132,000 in the account, 33,000 in hand!

At nine o'clock on Sunday morning, November 22, the garage door was half open, and a dozen or so packages awaiting shipment remained on the floor.

When the last truck left on the afternoon of the 20th, the outstanding orders on the page had been cleared. Boss Wu's three thousand pairs had arrived in Jianqiao on the 19th. Half were packed that night and the rest during the day on the 20th, all shipped half a day ahead of the date he had written on the page.

Ma Le squatted by the entrance, using a marker to add missing size labels to the packages. He yawned after every label.

Lin Fan spread Ma Le's ledger across his knees and flipped forward from the page dated the 11th.

There was only one thing to do today: calculate every cent from the past ten days.

If he did not settle the accounts, then how much money he truly had and how big a move he could make would all be guesswork. Everything he needed to do from here on out would cost more than the last. If he acted on guessed figures, the money might run out halfway through.

From the 11th through the 20th, they had shipped more than 5,920 orders in total. They could not make up enough sizes above 39, so 240 orders were refunded. The actual number shipped was 5,680.

At thirty-nine yuan per order, plus the five-yuan shipping fee paid by buyers, they had taken in more than 249,000 yuan.

There had been four outgoing payments.

The shoes cost 92,500 yuan: 31,500 for Ye's Factory's three thousand pairs, 60,000 for Wu's Factory's three thousand pairs, and 1,000 for the two hundred pairs with incomplete sizes. Express shipping cost 19,808 yuan, and Old Xu had not charged a cent extra. Bags, tape, shipping labels, stamp ink, the seal, and those late-night meals came to 3,800 yuan. Wages were 1,400 yuan: 600 for the night of the 11th and 800 for the two later shifts.

The four payments totaled 117,508 yuan.

That left 132,300 yuan in hand.

He copied the figure onto a blank page in the ledger, then stared at it for a while after finishing.

On the night of the 11th, he had calculated 160,000 yuan in this ledger. The missing 28,000 was for Boss Wu's three thousand pairs. Ye's Factory's goods had cost ten yuan fifty per pair, while Wu's Factory's had cost twenty. That was nine yuan fifty more per pair, or 28,500 more for three thousand pairs.

That night, he had calculated everything at ten yuan fifty per pair because that was the only price he had for the batch from Ye's Factory.

The extra 28,500 yuan had bought them the date of the 20th.

"Bro, what did you write in that ledger?" Ma Le tucked the marker into his pocket and leaned over.

"I finished the calculations."

"How much?"

"One hundred and thirty-two thousand."

Ma Le froze for a moment.

"What about the one hundred and sixty thousand?"

"Boss Wu's three thousand pairs cost twenty each, nine yuan fifty more than Ye's Factory."

"Nine yuan fifty times three thousand..." Ma Le counted on his fingers, then stopped halfway, his face crumpling. "Twenty-eight thousand? Bro, you just gave someone twenty-eight thousand like that?"

"If the last truck hadn't left that afternoon on the 20th, what do you think the review section would look like?"

Ma Le opened his mouth, then squatted back down and continued adding size labels.

Of the 627 buyers needing sizes above 39, those who wanted refunds received them that same day. Those willing to exchange sizes would wait for the second batch. As for the rest, who would neither exchange nor refund, each received a scarf. The scarves cost eleven yuan twenty each. They gave away more than 110 of them, for over 1,200 yuan.

That 1,200-plus yuan bought them a review section without that ugly stretch of complaints.

With the cash accounts settled, he went through the remaining accounts one by one as well.

Inventory: around seventy pairs of boots with incomplete sizes remained, all above size 40. Scarves were on the shelves, and another batch was still held up at Old He's place. More than three hundred pairs of fleece-lined leggings were listed at high prices, waiting for someone willing to buy them. They had two storage spaces: half a garage and the sixty-some-square-meter room in the west of town, more than half of which was now empty.

Supplies: of two thousand shipping labels, more than eight hundred remained. There was one rubber stamp, two unopened rolls of waterproof bags, and a five-hundred-yuan courier deposit still sitting in Old Xu's drawer.

The store: last Friday night, its credit score had passed ten thousand, upgrading five diamonds into one crown. Another batch of orders was still waiting to automatically count as positive reviews after fifteen days.

Back in late August, he had sat in front of the computer every day, watching that number inch upward one review at a time. It had taken a whole month to climb from one heart to two hearts, just one level.

Experience: what he had accumulated this time was solid. How to prove his innocence when reported for selling counterfeit goods, and which kinds of evidence to preserve. Inventory had to be deducted only after payment, so empty orders could not be held down. After overselling, write the delivery date clearly on the page and accept the complaints. Split packing into three separate steps, and make six people work like twelve. Traffic drawn in by event pages would spill outward—he had watched that rule play out for seventeen years in his previous life, and this time he had verified it himself with 5,381 orders.

Connections: Manager Ye had accepted the receipt bearing his fingerprint and was willing to let him buy a thousand pairs on credit. Boss Wu had been willing to violate his contract to spare three thousand pairs for him, and had even covered for him with a lie. Old Xu had saved a truck for him despite the citywide gridlock. Old He could supply the scarves. The six students brought by his cousin would come whenever called.

Information: the whole internet had seen delayed orders pile up for ten or twenty days after Double Eleven. That had been proven too.

There was one more thing only he and the readers knew.

Those five or six factories in Wenzhou had been questioned one by one. They had sworn to heaven that they had not diverted even a single pair, while the factory representatives' own records had instead proven Lin Fan's case. Even now, no one could explain where this batch of goods had come from.

He closed the ledger.

Back in late August, all he possessed was five thousand yuan. Two thousand was tied up in the first batch of fleece-lined leggings, leaving three thousand available on his card. Back then, the store shipped nine orders a day, and he could sit there watching it for half an hour.

In three months, five thousand had become 132,000.

But not all of that 132,000 was available to use.

Buyers confirmed receipt one by one. The money from the earliest batch would arrive within three to five days, while later payments would trickle in day by day. By this morning, more than 151,000 yuan had become available between his bank card and Alipay. After paying out 117,500 yuan, he had a little over 33,000 yuan in liquid cash, while another 98,000 sat in Alipay waiting for buyers to click that confirmation button.

He looked at the figure of 33,000 twice.

When Ma Le had asked how much money his family had in total at the end of September, he had said 33,000.

Back then, 33,000 had been everything he owned. Today, it was merely the liquid money remaining after excluding what had not yet arrived.

The number was the same, but it was no longer the same thing.

The 33,000 in hand now had to settle three old accounts first.

He handled the first one as soon as he went upstairs.

He transferred Manager Ye's final payment of 8,500 yuan through online banking, then called him after it went through.

"Manager Ye, the 8,500 has arrived. Please check it. The account for the three thousand pairs is settled."

"I know, I know." The man's voice rose with laughter. "I've been waiting for this call these past few days. I advanced the workers' wages last week. Once this payment came in, I could finally breathe easy heading into the new year."

"Manager Ye, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Are the machines at your factory still there?"

There was a pause on the other end.

"They are." Manager Ye's voice lowered slightly. "The machines for both lines are still there. The workshop is locked up. I go in every three days to look around, and I've kept the belts oiled. Half the workers have scattered, but the rest are doing odd jobs nearby. If I call, seventy or eighty percent can be back within a week."

"It's just that there are no orders."

"No orders." Manager Ye clicked his tongue. "All export factories are like this now. The foreigners haven't placed orders for more than a year. We don't know the domestic sales channels, and nobody's leading the way."

Lin Fan said nothing more. He thanked him and hung up.

Ye's Factory's machines, Ye's Factory's veteran workers, and the stitching quality Ye's Factory had developed through export work—those three things were currently locked inside an empty courtyard in southern Wenzhou.

He remembered that and did not rush into the next step.

The second payment came that afternoon.

Ma Le came down from upstairs carrying a bowl of instant noodles and sat on a stool by the garage entrance.

"Bro." He slurped up a mouthful. "You still remember that thing, right?"

"Which thing?"

"My nominal fee." Ma Le set the bowl on his lap. "Last month, you said it would go from five hundred to one thousand, then we'd discuss doubling it again at year's end. It's already the twenty-second today. I figure that more or less counts as year's end, right?"

Lin Fan counted four five-hundred-yuan notes out of his pocket and pressed them onto the stool beside Ma Le's instant noodles.

"Two thousand."

Ma Le stared at the four notes and stopped slurping his noodles.

"For this month?"

"For this month. Two thousand every month from now on."

Ma Le picked up the money, counted it once, then counted it again.

"When it went up to one thousand last time, my mom said I made more putting my name on this than I would working a job." He folded the money and stuffed it into his pocket. "Bro, can I ask you something? Don't think I'm being annoying."

"Ask."

"How much money does our store actually have now?"

"One hundred and thirty-two thousand on the books, thirty-three thousand in hand."

Ma Le's mouth fell open, and the noodle bowl wobbled on his lap.

"Thirty-three thousand?" He stared blankly. "Bro, isn't that the same number you told me at the end of September?"

"It is."

"Then what am I supposed to make of that?" Ma Le braced one hand on the stool. "There's one hundred and thirty-two thousand on the books, but only thirty-three thousand in hand. Where's the money?"

"With the buyers." Lin Fan shifted the packages toward the entrance. "Only when they click confirm receipt does the money become ours. Ninety-eight thousand is still tied up there, trickling in one payment at a time."

"Oh." Ma Le bit down on his fork and thought for two seconds. "So isn't the money still rolling around in goods?"

"This time, the money is rolling around in other people's hands."

Ma Le grinned, carrying his bowl upstairs. When he reached the staircase, he turned back around.

"Bro, don't go using that thirty-three thousand to buy more inventory again."

He personally carried the third payment to the west side of town.

Ma Le's mother had come to see the empty room today. The moment she entered and saw that half the floor had been cleared, she stood there smiling for a long while, saying that it finally looked like a proper room.

He handed her the paper box he was carrying.

"Auntie, size 37. The size you asked for last time."

Sizes 36 and 37 had sold the fastest. During that period, he had not had a single pair left, and had owed her for two months. There was also a scarf tucked inside the box, off-white, the thickest one from Old He's batch.

Ma Le's mother took the shoes from the box, turned them over to inspect the soles, then reached into the cuff and grabbed a handful of the lining.

"This fleece is good." She put them on and walked around the room twice. "The little shop downstairs sells these for fifty-eight."

"This pair is thirty-nine for you, Auntie. Cost price."

"I don't care what price it is. I only want to ask one thing." Ma Le's mother took off the shoes and placed them back in the box. "Those six girls from last week—whose children were they?"

"They were classmates brought by Ma Le's cousin. All students. They helped pack packages for two nights."

"Students are good. Students know how to keep their mouths shut." Ma Le's mother hugged the box against her chest. "If you need people again, call them. Don't just hire people from outside. There's so much stuff piled in this room. The fewer people who come in, the better."

"I'll remember that."

By the time he left the west side of town, darkness was already falling. He rode back, planning out the days ahead along the way.

The goal he had set for himself in late August was complete. On Double Eleven, he had earned his first real sum of money. The store had not closed, his name had not been exposed, and not a single word had fallen on him.

There were still more than two months left in winter, and the boot market was in its prime. Right now, there was only one problem: inventory.

Ye's Factory's three thousand pairs had been leftovers from someone else's canceled order. Wu's Factory's three thousand pairs had been diverted in violation of a contract. Both deals had been lucky finds. He had reached the end of that road. Wenzhou had been picked clean, and next winter there would not be another dust-covered warehouse waiting for him.

He had 132,000 yuan now.

Someone with 132,000 yuan did not need to wait for another person's inventory to fall into their lap. He could have goods made according to his own requirements.

He knew how to choose styles, match sizes, and estimate sales. What he lacked was a factory willing to listen to him.

That factory was locked in southern Wenzhou, its machines oiled and seventy or eighty percent of its workers ready to return with a single call.

When he reached the entrance to the residential compound, he pushed his bike inside. At the garage entrance, Ma Le was carrying the last few packages indoors.

"Bro, are we still selling boots from now on?"

"We are."

"Where will the inventory come from? Didn't you say Wenzhou had already been picked clean?"

"We're not picking up leftovers anymore." Lin Fan leaned his bike against the wall. "For the next batch, I'll place the order myself and have someone make them."