Chapter 7: Purchasing Supplies Before Transmigrating

Having fulfilled his otaku dream, Wang Fan rested on a comfortable large bed for one night. After having a good dream, he grabbed his backpack and boarded the bus heading home. After thinking it over, he decided it was better not to drive home. Sudden, ostentatious wealth might bring a sense of illusory satisfaction caused by the envy of others, but the tragic endings of past lottery winners told Wang Fan that if one cannot master money, money will not only turn you into its slave but will also bring disaster to you, your family, and your relatives! Returning to his hometown and seeing his parents' faces marked by the traces of time and their rough hands, Wang Fan felt for the first time that what he had done was not enough. He used to always say he wanted to give his parents a good life, but he always used such a long-term slogan to dilute his current filial piety; it was nothing more than self-numbing and self-evasion. This time, he had finally returned with the ability and capital to change his parents' living environment.

After finishing dinner at home, Wang Fan described to his parents how, through a stroke of luck, he had helped an African traveler (a person of Black ethnicity) who had lost his wallet. As it turned out, the destitute traveler was actually a member of a powerful African family enterprise. As a reward for his kindness, the traveler allowed Wang Fan to participate in a large-scale chemical equipment procurement deal in the name of a middleman. According to the contract, he received a commission worth 1 million yuan after taxes as a reward for his help. Under his parents' astonished expressions, Wang Fan took out a savings card and told them there was 10 million yuan inside. At Wang Fan's insistence, he withdrew 4 million yuan from the card to buy his parents a 140-square-meter residence (valued at 1 million yuan) and a 260-square-meter shop (valued at 2 million yuan), leaving the remaining 6 million yuan for his parents as retirement funds. His parents disagreed, saying they should save it for Wang Fan to marry a wife. Wang Fan explained repeatedly that he still had 10 million yuan; besides the more than 1 million yuan spent on buying a house in Jinhai City (he didn't dare mention he bought a large villa), he had nearly 8 million yuan left for investment. He asked them to rest easy, saying the investment was guided by that African man and the returns would be enough for him to establish his career and start a family.

And so, he spent a month busy in his hometown, completed a simple move with his parents, contacted the tenant for the ground-floor shop, and signed a two-year agreement, securing an annual rent of 100,000 yuan. He invited friends and relatives for a simple meal to celebrate his "stable residence." Although his relatives were surprised that Wang Fan had bought a house for his parents so quickly, they let it slide because Wang Fan explained he had made some money from a business deal. Although his parents only had a junior high school education, they understood the principle that "people fear fame and pigs fear getting fat," so they did not tell anyone about the commission or the shop. After finishing these trivial matters and politely declining several matchmakers who were eager to introduce potential partners to him, Wang Fan returned to Jinhai City and began to seriously contemplate his next step.

What is the core competitiveness of every Plane Merchant? In fact, it is information asymmetry and material asymmetry—controlling the sole transaction channel and implementing a monopoly to obtain excess profits. Comrade Xiao Wang had the honor of becoming a Plane Merchant, achieving a life of enviable happiness a lifetime ahead of schedule—a life he could never have lived in this life. Furthermore, with the help of the extra-planar intelligent being, Yadi Weilan, he was able to control hundreds of billions of dollars in cash flow every year. Would he fall into decadence? Would he lose himself in a life of wine, women, and song? The answer was temporarily no. Why? Because Comrade Xiao Wang's spiritual world was still relatively pure (he had a strong small-farmer mentality; once small wealth is achieved, one is content). Since he had accepted the extra-planar being's request, and there was no life-threatening danger—plus it was quite exciting—he naturally had to follow through on his word. Comrade Xiao Wang said, "So, let's get to work!"

"Butler, are there any traces or patterns in the worlds we travel to that I can prepare for in advance?"

"It is impossible to precisely define the time period, but based on my past travels and the experience of other Plane Merchants, a few patterns can be summarized: according to the 80/20 rule of your Earth and the 10/90 rule of my original universe, the probability that the technological level of the world we travel to is more advanced than your primary plane is only 10% to 20%, while the probability that it is more backward than us is 80% to 90%, and the probability of them being equal is less than 1%! The reason for this is the current hypothesis that the resistance to traveling through the time dimension is the greatest; the unpredictability or diversity of the future creates a very large travel damping coefficient. Relatively speaking, the predictability and inferability of the past result in a much smaller travel damping coefficient. Thus, statistically speaking, as a random-time travel event, the probability of traveling to the past is much higher than traveling to the future. At the same time, in terms of the number of traversable planes, the proportion of planes with similar technology is much smaller than the number of planes in the past or future; naturally, the probability of traveling to a plane with a similar technological level is much lower."

"Understood. Then what do I need to prepare? I can't exactly go there empty-handed, can I?"

"Preliminary estimates suggest that the years of the traversable plane should use the present as the origin, covering a radius of no more than 400 years. We need to prepare historical materials to cross-reference and confirm the era. Then, we need to prepare supplies. If we return to before the 19th century and you want to change history, necessary food, clothing, equipment, weapons, and even mobile housing, medicine, and books are essential."

"Not bad, I understand!"

Xili District is one of the suburban counties of Jinhai City. Because it belongs to the urban-rural fringe, the secondary industry is developed, and all kinds of large and small factories are located here, which has given rise to a large number of warehousing and transportation service industries. Among the clusters of warehouses, there are both well-known enterprises with bright exteriors, reasonable layouts, and meticulous management, as well as crude brick houses built merely with stacked bricks, accompanied by dark gray sloped roofs and old-fashioned pink sliding windows, which make it hard to feel a sense of closeness.

Youpeng Logistics and Warehousing Company was a warehousing service company located in a remote corner of Xili District. The owner was a local farmer from Xili District, surnamed Liu. He had received a significant amount of compensation during the government's land requisition and then joined the glorious army of property speculators. After obtaining his first pot of gold, he quickly cashed out and transferred his funds into ground-floor storefronts and the warehousing business. This location itself was very remote, but he caught the wave of the Yanhuang Republic's economic takeoff. Import and export business grew explosively, and warehousing was a complete seller's market. For about three to four years, he made a lot of money. However, now, as the economic crisis caused by the international financial crisis intensified, the Yanhuang Republic's import and export business had shrunk sharply. Additionally, because many people had been envious of the high profits in warehousing over the past few years, Xili District had launched a large number of warehouses, causing vicious competition and price wars, which caused business in this area to drop rapidly to freezing point. It became a place rarely visited, and the warehouses were left idle.

"Hello, Boss Liu." Wang Fan greeted him.

"Hello, Boss Wang! You are truly young and promising! At your age, I was still digging in the fields!" Boss Liu remarked with emotion.

Boss Liu was in his forties, quite bald with a standard "bird's nest" hairstyle. He had a very wide forehead and large eyes, but his eye sockets were quite deeply sunken, likely caused by long-term alcohol consumption. His skin was fair and smooth, showing that his maintenance over the years had been quite good. However, the image formed by his protruding beer belly and oversized suit was somewhat discordant.

"President Liu overpraises me. It's all thanks to the help of relatives and friends." When meeting people, one should only speak three parts of the truth. Although Wang Fan was a newcomer, he knew how to protect himself; creating a vague impression of having a powerful background was never a bad thing.

"Although my warehouse is in a slightly remote location, the space is large. There are a full six large warehouses, each with 30,000 square meters. I'm not boasting, but this is considered number one in Xili District."

"Boss Liu, I have also looked into the details privately. The location is remote and the market is currently bearish. I chose this place because my cargo volume is relatively large. At the same time, I will rent for three years and pay the rent in full every year, so perhaps the price can be a bit cheaper? I can also handle the invoicing myself. How about it?" Although he wasn't short on money, agreeing too readily could give the impression of being "rich but foolish," which was not good. As the saying goes: "The one who complains about the goods is the one who buys them!" Mediocrity is true!

"I'll call you little brother. Let's be straightforward—a 5% discount for a lump sum, how about it?"

"15%!"

"No way! That's too high. 6%!"

"Let's not be so unmanly. A fixed price of 9%, how about it?" Facing the "farmer entrepreneur," Wang Fan used appropriate profanity.

"Haha, fine, 9%. That will be 3.3 million yuan for three years, 1.1 million yuan per year!"

"Deal. Let's sign the contract!"

After seeing off Boss Liu and his group, Wang Fan returned to his Volvo S80, carefully recalling whether there were any omissions from the phone call to the signing of the contract. Relying on his high-end suit, leather bag, and leather shoes, plus this 360,000 yuan S80, he still managed to give off the impression of a professional businessman. For someone operating in this circle, even if Boss Liu might not have understood everything he was implying, it worked.

After obtaining the keys to the warehouse, Wang Fan went to the Jinhai City talent market and posted a recruitment notice: *Recruiting professional security guards. Requirements: demobilized military personnel, junior high school education or above, age under 35. Food and accommodation provided. Monthly salary 8,000 yuan + performance bonuses.*

The high salary of 8,000 yuan quickly yielded over a thousand resumes. He specifically selected demobilized military personnel whose hometowns were in revolutionary old districts. After evaluating their military positions, completed missions, and interview performance, Wang Fan selected six people: Wang Qiang, Zhao Yong, Sang Yushan, Liu Fengyun, Shi Jingshan, and Zhang Huisong.

After meeting them, Wang Fan was brief and concise, adopting the management style and methods he had used with the boss of his former company, Jinwei Freight Forwarding. He clarified the salary standards, management methods, quarterly assessment indicators, and punishment standards. As for the security captain, he let the six men compete against each other, letting their true skills speak.

After the grappling competition and testing their strength, Shi Jingshan conquered the others. It was only during a later chat that Wang Fan learned Shi Jingshan had once served as a special forces soldier, but had to demobilize and return home because there were no positions available in the military. Because he didn't want to be a burden to his parents, he left most of his 36,000 yuan demobilization allowance to them, keeping only 1,000 yuan to go out and find work. However, because of his low education and lack of specialized skills, he could only make a living doing odd jobs for property management companies.

To win the hearts and respect of the six men, Wang Fan had a drink with them. For the six men, it was 15 bottles of white liquor. Through cheating, Wang Fan transferred the liquor poured into his mouth into his plane storage space, conquering the hearts of the six men with a performance of drinking without changing color or heart rate. Drinking heartily, decisively, and gallantly—he was a real man! Their military-style thinking made them quickly accept Wang Fan!

After solving the security issue, Wang Fan wrote a list himself: nearly 400 years of Chinese and foreign history; language dictionaries (he had asked the butler about the language issue and didn't need to worry; because Plane Merchants engage in cross-plane trade, they naturally have language barriers, so language is automatically converted to consciousness-level communication through the Plane Ring, so no language barrier exists); the language dictionary was more for navigating and confirming the era of locations. After all, inanimate objects like road signs would not automatically turn into consciousness information.

Main ingredients: grain, vegetables, fruit, meat, aquatic products, etc.; seasonings: oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, MSG, etc.; daily chemical products: Nongfu Spring, Linquan, Jian Master, and large amounts of mineral water, soap, shampoo, skincare products, etc.; instant noodles, bread, biscuits, chocolate, candy, famous cigarettes, famous liquors; transportation: 5 each of bicycles, motorcycles, cars (minivans), etc.; office supplies: 5 each of laptops, printers, generators, office cabinets, etc.; industrial blood: gasoline, diesel, kerosene, engine oil, etc.; small commodities: crystal jewelry, silver jewelry, etc.; quasi-military items: crossbows, lead-pellet air guns, various alloy knives, etc.

Thanks to Taobao and Alibaba, as China's largest individual and small business trading platforms, Wang Fan prepared supplies according to the capacity of 10 small supermarkets. For weapons, he prepared 100 sets each, with over a thousand arrows and over ten thousand lead pellets.

"I am ready!"

After setting the timer to calculate the ratio of time flow between the traversable plane and the primary plane, Wang Fan, in the basement of the Xingshang Villa, issued the first travel command.

"Scanning surrounding planes... Scanning successful. Attempting to connect to plane... Connection successful. Activating travel. Binding started. Constructing plane channel. Commencing teleportation..."