Chapter 26: The 26th Day of Livestream Selling
Whether Lin Zhao was stimulated by it was hard to say, but Mechanic was certainly fired up.
Because he wanted to exchange all that money for books too.
He did not know whether Lin Zhao had realized it, but in any case, he had already keenly noticed that the woman who called herself Elowen might come from a different world than Lin Zhao as well. And the technological development level of her world, at least as displayed through her words, was clearly higher than both of theirs.
In Mechanic’s view, the Blue Star where Lin Zhao lived was like Kaman if nuclear winter had never happened, a Kaman that had continued developing gently and orderly. In those educational materials, he had seen a systematic and solid foundation.
And merely Blue Star’s technology had already given him great inspiration. He simply could not imagine how much the 3S region could bring him.
But this time, Grand Duchess Elowen, who had always been generous, only replied after a long time.
It was not that she was stingy with knowledge and technology, but rather…
By now, she had already taken a ship full of refugees to the resettlement planet and had properly handed them over to the local Universal Alliance staff. Along the way, she had also heard the biggest news in the Alliance recently—the Pure Watch Plan proposed by her youngest brother Reinhardt. It once again emphasized the neutral stance of absolute noninterference, a consensus since ancient times.
It was not that the Alliance was so cold toward emerging civilizations that it would only stand by and watch these star systems live or die on their own, but rather:
“Have you ever seen a chick break out of its shell?”
The staff member was working hard to explain the Alliance’s “standing by” to the refugees of A-8512.
“Do you know what onlookers should least do during the process of a chick breaking its shell? That is to rashly interfere manually. The chick’s pecking and struggling inside the eggshell are a form of exercise. They promote blood circulation and even lung development. This is a process of strengthening itself, and also a process of natural selection. Improper human intervention may instead cause infection in the chick, damage the beak and claws that should have been its strongest tools, affect its future survival ability, or even cause it to die on the spot.”
Although this analogy did not completely fit, and although it sounded somewhat cold, this was reality. It was not that the Universal Alliance had never helped, nor that other humanitarian organizations had never privately provided aid. It was just that the results often had not been good.
They might even bring about greater disasters.
That was why the Grail Covenant had appeared. The Universal Alliance was not truly washing its hands of everything either. Otherwise, why would it plan so many resettlement planets?
It was just that what they could do was limited to this: save the lives on a star system before it was destroyed.
Of course, a policy that, out of fear of doing wrong, simply cut everything off with one stroke and forbade everyone from doing anything was itself not quite right either. It was not as if everyone truly could do nothing. After all, if someone from a pending-evolution zone managed to contact a certain star system in the Universal Alliance first, that was also a kind of evolutionary survival instinct and a choice of fate, was it not?
Elowen’s silence was because she had gone to look through several rare successful cases from the past, trying to find the proper scale of assistance from them.
For example, she could not transmit overly advanced knowledge and systems to a pending-evolution zone, because “for the healthy development of civilization, knowledge itself must inevitably advance in coordination with the system that carries it—its productivity level, social system, and cognitive framework.”
It was like someone trying to implement the imperial examination system during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Was the imperial examination system good? Compared with the nine-rank system, of course it was good. But the problem was that at that time, even paper was a scarce item, and characters still had to be carved onto heavy bamboo slips. How could knowledge be widely spread? How could large-scale examinations be carried out across the entire country?
Knowledge that was too advanced often did not bring better social development, but an inevitable and destructive collapse.
But if the gap was not that large, if the knowledge was only slightly more advanced, then it was not impossible. It just required an extreme effort to grasp the proper scale.
That was exactly what Grand Duchess Elowen was weighing now.
She specifically found classmates of hers who had already entered the Royal Academy of Sciences and specialized in star system evolution, forming an expert group to help her grasp the final scale.
Only before the New Year did they finally reach an agreement. Grand Duchess Elowen and Mechanic reached a consensus: she could provide up to five thousand books, and the rest would be paid in installments in the form of energy and money. It would not be a one-time payment. After all, this was a research project, and no research funding was paid like that.
Elowen had originally wanted to provide electronic versions directly, but Mechanic preferred physical books. This required a certain amount of preparation time. After all, China’s publishing industry had already become a red ocean, let alone Yasa, which had entered the universe many years ago.
Of course, Grand Duchess Elowen could not possibly have no selfish motives at all. Her selfish motive was…
To hint to Lin Zhao, the middleman:
[Since buying one set is buying, and buying two sets is also buying, you should read them too.]
Of course, she would not buy too many. After all, Lin Zhao clearly was not the kind of person like Mechanic who could hungrily read through every book. Grand Duchess Elowen only picked some key ones for him.
Once Lin Zhao himself saw the doorway, he would naturally continue asking, and she had already sent those books to her foolish younger brother in advance.
Even if the Universal Alliance investigated afterward, Grand Duchess Elowen had arguments ready on her side.
She had merely seen an interesting innovative research project and asked Blue Star human Lin Zhao to help make an introduction. How could she have known that the person who proposed this innovation was from a pending-evolution zone?
The other party wanted books, and she thought it was some strange collecting hobby.
As for Lin Zhao, most of what she gave him were romance novels.
You know, for us Yasa people, there is nothing more important than finding one’s destined partner. This concerns my younger brother’s lifelong happiness. Am I not allowed to send the other side a few romance novels?
As for whether some systematic basic mental power education had been mixed into those romance novels—oh my, this person was just that careless.
Of course, so far, Lin Zhao had only seen the romance novels.
The Domineering Prince Falls in Love with Me.
After Marrying the Emperor’s Younger Brother.
As an E-Rank Useless Guide, I Was Proposed to by Dark Sentinel Twins at the Same Time, but I Only Like the Younger Brother.
Who knew what obsession Ms. Elowen had with younger men? In any case, 1114, which loved web novels, was quite happy. It ambitiously declared to Lin Zhao that it would use the entire New Year to finish reading them all.
Then it began begging Lin Zhao, “Zhaozhao, Zhaozhao, please, help me move them all to Auntie’s house.”
Mm. They were going to move to Auntie’s house for a while during New Year, because Auntie absolutely would not allow her nephew to still live alone in his little apartment during New Year.
Lin Zhao had already put up spring couplets and door gods at his own home in advance, and had hired someone to clean the house.
Now he and Qin Xiaoman were carrying boxes one by one into the car. There was no luggage they needed to bring, only New Year goods bought for Auntie and his cousin.
Although Lin Zhao’s little supermarket had only been open for less than two months, its profits were astonishing. In the early stage, when there were only Lin Zhao and Qin Xiaoman, the average daily turnover was actually not particularly high. After all, the two of them really were not fast enough at packing, and their productivity clearly could not keep up.
But later, after the college students arrived and the transport robots joined one after another, daily turnover had already soared to forty or fifty thousand, with an astonishing gross profit margin of 70%.
In less than two months, after deducting all invested costs, Lin Zhao had earned a total of 1.38 million yuan.
Net profit.
One million was not much, but this was only two months of income.
The claim the system had casually made before to encourage Lin Zhao to work hard—“someone used fifty thousand and earned one million through the transaction system”—had actually come true.
Even after deducting the money used to buy body restoration potions for his aunt and cousin, he still had nine hundred thousand left. Subtracting the shares given to 1114 and Qin Xiaoman, it was still enough for him to buy two smaller houses in his hometown.
Of course, housing prices were falling all the time now. Only if he were crazy would he buy a house.
What he wanted to express was…
“Buy! Buy for everyone! Double everyone’s New Year goods!” 1114 had learned to answer first. It imitated Lin Zhao from a few days ago, when he sat up from near-death in shock and placed orders madly before express deliveries stopped.
The set of SK-II he had bought before was no longer worthy of his current aunt. The black-and-white bandage set looked much more pleasing. The game console bought for his cousin was upgraded on the spot too: play one, throw one away. The customized little house for 1114 was the same. Even Qin Xiaoman was not left out.
All beings were equal. Universal celebration.
And this did not mean that giving gifts meant no money was given.
The gifts came from the extra money he had earned from translation work, while the money came from the supermarket’s revenue, the bonus 1114 and Qin Xiaoman deserved aside from their wages.
“Buy whatever you like.” Lin Zhao truly was not particularly good at choosing gifts.
Just like he did not really know how to hold an annual meeting.
When Qin Xiaoman asked him whether, before the holiday, their Pingtu Youcongmu should also hold some kind of annual meeting, Lin Zhao thought for an entire night before finally saying, “When I used to work, every time I attended the company’s annual meeting, I would think about one thing: what is a truly good annual meeting?”
After thinking it over, it was probably giving money and giving time off.
Do not occupy rest days. Do not occupy time after work. Rather than drawing an Apple three-piece set and then listing it secondhand on Xianyu, it was better to directly give RMB. Everyone could buy whatever they wanted.
As expected, everyone was very happy.
After this brief annual meeting that probably only lasted those few minutes of handing out money, Lin Zhao’s little supermarket truly went on holiday.
Even the robots rested.
He and Qin Xiaoman went home to pack.
Actually, Lin Zhao could have done it himself, but Qin Xiaoman simply did not trust his brother’s useless physical strength. In fact, it was fortunate he was there. Otherwise, just the books 1114 wanted to bring along would have required Lin Zhao to make who knew how many trips back and forth.
Only after they had almost finished moving everything did they remember: why didn’t we use the transport robot?
There was even a robot in their car. It was one of the New Year goods Lin Zhao had prepared for his aunt, slightly more high-end than the transport robot. It was a nanny robot he had specially customized with Mechanic, the kind that could care for middle-aged and elderly people. Forget these things, it could easily lift a hundred-jin elderly person.
But…
Humans were probably just like this. After getting used to hard days, it was truly difficult to remember at key moments that things were already different now.
1114 flew beside Lin Zhao all the way, cheering him on and feeling unbearably distressed.
Its host was sweating!
But its host loved it so much. He still brought all its books!
However, the moment everything was moved and the car door was closed, Lin Zhao coldly announced, “I need to rest at least until Lantern Festival before I can go back to work.”
1114: I knew it. You can’t casually spend a poor person’s money!
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