Chapter 33 – Purchasing
“How come? The Exquisite Pavilion is famous for its large variety of cultivating items, it’s a pity that you don’t even have the eyes of an aged snail and the gallbladder of a bear…” Qinghua’s face suddenly froze, as dissatisfaction was quickly showing up in his whole demeanor. Indeed, he was rather embarrassed in front of Xu Yi. After all, moments ago, he had bragged that The Exquisite Pavilion would have all of the medicines a cultivator could wish for.
Xu Yi’s eyebrows changed into a deep furrow and he let out a desperate sigh, as the hope in his heart had quickly sunk to rock bottom. Without these two medicines, he was unable to cultivate the Dominating Strength technique, which was his top priority in order to become the best cultivator in the peak state of a forged body. Although Teacher Zhou warned Xu Yi that the unbearable pain, which occurred when reversing your tendons and vessels, would deter the cultivation process, Xu Yi was confident he could overcome it as long as he managed to obtain all of the required medicines. Because, back when he was wearing the heavy armor, he had already experienced extreme physical torments.
“I entrusted you to purchase these medicines for me. Please appoint a reliable purchaser to find the medicines throughout Guanan. I won’t leave until I see the medicines.” Xu Yi urgently instructed Qinghua.
“Distinguished guest, if we don’t have these two medicines in stock, then no other places in Guanan will have it either. The eyes of an aged snail and the gallbladder of a bear, both of them are hard to come by. Most of the time, these rare items are sold out as soon as they arrive.” The brown haired lady explained.
“What? You mean we have to count on our luck to buy these two damn items?!” Qinghua jumped up and down, like an irate barking dog. He worried that his commission would be heavily shrunk, because of the unavailability of these two medicines.
“Shut up!” Xu Yi glared at Qinghua, showing contempt for the latter’s unwise manner. Anger wouldn’t solve anything.
“Would you please let me know what I should do to obtain these medicines as soon as possible? I will greatly appreciate your advice.” Xu Yi behaved like a gentleman, which was a little bit odd compared to his eating manners from before.
The lady turned her focus to the raunchy-looking Xu Yi, suddenly realising that he was actually the buyer.
“Usually, we will charge down payments from the customer before we purchase the lacking items. Once we get the required item, we will notify the customer and invite him to come and collect his goods and pay the balance.” The lady offered her solution.
“That sounds ok. How about the lead time? How many down payments shall I pay?” Xu Yi had no alternative but to accept this proposal.
All of a sudden, the sales lady shot a sincere look at Xu Yi, smiling from the bottom of her heart. She was glad that this big fish had finally taken the bait.
Soon after the saleswoman quoted the price, Qinghua interrupted her and bargained fiercely. The original quotation was 150 gold coins for all seven medicines combined, with 50 gold coins as down payment. Now, with the efforts of Qinghua, the price had quickly dropped to 120 gold coins and 30 gold coins as down payment. Both sides agreed that the lead time should be within two months; otherwise, the down payment should be completely refunded.
Xu Yi was quite satisfied with this deal. Especially, since Qinghua had helped him save 30 gold coins. As agreed, Qinghua would get 10% commission from the 30 gold coins, which were 3 gold coins.
Since the final price was well below the targeted price, Xu Yi was exhilarated. Teacher Zhou once told him that these medicines were too rare to get, however, now he hadn’t spent much money, yet, within two months, he would’ve obtained everything he needed.
The brown haired lady stood there, throwing a reproachable pout at Qinghua. Her happiness of getting this big order was somewhat diluted by Qinghua’s bargaining skills. Soon, she showed a wide smile and asked: “My distinguished guest, would you pay in cash or gold cheques? ”
“gold cheques? Is there a bank here?” Xu Yi exclaimed with wide-eyes.
Qinghua shot a glance at the bewildered saleswoman, who was also stunned by Xu Yi’s mentioning of a bank, and whispered to Xu Yi: “Boss, since you’re from the outskirts of Guanan, you may not know, that we do indeed have banks here in the city. The gold coins are not easy to carry around, especially when the transaction amount reaches thousands, or even millions of gold coins. Therefore, Empire Yue, in alliance with the five most prominent families in Guanan, have established the Empire Money House, where you can exchange your coins into cheques. This makes life much more convenient here.”
“Ah, I see.” Xu Yi nodded, as he quickly sank into meditation. He started to compare his present life and his previous life, as he found some similarities, everything was intertwined. People had to drink water when they were thirsty, eat when they were hungry. No one could get rid of these rudimentary needs, because these were the natural rules of the world. In his previous life, there were banks to exchange money, now they had a money house, which was practically the same thing. How intriguing this was.
Xu Yi rummaged through his pocket and took out a golden disc.
Since Xu Yi looted Junior Zhou’s family, he had turned into an overnight millionaire. The Zhou Family had to work in the gold mines for three whole years, to obtain these two golden discs.
The glaring golden disc made both the lady and Qinghua faces freeze like wax portraits – their eyes popped out like a goldfish’s, their mouth opened widely like a hippo’s, as they harshly gasped for air.
- Dong! -
Qinghua kneeled down in front of Xu Yi, as if he was worshipping a god.
Meanwhile, the brown haired lady kept staring at the gleaming disc, as if some kind of magic power from this disc was taking her soul.
“Hurry up, please. We need to get things settled. Please exchange this golden disc for twenty gold coins, eight pieces of gold cheques worth 100 nominal value [1], as well as 15 pieces of gold cheques worth 10 nominal value. The rest is for the down payment.” Xu Yi decided to convert the golden disc into some loose change.
The lady came back to “life” by Xu Yi’s loud voice, surprisingly, she didn’t take the golden disc and instead, she just ran away in a hurry.
“Boss, you’re in such a low profile. But you’re actually so rich!” Qinghua crawled up.
Previously, Qinghua thought that Xu Yi was merely an inexperienced pumpkin, who might just be a simple upstart. However, now, seeing the golden disc, he made up his mind to forever follow Xu Yi in the future.
“Calm down. Don’t forget, I have another task for you. But look at you now… I’m a little bit worried that you’ll screw it up.” Xu Yi scolded Qinghua for his prudence.
“I’ll do whatever I can to work for you, boss.” Qinghua couldn’t take his eye off the golden disc, as he hysterically replied to Xu Yi.
In the middle of their conversation, the brown haired saleswoman came back in with an old man, who turned out to be the chief steward – Mr. Wu.
They bowed to each other and soon, Mr. Wu clapped his hands together as a sign to inform the servants to carry in a large tray, with gold cheques and gold coins displayed inside.
“Please count it.” Mr. Wu smiled at Xu Yi.
Xu Yi took the tray, and started counting all the gold cheques and gold coins. After a while, he suddenly looked up at Mr. Wu and asked: “Why?”
The total amount was still worth a total of 1,000 gold coins, in other words, they didn’t deduct the down payments. Xu Yi was really confused, why didn’t they accept his down payment? Or was it perhaps a hint to reject their deal?