After Chen Chao finished reviewing the ledger, his face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. The rice shop manager shrank his neck, lowered his head, and dared not utter a word.

He knew very well why his boss was angry. It was because, in order to please someone, they had bought a large quantity of old rice, more than a hundred tons, from that person, but only received a price of three cents for inferior rice. The other party's losses were basically all transferred to their shop.

However, he was truly innocent. It wasn't even the boss's younger brother who made the decision. He even reported it to the authorities, but the boss said, "Oh, don't ask me about such a small matter."

The current price of aged rice is 40 cents, and sales have been so-so recently. In addition, there was a light drizzle for more than a month, and a lot of it even started to mold. He estimated that the purchase price was nearly 70,000 yuan, but less than 3,000 yuan was sold. The rest was a loss. Although he had sifted out all the moldy parts, nearly half of them were still moldy and could not be sold in the shop. So the final fate was to feed them to livestock. They would have to process them properly before the pig farm would buy them. It was a lot of work and time, but they could still break even by a few thousand yuan.

Yuan Zhuan looked up at the signboard: "Super Rice Shop," a very down-to-earth name.

This was the last rice shop in the area, and after comparing prices and quality at several other shops, she felt confident in her choice.

"Boss, how much are you selling the second-grade rice this time?" The second-grade rice was placed in a prominent position. Oh, and there was also old rice. The old rice was so blatantly displayed on the sign. Yuan Zhuan was very interested in this kind of rice. Most importantly, it was cheap.

In the post-apocalyptic world, even moldy rice can be sold at high prices after a little processing.

It's understandable that the environment shapes people; after all, when basic needs like food and clothing are scarce, who cares about quality?

"Six cents." The shop manager greeted him with a friendly smile.

Six cents, it's all the same price. "Boss, I want ten tons, what's the price?"

Originally, Chen Chao thought the girl was just buying some things for her family, but when the ten-ton exploding incident occurred, he threw the ledger on the table and came over.

Even though he's just a child, there are adults at home!

"Little sister, you want ten tons? I can give you the best price. Where are your parents? We can talk in the yard." Chen Chao smiled and looked very friendly.

“My family runs a general store, located at No. 128 in the middle of 11th Street. Are you the owner?” After thinking for a moment, Yuan Zhuan decided to let Cao Ming act as the parent. She looked too young, the amount of money was too large, and the quantity of goods was too huge, making it difficult to trust her. If she were a merchant herself, she wouldn’t dare to accept tens of thousands of yuan in cash from an eight-year-old girl.

“Yes, yes.” Chen Chao’s eyes shone even brighter.

"Then bring some samples of the lower-grade rice and old rice from your shop, and come with me."

"Okay, just a moment, I'll be right there. Liu Hu, hurry up, didn't you hear what the little sister said? Grab some samples, I need to take them with me."

After saying the same thing, Yuan Zhuan strode away, agreeing to meet at the shop at three o'clock in the afternoon.

When Cao Ming received the shopping list from Yuan Zhuan, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "You want everything at the lowest price? Moldy stuff is fine too?"

"Moldy, only in the case of grains," Yuan Zhuan corrected. Rice and flour might be slightly off, enough to fill one's stomach, but not other foods. What if one dies from diarrhea before even filling their stomach? There's no medicine there. She knew all too well how sought-after moldy rice and flour were in the apocalypse; it was mostly consumed by the poor.

"good."

Cao Ming, acting as the elder brother, talked with the five invited bosses for an afternoon and finally decided to order several kinds of grains from three of them: soybeans, flour, brown rice, cornmeal, and corn. He ordered rice from Chen Chao's shop and bought all of his normal old rice for two cents. He paid a total of one thousand for the moldy parts, including everything, without having to deal with the moldy parts.

In the end, Yuan Zhuan spent all 10,000 yuan and still owed Cao Ming 10,000 yuan.

After seeing the guests off, Yuan Zhuan went back to his room with a dark expression.

"The system shop has good stuff. You can use it to make money in your world, or you can sell it." The system suddenly became very understanding.

Yuan Zhuan gritted his teeth and opened the system that made him owe money. He saw the golden pyramid icon on the screen, tapped it, and a row of item pictures appeared before his eyes.

Steamed bun machine! Dumpling machine! Candy machine! There are only three types, each costing one silver coin, and the price isn't expensive.

"This thing doesn't exist in your world. It's not one of those postmodern machines. The filling in these buns will have its essence extracted and the dross removed, resulting in an exceptional taste. If you sell the machine, someone can disassemble it, and even your postmodern precision instruments can't replicate it. So, sell it with confidence. I've secured three of each for you. The same goes for dumplings and candy. Nine machines should bring you a considerable profit."

"Strive for it?" Yuan Zhuan keenly seized upon the flaw in the wording.

The system paused for a moment before replying, "It refreshes at the beginning of each month, and the inventory remains the same as now."

"Do you have a higher-level system?"

silence……

After asking several times without receiving a reply, Yuan Zhuan understood what was going on.

Let's put the steamed bun and dumpling machines aside for now, but we can use the candy machine in the grocery store.

He bought one for a silver coin and cashed it in the store. A porcelain-white machine that looked like a stand-up juicer appeared out of thin air on the table. Yuan Zhuan tapped and touched it. It didn't feel like porcelain. It felt more like postmodern acrylic material, but it wasn't quite like that. In short, it had a smooth texture and looked very high-tech.

Looking at the instructions on the screen, Yuan Zhuan finally relaxed, because the production and operation were very simple.

After disassembling and washing it, Yuan Zhuan went out to buy materials: several pounds of white sugar, brown sugar, and fruit. He cut them into pieces and stuffed them into the inverted cone-shaped inlet along with the sugar. He added some water, plugged in the power, and the machine started to run. The porcelain-white exterior didn't show what was happening inside; there was only a slight hum, not noisy, and nothing spilled out. In just a few seconds, two outlets appeared: one for the residue and the other for the liquid sugar. After a few more seconds, the half-liter jar was full. Apart from purifying ingredients, it was just like a juicer.

I picked it up and took a sniff. Mmm, the apple aroma was amazing, the sweet smell was so tempting, and my mouth started watering involuntarily.

She hasn't eaten candy in a long time, from her past life to this one. The only time was when she bought white sugar with Piggy last time.

He scooped up a spoonful and popped it into his mouth. It was sweet but not cloying, with a refreshing apple aroma that made Yuan Zhuan squint his eyes in delight. So delicious!

She poured the first batch of test product into the mold and set it aside. She planned to make all the rest and take them to Liu Da. Liu Da would be the child's little dock. With a new product, she needed to promote it!

Toothpick candy was the name she gave to her family's first product.

After working for an hour, I made over a hundred toothpick candies. The thumb-sized candies solidified on the tips of the toothpicks. They were brown and looked ordinary, but the taste was absolutely perfect.