 cents without. If you didn't have a biscuit coupon, you could use fine grain coupons instead. Wang An naturally couldn't bear to do that, so he bought 10 jin for 9 yuan.

All sugars required coupons; they wouldn't sell to you without them!!!

"I need to find a place to buy some coupons! Otherwise, it's just too damn difficult to eat anything I want!!" Wang An pondered silently.

15 jin of fine grain—10 jin of refined white flour, 5 jin of rice! White flour was 18 cents a jin, rice was 22 cents a jin! Not bad. They gave small flour bags when buying rice and flour, and he spent another 10 cents to buy two extra bags, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to separate them later!!

Done!! As for the rest, he could only look!!!

After thinking about it, it was time to go! He called out to Mu Xueqing, and the two walked out of the supply and marketing cooperative.

Thanks to "Zheng-ba-jing-de-che-dan" for the tip!!

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(End of chapter)