I am farming in the real world

Chapter 188: Afu's Overnight Fortune

Chen Jue directing Iron Seventeen to strike the US-Japan undersea cable wasn't just about severing the network connection between the US and Japan; it was also a precise strike on Wall Street's main artery.

The thing about finance is that it's like a set of dominoes. Once a concentrated burst occurs in one link, the impact isn't just a 2% drop in the US stock market, evaporating $1.5 trillion in funds.

The Japanese Yen foreign exchange market also experienced a rate meltdown during the few minutes of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's internet outage.

Due to the lack of major market support from the Bank of Japan, the Yen, which had been plummeting since the start of 2024, depreciated by over 500 basis points in just a few minutes.

This led to a staggering 3% devaluation of the Japanese national currency assets under the 'Iron Axe's' strike.

In addition, the widespread internet outage in the Tokyo metropolitan area was also impacting the local, already fragile, internet ecosystem to varying degrees.

The next day, Japanese media splashed headlines like 'Black Swan Event! Yen Value Plummets!' across their publications.

Stock markets around the world were shaken by this black swan event, with openings lower and sharp declines, except for China's A-shares, which bucked the trend and turned completely red.

This also caused countless international capital to focus on A-shares, and the media began to tout Chinese assets, attracting countless hot money and safe-haven funds to rush into A-shares for bargain hunting, creating the bull market craze in late September.

......

Inside the underground tunnel at the bottom of the West Pacific.

After instructing Iron Seventeen to split the US-Japan undersea cable, Chen Jue led another team of Iron Golems aboard interconnected MC [Minecarts], rushing to the scene along the pre-laid [Rails].

The originally narrow tunnel's end, under the continuous 'dong, dong, dong' collaborative work of the Iron Golems and Chen Jue wielding [Iron Pickaxes], was quickly excavated into an undersea base covering over 5 square kilometers.

"This should be enough."

Looking at this new base filled with torches, Chen Jue rubbed his hands excitedly like a green-headed fly.

He walked to the back of the interconnected [Minecarts], right-clicking to switch to a row of minecarts loaded with [Chests].

The [Minecarts] in MC have many different vehicle gameplay options, such as combining with [Furnaces] to become [Powered Minecarts], or pairing with [TNT] to create explodable [TNT Minecarts].

As an old MC player, Chen Jue, in order to solve the [Backpack]'s limited carrying capacity for long-distance transportation, replicated the synthesis formula of [Minecart] + [Chest] = [Storage Minecart].

He packed and transported all the mining factories, including the required mining machines, servers, and wiring equipment from the mining factory on the 5th floor of the Cube Factory, using the [Storage Minecarts].

As for the ordered Bitcoin mining machines, he chose the Antminer S21 air-cooled mining machines produced by Bitmain, with a single machine hashrate of 200T, which is currently the latest generation of mainstream domestic mining machines on the market.

However, when assigning Afu and his partner to scour Huaqiangbei, several interesting things happened.

......

Time rewinded to half a month ago.

Afu and Qiangzi, having just completed their onboarding procedures at Cube Technology Company, embarked on their journey back to Huaqiangbei with trepidation and excitement.

The experience in Ruixian these past few days had left these two third-rate small intermediaries from Huaqiangbei in a daze.

Originally, they thought they had encountered a wealthy patron online and could make a big profit by promoting virtual currency mining machines.

Who would have thought that they wouldn't sell a single mining machine and would actually get themselves involved!

There was no way around it; they had encountered a super-rich person who only existed in internet jokes.

A starting monthly salary of 20,000 after joining the company, 15 months of salary a year, and free housing benefits directly stunned Afu and Qiangzi, who exclaimed: "Working is really great!"

Even after leaving Ruixian, the two still vaguely felt that their recent experiences were a bit unreal.

Just take the vehicle they were riding in now as an example. When they went to Ruixian, Afu and his partner took second-class seats on the high-speed rail. On the way back, they were riding in the boss's dedicated business car driven by driver Lao He.

Zero-gravity seats for full-body massage relaxation, and the ability to watch movies on the large screen in the back when bored.

Which company has such high-standard 'business trip' treatment?

Most importantly, for this trip back to Huaqiangbei, Chen Jue also assigned a female colleague from the finance department to accompany Afu and Qiangzi. There was also a burly Iron Golem bodyguard in the passenger seat, supervising and protecting the mining machine procurement team throughout the process.

So, when this business car arrived at the Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen, Afu and Qiangzi, stepping out from the back seat, looked at the Cube Group work uniforms they were wearing and the bodyguard named 'Iron Stone Two' behind them, and both unconsciously stood a little taller and puffed out their chests.

"Afu! Qiangzi!"

"Where have you two been having fun these past few days? Haven't seen you for days."

"Why are you dressed so nicely? Not doing the mining machine business anymore?"

Upon entering the bustling and busy market, the familiar stall owners along the way greeted them one after another.

People like them, who hang out in the Huaqiangbei market, have a large number of potential customers they've attracted online, and whether they can make money depends entirely on these people.

Therefore, the stall owners generally treat these small intermediaries and scalpers very politely.

They hand out cigarettes, offer bottles of drinks, and occasionally go to the food stalls for a meal, drinking, grilling skewers, and bragging to improve their relationship.

"Brother Liu, let's not joke around for now; the company colleagues are watching," Afu approached a regular stall with a familiar air and took out a newly printed company business card from his pocket.

"Cube Technology Co., Ltd., Internet Department P3 Hardware Engineer?"

"Damn! Afu, you've made it big?" Stall owner Brother Liu looked surprised, a little unsure of what to make of the bodyguard and the finance girl following Afu.

Afu waved his hand, looking smug and secretly pleased, and said, "Not really made it big, just following a big boss to make a living. By the way, Brother Liu, do you still have Antminer S21 air-cooled machines in your warehouse? Our company wants them all!"

"All...all of them?" Hearing that a big business opportunity had come knocking, Brother Liu couldn't bother with pleasantries and immediately took out an inventory list from the stall counter: "Let me see, Antminer S21, there are still more than 800 units in the warehouse. If you want them all, I'll give you a discounted price of 14,500 yuan per unit."

Afu bargained with a firm grip: "Brother Liu, what time is it? Still trying to fool me with the retail price! 13,800 yuan per unit, can you do a package deal? If you can, I'll have the company finance department transfer the money immediately."

As he spoke, the finance girl following behind saw this and immediately took out a purchase contract drafted by the legal department from her briefcase and slapped it onto the stall's glass counter.

It was the most basic purchase contract, which, in addition to attaching a 90-day quality guarantee constraint on the purchased products, had a lot of other contract content that could be found online with a single search.

"Hiss~ Doing things so formally? Even bringing a contract? But I won't make much profit at this price!" Brother Liu smiled wryly, somewhat intimidated by the situation.

"Then I'll add another 50 yuan per machine, that's still a million or so for over 800 units, Brother Liu, don't dawdle," Afu raised the price slightly.

As a former small intermediary who had mingled in the market, he was very clear about the sales tactics of these stalls.

Seeing that the buyer had actually recruited an experienced intermediary, Brother Liu was also quite helpless.

Because he knew that haggling with a small intermediary like Afu might not get him to budge even after half a day of arguing.

Seeing that the price had reached its peak, Brother Liu had to call his wife to look at the contract together. After feeling that there were no major problems, he signed the quantity and value of the supply on the contract.

The finance girl on the side took back the contract, took a photo, and sent it back to the group company for legal personnel to check.

Seeing the OK gesture sent back in the WeChat work group, the finance girl generously reminded: "President Liu, take a look at the bank SMS; the payment of 11.39 million should have already arrived. If there are no problems, please arrange the shipment as soon as possible."

After speaking, the finance girl followed Afu, whose mouth was almost turned up to the sky, to the next stall to continue the shopping spree.

Leaving Brother Liu and his wife staring at the arrival reminder on the mobile phone bank, swallowing hard with a dazed expression: "Payment first, then goods? More than ten million transferred just like that? Too...too damn strong!"