Buying Gold to Recharge
After he paid the bill, he left everything else to the professionals.
When the time came, Jiang Yiming only needed to go to the crematorium and collect the ashes.
"I promised I'd avenge you, uncle!"
"What I need to do most now is unlock the system shop as soon as possible and get stronger! Only when I'm strong enough can I challenge Tu Ming!"
To unlock the shop, he first needed to buy gold.
With that in mind, he went straight to the Dragon and Phoenix Jewelry mall.
Actually, gold bars were cheaper at the bank, but he would have had to make an appointment in advance. Jiang Yiming didn't want to wait, so he chose to buy them at the mall instead.
The jewelry mall had five floors, and the entire ground floor sold gold, with at least twenty brands.
The young women at every counter were enthusiastic, politely welcoming everyone who passed by.
Jiang Yiming looked around as he walked. Gold bars were generally priced between 460 and 490 yuan per gram.
Just as he was wondering which shop to choose, a gentle voice suddenly came from behind him.
"Handsome, looking to buy gold?"
He turned and saw that the speaker was a woman in her forties.
"You sell gold? Which counter?"
"Come, come, follow me. It's not in here." The woman grabbed his sleeve. "Everything here is too expensive. At our place, it's fifty or sixty yuan cheaper per gram!"
When Jiang Yiming heard that her shop wasn't in the mall, he was somewhat reluctant. But when he thought about the price, he was tempted.
At fifty yuan less per gram, the kilogram he wanted to buy would cost fifty thousand yuan less!
And so, as if possessed, he followed the woman out of the mall.
The two crossed an alley under the sun, and when they arrived, Jiang Yiming was dumbfounded.
"This... this is your gold shop?"
The shop in front of him was only a dozen square meters or so, with cheap paint on the walls. It looked as though it had been fitted out in a hurry.
The woman pulled him inside. "Don't be fooled by how small our shop is. Everything we sell is genuine!"
As soon as they reached the counter, the woman changed roles, turning from a salesperson into a sales assistant in an instant.
The shop's original sales assistant could only take the hint and step aside.
Jiang Yiming felt that the place was a little unreliable, but he asked anyway, "Do you have gold bars here?"
"Gold bars? Yes! Yes!" As she spoke, the woman deftly took out a gold bar.
It was about twelve centimeters long, three centimeters wide, and one centimeter thick. It felt heavy in his hand, weighing about half a kilogram.
"Four hundred and twenty-eight yuan per gram, guaranteed ninety-nine percent pure gold!" The woman pointed at the bar, her tone sincere.
Jiang Yiming couldn't tell real gold from fake, but that didn't matter, because the system surely could.
System, time to collect the gold! he said silently.
The system quickly responded.
[Detection initiated. The gold in the host's hand weighs 503 grams. Hand it over?]
Not yet.
He had only asked the system to verify whether it was real. It wasn't convenient to hand it over yet.
Having confirmed that the gold in his hand was real, he set it aside and said, "I'll take this bar. Do you have more? Bring me another."
"Yes!" The woman hurriedly took an identical bar from a drawer beneath the cabinet.
The system checked both bars and found them genuine. Together, they weighed 1,005 grams, enough to unlock the system shop!
Jiang Yiming said decisively, "Ring them up. I'll take both bars."
The woman and the sales assistant seemed to have never met anyone so decisive before. Neither of them moved.
A full three seconds passed before the woman came to her senses, her face crumpling into a smile. "Certainly! This way, handsome."
The total came to over 430,000 yuan. As Jiang Yiming paid by card, he watched the gold bars on the glass counter five steps away.
As he entered his PIN, he was still thinking, I really did stumble into dogshit luck, getting so much money all at once. Then I got lucky again and bought gold this cheap!
After paying, he immediately took the receipt and excitedly went to collect the bars from the counter. He grabbed one in each hand and rushed impatiently toward the door.
"Handsome, I haven't packaged them for you yet!" the woman called after him.
"No need." Jiang Yiming stepped through the door without looking back, unafraid that anyone would rob him of the gold bars in his hands.
Watching him leave, the woman and the other clerk exchanged smiles.
"That's the first time I've seen such a careless fool."
"Ma'am, you're really something. Your commission must be pretty big again this time, huh?" The clerk beside her looked envious.
Jiang Yiming left the gold shop in high spirits and immediately found a secluded spot. System, you can really collect the gold bars this time! he said to himself.
The system quickly responded.
[The gold in the host's hands is fake and cannot be collected.]
"..."
Jiang Yiming's face turned livid in an instant.
The system wouldn't lie. Clearly, the gold bars had been switched!
"How could this happen?! I kept my eyes on the bars the whole time. Where did things go wrong?"
He had heard of adulterated gold and short weights, but this was the first time he had ever seen someone outright switch gold bars worth hundreds of thousands.
They had some nerve!
"I won't stand for this!"
Jiang Yiming immediately pulled out his phone, ready to call the police.
After pressing "1" twice, he reconsidered. Since they dared to do this, they surely weren't afraid of him calling the police. Whether the police could resolve the matter was hard to say.
With that thought, he put away his phone and decided to seek justice in his own way!
When he returned to the gold shop, the woman and the clerk looked wary, as though they had already decided he was there to cause trouble.
Strangely, Jiang Yiming wore a smile the whole time and didn't look at all like he was there to cause trouble.
The woman was more experienced and worldly. Feigning composure, she said, "Welcome. Is there anything else you need, handsome?"
Jiang Yiming put away his smile and said in a measured tone, "Those two gold bars... weren't enough. I'd like to buy some more."
The first half of his sentence gave the woman a fright. The clerk had already picked up a walkie-talkie and had nearly pressed the button to speak.
Hearing the rest, the two finally breathed a sigh of relief. The woman smiled and said, "Whatever you want, take your pick."
Jiang Yiming didn't stand on ceremony. Lowering his head, he pointed at items at random inside the glass display case.
"This, this, and this too. Put them all on the scale."
The woman smiled as she kept taking out gold. She had nearly emptied the jewelry from the counter.
"Jewelry costs a little more, 458 yuan per gram," she reminded him.
Jiang Yiming acted as though he hadn't heard and kept telling her to add more gold to the scale.
Fifty grams... 213 grams... 480 grams...
It went all the way up to 5,000 grams, reaching the electronic scale's limit.
"Do you want to add more?" the woman asked.
Jiang Yiming thought for a moment, then said, "That's enough. Pack it up."
The woman was a little puzzled. This was the first time she had seen someone sell so much gold without even touching it.