Chapter 33 – The Tarot Society Is Founded, Time to Get Rich!

Su Xing naturally knew Jin Congxue was joking, so he replied in a half-joking tone:

“Sure! Getting to take care of a beauty like you? I couldn’t ask for more!”

Jin Congxue shot him a coquettish eye-roll and said:

“Tch, you little pervert!”

“Anyway, I have something serious to tell you. The reason those fifty pills sold for two million each at auction is because the pills just came out and several of my wealthy girlfriends were dying to get their hands on them, which drove the price up…”

“But going forward, the price will definitely drop… I estimate it’ll eventually stabilize at around one to one-and-a-half million per pill.”

Su Xing nodded after hearing this. It was more or less what he’d expected, so he said:

“That’s fine. One million per pill is already a huge profit for me. As long as you help me convert the money into white-grade equipment, that’s all I need!”

At an average of one million per pill, Su Xing could refine a hundred budget-version Beauty-Preserving Pills per week, which meant a weekly income of one hundred million yuan.

Converted into energy, that would yield roughly six hundred thousand energy points — absolutely no small figure.

At the very least, Su Xing wouldn’t have to worry about running low on energy anytime soon.

Hearing Su Xing’s words, Jin Congxue rolled her eyes and said:

“Dude! You really think the Jin Commerce Group’s money grows on trees?”

“Selling you a piece of white-grade equipment at nine hundred yuan is already cost price. Factor in our labor costs and we’re actually losing money!”

“And you want to buy a hundred million yuan’s worth of white-grade equipment in one go — that’s over a hundred thousand pieces! That’s nearly a tenth of our entire inventory flow!”

Su Xing immediately felt a twinge of embarrassment.

After all, the Jin Commerce Group needed to make money too. Before, they could probably earn a few hundred yuan on each piece of white-grade equipment they sold.

Now they were essentially making zero profit, working for Su Xing for free. And as Su Xing’s strength grew, his demand for white-grade equipment would only increase.

Eventually, all the white-grade equipment the Jin Commerce Group purchased in a week probably wouldn’t be enough to cover his energy consumption.

A look of apology crossed Su Xing’s face as he tentatively asked:

“So what do you think I should do? This white-grade equipment is really important to me!”

Jin Congxue thought for a moment and said:

“I don’t know why you insist on buying white-grade equipment, but that’s presumably your secret, and I won’t pry.”

“However, let me share an internal statistic from the Jin Commerce Group. Out of Great Xia’s total population of one billion, only about five hundred million are combat Class Users, and the number of Bronze-stage combat Class Users is only around four hundred million.”

“Higher-level Class Users generally don’t use white-grade equipment, which means the annual circulation of white-grade equipment across all of Great Xia is only around five hundred million pieces.”

“At your current purchasing rate of a hundred thousand pieces of white-grade equipment per week, you’d need over five million pieces a year! That’s nearly one percent of the entire market!”

“And according to Great Xia’s laws, you could even be charged with monopoly violations!”

Su Xing frowned slightly at Jin Congxue’s words. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but if he kept buying this much white-grade equipment with nothing ever leaving his hands, it would inevitably attract official attention sooner or later. That was no small problem.

And as his strength continued to grow, forget five million pieces of white-grade equipment a year — even fifty million was a possibility!

So Su Xing asked with a furrowed brow:

“White-grade equipment really is crucial for me… Is there any way to avoid these issues?”

Jin Congxue thought it over and said:

“There are ways, and more than one!”

“First, you could upgrade the quality tier. If you need green-grade equipment too, not just white-grade, then maybe it won’t draw as much attention.”

“Second, you could establish your own merchant guild specifically for purchasing low-tier equipment. You could even hire people to run dungeons and farm equipment for you… That way, not only would you save a ton of money, but you definitely wouldn’t attract any attention.”

Su Xing’s eyes lit up at Jin Congxue’s suggestions.

He had actually tried devouring green-grade equipment before. One piece yielded about fifty energy points, but a single piece of green-grade equipment cost at least twenty thousand yuan — the cost-to-energy ratio was terrible, literally twice as expensive as white-grade equipment.

But Jin Congxue’s second idea was very interesting. Establishing his own merchant guild would indeed save Su Xing a lot of trouble.

So Su Xing blinked and said:

“So, beautiful Miss Jin Congxue… could I hire you to be the head of my merchant guild?”

Jin Congxue’s eyes went wide when she heard this.

“You want me to manage a merchant guild for you? Please… I’m part of the Jin Commerce Group! Strictly speaking, if you start a merchant guild, you’d be our competitor!”

Hearing that Jin Congxue hadn’t outright refused, Su Xing immediately sensed an opening. He pulled out several high-quality Beauty-Preserving Pills he’d refined earlier and handed them over, saying:

“Ahem, of course I wouldn’t ask you to work for free! These Beauty-Preserving Pills — as many as you want! And in the future when I refine other pills, you’ll get priority!”

Jin Congxue took the pills and said wistfully:

“My, how generous of you, boss! A single premium Sugar Mama Bliss Pill is worth at least five million… and you’re just casually handing out tens of millions in salary!”

Jin Congxue thought for a moment and said:

“But registering a merchant guild requires quite a lot. Not only do you need sufficient capital, you also need a certain network of connections…”

Su Xing blinked and said:

“You’re the young lady of the Jin Commerce Group! How could you possibly lack connections?”

Jin Congxue rolled her eyes:

“So you’re just going to use me as free labor, huh? I do have quite a few resources at my disposal, and they’d definitely be enough to get a guild off the ground in the early stages… But here’s the thing!”

“Starting a merchant guild costs serious money. The initial investment needs to be at least a billion yuan, and you’ll need to line up a batch of people specifically for dungeon farming… Though on that point, you actually have a natural advantage. You’re a student, aren’t you? You can recruit freshmen from Capital Vocational Academy. They need to run dungeons to level up anyway, so having them farm equipment for you would be a perfect fit!”

Su Xing nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing. As for the funding issue…

Su Xing thought for a moment and said:

“I’ll give you two hundred Beauty-Preserving Pills per week… Half the money from selling them goes toward setting up the new merchant guild, and the other half goes toward buying white-grade equipment for me… Once the guild is up and running, you can invest all the weekly pill revenue into the guild. All I want is the white-grade equipment from the guild! How does that sound?”

Jin Congxue considered this carefully and said:

“If that’s the arrangement, it really could work! Two hundred Beauty-Preserving Pills per week… That’s essentially two to three hundred million yuan in capital injection!”

“With that kind of funding, I’m confident I can build the framework of a merchant guild within a week! And I also have connections at Jiangnan Academy — I can get students there to run dungeons and farm equipment too!”

After a pause, Jin Congxue added:

“But there’s still one important issue we need to settle!”

Su Xing asked, puzzled:

“What issue?”

Jin Congxue smiled and said:

“My dear boss… you haven’t picked a name for the guild yet!”

Su Xing blinked, then smiled:

“Then let’s call it… the Tarot Society.”