Chapter Twenty-Six: Frenzied Hoarding

Ever since Lu Kun conceived the idea of stockpiling sand ginger, he set a series of plans into motion.

There was little technical skill involved in hoarding sand ginger; the key was stability. Altogether, there would be over a month to react, and during that time, the sand ginger absolutely could not be allowed to spoil.

The first concern was storage—it was best kept in cool, damp places, covered with plastic sheeting to prevent excessive moisture loss. But the most serious issue was safety.

In the early stages, when sand ginger was still cheap, it didn’t draw much attention. Yet as the volume of buying and selling increased, this issue became impossible for Lu Kun to ignore.

He rented several inconspicuous houses in remote corners of the town and began his venture of hoarding sand ginger.

Each day, Lu Kun only bought in three to five hundred jin, but even so, it caught the attention of the street vendors at the market. Lu Kun had to lie offhandedly, claiming he had connections at the town’s food processing plant and was reselling the sand ginger to earn a little profit for his troubles.

Lu Kun didn’t restrict his purchases to Ping’an Town. In just a few short days, he had already stockpiled nearly thirty thousand jin of sand ginger, buying up most of the available supply in the surrounding towns as well.

The spiced river snail business had grown difficult—too many people had jumped on the bandwagon, and then Liu Liping had gone to the city. Without her, Lu Kun’s skill in cooking snails just didn’t cut it, so he simply gave it up.

With Aunt Zhang vouching for them, Lu Kun and his wife rented a large courtyard in the city. When they were negotiating the lease, Aunt Zhang was so distressed it seemed she might bleed from the heart, while Liu Liping, unaware of Lu Kun’s true intentions, also tried to dissuade him.

Ultimately, unable to argue Lu Kun out of it, they rented the courtyard.

After Aunt Zhang left, Lu Kun explained to Liu that the house was for storing sand ginger—he claimed he’d gotten in with the local food factory, promised to help them out, and would be paid afterward.

Since there was no worry about sales and there was money to be made, Liu offered no further objections.

Lu Kun would return to Ping’an Town in the mornings to sell vegetables and buy sand ginger, while Liu stayed in the city, cleaning up the courtyard and making space for the incoming stock.

The vegetable business in Ping’an Town still had great potential. Thanks to quick connections with the local slaughterhouse and food plant, Lu Kun could now earn over three hundred yuan in just half a day—enough to cover the cost of buying over six hundred jin of sand ginger each day!

“It seems the vegetable trade really does hold promise!” Lu Kun decided inwardly that, until the sand ginger was all sold off, he couldn’t afford to pause his work as a vendor.

An unending stream of cash flowed into Lu Kun’s little treasury, only to be spent again just as quickly on sand ginger.

These days, the family planning task force was inspecting with unusual vigor, staking out the village nearly every day. Fortunately, the pawn he had placed earlier, Li Erniu, was now proving his worth.

Li Erniu was still a bachelor—family planning concerns didn’t touch him. He moved on from Ping’an Town to nearby villages, carrying his ancestral balance scale and going door to door to buy sand ginger.

Li Erniu was skilled; he could bring in seven or eight hundred jin of sand ginger every day. With so much sand ginger, bicycles became impractical, so Lu Kun bit the bullet and asked Aunt Zhang to let him borrow the textile factory’s tractor.

He spent all his good words and some money and finally secured a tractor. The monthly rent alone was six hundred yuan, not counting fuel, and whenever the factory needed it, it would not be lent out; there was no guarantee how many days a month he could use it.

Lu Kun was shocked by the factory’s terms at first, but on reflection, they seemed acceptable. The tractor was nearly new; to buy a used one would cost at least five or six thousand yuan.

With the tractor, Lu Kun’s sand ginger operation became much smoother. Though he didn’t know how to drive one at first, it wasn’t hard to pick up after watching others.

Every day, after selling vegetables in the morning, he’d load the tractor with sand ginger and haul it to the city, storing it all in the rented courtyard. Liu Liping’s main job was to help unload and store the sand ginger properly.

After wolfing down lunch, Lu Kun would drive the tractor to the county’s agricultural market and vegetable market, buying up whatever sand ginger he could until the tractor was full, then repeating the process.

After a few days of this, Lu Kun found himself worrying—he was running low on funds. In his idle moments, he estimated he had already stockpiled over eighty thousand jin of sand ginger.

Having no money on hand was a big problem. The sand ginger Li Erniu sourced was manageable; Lu Kun could simply pay him out of the day’s vegetable sales.

But his own capital was running short, making it difficult to expand his stockpile further. He still had over ten thousand yuan stashed at home in Ping’an Village, a fact known only to Liu.

Lu Kun didn’t fully trust Li Erniu and hadn’t asked him to fetch the money. With only his two daughters at home, if outsiders learned there was so much cash in the house, trouble would surely follow.

Human nature is notoriously unreliable. Though they had plenty of money at home, Lu Kun would never deposit it in the credit union. In these times, avoiding unnecessary complications was best; once deposited, it was never easy to withdraw it again.

After several days of hesitation, as the anticipated price surge for sand ginger drew closer, Lu Kun finally made up his mind.

He didn’t intend to have Li Erniu fetch the money, but instead asked him to summon Shitou from the village.

Lu Kun could trust Shitou completely, but he could never do the same for Li Erniu. He and Li Erniu were not related and had barely exchanged words before their business dealings—hardly a basis for trust or affection. Now, Li Erniu was paid daily for his efforts in buying sand ginger, earning a decent sum; they were partners, nothing more.

For now, things were fine, but once the price of sand ginger rose significantly, Li Erniu might start entertaining other ideas.

One can never be too careful; the old adage about trusting those you employ was nonsense. Lu Kun knew that when you haven’t fully grasped a person’s character, you must be prudent in how much you trust or use them.

...

“So, what’s the rush? It’s not like I got caught or anything. Why do you need me out here so urgently?” Shitou grinned, his tone irritatingly cheeky.

Lu Kun shot him a fierce glare before revealing the hiding place of the money at home, asking him to carefully bring it out—he had urgent need of those funds.