The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH7

Chapter 7: The 7th Day of Livestream Selling

While Gray was expressing disbelief at Lin Zhao’s behavior, Lin Zhao was also expressing shock at the behavior of his first customer.

“How much? How much did you say this core thing is worth?”

For the convenience of helping the host calculate transactions better, the system had already aligned the granularity on its side—this was how 1114 put it. Simply speaking, one transaction point was equivalent to one yuan in Lin Zhao’s understanding. One hundred thousand information points meant one hundred thousand RMB.

One hundred thousand. At first listen, it sounded like nothing more than a BYD car.

But the problem was, this was exchanged for only ten cans.

Lin Zhao had never expected that the customer he had casually chosen would be this rich. At first, he had even imagined that the other party was some doctor urgently in need of food, water, and medicine. He had inferred this profession from the way Mr. Gray privately described the canned goods as “clean.”

This was also why Lin Zhao had said a little more in the private messages. He naturally had a soft filter for the profession of doctor, because his mother had been a doctor. Doctors who could persist in a war zone were even less easy.

Now it seemed his guess had been a little naive.

Fortunately, the other party was also a good person.

Under the premise that 1114 had already clearly explained the value of the orange core to the other party and explicitly stated that it could give him change, the other party not only did not ask for the money back, but even sent him a private message with local prices, reminding him not to use Chinese experience to measure other regions.

Although some of the wording left Lin Zhao completely confused, just like the word “clean,” all of it was ultimately classified by Lin Zhao as wise machine translation from this AI 1114.

The blue-and-white fatty expressed dissatisfaction.

Lin Zhao merely glanced at it and coldly, mercilessly announced, “All right, lunch break time. You should get off work.”

Workplace newbie 1114 had a confused face. “Since when do I have working hours?”

“Starting today.” Lin Zhao had also gotten this inspiration from gradually getting along with 1114. “I don’t know what your previous working environment was like, but here with me, it’s four days a week, nine to five, an eight-hour workday, and lunch breaks included.”

“Who decided that?” 1114 still wanted to resist stubbornly.

“The Labor Law.”

“Oh.”

The good, law-abiding system went silent, but it did not move either, because this was the first “holiday” it had encountered since its birth. What were lunch breaks supposed to involve? The self-proclaimed most high-end transaction system in the entire universe somewhat crashed at this moment.

Only after quite a while did it sit up abruptly like a dying patient jolting awake from illness. “Wait, then why are some people still making employees work overtime on weekends?”

“Because certain capitalists don’t obey the law and deserve to be shot sooner or later.”

The black resentment of the former corporate slave was about to overflow again.

1114 no longer dared to provoke him and floated lightly over to squat on the bedside cabinet, beginning high-intensity internet surfing. It even set itself a one-hour anti-addiction system. In a rather humanlike manner, it produced a pair of eyeglass frames on its display screen and began seriously studying what humans did during lunch breaks.

After forcing 1114 to balance work and rest, Lin Zhao himself turned around and called his childhood friend Qin Xiaoman.

Helping a friend did not count as work. Mm.

Someone had bought the canned goods, and the money had already arrived in advance. So the current problem became:

“Does your family have ten thousand cans?”

Qin Xiaoman on the other end of the phone was silent for quite a while before saying, “…We can have them.”

No matter how inhuman Good Luck Cannery was, naturally, it was impossible for it to offset one employee’s wages with one hundred thousand yuan worth of canned goods in one go. But still—

“You could say my sister’s factory has a conscience, because they use canned goods to offset wages. But if you say they have no conscience, well, they’re not forcing anyone. They just offset them to the employees at prices lower than cost.”

This was a new rule Qin’s sister’s cannery had only introduced last month. As long as they were employees of the factory, they could purchase the factory’s unsold canned goods at low prices.

They were truly lower than cost price. Many old employees at the factory knew very clearly what the cost of those canned goods was.

The gross profit margin of canned food was very broad, usually between 30% and 50%, and could even be lower or higher, depending on the specific category. For example, something like canned yellow peaches, where market competition was fierce, sometimes had a profit margin of only twenty percent. But for seafood products like tuna and black-bean dace, costs were very easy to control, and profits could reach half, or even higher.

In other words, for a can worth ten yuan, the cannery could earn anywhere from two to five yuan. The cost price would be eight to five yuan, or even lower.

“But the price the factory gives my sister and the others ranges from five yuan to two yuan fifty. Some near-expiration ones can even drop to one yuan each.”

The factory also did not want to earn cash from the employees. It only deducted the amount from wages that had not been paid out. Employees could offset however much they wanted, and when selling them outside, they could sell them for whatever price they wanted. If they sold high, that was their own ability. If they sold low, the factory had no objection either.

In short, this was a method the factory had come up with because it had no other way. If employees did not exchange their unpaid wages for canned goods, the factory would not force them. It just could not pay wages, that was all. They could only wait, and whenever there was money, wages would be paid.

“For a while, I felt like my mom was about to become a career fan of my sister’s factory. She got up at four in the morning to go to the temple and pray to the gods and Buddhas, hoping the factory’s business would, for no reason at all and in some inexplicable way, suddenly get better,” Qin Xiaoman told Lin Zhao.

“But my sister felt that was complete nonsense. Rather than praying for the factory to get better, she might as well pray for our whole family to get better.”

Qin’s sister’s monthly salary was five thousand five hundred. The factory had been in arrears for more than half a year, around eight months but less than nine months, which came out to forty-four thousand yuan.

At first, the Qin family had not thought about selling canned goods, feeling that the risk was too great. It was only recently, when life had truly become impossible to continue and Qin’s father had also been hospitalized, that Qin Xiaoman’s little workshop had finally started laboring away at it.

But from beginning to end, they had only sold fewer than five hundred cans in total. And that was already the result of all kinds of low prices and mobilizing all their relatives and friends.

To be honest, being able to sell several hundred cans in such an environment and in such a short period of time already seemed to Lin Zhao like proof of Qin Xiaoman’s ability.

To be more precise, it was Qin Xiaoman’s little niece Nannan who had infinite charm.

It was really hard for everyone to refuse an adorable human cub.

From that forty-four thousand, roughly two thousand needed to be deducted, leaving forty-two thousand. If all of it was exchanged for canned goods, it would almost perfectly be around eight to nine thousand cans. If they communicated with the factory again, buying an additional thousand cans would definitely not be a problem. The factory might even set off firecrackers to celebrate and make some kind of “Living Benefactor” longevity tablet for Sister Qin, who had brought in ten thousand cans’ worth of performance.

“Can they really be sold?” Qin Xiaoman was still a little uneasy and repeatedly confirmed with Lin Zhao over the phone.

It was not that he did not believe in Lin Zhao’s character. Rather, it was precisely because he believed too much that he had to be cautious.

“Don’t tell me you’re using your own money to fill the hole in my family. Let me tell you, I won’t take it. If we’re brothers, don’t pity me.”

There was always a reason Lin Zhao and Qin Xiaoman could play together from childhood to adulthood. This was one of the reasons.

Lin Zhao’s family situation had always been somewhat better than Qin Xiaoman’s, but Qin Xiaoman would not therefore take it for granted that Lin Zhao should spend money on him. Of course, it was not that he insisted on calculating every tiny thing either. He simply lived with his own ideas.

When they had money, they would go buy delicious things together. When they had no money, then they would wait until he saved up a little more.

Lin Zhao gave an impeccable answer. “If I wanted to give it to you, then I would only fill in this forty-four thousand. Why would I take out one hundred thousand?” Nobody’s money came blown in by the wind.

“Oh, right.” Qin Xiaoman was suddenly enlightened.

But he was still not very reassured. After finishing the last delivery order in his hands, he hurried nonstop to Lin Zhao’s home. Only after seeing with his own eyes the backend payment page that 1114 had prepared for Lin Zhao did he finally believe that after his mother had prayed to so many gods from so many routes, one kind-hearted deity had finally manifested and sent Lin Zhao from a thousand miles away.

“Foster father! If Your Grace does not disdain me, Man is willing to acknowledge you as my foster father!”

“Enough, son. Go move the canned goods.”

Ten thousand cans were no easy job. With twenty-four cans per box, that was over four hundred boxes. Even after Qin Xiaoman mobilized all kinds of relatives and friends, it still took two full days back and forth before everything was finally done.

But everyone looked so overjoyed and full of energy.

Because on the first day, Lin Zhao had already transferred half the money to Qin Xiaoman. Looking at the five digits, 50000, on Alipay, he truly stared for a very, very long time.

Was this money a lot?

Divided evenly across the eight months his sister had worked, it did not even reach the individual income tax threshold.

But for middle-aged people burdened with car loans and mortgages, with elderly parents above and young children below, this was over half a year of wages that had almost forced his own sister to jump off a building.

Lin Zhao stood to the side. Several times, he tried to lift his hand, then put it down again, wanting to comfort his friend but not knowing where to begin.

Until he heard Qin Xiaoman say, “This exceeds the tax threshold, right? Do we need to pay tax?”

Lin Zhao: “……”

Good question.

1114 called Lin Zhao in time. Mm, ever since Qin Xiaoman arrived, 1114 had been pretending to be a whole-house smart home system on the bedside cabinet. But this chatterbox system simply could not control itself, so it somehow taught itself to make phone calls, one every now and then, making its presence very strongly felt.

“Master, please do not worry. The amount received has already had the mainframe service fee and local taxes deducted. The system will uniformly pay taxes on the host’s behalf.”

The law-abiding system was truly very law-abiding.

By the time all the canned goods arrived the next day, Lin Zhao was also preparing to transfer the remaining fifty thousand yuan to Qin Xiaoman.

At this time, they were already sitting in a restaurant. Originally, Qin Xiaoman had wanted to treat Lin Zhao to the barbecue buffet they had agreed on, but his older sister, who had always handled things cleanly and decisively since childhood, had already booked the restaurant.

Their family was not exactly local to Jiangzuo. His older sister Qin Lixia had grown up with their parents in their hometown in Inner Mongolia when she was little. The way she spoke, did things, and even looked carried a kind of openness that came naturally from vast land.

She had booked the highest-end restaurant within her means. Before the dishes had even been served, she had already thanked Lin Zhao three times while holding her daughter. In fact, their entire family had already expressed a round of gratitude to Lin Zhao yesterday. Each person had said something different, but every word came from the bottom of their heart.

It was said that even Qin’s father in the hospital had almost secretly pulled out his IV needle and run over, and only after much persuasion had they managed to stop him.

One person said one sentence, another person said another. Lin Zhao could not even get a word in. It was not until after they finished eating that he finally found an opening and said that they really did not need to thank him anymore. He had not done much, only moved his mouth a little. They should settle the remaining payment first.

But Qin Xiaoman refused no matter what.

At one glance, it was obvious the whole family had discussed it beforehand. Their story remained highly consistent. The brother-in-law was responsible for paying the bill, and the sister was responsible for Lin Zhao.

“I only want the forty-four thousand I deserve. Now I’ve even gotten an extra month’s wages. I’ve already made a lot.”

“No one has it easy. Sister hasn’t never watched Douyin livestreams. Which of those livestream sellers isn’t tired? Some shout until their throats are hoarse. I don’t know how much commission a streamer should get, so I asked your brother-in-law to inquire. He’s also useless at getting things done. One moment he said there were commissions from twenty to fifty percent, the next he said there was something called a slotting fee.”

“Sister doesn’t understand these things. Sister only knows that without you, I wouldn’t have gotten a single cent. I won’t say polite words of thanks. They’re all in the money. This is what you deserve. Only if you take it can Sister feel at ease.”

Just as Lin Zhao wanted to say something else, Sister Qin suddenly pulled fifty thousand yuan in cash from the bag she had been carrying close to her body the entire time with a ku.

At one glance, it was obvious she had prepared it long ago and withdrawn it from the bank in advance.

Her stance was very much: if you insist on transferring that fifty thousand to my younger brother, then I will immediately throw down this fifty thousand and run.

It was exactly the same heroic bearing Qin Xiaoman had when he stuffed canned goods into Lin Zhao’s arms back then.

As if she could win a sprinting championship even while holding a child.

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