Chapter 95
"defect?"
Tang Yu'an followed Zhou Qi and couldn't help asking when he heard him talk about what he had thought of when he was promoting salt tickets with Granny Guo.
"What flaw?"
At this moment, they had already left Grandma Guo's house. Jin Lili was lying in Zhou Qi's backpack, raising her little head to look at the umbrella above their heads.
After the umbrella appeared, she felt very comfortable.
It was neither cold nor hot. She had never felt so comfortable since she could remember!
She couldn't understand the conversation between her two brothers, so she stared at the umbrella curiously.
The conversation between Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi continued.
Zhou Qi replied: "It's more of a loophole than a flaw."
"What do you mean?" Tang Yu'an asked.
"First of all, the production cost of our three types of salt tickets is the same. No matter what color the salt ticket is, it is worth 1 point."
Zhou Qi explained: "But our selling prices for the three qualities of salt are different."
Tang Yu'an fell into deep thought.
"If customers use salt tickets to exchange for salt, we will naturally make a profit," Zhou Qi continued.
In the wholesale market, 1 point can be exchanged for 10 grams of refined salt, and the production cost of a salt ticket is 1 point. When trading with salt tickets, it means that customers can only exchange 1 point for 1 gram of salt.
With a 10-fold difference, they make money no matter how they convert it.
Not to mention the lower value coarse salt, which costs 1 point/20 grams, they will only earn more.
but……
Tang Yu'an frowned and thought, then suddenly realized: "If we exchange it for salt, we will make a profit, but if we exchange it for other things, it may not be possible!"
"right."
Zhou Qi nodded. "Platinum salt tickets are more expensive. Although they are worth the same as gray gold and black gold, they can be exchanged for more other things."
At the price they set yesterday—
1 platinum salt ticket = 2.5 gray gold salt tickets = 5 black gold salt tickets, which means 1 gram of refined salt = 2.5 grams of coarse salt = 5 grams of sea salt.
Assuming that customers use salt tickets to exchange for soybeans, the point value of soybeans is 5 points/100 grams. If customers use 10 black gold salt tickets to trade for 100 grams of soybeans, they can make a net profit of 5 points.
But if they exchanged 2 platinum salt tickets for 100 grams of soybeans, they would lose 3 points.
"So, if we want to use salt tickets to earn points, we must increase the point value of platinum salt tickets and gray gold salt tickets."
As it is now, all salt tickets are worth 1 point, which is definitely not acceptable. This is the biggest loophole and obstacle.
The salt tickets they issued were not real paper money.
Because in the system's judgment, banknotes are just a piece of paper, and it currently does not recognize the value symbol represented by banknotes.
"But if we want to increase the point value of salt tickets, the production cost will also increase," said Zhou Qi.
Tang Yu'an frowned and followed Zhou Qi's words and asked, "Then what do you think we should do?"
"Let's reduce the issuance of platinum salt tickets in the future." Zhou Qi said.
The more they issue, the more they lose.
They currently only have 100 platinum salt tickets, which they can distribute in small quantities as benefits to old customers - after all, even if they can't earn points, they will still gain experience points, which they can afford.
They do not restrict the types of salt tickets that can be exchanged. Black gold salt tickets can also be exchanged for refined salt, but the quantity required is a little larger.
Tang Yu'an's brows did not relax. He always felt that something was not right. Because he had been influenced by it since he was a child, although he had not learned it systematically, he was still quite sensitive to the issue of "money".
At this time, he heard Zhou Qi say: "Then, limit the goods that customers can exchange."
For example, glucose can be exchanged for 1 point/10g in the system wholesale market, which is the same as refined salt. Salt tickets can be used as sugar tickets, and both are equally precious in the wasteland.
Tang Yu'an nodded. This way, both parties can make money...
Wait, two links?
"That's not right."
At this time, Tang Yu'an realized something and said, "When we sold the salt tickets, we actually earned points."
Although the symbolic value of the banknotes they print is not recognized by the system, they are still usable.
For example, when they issued salt tickets, according to the system, if you took a piece of paper to exchange for goods with others, you could basically get points equal to the value of the goods.
Now we are giving some to customers for trial for promotional purposes, but in the future if customers want salt tickets, they will definitely need to exchange them for something.
Just like when Granny Guo exchanged 8 fruits for salt tickets, they made a profit of 64 points.
When she brings the salt tickets to exchange in the future, even if they lose money, they will not deduct the points they earned, but will just give her the goods.
This is equivalent to Grandma Guo exchanging things with them, depositing them with them first, and then taking the items back with the receipt later.
Although they can no longer earn points, they can still earn experience points.
Tang Yu'an said: "As long as the other things Granny Guo wants to exchange are equal to the value of those eight fruits, we won't lose money."
Because they have already earned points in advance, as long as they provide goods of equivalent value later, they will definitely not lose money.
Moreover, these goods are not necessarily exchanged from the system wholesale market, so the points earned before can continue to remain in your pocket, which can also be considered a profit.
"Besides, since we set the price of the goods, like the soybeans in the example just now, if we set the price so that two platinum salt tickets can only be exchanged for 10 grams of soybeans, we'll make a profit!"
Zhou Qi nodded, "But this involves another issue."
"What's the problem?"
“The use value of an object.”
Tang Yu'an was stunned for a moment. The use value of an item? Although he hadn't learned it yet, if he understood it literally...
"The value of the goods in use?"
Tang Yu'an felt like he had said something nonsense, so he added according to his own understanding: "For example, if we only use brown rice to eat, then the use value of 20 grains of brown rice is very low for us."
"But Granny Guo uses brown rice as seeds, which has a high value to her, so she is willing to trade her fruit for 20 grains of brown rice."
"Yes." Zhou Qi nodded.
An An has a talent for business and understands these concepts immediately.
"The point value set by the system is different from the use value of the goods in the wasteland." Zhou Qi said.
Not only are they different, but the gap is huge.
For example, a piece of fruit is worth 10 points, while a pound of ordinary animal meat is worth only 20 points.
In the wasteland, can two fruits be exchanged for a pound of meat? That's obviously impossible!
"Therefore, there will definitely be a big discrepancy between the price we set and the points value of the goods, which may cause confusion," Zhou Qi said. "We need to strike a balance in pricing."
But as An An said, they had already earned points once when they sold the salt tickets. As long as they didn't try to earn points when recycling the salt tickets, it would be fine.
"It feels so complicated..." Tang Yu'an couldn't help but mutter.
"Take your time."
Zhou Qi said, "For now, we only sell salt and sugar, and occasionally sell things we get from other customers. Otherwise, it would be unsafe to take out too many things at once."
Salt tickets must also be tried out for a period of time first, so that if any problems arise after they are actually put into operation, timely adjustments can be made.
Anyway, the deserted city has a small population, so it's a suitable place for a trial run.
As for whether the residents would tell the public about it? This is a wasteland, and people know that there is a "hidden" store selling salt, so they will just keep it secret.
If they want to develop customer base, they have to rely on themselves.
"Okay then, let's do as you say." Tang Yu'an nodded in response.
Having said that, the topic between the two came to an end, and Tang Yu'an immediately put this complicated issue behind him.
"Let's go! Take Lily to see our big house!"
Hearing her own name, Jin Lili finally turned her attention away from the umbrella.
She really didn't understand what her two brothers said just now. She was confused until she barely understood this sentence.
She looked at Tang Yu'an.
Tang Yu'an grinned at her, and the little girl also curled the corners of her mouth.
Seeing that she finally smiled, Tang Yu'an couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
That’s great. It seems she has temporarily gotten over the sadness of Tiejin’s departure.
When they arrived in front of the building, Tang Yu'an took Jin Lili out of Zhou Qi's backpack and waited outside with her.
After all, the brothers Bashi and Batu look quite fierce, and it would be bad if they scared Jin Lili.
Zhou Qi went into the building alone to check.
Jin Lili lay in Tang Yu'an's arms, looked up at the shadow umbrella that was automatically floating above her head, and couldn't help pointing at the umbrella and looking at Tang Yu'an in surprise.
"Haha, the umbrella is floating, right?"
“Float… float!”
The little girl became a little more lively and was willing to speak.
"Brother will take you for a walk around, and you can come here with dad to play with us in the future."
But as soon as he finished speaking, the little girl pouted again.
“Dad… Dad…”
This time she didn't cry loudly, but just sobbed and looked very pitiful.
Tang Yu'an knew that he had said the wrong thing, and it reminded her of Tie Jin again, so he quickly held her and started playing around, jumping up and down with his light body skills, and quickly diverted Jin Lili's attention.
After Zhou Qi came out, he put Jin Lili back into the backpack, then pulled Zhou Qi and took her away from this "sad place".
The child had a short memory and soon stopped being sad. He lay on the backpack and listened to them talk.
"Brother Xiaoqi, what did you trade with Bashi and the others?" Tang Yu'an asked.
He just saw the system prompt that Brother Xiaoqi had made three transactions with the Bashi brothers and earned 37 points and 4 experience points.
"They traded wild fruits for a few whole-wheat steamed buns."
Whole wheat steamed buns, as a food that can fill the stomach, still have a certain sales volume in the wasteland.
Perhaps when the demand for salt reaches saturation in the future, the residents of the deserted city will be willing to exchange salt tickets for other goods.
Of course, there is also a possibility that residents exchange salt from them and then take it to Jufeng Town to sell.
Once they open a branch in Jufeng Town in the future, the possibility of this situation occurring will become smaller.
Because the price of salt they sell is definitely lower than that of these middlemen, and it is conceivable that the salt markets in Huangcheng and Jufeng Town will definitely be impacted by the large amount of salt they put in.
However, they did not see any stalls selling salt in the market. As for other channels for selling salt, they had not had time to learn about them because they had been in Jufeng Town for too short a time.
Therefore, before going to Jufeng Town to sell salt, they need to obtain Hongli's permission first - with Chi Hao's relationship, there should be no problem.
As for the surrounding areas...
If the roads are blocked, it is difficult to cause a big impact.
Zhou Qi continued, "It should be ready by tomorrow afternoon, so we'll come here early."
"Okay." Tang Yu'an nodded, "Then should we give them some salt tickets?"
"You can give black gold as a gift." Zhou Qi said.
"Hmm." Tang Yu'an thought for a moment and said, "Then we need to print more black gold salt tickets when we get back."
Having said this, he was suddenly stunned and finally remembered what he had felt was wrong just now.
The first problem that Xiaoqi just mentioned can be solved by issuing a single type of salt ticket.
But this may lead to new problems.
For example, if you want to exchange 10 grams of refined salt, do you need 50 Black Gold Salt Tickets? For 100 grams of refined salt, that would be 500 tickets!
This will result in a huge demand for black gold salt tickets, which will also increase their production costs.
Tang Yu'an said: "So it is still necessary to issue salt tickets of different denominations!"
Zhou Qi nodded.
"You're right." He nodded, "But for the time being, we don't have to worry about encountering this problem."
With coarse salt and sea salt for sale, the number of people buying refined salt will drop significantly, and even Granny Guo prefers coarse salt.
When the coarse salt is sold out in the future, more people may still choose sea salt.
A person's daily salt intake should be less than 6 grams. According to the situation in the wasteland, 3 grams is enough, which means that a person needs a maximum of 90 grams of salt per month.
For the lowest-value sea salt, 90 salt tickets require 18 fruits, and if it is replaced with mushrooms or wild vegetables, the cost will be even higher.
In the deserted city, there are basically few people who can take out so many things to exchange at one time. If there really is, they can be replaced with gray gold salt tickets.
As for larger transactions...
To be honest, their current credibility is not up to this level.
Did Grandma Guo trust them enough? Currently, she was only willing to hold a dozen or twenty salt tickets; any more would be beyond her psychological tolerance.
Therefore, for a long time to come, bulk transactions can only be conducted in physical form.
"It seems to be true." Tang Yu'an nodded.
"The implementation of salt tickets is definitely a long process, so we need to adopt a flexible approach. We would rather have a shortage of salt tickets in the market than over-print them."
They are not a state agency or a bank, they are just a small grocery store.
The shortage of salt tickets doesn’t matter. At worst, we can just continue bartering. We can exchange salt tickets for salt, or we can exchange salt for the actual goods.
In this way, we can also try to avoid the practice of middlemen selling salt tickets at high prices - after all, salt is still a precious commodity in the wasteland.
If they limit the exchange of salt to salt tickets, reselling will definitely occur, which is not what they want to see.
"And there's another problem. The people of the wasteland haven't learned arithmetic, so converting numbers of different denominations isn't easy for them."
1 platinum salt ticket = 5 black gold salt tickets, so what is the sum of 2, 3, and 4? This is a very simple question for them, but it is very difficult for the wastelanders who have never used money and never taken math classes.
This matter can only develop slowly, they have plenty of time anyway.
"Yeah, then take your time!"
Next, Tang Yu'an opened the map and found that Old Li had returned home, so he and Zhou Qi carried Jin Lili on their backs and went to Old Li's house.
Old Li was also quite surprised to see Jin Lili.
"Is this Tiejin's adopted daughter?"
Tiejin had mentioned this before when he came to him to make a comb, and they had also talked about the situation before the disaster. Looking at the little girl's special red hair, he guessed it.
"Yes, this is Lily."
Tang Yu'an explained where Tie Jin was going, "We'll help take care of him for a few days."
Old Li was not surprised that they agreed to this. Seeing Jin Lili looking at him curiously, he reached out and pulled out a few straws, and quickly weaved them into a butterfly.
"Give."
Jin Lili took the straw butterfly, her eyes sparkling.
There was a hint of smile in Old Li's eyes, then he looked at Zhou Qi and Tang Yu'an, chatted briefly with them, and then talked about other things.
"I went to the giant lizard's nest academy these past two days. Lin's judgment should be correct. It has become very dangerous there."
He said with a rather heavy expression, "I don't know exactly what's going on inside, but besides the mutant giant lizard, there's also a powerful mutant plant."
He hadn't seen any trace of the female lizard in the past two days. Even when he got close, he didn't feel the shock of the female lizard's mental power as before.
It is very likely that the female lizard is no longer there.
If the mutant female lizard was defeated and absorbed by the mutant vine tree, it is hard to imagine how high its mutation level would be.
"You'd better not go there in the future."
Although it is a pity to think of the lizard eggs in the monitor lizard's nest, life is still more important.
Then, Old Li said worriedly, "The plants in the center of the deserted city seem to be growing outwards. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing..."
With more plants, there will be more animals, and then food will be easier to collect.
But this also means danger.
Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi looked at each other. Unexpectedly, Old Li also noticed this. It seemed that it was not their illusion.
"Hey, let's take it one step at a time."
Old Li did not continue the topic, but took out the goods he was going to trade today.
"Grandpa, have you finished your salt?"
Old Li didn't say whether he had any more, but simply said, "Want to trade in salt today? Sure."
"Would you like to try this coarse salt? It's cheaper than refined salt." Zhou Qi took out the salt jar again.
Old Li took a look and agreed.
So Zhou Qi used 4 spoons of coarse salt to exchange for a pound of meat from Old Li, earning 16 points and 1 experience point.
Then he took out four gray gold salt tickets and told Old Li the same information he had told Grandma Guo.
"Open a shop?"
Old Li looked at the two teenagers suspiciously, feeling that he was becoming increasingly unable to understand them.
Why would two kids from a fortress want to open a grocery store in a deserted city? Since they already had a stable source of salt, they weren't without roots.
What benefits can they get from opening a grocery store in a deserted city?
Old Li racked his brains but couldn't figure it out, so he finally decided to do the same as before and make the best of it.
Anyway, his life was saved by the two children, so he just needs to try his best to cooperate with them in whatever they want.
Like Granny Guo, he did not take advantage of them for nothing and took out an animal fur to exchange with them.
"Grandpa, how many fruits could you have exchanged for this animal fur from Granny Guo?"
"About four or five."
The fur can be used for sleeping at night, and one piece can be used for a long time, but the demand in the deserted city is average, and it can only be sold at a high price in Jufeng Town.
Tang Yu'an began to convert it.
1 piece of fur = 5 ordinary fruits = 5 grams of refined salt = 12.5 grams of coarse salt.
Zhou Qi had already taken out 3 platinum salt tickets and 1 gray gold salt ticket and gave them to Old Li.
"Platinum salt tickets can also be exchanged for coarse salt. One ticket can be exchanged for half a spoonful." He explained, "For now, salt tickets can only be exchanged for salt and sugar."
"Okay." Old Li nodded. "I'll definitely go change it when you open."
In the future, their store will be opened in this community, making it very convenient to move around.
After gaining enough experience points, Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi said goodbye and left to find Lin Zhen.
She had returned home, but besides her, there was a green light in her house, and she didn't know if it was her guest.
However, thinking that this was the end of the world, Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi did not take it lightly.
The green dot might be Lin Zhen’s friend, or it might be a stranger who came to rob him. After all, there was a lizard egg in Lin Zhen’s home.
They hid under umbrellas and approached carefully.
Jin Lili looked at her two brothers' sneaky behavior and looked at them with some curiosity.
Tang Yu'an made a gesture to her to keep quiet.
The little girl quickly covered her mouth and shrank into the backpack.
Seeing how cooperative she was, Tang Yu'an smiled, then jumped onto the windowsill of Lin Zhen's house with Zhou Qi.
There were voices coming from inside.
"You want a meat pancake for a piece of ice? You might as well go and rob me!" Lin Jue cursed, "You damn Lan Lin, give me back my meat pancake!"
ice?
Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi looked at each other. Could it be that ice-type mutant?
"See you, get it. We've known each other for so long. I just ate a piece of your cake. Why are you making such a fuss?"
A strange young man's voice was heard. His tone was calm and he sounded unhurried, which was in stark contrast to Lin Zhen's screams and madness.
"Asshole! Let me out!"
Hearing that Lin Zhen's voice was close to being furious, Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi hurriedly appeared from the window and looked into the house.
Lin Zhen was trapped in a circle of ice and was stabbing the ice wall frantically with a dagger, but it was of no use.
The culprit was sitting on a stone in front of her, leisurely opening his mouth to eat the bread.
He was a handsome young man with beautifully styled shoulder-length hair. You could vaguely see that some of his hair had turned ice blue, making it look as if it had been highlighted.
Furious, Lin Zhe screamed, "Believe it or not, if you take this bite, your mouth will rot and you'll have diarrhea. You'll poop out the same thing you ate!"
Lan Lin's hand couldn't help but stop.
It’s not that I was really worried that Lin Zhen would poison me, but I was disgusted by her words.
"Do you have to be so cruel?" Lan Lin was speechless.
"Let me out!"
At this time, the big parrot next to him obviously wanted to help, but was stopped by Lin Zhen: "Amu, don't come out, continue to nest."
The big parrot hesitated for a moment, then squatted back in the chicken coop.
Because of Lan Lin's appearance, the indoor temperature has dropped significantly. Now is the critical period for hatching eggs, and we can't fail.
At this time, Lan Lin also discovered the two young men outside the window.
Tang Yu'an spoke up in time: "Sister Lin, what happened? Do you need help?"
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