Chapter 133: Nantong City, You’ve Caught My Attention
Chapter 133: Nantong City, You’ve Caught My Attention
Chapter 133: Chapter 133: Nantong City, You’ve Caught My Attention
Feng Si left Secret Fragrance Pine Forest Street and headed straight for the Alchemy District, the city’s workshop area. It was located in a southern part of Pantian City, a place with more houses than trees.
This wasn’t the area near the city outskirts where the Empire’s large factories were located. It was just a district for small, safe, but expensive workshops within the city.
Three buildings, arranged in a triangular formation and totaling 3,000 square meters, were listed for 3.5 billion coins.
The seller was an elderly High-level male beast.
Seeing that Feng Si didn’t haggle, the three rectangular buildings, totaling three thousand square meters, were sold for 3.5 billion coins. He even threw in a small, one-hundred-square-meter courtyard enclosed in the middle.
Although it nearly emptied her Coin Card, property in Pantian City would always hold its value as long as the South Desolate Empire didn’t fall.
Feng Si hired cleaners online to tidy up the place. Then, she contacted an Energy Company to install a protective shield like the one on Boman Gate Island. The installation fee was one million coins, and after that, she would need to buy Energy Baryte from the company every month, costing about another million.
This was very expensive, and buying the custom machinery she wanted would also cost a fortune. Her share of the profits from the Nantong City business was about 200 million coins every seven days, but that was still too little. Her funds were visibly and rapidly dwindling.
After running through the numbers, Feng Si looked at the balance on her Coin Card—only a few tens of thousands of coins left. She once again felt the urgent need to make money.
As for the pickled cabbage, tonight she would have two robotic butlers fetch glass jars and start packaging it. Tomorrow, she would put 500 jars up for sale in her shop in the Mysterious Fragrant Pine Forest.
A 200-milliliter jar would be priced at 3,300 coins.
That’s right. The shop was targeting the high-end market, to match the precious foods she was planning to sell next.
The moment Feng Si saw the wheat, she thought of a way to make a fortune.
’The most common use for wheat is to grind it into flour. Things like flatbreads, buns, steamed buns, and noodles are all refined human staples. They would surely be a huge hit in the Beastman World.’
’It could even be used as a coating. Just imagine meat dredged in flour and fried until golden brown—an easy way to make something incredibly delicious.’
’But for the Beastman World, these things would be incredibly delicious and would astound everyone. Business would definitely boom. At that point, she would have two choices.’
’First, sell the flour.’
’Everyone would scramble to buy the flour, but it could never be sold at a very high price.’
’Most importantly, there’s no technical skill involved, so she couldn’t monopolize the business.’
’After all, the fact that she was buying wild grain couldn’t be kept secret. Any observant beastman could figure out that the flour was just ground-up wild grain, and then her own wild grain business might be ruined.’
’Second, open a restaurant.’
’Selling food made with flour would absolutely create the most expensive restaurant in the entire Beastman World—the kind where you couldn’t even manage to get a reservation.’
’But there was one very important problem: she was the only one who knew how to cook with flour. That meant she’d have to train at least one chef, right?’
’It would be profitable, yes, but it would also be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Besides, the scale would be too small. No matter how much money she made, she would only become modestly wealthy.’
Back then, Feng Si had thought through every food she could make with wheat. Finally, she had recalled an ancient traditional craft that offered a way to build a large-scale business and make a fortune!
’Whole-wheat maltose.’
’Sugar is a scarce resource everywhere. It’s shelf-stable, easy to transport and store, and can be mass-produced. It doesn’t matter that there’s no glutinous rice to use as a substitute; she’ll just make whole-wheat maltose.’
"Yun Duo, Mommy has already figured out what delicious treat to make for your one-month celebration in a few days~" Placing the Yun Chi she was holding onto her shoulder, Feng Si gleefully took six woven bamboo trays from her personal space.
With wide, round eyes, Yun Chi perched obediently on his mother’s shoulder, propping his head up to watch with curiosity.
The trays were covered with thick, damp cotton to retain moisture. Lifting the cloth revealed moist wheat that had already sprouted pale, whitish-green shoots. Feng Si took out a spray bottle and misted the wheat with water.
After watering them, she returned the trays to her personal space. Then, she had f22 start purchasing five hundred jin each of the Lotus Fruit and Long Horned Beans she needed. She also asked the sub-females in the courtyard to help wash and dry them.
Her current stock would only yield about three thousand jars, so she needed to start a new batch of pickled cabbage as soon as possible.
...
「Southern Wilderness Imperial Palace, Ministry of Finance.」
Lip Fei sat in the Minister of Finance’s chair, looking down at the Minister of Finance, Ran Qian, who had just handed him a light screen displaying the recent tax revenues and warehouse inventories from each city.
’How to fill the empty national treasury... what a monumental task.’
’The Young Master of the Northern Wilderness is destined to become a powerful tiger, but this is hardly good news for the South Desolate Empire. After this ten-year truce, war is bound to erupt once more.’
’However, if they could just kill Tiger Flame while he’s here in the Southern Wilderness, none of these concerns would matter.’
As the Prime Minister of the South Desolate Empire, after presenting his strategy to the King, he still needed to ensure the plan’s feasibility.
He had spent days at home racking his brain, but he still had no idea how to raise funds. Then, during his meeting with the Minister of Finance this morning, he had a flash of inspiration.
’He might not be able to do it, but surely there was someone skilled at making money among the 202 cities of the Southern Wilderness?’
And so, after leaving the Imperial Palace’s great hall, he had rushed straight to the Ministry of Finance to have them bring him the tax records from every city over the past year.
’Let’s see... whichever city has the highest tax revenue must be the city where beastmen are making the most coins.’
With renewed vigor, Lip Fei began to leaf through the reports.
Suddenly, standing out starkly in the section for the impoverished seventh-level cities, was a string of tax figures from the cold season that was particularly conspicuous.
Lip Fei’s eyes glinted as he immediately looked for the city’s name.
Nantong City.
A city that had never been on Lip Fei’s radar had now caught his attention.
’Never mind that this past month’s tax revenue still couldn’t compare to a sixth-level city’s. The reason those wealthier cities paid so much in taxes was, more or less, because they had private mines or businesses in flying cars, energy, and so on.’
’Those were all old, powerful families of the South Desolate Empire. They couldn’t be touched.’
’But as for Nantong City’s newly rising financial curve... Lip Fei was certain that the city was dirt-poor. It was utterly impossible for it to generate this much tax revenue.’
’So, what was Nantong City’s secret to making money?’
Lip Fei’s eyes darkened.
’Whatever the secret to their success is, meddling in the affairs of a seventh-level city offers great potential. If he can’t just take it over, perhaps he could negotiate for a small share.’
’The best option would be to recruit them to work for the Empire.’ In an instant, his mind raced through various methods: cooperation, pressure, recruitment.
Lip Fei was most inclined toward that last option: recruitment.
He saved a screenshot of the Nantong City tax report, stood up, and hurried toward the Imperial council hall. He arrived to find it empty and was informed by a subordinate outside that the King was not there.
「Ten minutes later.」
The bronze-haired, ice-blue-eyed Prime Minister of the South Desolate Empire appeared in the Empire Beast King’s dining room. "My King, I have an urgent matter to report!"