Card Room

Chapter 63 - Financial Crisis 23: Ways to Make Money

Everyone was tired from staying all up night. Once the clean-up was finished, they returned to the third floor.

On the other side of the third floor, the six people controlled by Xiao Lou with the rings also heard the movements outside. However, they were tied to the corner and couldn’t see what happened outside. They just heard a loud bang, the construction site lit up with flames and the sound of gunfire. It was apparent that there was a fierce battle outside.

The six people were hungry for several days. Listening to the movements outside, their legs were soft and they were afraid that the people outside would run in to kill them all.

A girl cried as she complained, “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to you. You saw that people were weak and ran to grab supplies. The result was that we were captured!”

Another girl was also full of regret. “This isn’t the real world. Don’t think that six against two can win.”

“Who knew that man actually had such a strong card…”

“It was someone’s bad idea. If we hadn’t rushed in first then perhaps we could’ve got some food after talking.”

The middle-aged man who first had the idea for everyone to rush in and grab things growled angrily, “Shut up, save some strength! There are two days left. If we don’t starve to death then we can clear the instance. Then once we meet those four people again, I will repay this account!”

The woman tied up with him sneered, “Can we rely on you? Will you be able to repay this account afterwards?”

The middle-aged man was very angry and didn’t speak apart from a burst of curses.

These six people were a temporary team and had a bad heart when they saw Ye Qi and Xiao Lou, trying to rob them. The result was that Xiao Lou counterattacked. They were locked up on the third floor without any food or drink and felt a bit of Ye Qi’s experience in the last few days of the Nightmare Room.

The other challengers were brought back to the northeast corner of the third floor by Xiao Lou, where they slept in separate rooms.

Last night’s win allowed everyone to sigh with relief. Their sleep was particularly good and they all slept until noon.

The group of people looked for Xi in an orderly manner.

The newly joined thieves had been hungry for several days and were moved to days after finding out that they could receive so much food.

The young man couldn’t help saying, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to prison for stupidity. This was the first time from childhood to adulthood that I went to prison!”

The bearded uncle laughed. “You have gained rich experience. Eating two days of prison meals in the Card World… how does it taste?”

The young man was dejected. “Don’t mention it! This world’s prison food is hard to eat. They gave us green vegetables and white rice like they were feeding rabbits. We only ate until the third day when the guards ran. Both of us were confined to our cells, watching frantically behind bars…”

The other person said, “Yes, I was anxiously shedding tears behind the iron bars. I also thought I would starve to death.”

Next to them, a few girls were sneering. They thought these odd men had good luck, being able to lie down to clear the instance.

The man who joined yesterday afternoon said, “You had it pretty good. At least you had vegetables to eat. My girlfriend and I couldn’t afford to pay the room fees after having our supplies stolen and could only sleep on the street. My girlfriend was also stabbed by a bastard wielding a knife and I thought we were really dead…”

The girl who arrived at the construction site was a lot better after taking medicine and resting all night. She heard up to here and couldn’t help looking pale. “Thank you for taking us. Otherwise, even if I didn’t starve to death, I probably would’ve died from the wound infection.”

The sister with the shot put cheerfully raised a glass. “We should take Brother Xiao, Old Han as well as Qin Shao and Xiao Ye. If it wasn’t for this team of four, I really don’t know how I would’ve lived.”

The bearded uncle also offered a bottle of pineapple beer. “Let’s raise our cups in respect to the four of them!”

The others followed suit, raising their Coke, orange juice or mineral water as they sincerely gave thanks. “Thank you. It is good to have an organization!”

Xiao Lou’s heart couldn’t help warming. “There is no need for thanks. We also want to clear the instance.”

He glanced at his three companions, who raised their drinks and touched the cups of the group.

This lunch might not be as rich as the chicken, duck or fish from a restaurant but they were very satisfied at being able to casually eat canned meat, snacks and different flavoured instant noodles.

After lunch, Xiao Lou gathered everyone together and said, “I surmise that the biggest difficulty of this secret room is the owner of the Shanshui Guesthouse and the mysterious organization of free people joining forces to steal our materials. Then they would attract the prisoners to destroy us.”

Yu Hanjiang whispered, “In the C-grade secret rooms, we have resolved two bosses. There is little chance of there being another boss.”

Liu Tong’s identity was revealed and he committed suicide with poison. The prisoner’s leader, Scarface had his head twisted off by Liu Xiaoyuan.

Both bosses should be handled and the rest shouldn’t be hard.

After all, the difficulty of the secret rooms was incremental. 3 of Spades had been hard enough. If it wasn’t for Xiao Lou building this organization, these challengers might’ve been destroyed. The battle ended last night and today was very quiet. If everyone stayed at the construction site, it was possible to directly clear the instance.

Xiao Lou proposed, “We can pass directly if we stay here. However, these supplies are too wasteful. Why don’t we find a way to sell the surplus materials, changing them to gold coins that can be taken out of here?”

In the beginning, the challengers knew in advance that the financial crisis was about to break out and that money would become less valuable. Therefore, most of the challengers spent their money on supplies on the first day. It was almost enough to open a convenience store.

Now that the secret room was coming to an end and they couldn’t eat the rest of the food, selling it for money was the best way to deal with it.

A cautious girl was worried. “If we bring a large number of food out to sell, what if we are robbed? The city is currently very unsafe.”

The girl next to her nodded in agreement. “I heard there are some people in the city who are hitting, robbing and directly destroying stores. The possibility of being robbed is very big.”

Xiao Lou also took this into account as he looked at the crowd. “Everyone, think of possible methods.”

The challengers looked down.

Just then, Ye Qi thought of a good idea. “We can bring fewer materials and go to the safe neighbourhoods, selling door to door!”

The group all looked at him.

Ye Qi explained excitedly, “During university, the dormitory building promoted snacks and knocked on doors to promote. Of course, there was dislike and some school sisters glared at me but now it is the world of the financial crisis. If we go door to door to promote food that is cheaper than the market price, it is providing help in the hour of need!”

Xiao Lou thought carefully and felt that Ye Qi’s suggestion was reasonable. He nodded. “This idea is good.”

Professor Xiao’s praise caused Ye Qi’s eyes to light up and he proudly continued, “We will only put a small amount of food in our backpacks to sell and this won’t attract the attention of robbers. We will act in groups and every person will be ready to respond to each other.”

Shao Qingge touched his chin and smiled. “This method might be troublesome but it can barely be used.”

Xiao Lou looked at Yu Hanjiang and the latter nodded. Xiao Lou smiled and said, “That’s it. We have 16 people here and will divide into four groups. We will go door to door to sell to the residential areas, every time not bring too many materials. Let’s see how much we can sell.”

Xiao Lou glanced at Shao Qingge and asked, “What price should we set that is appropriate?”

Shao Qingge thought about it. “According to the market price doubling every day, today is the sixth day and it has increased by 64 times. Man people can’t afford this price and I estimate that the savings in people’s hands aren’t that much. We will sell it at 10 times the price.”

Ye Qi took out a pen and paper, quickly calculating things. “One box of instant noodles is 2,000 gold coins. 10 times that is 200,000 gold coins. We have 10 boxes left so…” He counted and his eyes suddenly lit up. “If we sell the rest of the materials, it won’t be a problem to make millions!”

The other challengers were thrilled. “My god, we can still make money in the financial crisis secret room?” “I thought the initial 100,000 gold coins wasn’t enough and would starve to death…” “Following a god is great. We can also make money!”

The group sighed.

The bearded uncle asked, “What’s the final profit?”

Everyone thought that since the four people had the most credit, it should be 2:8 or 3:7. After all, following others and earning pocket money was pretty good.

They didn’t expect Xiao Lou to say with a slight smile, “Sell it by group and then the group members will split it equally.”

He didn’t want to be greedy for these little profits. The previous room fees had been returned doubled and in addition, he earned more than a million from Chief Shao shorting the stocks. They weren’t lacking money and there was no need to be stingy about splitting the small amount of money from selling milk, bread, etc.

The group couldn’t believe it.

Xiao Lou continued, “We have to arrange the groups. Each group must have an escape and protection card. Out of the four people, there will be one who won’t bring any materials and they will be responsible for investigating the safety of the environment and confirm the group’s safety. The other three will go to the door and the money will be split between the four. What do you think?”

The challengers had absolutely no opinion and they listened to Brother Xiao’s arrangements.

The 16 challengers divided into groups A, B, C and D. Xiao Lou and the teams of four carried backpacks loaded with supplies and headed together to the city.

Yu Hanjiang led Group A and found a community with a good environment. After investigating using the teleportation card, he found that this community was very quiet. The residents were hiding in their homes and there were no traces of robbers coming and going. Therefore, he sent a message to the others.

Group A went to Building 1, Group B to Building 2…

The 16 people quickly infiltrated the residential buildings and began the work of ‘door to door marketing.’

Ye Qi’s Group D had the fastest progress.

The young man looked delicate with no attack power. His mouth was particularly sweet and his smiling face full of youthful vitality as he knocked on the door and called out.

The citizens had been frightened and hiding at home these days.

The people saw Ye Qi through the cat’s eye and their caution dropped. In addition, Ye Qi took out food and spoke with a smile “Auntie, do you need food? I still have a lot of milk and bread and I want to sell it at a low price.”

The citizen saw that he was selling and asked the price through the door. “How much is it?”

Ye seriously inserted a list of prices below the door. The other side gave the gold coins out the door slit and Ye Qi stuffed the milk and biscuits back. He couldn’t blame the citizens for being too alert. Those who dared to open the door in this environment were really bold…

Fortunately, Ye Qi heard the neighbours opening the door to find him after he sold his first food.

Compared to today’s 64 increase in prices, the young person selling it at only 10 times the price was simply an angel!

Ye Qi was soon surrounded by a group of aunties. “Are there any instant noodles?” “I want to buy chocolate.” “Young man, give me a carton of milk!”

Ye Qi called for his team members and the materials were instantly sold out.

***

The progress of Yu Hanjiang’s group was also good.

He didn’t go to the door to sell because he knew his expression was too serious. If he knocked on the door, people would think he was here to rob them. Therefore, he simply gave the task of selling to the females and was responsible for detection and protection.

The girls quickly dispelled the residents’ caution with their soft voices and gentle attitude, selling out of their supplies.

Shao Qingge and Xiao Lou’s teams also went smoothly.

The community environment was very good and the quality of the residents was relatively high. There were no looting incidents and they were careful enough to take money to buy food before quickly hiding at home.

This first sale of supplies could be called a rewarding experience.

People had confidence and started selling to the area. Thanks to the professional investigator Yu Hanjiang, the nearby scattered robbers were sent away by him and the challengers were impeded.

By the time it was dark, they had sold half the supplies stored at the construction site.

In the process, they met some street children who had been hungry for several days and the soft-hearted females gave them some food. They also encountered some people who coveted their bags but they were driven away by Group Leader Yu.

Everyone was busy all day and once it was dark, they collectively returned to the construction site.

***

On the seventh day, prices continued to soar.

The challengers took the supplies to sell early in the morning. They walked to several neighbourhoods and some citizens already knew them. It had privately spread that ‘the foreigners have food that they are selling at a very cheap price.’

Most of the citizens had savings in their hands and inventory in their home, so they didn’t directly rob or beat people.

Some old men and ladies heard the rumours that foreigners were selling food and spontaneously organized their money, intending to secretly buy some cheap things.

Ye Qi set up a temporary market in the community and started a small stall business.

Other challengers learnt from him and did the same thing. By mid-afternoon, the supplies were almost sold out.

At dusk, everyone returned to the construction site to count the harvest.

Ye Qi’s group sold the most and everyone received 150,000 gold coins. For the other three groups, every person’s income was between 100,000~120,000. In addition, they received back the accommodation fee from the Shanshui Guesthouse’s owner. They recovered the initial 100,000 gold coins given to them when entering 3 of Spades and even earned more.

The people looked at the gold in their hands and couldn’t believe it.

Originally, everyone was worried that they wouldn’t be able to survive this secret room. The result was that they successfully survived and even made money?