At six o'clock in the evening, Lu Yuan, dressed in clean casual clothes, sat at the open-air night market of Lao Liu Barbecue, waiting. Some chicken wings and sliced lamb chops that Xiao Shan liked were already grilling on the grill. Looking at the sizzling meat, Lu Yuan felt that he needed to stock up on more things, since he would have to pick up Wei Xiao Shan later.
In the fifth year of the apocalypse, the country's strategic reserves had been completely depleted, and everyone was eating food from nature's bounty—hard-shelled beetles. When the mutated giant rats first appeared, everyone hated them, but later, due to the arrival of the flood, the mutated giant rats never appeared again, and humanity missed that precious time.
Those smelly and hard beetles bite particularly hard. They like to eat rotting corpses and will bite when they are extremely hungry. If you don't cook them and add some seasoning, you simply can't swallow them. Lu Yuan tried it and found that he really couldn't swallow them; they were just too smelly.
Lu Yuan stared at the cumin on the mutton, lost in thought, when suddenly someone patted him on the back.
My girlfriend, Wei Xiaoshan, arrived, accompanied by a tall man covered in dragon and tiger tattoos.
The man had a handbag tucked under his arm, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and a large, gleaming gold chain around his neck. He walked with a swaying gait, like someone who had just been discharged from the hospital after a leg injury.
Lu Yuan silently stood up, pointed at the man, and asked a question.
"Xiao Shan, who...who is he?"
Wei Xiaoshan grabbed Lu Yuan's arm with a joyful expression and said in a particularly fake voice, "This is my cousin. We ran into him on the way here, and he insisted on treating us to a meal! Look... cousin, let me introduce you, this is my boyfriend, Lu Yuan!"
Seeing Wei Xiaoshan blinking her big eyes at him repeatedly, Lu Yuan immediately understood. He stood up, grabbed her hand, and said excitedly, "Oh my! Cousin, I've heard so much about you! Xiaoshan has been talking about you to me for so long, and now I finally get to meet you in person!"
The other man didn't stand on ceremony, patting Lu Yuan on the shoulder with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and said, "Cousin! Don't be shy with your brother, just let me know if you need any help! By the way! This meal is on me! Ah! Waiter, lobster! Bring two plates of lobster!"
Then he sat down on the stool, threw his handbag on the table, and took out a cigarette.
"Want a cigarette?"
Lu Yuan squinted and glanced at it. Goodness! There was still one left! He immediately shook his head to indicate that he wouldn't smoke!
"No offense, bro, but your outfit is no good! You need to follow my lead! Big gold chain and small watch! Standard attire!"
"I'm not bragging, but I've got the night market right here in Qing City under my protection. From now on, just mention my name when you eat out! We're practically family!"
"Hey bro! You still need to work on your drinking capacity! Hiccup! I'm going to the bathroom, don't go, wait for me! I'll be right back! Let's continue!"
...
And so, Lu Yuan and Wei Xiaoshan, who had drunk herself to death, waited for two hours but his cousin never showed up, and they couldn't even get his name.
When it came time to pay, Lu Yuan tearfully pulled out over four hundred yuan; his heart was broken.
"Boss! Just two plates of lobster, two stir-fried dishes, a plate of cucumber salad, and a case of beer, why is it so expensive!"
The boss wiped his hands on his greasy apron and said, "Brother, it's almost November and winter is approaching. The lobsters are almost out of season, and your cousin wants a big, meaty one. Do you know how much a pound of lobster costs?"
"Uh... I don't know."
"In the summer, it's fine. Lobsters are everywhere and usually cost around ten yuan. But it's different in winter. A pound costs at least thirty yuan, and if you pick a big one with lots of meat, it will cost even more!"
Thirty-something yuan per pound? Lu Yuan's eyes suddenly lit up. People in Qingshui City love to eat lobsters. Damn it, I have such an awesome dimensional space in my hands and I don't know how to make money! Am I stupid?!
Lu Yuan immediately asked the night market vendor for a male and a female crayfish as a souvenir, and the vendor generously waived the money.
Carrying the drunken and incessantly muttering Wei Xiaoshan on his back the whole way, Lu Yuan began to make plans in his mind.
If the growth rate of crayfish in the dimensional space is about ten times that of plants in the outside world, the original maturation time for crayfish is about two months, which is even slower when the weather is cold. However, since there are no seasons in their own space, the growth cycle of crayfish can be shortened to six days. The area of the small pond is about ten square meters, and about two hundred crayfish can be raised per square meter, so ten square meters would be two thousand crayfish. If some crayfish seedlings are released every day, a batch of crayfish can be harvested every day after a week, since the small crayfish seedlings do not take up much space.
A crayfish weighs about 50 grams, so 2,000 crayfish would weigh 200 jin (100 kg). According to the night market vendor, the purchase price for a jin of crayfish is about 30 yuan, so 200 jin would be 6,000 yuan. This means that he could earn about 170,000 to 180,000 yuan per month.
Lu Yuan thought about it for a moment and the plan was feasible! He would start his first pot of gold here for now! People in Qing City love to eat lobsters. Although it was already November, the night market business was still booming. The night market would buy as many lobsters as there were, so there would be no need to worry about sales. In six days, they could produce 2,000 catties of lobsters every day. However, this would only last for three months, which was a drop in the bucket for his plan. But it was still much higher than his salary. He could only look for other opportunities while he was still employed.
Moreover, he has ten square meters of black soil where he can grow some crops, and he can also raise some poultry on the lawn to sell. This way, he will have more income. Lu Yuan decided to go to the seafood market early tomorrow morning to buy some shrimp.
Lu Yuan originally planned to take Wei Xiaoshan back to his dormitory, but halfway there he felt that letting a young woman stay overnight in his rented room would inevitably upset his future in-laws, so he simply walked an extra half hour to finally take her home.
The next morning, Lu Yuan received a call from his girlfriend, Wei Xiaoshan. She apologized and criticized her unreliable cousin. At the end, she sent him a 200 yuan red envelope, saying it was for yesterday's meal. It was a matter of principle, and Lu Yuan could not refuse. In the end, he accepted the money, since he was short of money anyway.
With 9,050 yuan left on the card, Lu Yuan placed the male and female shrimp into his dimensional space last night. Sure enough, there were more shrimp eggs in the pond in his space when he woke up this morning.
He took a taxi to the seafood market. Looking at the crowded people and the water everywhere, Lu Yuan knew he was late. The fresh and good stuff had already been bought up by middlemen at four or five in the morning. However, his purpose today was to buy shrimp seedlings.
Both sides of the road were lined with seafood vendors, who displayed all sorts of fish tanks and basins for passersby to choose from. However, they were all seafood products. Lu Yuan didn't know if his small pond could raise seafood. He didn't have much money, so he had to be careful when buying. However, the price of bluefin tuna was really attractive, but the growth cycle was too long, so he didn't consider it.
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