The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH37

Chapter 37: The 37th Day of Livestream Selling

Lin Xiang silently calculated in his head. During the New Year period, when demand for worship and sacrificial offerings was especially tight, one pig’s head with bone would weigh at most around twenty jin. At twelve yuan per jin, that was two hundred and forty. A sheep’s head with bone was at most six jin, roughly one hundred and fifty. A raw cow’s head was the biggest and also the most expensive, around one thousand two hundred. In other words, the total came to one thousand five hundred and ninety.

Twenty portions of assorted barbecue, each portion roughly seventy to eighty yuan, just happened to come out to about one thousand six hundred.

His brother’s ability really was quite equivalent exchange.

The only question was why it had exchanged for the Three Sacrificial Animals. Because of New Year associations? That did make sense. As for how to deal with the three heads, there was no need to worry either. They could be used directly for worship. Perfect.

Lin Zhao: Taken from the gods, used for the gods. Perfect.

What Lin Xiang cared about more was instead that “cultivation manual” with its slightly strange font. To be safe, he decided to make a copy and take it back to study first, lest his brother later practice until he suffered qi deviation.

Of course, before doing so, Lin Xiang would definitely ask his brother’s opinion first.

Lin Zhao’s opinion was… “You can just take the original. It was meant for you to research anyway. I have a scanned copy here with 1114.”

1114 also responded by displaying the scanned copy on its screen. Not only did it have a detailed translation, the little figures drawn inside could even move according to the content, like those AI fitness coaches in smart gyms.

Otherwise, no matter how much natural talent Lin Zhao, a modern person, had for cultivation, it would have been impossible for him to enter the basics in a single afternoon.

He had also guessed early on that his younger brother would take the original back to study. Just like on New Year’s Eve, when he had proved that he really did have a system by redeeming a body restoration potion for Lin Xiang on the spot, his brother had said he believed him, while carefully asking whether he could take it to the laboratory for research first.

Of course he could. In fact, Lin Zhao had already expected his brother to do that, given his personality.

And yes, although Lin Zhao had prepared body restoration potions for his family, he had only set aside that portion of money and had not been in a hurry to redeem them earlier. After all, who knew whether redeeming too many in advance and storing them for too long would cause some kind of shelf-life problem? His original plan was to redeem them on the spot once his family was willing to drink them.

He had even already thought of what to privately say to his brother: “This medicine was originally bought for you. Whether you drink it or do something else with it is up to you. But each dose costs two hundred and forty thousand, so cherish it.”

He did not dare say that to his aunt, because he was afraid that if she knew the real price of the potion, she would refuse to drink it no matter what and insist on leaving it for the two of them.

But he had to tell his brother honestly.

He even had to tell him, “If we buy it again later, it won’t be this price anymore. It’ll be ridiculously, ridiculously expensive.”

He emphasized it several times.

Lin Xiang did indeed treat that tiny tube of potion with even greater solemnity. However, the angle he considered was not the price of the potion. In his understanding, money was a kind of quantification his brother subconsciously made for the energy inside his body. The higher the price, the greater the cost his brother probably had to pay to exchange for it.

He did not want his brother to keep unknowingly consuming himself like this. That night, he had said, “Don’t exchange one for me. This one for Mom is enough.” In fact, if Lin Zhao had not already exchanged it and said it could not be returned or exchanged, Lin Xiang would have wanted his brother to keep even that one for himself.

Because, “When you awaken, your physical constitution will also receive a comprehensive enhancement. The effect is similar to this potion of yours.”

This was also why Lin Xiang felt that his brother was consuming himself. Many of the functions Lin Zhao had described for the beginner body restoration potion were very similar to the feeling of complete renewal that awakening brought to the body.

This was also why Lin Zhao had been able to exchange for a special-price potion for Boss Bro on New Year’s Eve. If it had been at the original price, he would not have been able to afford it.

In short: “Take your medicine first.”

Lin Xiang took out the medicine his senior sister Zhou Mingda had prescribed for his brother. “My senior sister is an expert in genetic diseases. She said this experimental drug currently has the best clinical performance. Once a day, doesn’t matter before or after meals.”

“Okay.” Lin Zhao did not hesitate either. A mouthful of water, a tilt of the head, and gulp—it went down. After all, he did currently have early signs of gene collapse, so this medicine was perfectly targeted.

Aunt Lin’s praise immediately followed. “Our Zhaozhao is so easy when taking medicine. He takes it as soon as he’s told. Never made anyone worry. So good!”

Little Lin Zhao, as a child, would have proudly puffed out his chest.

The grown-up Lin Zhao… secretly felt happy, while trying hard on the surface to maintain an adult’s steadiness. This was just how he was. He really could not withstand being praised.

“One month later, we’ll go for another checkup. During this time, stay home and rest properly.”

Lin Zhao nodded furiously again, looking as cooperative as ever. Except the moment his aunt resumed work after the New Year, he and his system immediately got up without delay. With Doudou, who was excitedly running circles around them, they began studying his multilateral trade in front of the whiteboard in the living room, without the slightest intention of lying flat.

What was multilateral trade?

This was something Lin Zhao had only remembered that day while selling lamb skewers to the dark elf Arland. According to Arland, he was a potion master—the greatest potion master of the age.

Lin Zhao did not understand magic, but he understood Snape.

Ahem, he meant that he understood the Snape from fanfiction. For this kind of research-loving talent, aside from personal hobbies like gourmet food, what else could they not refuse? Naturally, it would be new potion ingredients they had never seen or researched before, but which might contain powerful energy.

And where would those ingredients come from?

Spiritual plants from the cultivation world.

He would buy spiritual plants from the cultivation world, sell them to the potion master in the Western fantasy world, then sell the potions from the Western fantasy world to the wasteland plane, where medicine was needed most. After that, he would search the wasteland plane for something that could be sold back to the cultivation world. Just like that, wouldn’t the trade cycle be set in motion?

Although, so far, he had not thought of what the wasteland could sell in large quantities to the cultivation world. But life was unpredictable. At first, he had wanted to use the “turn waste into treasure” idea to sell things to the cultivation world, but instead he ended up sourcing goods from the cultivation world first. Who could have expected that?

But none of that was important. It could always be solved later. The key now was his multilateral circular trade.

He told 1114, “If this cycle can really be established, every transfer of goods counts as one transaction point. For one business deal, we can turn it over at least three to four times. Think about it. If this keeps cycling endlessly, how many points can we earn? Would we still need to worry about leveling up?”

1114: “!!! Zhaozhao! You’re a genius!”

Of course, Lin Zhao was not yet sure whether the cultivation world’s spiritual plants would be useful to the Western fantasy world, but at least they could try. Even if the attempt failed, there would be no loss. He could continue developing other products. In any case, that was the idea.

“Inventor” Lin Zhao happily contacted Lady Hu again.

As for Lady Hu…

At this very moment, she was completely engrossed in watching The Legend of Wu Zetian. The portable DVD player was suspended before her eyes by her demonic energy. Noisy human voices, strange yet rhythmic string music, all poured out of the two tiny speaker holes.

To be honest, the clothing styles of the mortals on the screen really looked rather neither here nor there. The music was also not quite the same as the strings and pipes she was familiar with. Even the way the people inside spoke was neither classical nor plain, very awkward. But strangely enough, even though in her eyes this part was crude and that part was shoddy, along with the rapidly flashing images, dense dialogue, and complicated character relationships, it was like countless tiny hooks that still deeply captured all of her attention.

It made her unable to help watching episode after episode.

At first, her daughter had also watched with interest, but the little girl’s attention span was at most one cup of tea. After watching for a while, she ran off to chase the cat. Meanwhile, the leopard cat chased after the little mechanical bird that chirped wildly and ran around once its mechanism was activated. The child and the cat played wildly in the spacious warm pavilion for a long time.

Hu Qingxuan, however, was addicted and finished all the episodes, completely hooked.

In Lin Zhao’s Huaguo, The Legend of Wu Zetian was basically the previous century’s Empresses in the Palace, a phenomenon-level drama that once left the streets empty. Of course, that also had something to do with how people’s entertainment options back then were not as abundant as in modern times. In short, the plot had good rhythm, the actresses were beautiful and the actors handsome. It was a classic among classics. Giving a cultivator who had never seen anything like this a little entertainment-based dimensional strike was easy.

When Lin Zhao contacted Lady Hu again, she was already rewatching it for the third time. The first thing she asked when she saw Lin Zhao was whether he had any other discs.

Of course he did. Lin Zhao’s family really did have quite a few video discs. They even had anime.

As for this transaction, Lin Zhao once again did not ask for money. He only hoped to exchange for the cheapest spiritual plant.

But Lady Hu directly gave it to him generously, and also paid him the amount of demonic stones she felt it was worth. The spiritual plants were a free gift. There were all kinds. There was no question of selling or not selling. The rich lady stated that she was not so short on money. She even wrote to Lin Zhao with her divine sense, with a strong sense of one-of-us consciousness: Do you want to use some better spiritual plants?

Lady Hu thought this was the remnant soul needing strength to recover.

Honestly, Lady Hu, who had been raised all her life by her father with the finest food and clothing, and who herself had tried to raise her daughter richly and exquisitely, had never seen such a pitiful way of restoring strength. She was always very generous toward her own people. Otherwise, she would not have been deceived so miserably by that scumbag back then.

Even after learning the bloody lesson of that scumbag, she remained very generous toward her own people. She had merely narrowed the definition of “her own people.”

For example, her leopard cat, her daughter, and…

The “legacy” her father had left her.

Lin Zhao, who had been forcibly stuffed with a pile of spiritual plants, looked at 1114 in disbelief. “Are you sure she’s a demon cultivator?” This demon cultivator seemed a little different from what he understood.

1114 was also bewildered, but said something very wise. “Magic has no good or evil. It only depends on the person using it. Maybe this applies to demon cultivators and Dao cultivators too?”

Lin Zhao: I will forever support Lady Hu becoming the sect master of Tianyan Demon Sect!

With a generous rich lady sending over a variety of spiritual plants, Lin Zhao had even more bargaining chips when negotiating with the dark elf.

The dark elf, who had been worrying over the missing stabilizing element in the calming potion, saw the spirit-soothing grass before him. It gave off the power of another world’s laws, and its energy was indeed almost overflowing. His eyes burst with the same fanaticism he had shown when he first ate fried chicken. Even the way he looked at Lin Zhao changed.

How much more do you have?

“How much do you want?”

However much you have, I want all of it.

And just like that, this multilateral trade was up and running.

Click here to download the full novel. (PDF & EPUB)