Five Thousand Rolled into Thirty-Three Thousand, Next Up: Snow Boots!

Mid-October, Saturday night, nine o'clock. The garage was so quiet he could hear the bulbs humming.

The one bulb had been replaced with two last month, and two rows of iron shelves had been added against the wall. The shelves were sparse now—only around three hundred pairs of Leggings remained, along with less than half a batch of scarves. A month ago, anyone turning around in this room had to sidestep.

Ma Le had gone to a wedding banquet, leaving Lin Fan alone upstairs and downstairs.

He moved over a small stool, sat down, spread the notebook across his knees, and began flipping through it from the start.

On the first page, the week the products had gone online, there were only three figures: three, five, three. Each stroke of the handwriting was painstakingly written, far heavier than it was now. During those nights, he'd crouched in front of the computer revising titles until his eyes ached. Whenever an order came in, he could stare at it for half the day.

Further on: thirty-one, thirty-five, forty-two. The day the cold front arrived: one hundred sixty-four. The night the event page opened: one thousand one hundred six. Then came a stretch of four- and five-hundred-order days. Starting in October, major sellers had recovered and charged into the market. The good days of 9.9 pricing were over, and orders fell back to just over two hundred. He hadn't lingered in the fight. He raised his prices, kept his margins, and gave up the volume.

He'd eaten well off the seasonal change from September to mid-October. A full month. It was time for it to end.

Every market had its peak. He'd understood that principle inside out in his previous life. By the time profits had made others jealous enough to rush in, smart people were already looking for the next table.

He turned to a blank page and wrote down, item by item, everything he had built up over the past two months.

Cash in the bank: 28,600. Payments still on the way: just over 3,000. Remaining stock on the shelves, discounted: around 1,000. All together, a little over 33,000.

The fifth Diamond had been added above the shop's name last week. It had over five thousand reviews and nearly a thousand returning customers. On Old He's end, another two thousand or so scarves had moved this month. Whenever he called, he'd open by asking what new products Boss Ma would be putting out for winter.

What had things looked like two months ago? He didn't need to flip through the notebook. He could see it with his eyes closed.

His entire fortune had been five thousand. Two thousand had been tied up in the first batch of test products, leaving three thousand in cash. He'd carried that three thousand on a hard-seat train to Yiwu, then haggled with Old He outside the factory gates for half an hour before getting the price down to 2.9.

Back then, money had been so tight that he had to count every roll of tape. If a payment came three days late, the second batch of goods would fall through.

He'd entered with five thousand and come out with thirty-three thousand. In two months, it had multiplied sixfold and then some.

Money was one thing. What lay beneath it was more valuable: a shop welded to the first page of search results, a factory that answered whenever called, a set of skills tested from product selection to price wars, and peace of mind that the whole department hadn't managed to figure out even after studying him for an entire round.

During the day, the black-horse shop had faded from a hot topic into old news. Zhou Bin still repeated his line about how the shop had been nowhere to be found before the new year whenever he met someone. The whole group was waiting to see the October numbers. Fine, let them wait. Leggings sales would fall by the end of October, but what this shop sold afterward was no longer Leggings' concern.

The door downstairs opened. Ma Le came back humming, reeking of alcohol and carrying half a bag of wedding candies.

"Yo, working overtime, Manager Ma?" He set the candies on the shelf. "Brought these for you. Share in the good luck."

"Perfect. I've got something to tell you." Lin Fan closed the notebook. "Starting this month, your name-lending fee is one thousand."

Ma Le's hand froze as he unwrapped a candy.

"Doubled?" He narrowed his eyes. "For no reason at all, what big thing are you using my name for now?"

"My name's been doing big things all along," Lin Fan said. "Over the last two months, you've handled more than half the receiving, moving, and packing. Five hundred won't cut it anymore. It goes up to one thousand. If the shop moves enough volume later, I'll double it again at the end of the year."

"Then I'll take it." Ma Le popped the candy into his mouth and grinned through it. "My mom keeps saying I've wasted away from lying around at home all day. She needs to know her son can make a thousand even while lying down."

After laughing, he seemed to catch something and shot Lin Fan a sidelong look.

"Wait a second. If even the name-lending fee has gone up to one thousand, then the total amount this business has made must be pretty big, right?"

"Chairman Ma, we agreed: managers handle the numbers."

"Fine, fine, I won't ask." Ma Le waved it off, then suddenly remembered something and leaned closer. "Hey, seriously. When my cousin came over during National Day, she saw all this stuff in the garage. When she went home, she kept talking to my mom about how everything sells online now. She even asked whether you'd be stocking those fuzzy snow boots for winter. Every girl in her dorm wants a pair, but they can't find many decent ones online."

Lin Fan looked up.

"Those were her exact words?"

"Exactly. Why, is there something there?"

There was. More than something.

He'd waited half a month for those words, waited for them to naturally come out of the mouth of a twenty-year-old girl.

He remembered the accounts from his previous life perfectly. It was this very winter that snow boots went crazy online for an entire season. The things were ugly and clunky, but they were light, warm, and cheap enough. Young women bought a pair each. They went from being recognized by almost no one to being everywhere. This wave had fattened a group of people, the first being a boot seller in Hangzhou named Lei Xiangdong. In one winter, he'd gone from a stall owner to one of the notable figures in the category.

Leggings had been practice. Thirty-three thousand was capital. Snow boots were the main course he was preparing for Double Eleven.

He'd already timed the main course perfectly. Double Eleven was November 11, leaving a little over twenty days at most. Boots were more expensive than pants, with each pair costing dozens of yuan. Even if he threw all thirty thousand-plus into it, he could only take several hundred to a thousand pairs. So he had to choose exactly the right style, cut the price as low as possible, and make sure not a single cent went into the wrong place.

He'd sent out for samples last week. There were two factories: one Old He had asked a familiar freight forwarder about, and the other he'd selected after digging through wholesale websites for three nights. He'd transferred two hundred yuan in sample fees to each. The goods should arrive within the next couple of days.

There was just one concern weighing on his mind.

The calendar from his previous life only told him which way the wind would blow. But he'd entered the game two months early and churned up the Leggings market like this. It wouldn't be strange if others moved early too. Whether that man surnamed Lei would still make his move on the original schedule in this life was anyone's guess.

So the moment the samples arrived, he'd settle on a style. Once the style was settled, he'd throw down the money and lock in the stock. Better early than late.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." Ma Le waved a hand beside him. "Are we stocking boots or not?"

"We are." Lin Fan stuffed the notebook back into the drawer. "Tell your cousin to let me know when the boots are available. I'll give her dorm's pairs for free."

"Generous, huh?" Ma Le grinned. "What about me? I want a pair too, size forty-three."

"You'll get a pair too. Keep your feet warm while you're packing."

"Right, so you're still making me work." Ma Le wailed and collapsed onto the sofa. "But first things first—before the goods arrive, I'm going to lie around to my heart's content."

"Go ahead." Lin Fan stood and turned off the lights. "There won't be many days left for lying around."