Beast World: A Fragile Beauty Blessed with Many Children-Chapter 149 - 148: The Lion Opens Its Jaws
Ji Liang scoffed. He lowered his gaze and fed another wonton to Si Shuo. Seeing her puffed-out cheeks as she ate with relish, his expression softened, but the words that came out of his mouth were particularly infuriating.
"What a coincidence. We’re not short on Crystal Stones, and we have no intention of selling the shop. We’ll just wait for the five-year lease to end, return your deposit, and take over the business ourselves."
Manager Ma Xiang’s eyes narrowed in anger. He lowered his voice and said, "Young man, you’re new to the Beast City. A newborn calf fears no tiger, as they say. Do you really think you can run a successful business just by owning a shop?"
"Everyone is jealous of our business, but our Gray Parrot Clan members are not to be trifled with. See this area?"
"For every ten shops selling dyed coarse cloth, two or three of them are stalls belonging to our Gray Parrot Clan!"
"I’m afraid when the time comes, not only will you have tied up a substantial amount of money in this for nothing, but you also won’t be able to hold onto the shop. It’ll be forcefully bought from you, or even snatched away."
"So, young man, while we’re still willing to be civil and negotiate a price in good faith, you should just take the easy way out!"
Ji Liang remained unmoved, not a trace of fear on his face. "Then we’ll talk about it when the time comes. After all, five years is a long time. Maybe one of my Couple Brothers will do well in the Beast Soldier Camp and become an officer who can protect our family’s business. Or maybe my little female will bring us good fortune and find us another Couple Brother from a powerful family."
He wasn’t in a hurry, but the Gray Parrot Beastmen were.
Just as he’d implied, the Gray Parrot Beastmen were trying to take advantage of the fact that Ji Liang and his companions were newcomers with no connections. If they couldn’t get their hands on the shop now, it would be even more impossible to buy it five years later!
Thinking about the five years’ rent that the He Xi Tribe had forcefully collected in advance—an amount equivalent to working eighteen months a year for free—Manager Ma Xiang’s face grew cold. "Since you refuse to see reason, we’ll follow the regulations for shop rentals in Guangshou City. We can even forfeit our deposit, but we expect you to refund the five years’ rent we paid, down to the last Crystal Stone!"
"Otherwise, you’ll have to use the shop itself to cover the debt. You can buy it back whenever you manage to gather enough Crystal Stones."
"And as for the rent for the five days we’re doing business in the shop? We’ll count that as a single day’s interest on your debt."
Zhi Qi and Si Shuo now understood the situation.
This manager was trying to use the substantial amount of prepaid rent to force them into selling the shop. Otherwise, they would be facing compounding interest—a debt that would only grow larger.
Ji Liang pressed his lips together. "How much is five years’ rent?"
Manager Ma Xiang smiled and said slowly,
"Since you don’t run a business, you don’t understand the hardships involved. There are good times, but there are also times with no business, like the rainy season and the coldest season. Our costs make up the vast majority of our revenue, so we barely earn enough to make the effort worthwhile."
"But the rent is paid monthly, and it’s not a small sum. It’s about thirty Level 10 Crystal Stones a month. For five years, that comes to two thousand seven hundred Level 10 Crystal Stones!"
"My offer to count five days’ rent as one day of interest is already incredibly merciful."
Si Shuo mentally calculated her savings. ’That’s equivalent to twenty-seven Twelfth level Crystal Stones. I can actually afford it, but he’s definitely making an outrageous demand, treating us like fools to be fleeced.’
’With that many Crystal Stones, you could buy two whole shops, even after paying some extra for connections.’
Ji Liang couldn’t help but laugh out loud. "Manager Ma Xiang, do you think that just because we’re from a small place, we can’t do math? That you can just pull a number out of thin air?"
"Or perhaps you think we don’t understand the rules in Guangshou City?"
"For something like rent collection, especially when it involves a shop, any careful party would register the agreement at the Contract Management Office to prevent either side from backing out."
"Why don’t we go look it up right now?"
Manager Ma Xiang hadn’t expected Ji Liang to know the procedure. His expression stiffened for a moment before he forced a smile. "Oh, that’s too much trouble. The He Xi Tribe collected the rent in such a hurry this time that we didn’t get a chance to register it."
Ji Liang raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "With a disposition as cautious and meticulous as yours, Manager Ma Xiang, how could you have failed to register it?"
"Are you afraid the amount of Crystal Stones we’d find on record would be worlds apart from the price you just quoted?"
"If it truly wasn’t registered, then let’s just calculate it based on market rates. The costs for your clothing shop are primarily materials, labor, technique, and rent."
"Technique and rent each account for about thirty percent of your costs. The clothing prices can’t be set too high, and it’s just as you said: customers are most willing to accept a price that’s a fifty-fifty split between cost and profit."
"As for what you wholesale to the traders, that’s pure extra profit."
"In other words, for every item you sell, rent makes up fifteen percent of the price. Excluding the rainy and coldest seasons when business is dead, you can sell two to three hundred items on a good day, and on a normal day, eighty to a hundred."
"Heh. Your clothes mostly sell for a few, or maybe a dozen, Level 6 Crystal Stones. Your daily profit is around nine Level 8 Crystal Stones. If we assume six months out of the year with no profit at all... the annual rent comes to about thirty-two Level 10 Crystal Stones. For five years, that’s just over one hundred and sixty Level 10 Crystal Stones. Even if we round up generously, it’s no more than two hundred!"
Manager Ma Xiang was shocked. Fine beads of sweat were already breaking out on his forehead. This newcomer Beastman was far from simple.
Based on just one Beast Hour of observation, he had been able to roughly calculate the shop’s profits and rent.
’He was right. The He Xi Tribe had demanded one hundred and fifty Level 10 Crystal Stones from them!’
On the Beast World Continent, Level 6 Crystal Stones were the standard currency, with the largest quantity in circulation. For example, the basic monthly salary for Beast Soldiers started at five hundred Level 6 Crystal Stones.
The price of goods in the Beast World was difficult to pin down. Si Shuo mused to herself. ’A Level 6 Crystal Core is like one yuan in RMB, but its purchasing power is staggering, similar to the 1970s or 80s back in my world. That would make a Level 10 Crystal Core feel like ten thousand yuan.’
A Beastman’s Combat Power largely determined his family’s wealth, and the disparity between the strong and the weak was enormous.
Level 6 Fierce Beasts possessed a degree of intelligence, making them difficult to hunt. When facing a Beastman, they would fight fiercely for their lives. It would take a Level 8 or Level 9 Beastman to successfully hunt one alone.
Even for Level 12-13 Beastmen, unless their Combat Power was truly exceptional, they needed to work in a team to hunt a Level 10 Fierce Beast—to say nothing of Fierce Beasts of Eleven and Twelve Levels!
For the most part, Beastmen saved their High level Crystal Stones, either for the females in their family to absorb during childbirth or to aid their own advancement to the next level.
It was only here in the Dongye Forest that people had managed to save up some High level Crystal Stones, but the He Xi Tribe had already swooped in and siphoned off a huge amount.
"A single glance tells me you’re no businessman, young man. You can’t just calculate the books like that! We work ourselves to the bone all year just to scrape by and feed our families. Besides, you know how aggressive and domineering the He Xi Tribe can be behind closed doors..."
Ji Liang cut off his long-winded speech. "Manager Ma Xiang, life is hard for everyone. Your sob story is useless on us. Just tell us how you want to resolve this!"
By now, Manager Ma Xiang was losing his confidence. Two hundred Level 10 Crystal Stones was no small sum.
He glanced at the Beast Patterns on Ji Liang’s and Zhi Qi’s necks—one was Level 10, the other Level 9. ’And according to the intel from the He Xi Tribe,’ he thought, ’the Beast Husband with the highest Combat Power at the Si Shuo Divine Female’s side is only Eleventh Level...’
