pertwk Chapter 91: Building a Warehouse
Chapter 91: Building a Warehouse
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That evening, the students in dormitory 222 began to take stock of their belongings.
Ding's family lived in Shanghai. He borrowed Huang Xiaochuan's bicycle and went home overnight. He brought over all the New Year's money he had saved up over the years, a total of 970 yuan, and took out some spare change to make it a round number.
Wu Duo added his savings from previous living expenses to this month's, totaling 260 yuan.
Hao Zhi has money, but he's reluctant to spend it all. He only plans to use two hundred yuan to test the waters, and he won't mind losing it.
Zhang Gaolei only has ninety yuan left for living expenses this month. He has a heavy smoking habit, so that's all he can afford for now.
He joked, "I'll have to rely on you guys for support from now on, otherwise I'll just sit on the ground at the cafeteria entrance and beg for food."
"If you really dare to do that, I'll cover your food for the rest of the month." Ding Yi was always eager to stir up trouble.
Wu Duo chuckled, "If you did that, the principal's blood pressure would spike to 260. Would he even survive?"
Chen Zhe rummaged through all his belongings. He wasn't usually wasteful and had saved 140 yuan. With his living expenses for the month, he could probably scrape together 200 yuan.
The group told each other how much money they could afford to buy stamps, and then they looked at Huang Xiaochuan, this big spender, to see how much he would hand over.
Under everyone's gaze, Huang Xiaochuan pulled out a wad of cash: "I'll take a thousand."
Then Wu Duo spoke up: "I suggest that we each keep a record of how much money we spent, what stamps we bought, and what our final profit was. Keeping a record will give us a comprehensive record of the whole process."
Huang Xiaochuan was the first to respond: "Agreed!"
The other four people then all agreed with Wu Duo's suggestion.
Friday was packed with classes, leaving none of them with time to go anywhere.
Saturday afternoon was free, so the group left the school together as soon as their morning classes ended. Led by Ding Yi, they took a bus to Lugong Market on Jumen Road.
After all, he was a local and familiar with the bus routes; otherwise, the others would have been completely confused by the spiderweb-like Shanghai bus route map.
Upon entering the Lu Gong Post Office, the bustling crowd startled everyone except Huang Xiaochuan.
Zhang Gaolei immediately exclaimed, "My goodness! How come there are so many people?"
Before coming, the group made thorough preparations. When Huang Xiaochuan came before, he would buy a newspaper with the day's market information every time.
He kept all those newspapers; he never expected they would come in handy this time.
The group had already researched some of the stamps that had seen significant price increases in their dorm room, and Huang Xiaochuan had also given them advice, suggesting that they should get discounted souvenir sheets and JP postcards.
Zhang Gaolei and Chen Zhe planned to follow Huang Xiaochuan's advice, since Huang Xiaochuan had promised to cover their losses.
The other three planned to go into the market to take a look first. They wanted to learn about the stamps they were interested in, since they didn't collect stamps and didn't even know what many stamps looked like.
After discussing it, Zhang Gaolei and Chen Zhe went with Huang Xiaochuan, while Wu Duo and Ding Yi went their own way.
Huang Xiaochuan, along with Zhang Gaolei and Chen Zhe, strolled around the market, occasionally stopping to ask the stall owners about the prices of stamps or philatelic items.
"Boss, how much is the panda?"
Seeing that there were only three young people, the mail vendor didn't take it seriously and casually replied, "Two dollars and twenty cents, not sold individually, you can only buy it by the box."
Huang Xiaochuan then pointed to the box of Japanese postcards the postman was sitting on: "What about this?"
The mail scalper glanced at the box beneath him: "A box of 1000 sheets costs 1,000 yuan. Not sold individually."
Huang Xiaochuan discussed it with Zhang Gaolei and Chen Zhe: "What do you two say? Which one should we take?"
Zhang Gaolei had already decided: "I don't have much money, I can't afford the panda one, so I'll just buy 90 of those postcards!"
Huang Xiaochuan then looked at Chen Zhe, who told him about the stamps he wanted to buy: "Like Lao Zhang, I'll buy postcards too!"
Huang Xiaochuan nodded and said to Zhang Gaolei, "Old Zhang, I'll lend you ten yuan to round it up! You can buy 100 tickets, and pay me back when you make a profit."
Zhang Gaolei didn't mince words and readily agreed: "Okay!"
Seeing that neither of them had any objections, Huang Xiaochuan decided to have a proper talk with the mail vendor.
After a long argument with the mail vendors, we finally reached an agreement.
I bought a total of 1300 JP21 stamps, and the stamp dealer gave me 2 extra stamps for every 100 I bought.
In this case, Chen Zhe actually received 204 JP21 postcards.
Zhang Gaolei actually received 102 JP postcards.
Huang Xiaochuan received 1020 JP21s.
Huang Xiaochuan vaguely remembered that the JP21 rose to a high of 47 yuan per sheet in April or May. But Huang Xiaochuan would definitely not chase the highest point; he would sell them all before they reached 40 yuan.
Zhang Gaolei will likely reap around 4,080, while Chen Zhe will gain more, around 8,160.
This amount of money might not be much to Huang Xiaochuan, but it was a considerable sum for the two of them. For one thing, it would be enough for each of them to buy a 21-inch color TV.
Huang Xiaochuan's 1,000 yuan today will eventually turn into 40,000 yuan, but this is just a drop in the ocean compared to the number of stamps he has hoarded so far.
The three paid and received the goods, quickly completing the transaction. Huang Xiaochuan carried a box tied with woven rope, while Zhang Gaolei and Chen Zhe each carried a small bundle of Japanese postcards wrapped in newspaper to prevent contamination or damage.
Ding Yi wandered around the stamp market alone with a thousand yuan in his pocket. He looked at the stamps for a long time but didn't know where to start. They all seemed pretty good, but unfortunately, he only had so little money in his pocket that he couldn't buy them all.
However, he still listened to Huang Xiaochuan's advice and ultimately chose to buy some junk miniature sheets and four hundred JP postcards.
Wu Duo wandered around for a while before realizing that the 260 yuan he brought wouldn't buy many stamps in the market, unless he followed Huang Xiaochuan's advice and bought discounted stamps like the panda miniature sheet.
In the end, Wu Duo spent 210 yuan to buy a box of pandas, and used the rest to buy 50 JP postcards.
Hao Zhidu felt dizzy; there were just too many kinds of stamps in the stamp market. Fortunately, he had done his homework a couple of days ago and had memorized the stamp serial numbers. He then asked the stamp dealers about the serial numbers.
"Are there any references to Journey to the West or the Twelve Beauties of Jinling?"
"Yes, how much do you want?"
"How much?"
"Journey to the West is nine yuan a set, and the Twelve Beauties of Dream of the Red Chamber is six yuan a set. Minimum order is ten sets, no retail." The postal vendor didn't take advantage of his youth and quoted a market price.
After some calculation, Hao Zhidu bought ten sets each of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "The Twelve Beauties". He also bought ten rooster zodiac coins at five yuan each, totaling fifty yuan, so his budget of two hundred yuan was just right.
The rooster was originally priced around two yuan, but the leading rooster (priced at 80 yuan) saw its price soar, and the rooster followed suit, rising in price significantly. It's like a bald man benefiting from the moon's glow.