Chapter 296: Chapter 296
"So... you’re missing an auction house, right? What if I use my Big Data auction house to buy shares? That should be possible, right?" Su Malie asked, her lively eyes sparkling playfully, considering this was entirely her personal asset.
"Haha, sure." Qian Duoduo arranged for someone to handle the share transfer and then hurried off to deal with the situation on-site. As for whether Qian Duoduo and Su Malie’s father genuinely disliked each other or if it was all an act, Jing Shu had no idea. It was just as Qian Duoduo had said: regardless of the truth, they both had to appear to hold opposing political views and play their respective parts.
Jing Shu did not sign the 5% share transfer agreement, and surprisingly, they didn’t pressure her. Instead, they offered a professional smile. "After the apocalypse, the country optimized the relevant regulations. We’ve directly recorded your shareholdings through Big Data. So, whether you sign or not, it makes no difference."
The key issue was that Jing Shu couldn’t refuse, nor could she rush forward and tell everyone the real situation—like saying, "I know you’re going to kick the bucket in three years, Stone Garden will be confiscated, and the government will take all the peaches." She also couldn’t just say she wanted to cut ties with them now to avoid trouble three years down the line, could she? After all, it was a kind gesture from Qian Duoduo.
Jing Shu’s head buzzed dully. She forced a smile, her mind filled with images of all her food being forcibly requisitioned in three years, and shareholders like her being fleeced, forced to hand over everything they had gotten from Stone Garden. Her main worry was whether her family would be traced and stripped of all the food she had painstakingly saved up over the years. She was even more afraid that if her family’s situation was exposed, she would then truly understand how Qian Duoduo must have felt in her previous life when the tyrant came to their door, demanding to "borrow" all their food.
Food she had earned through her own efforts, neither stolen nor robbed, and now she might suddenly have to give it all away. The apocalypse was far from over. Would she and her family have to subsist on porridge mixed with rotten corpse insects from now on? What, then, was the point of all her hard work? In the apocalypse, one had to first ensure their own living conditions were met, and only then, help others to the best of their ability. It’s like working hard for five years to earn a million, only to be asked to 990,000... Going from eating meat and soup every day to just porridge—such a drastic change, probably no one would be willing. But one had to find a way; you couldn’t just let a pressing problem be your undoing. Since accepting Qian Duoduo’s 5% shares was now a certainty, she had to focus on finding a solution from every possible angle, rather than continuing to avoid the issue.
"There must be a win-win solution," Jing Shu thought, squinting as her ideas began to crystallize. "A way to satisfy the tyrant’s exorbitant demands while also saving Qian Duoduo from ruin, preventing Stone Garden from being completely dismantled and seized by the government, and allowing both sides to survive and even profit." She sensed she was onto something.
Su Malie, meanwhile, had finished exchanging shares with the professionals. She ultimately traded 20% of her auction house’s shares for 1% of Stone Garden’s. Su Malie probably invested purely for the food, Jing Shu mused.
"Let’s go, Jing Shu. Let’s see what’s happening over there," Su Malie said, pulling Jing Shu towards the noisy area.
Jing Shu hummed in agreement, but her mind was elsewhere. The reasons the tyrant would eventually be pushed to slaughter Qian Duoduo—that "fat pig"—were the countless daily deaths from starvation in Wu City and the growing apathy and despair among the populace regarding the apocalypse. If the people could regain hope for the future and the will to live, and if there was enough food to prevent mass starvation during those critical times, perhaps the situation wouldn’t become so dire. Qian Duoduo might only need to a significant portion of his supplies, enough to prevent Stone Garden from being dissolved, and the crisis could be averted. However, Wu City had a population of a million. Even if everyone consumed only thin porridge daily, the amount of food required would be astronomical. Qian Duoduo, for all his wealth and resources, having expended vast manpower to stockpile so much food, had only enough to provide Wu City with three days’ worth of liquid sustenance to stave off starvation. Even Jing Shu’s Magic Cube Space, working relentlessly to grow crops, couldn’t produce and store that much food. An individual’s power was minuscule in the face of such a cataclysm. She, Jing Shu, couldn’t even save Wu City, let alone Huaxia, or the billions of people on Earth.
"Ultimately, this is something the people must resolve themselves; I can only play a guiding role," Jing Shu silently resolved. The fifth year of the apocalypse, a time when the land would be strewn with the bodies of the starved, was less than three years away—in fact, just a little over two years remained.
Jing Shu took a deep breath and composed herself. There were things she had initially feared, tried to evade, and dared not confront. But once she thought them through, they didn’t seem so daunting. She would first ensure her own family’s living conditions were secure, and then she would do her utmost to help Qian Duoduo and Wu City. As the saying goes, one can plan, but success is in the hands of fate.
"Jing Shu, have you come around? You were so down before. Don’t feel burdened; we are all grateful to you for fearlessly saving us. Every time I think of it, I want to thank you again," Su Malie said, holding Jing Shu’s hand and swinging it back and forth – just as young girls often do.
"Yes, I’ve come around. Since it was offered to me, I’ll accept it," Jing Shu said with a calm smile. Of course, she wasn’t just accepting shares, but also a burden of responsibility.
When Jing Shu arrived, Qian Duoduo had already taken care of things. Jing Shu was surprised to bump into a familiar face: Heng Jin’s father, Heng Jiu. Heng Jin was the young master of Hengda Logistics Company from the Initial Stage of Apocalypse. He, along with Jing Shu, had sued Sun Yinrui. After the apocalypse began, he had undertaken Jing Shu’s task of transporting the RV from within the country to Wu City.
Heng Jin’s father, Heng Jiu, was a shrewd and seasoned middle-aged man—a truly capable individual. Indeed, he had the confidence for it. When Qian Duoduo had tried to swindle him, Heng Jiu had deftly turned the tables, outmaneuvering Qian Duoduo and essentially swindling him instead.
As everyone knows, logistics is an indispensable part of any industrial chain, combining transportation, storage, loading and unloading, packaging, distribution processing, delivery, and information management as needed to meet user requirements. Express delivery is a branch of logistics focused on delivering packages directly to customers; the two differ significantly. Qian Duoduo wanted to develop a One-Stop Base, making logistics essential. However, logistics were currently integrated with and controlled by the government, which was also responsible for managing reserve food supplies and other materials. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩·𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢·𝔫𝔢𝔱
"As for giving out shares of the logistics company, I don’t have any to spare," Heng Jiu stated, clearly indicating he didn’t want to offer any shares and hoped to be an exception.
In the end, Qian Duoduo was still outmaneuvered, giving up 3% of his shares and promising to provide all future resources for the One-Stop Base. This was on the condition that Heng Jiu would allocate a dedicated team to manage the One-Stop Base’s logistics.
Undoubtedly, this was a benefit secured by a father for his son. The name ultimately recorded was Heng Jin’s. Jing Shu hadn’t expected to be so connected to Heng Jin by fate, to the point of becoming ’colleagues’ in the future. But when it came to being the ultimate "swindler"—getting something for nothing—Jing Shu herself probably took the crown.