Reborn Cave Queen of the End Times novel Chapter 3

Autumn nodded. "Yeah. My family runs a small diner. This amount is only enough for one day's use. If the quality is good, we'll buy more. As for the price..."

The owner lit up. "Miss, what's your name? I've been in this business for eight years. I guarantee nobody in this market has better prices than me! I sell rice to other customers for 5 dollars a pound. I'll give it to you for 4.50 dollars. How about that?"

"3 dollar," Autumn countered.

"Too low. I'd lose money. 4 dollar."

"3.10."

"3.60."

"3.20."

"Deal!"

"Please deliver everything to this address." Autumn wrote down her home address.

She lived on the sixth floor, but the apartment came with a storage room and a garage. The garage faced the front gate of the complex, so it was easy to find.

Was she worried people might remember she had stored food there?

She almost laughed.

By then, she had no idea where she'd be. Who would they even look for?

Renting a warehouse cost money too. Better to save where she could.

People who had grown up poor knew how to stretch every dollar.

Her goal was to outlive everyone else. Every penny had to count.

After paying the deposit, she immediately headed to the next store.

This one gave her a huge surprise. They had old grain.

When Autumn walked in, the owner and his wife looked miserable.

"What happened?" she asked with a smile.

The wife sighed. "Our warehouse manager quit. We did an inventory and found a whole batch of grain from last year sitting in storage. Now we're stuck with it. Who wants old grain these days? We might have to sell it to a feed mill at a loss. That's if the feed mill even wants it."

A spark flashed in Autumn's eyes.

Old grain?

Old grain is perfect. Old grain is cheap.

In a world where people would eventually kill each other for food, even stale grain would become lifesaving treasure.

She smiled at once. "This is nothing. How much old grain do you have, and what's the price?"

The couple exchanged a glance and looked at her in surprise. "You want it?"

"My mom runs a farm out in the country," Autumn said with a smile. "Old grain doesn't go bad. The animals can still eat it. Just give me a good price."

"2 dollars for a pound? How's that?" the wife blurted out hopefully.

Autumn turned and walked away.

The owner shoved his wife aside and hurried after her. "Wait! Don't listen to my wife. It's just old grain. We can't ask for that much. 1 dollar for a pound. How about that?"

Autumn held up three fingers. "30 cents for a pound. Take it or leave it."

The wife panicked. "We'd lose too much money! Add a little more."

With her hands in her pockets, Autumn said casually, "Forget it. My mom doesn't need that grain anyway."

She turned to leave again.

The owner gritted his teeth. "Fine! 30 cent it is! I'm telling you, this grain's only been sitting around too long. It's perfectly fine for livestock. At this price, I'm taking a huge loss!"

Autumn ignored his complaints and pulled out her phone. "Where's the payment code?"

The wife quickly held out the QR code. "It's 5,000 pounds of corn, 3,000 pounds of soybeans, and 6,000 pounds of wheat. The total is 4,200 dollars. Don't worry. The weights are accurate. You'll get every pound, and probably a little extra."

Autumn paid and left her address. "Can you deliver everything before eight tonight?"

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify