Chapter 12

The landlady and her friends gave Qiao Ning a masterclass.

On his fruit pricing, their verdict was unanimous: too cheap.

Take the strawberries—one hundred a jin? Did that price match fruit that delicious? It did not!

Granted, the landlady’s earlier point about brand markup had merit. But Qiao Ning’s current situation was simple: demand exceeded supply.

A textbook seller’s market.

As buyers, of course cheaper was better for the landlady and company—but then again, they weren’t short of money, and right now money couldn’t even buy it. Better to let Qiao Ning price high and use the premium to filter out customers who balked.

They didn’t balk. They’d buy!

Hearing Qiao Ning planned to price the cherry tomatoes at fifty a jin drew a hail of criticism from the aunties.

One even pulled out her phone to show him: “Look. This is an ordinary fruit shop. These cherry tomatoes—29.9 a box, 220 grams a box. And your Ruby cherry tomatoes are worse than these?”

Qiao Ning, shocked, opened his own delivery app to show her: “My prices run different…”

The fruit shops in his results were a whole tier cheaper than what she’d found.

“Eh? What’s going on here?”

Qiao Ning—who’d been a programmer, studied algorithms, wrangled big data—fell silent. What else could it be? The algorithm had pegged him as broke and pushed nothing but budget fruit shops.

“Then what should I charge?” Qiao Ning asked humbly.

The aunties strategized: “Five hundred a jin!”

“No, no—nobody sells by the jin anymore. By the box! Five hundred, eight hundred a box.”

“Right! Forget the big crates. Buy those small pretty paper boxes—half a jin or a jin each—and three to five hundred a box is no problem.”

Qiao Ning: “…”

He thought: that’s the play if I want real money later. But he was in a rental—too cramped, nowhere to even store packaging boxes.

Rent another place just to run a fruit business? The potted plants were nearly gone. If he bought more, output would balloon—product flowing out with no product ever flowing in. If anyone noticed that, big trouble.

The aunties discussed it all—even settling which supplier to order boxes from—before finally asking Qiao Ning: “When’s the next batch of fruit?”

Through all the chatting they’d never stopped eating—two double-fruit platters demolished.

Qiao Ning blinked. That was a hard one. The strawberry and cherry tomato plants were gone. Only blueberries and the kumquat remained.

“There might be a batch of blueberries in the next couple of days,” Qiao Ning ventured.

The landlady pounced: “How big is a batch?”

Qiao Ning had done his homework. Blueberries fruit over more years than strawberries, but years one to three are still sapling stage with small yields. Outdoor potted plants like his would be lucky to manage two or three jin.

But his situation was different. He had a Golden Finger; the Spirit Spring’s effect was instant. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes had multiplied several times over—blueberries wouldn’t lag.

“Maybe a few dozen jin?” Qiao Ning estimated off the tomato numbers.

The landlady: “…”

Curly-haired auntie: “Little Qiao, a few dozen jin isn’t a batch. It’s a bit.”

“Right, right—a few dozen jin, who does that even feed? Split between us and it’s gone.”

With yields this pitiful, the aunties lost interest in discussing price entirely. Sell it all and it wouldn’t amount to much.

They started dividing the four boxes—no, three and a half.

Seeing them on the verge of squabbling, Qiao Ning hurried: “I’ve still got a—a few cherry tomatoes at home. If you want…”

Before he finished, the landlady asked: “Little Qiao, how many do you have left?”

“Call it a dozen-odd boxes.”

The landlady: “Then why did you only bring me two? Little Qiao, I gave you advance notice! At least even it out with two more boxes.”

Qiao Ning didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Eight jin a box; he’d carried down two, and only brought the second because he’d heard her friends were coming.

“How much more do you want?” Qiao Ning reminded her: “Cherry tomatoes keep a few days, but fresher is tastier.”

His were all freshly picked—freshest possible.

The landlady ached to buy out the lot. Those tomatoes were delicious too—no worse than the strawberries. A few jin single-handedly? No problem for her.

Fruit this good would make impressive gifts for relatives, friends—even clients.

Packaging? Please. Delicious fruit was the rarity; pretty boxes could be bought anywhere.

But she didn’t need client gifts—just relatives and friends. No need to overbuy.

“Two more boxes, then.” The landlady tallied it up. These two boxes were down to one and a half; she’d keep that for herself, and two more boxes split among relatives and friends would do nicely.

She didn’t forget to add: “When the blueberries come, tell me too.”

Strawberries and tomatoes this good—how could blueberries lag? And a novelty flavor to change things up.

Qiao Ning agreed without hesitation. Hearing tomatoes remained, the others dropped their claim on those two boxes and started placing orders left and right—four boxes for her, five boxes for her.

Qiao Ning froze for a beat: “Wait—there aren’t that many…”

Sixteen boxes of cherry tomatoes total. Their combined orders: eighteen. He was now two boxes in debt.

The generous customers collectively wore expressions of despair at a hopelessly inadequate supplier.

What kind of vendor runs out after a few boxes?

Qiao Ning: “…”

After negotiation, they settled on fourteen boxes total, leaving Qiao Ning two.

One box to share with his friends; one to see if any old customers wanted it. If not, fine—tomatoes kept, no rush.

As for pricing—the VIPs all agreed he’d underpriced, and since raising prices would filter out the small-time buyers who couldn’t afford it, it’d improve their odds in future.

So at the VIPs’ initiative, Qiao Ning’s Spirit Spring fruit repriced: strawberries at 288 a jin, cherry tomatoes at 188.

Qiao Ning’s phone received a cascade of large transfers, memos reading “fruit payment.” The VIPs settled eagerly—money sent before goods even received.

“I’ll go bring the fruit up.” Qiao Ning dashed upstairs, hauling the dozen-plus boxes of cherry tomatoes down to the third floor over several trips.

Breathing hard, the Spirit-Spring-softened skin of his hands pressed red—but his heart sang.

So much money!

Delivery to the landlady’s place was the end of his responsibilities. The VIPs had their own distribution channels—no delivery help needed.

Qiao Ning bounced happily back. He’d planned to borrow the Tricycle again, but that was unnecessary too.

Two boxes of strawberries, two of tomatoes left. One of each for the roommates; only two boxes actually for sale—carried over in a breeze.

If the old customers found 288 too steep and didn’t buy, he wouldn’t even need to carry them over.

Home, Qiao Ning did the math first.

Setting aside the landlady’s five thousand, the remaining twelve tomato boxes—rounding down, priced at eight jin a box—brought in 18,048.

The landlady’s five thousand for two boxes of strawberries and two of tomatoes, at the new pricing, actually came up a bit short.

She’d tried to add two thousand to make up the difference. Qiao Ning hadn’t taken it.

The landlady had been generous to him—no deposit deduction on the early termination, plus all these free-spending VIP clients. No need to quibble over this much.

He was poor, not stingy.

Counting the landlady’s five thousand, he’d taken in over twenty thousand today. Adding the two-thousand-plus from last time’s fruit sales, growing potted plants with his Golden Finger had earned him over twenty-five thousand in a matter of days.

This money-making speed—compared with grinding his life away as a Corporate Workhorse—was happiness beyond measure.

Qiao Ning had had a bit over thirty thousand in savings. The contract breach penalty would run about five thousand; the new phone six-thousand-plus; assorted other expenses. His savings sat just under twenty thousand.

With today’s twenty-five, his balance climbed back up—and Qiao Ning felt deeply, deeply secure.

Only after admiring his account balance did he check his phone.

The dorm group chat had blown past 99+ messages. Skimming: no victor had emerged, so Eldest Brother, Second Brother, and Sixth Brother were setting out together to collect the fine fodder Qiao Ning was dispensing.

It was the weekend, so Fourth Brother wasn’t at work. Watching the contest, he was dying to teleport home and find out how good these strawberries could possibly be, to drive his brothers this mad.

The boys were already on the subway. Reading the group chat, Qiao Ning couldn’t stop smiling.

His luck wasn’t bad—his roommates were genuinely good people. Knowing he was poor, none of them ever looked down on him, and they kept finding ways to help.

In his last life, after graduation, everyone scattered to their own futures—studies, jobs—and contact slowly faded.

Done with the group, Qiao Ning pulled up the profiles of customers who’d asked about strawberries, ready to message them that more were available.

But the price had gone up.

Double.

Halfway through composing the messages, he unsent them all. Contacting one by one was too slow.

He simply created a temporary group and posted the news: strawberries in stock, same quality as before. Last time was an introductory price—now 288 a jin, five jin total, buy promptly while stocks last.

Also same-quality cherry tomatoes, 188 a jin, eight jin total, likewise buy promptly while stocks last.

Someone quit the group within minutes of the post.

Fine, let them quit—though not before dropping a “heartless profiteer” on the way out.

Qiao Ning: “.”

If his heart were black enough, he wouldn’t have worked himself to death.

He was about to delete the insult-slinger when a private message arrived.

It was “A Devoted Foodie Heart”—first a cascade of sobbing stickers, lamenting not having bought more last time.

Finally: one jin ordered, with a transfer of 576.

[A Devoted Foodie Heart: You know what, make it two jin. One jin is simply not enough to eat.]

Seeing her pay so readily, Qiao Ning offered: [Want cherry tomatoes? They’re delicious too—I can throw in samples.]

“A Devoted Foodie Heart,” unsurprisingly, couldn’t resist—two jin, please.

While chatting with her, the group kept pinging. Before he could check, another private message arrived.

One he’d forgotten who was—profile photo suggested a young guy. Wanted two jin, asked for a discount.

Not possible. Discounting for him made more sense to just sell everything to the landlady’s crowd.

Another was “Joyful Family”—protesting the price with one hand, ordering four jin with the other.

No four jin left.

Qiao Ning explained the situation to both; two jin each wasn’t even enough to split.

Suddenly nobody minded the price. Money came flying in, each terrified he’d sell to someone else first. One and a half jin apiece.