"......"
With a top-spec American iPhone in his left paw and a 5090 graphics card in his right, Ansheng paused and turned his gaze to the heap of cardboard boxes:
"Ah Bai, tell me, if we report Grandma Hedgehog for tax evasion, how much in billions would the tax bureau make her pay back, not to mention the penalty fees?"
Stuff that costs over 400 bucks can be sold for 500 bucks in another hand, which translates to three grand in Xia Country's currency per unit. Even with the cost of modifications and stickers, making a two-grand profit isn't hard.
A single box can hold thirty to fifty units, that's a sixty-thousand profit. The basement of the villa has at least forty boxes.
Wow, Grandma Hedgehog can make over 2 million at the lowest profit estimate from a single shipment.
And there are those unclear-sourced 5090 graphics cards.
Even Old Huang might not have gotten them, yet Grandma Hedgehog managed to get a few boxes of hand-assembled 5090s.
"Ugh..."
Facing Master Fortune Fox's teasing, Ah Bai awkwardly started speaking to Master Fortune Fox.
The math is indeed right.
But the big flight isn't flying every day, and delivering electronic goods doesn't actually make money, it's purely charity work.
A shipment of electronics costs six million, selling them after landing brings in two million, but if the big flight flips, including its 1 million cost, that's an 8 million loss.
If a few more ships flip, the loss skyrockets to tens of millions.
The tax-free electronic trade is too risky an investment; it's truly better to honestly ship frozen goods.
Twenty thousand per ton, and a thirty percent return. Even if the ship flips, you can still go back to pick up the lost goods. Plus, with the salt flavor, wouldn't you charge an extra buck per pound as a service fee from the vendors?
A fifteen-ton ship, easy and relaxed.
"Don't listen to Grandma Hedgehog's nonsense. Who in business actually says they're making money? Let her get the villa's electricity bill reimbursed first, then charge her for warehouse insurance...."
Ansheng rolled his eyes, tossing the iPhone and graphics card back into the box.
The villa's basement clearly turned into a warehouse, piled with tax-free "foreign garbage" from Grandma Hedgehog.
The original wine rack became a grenade rack, with all kinds of international military weapons on the wine cabinet.
There are all sorts of guns, except for the old Xia's.
Although the Security Bureau knows about the golden hedgehog and Ah Bai, and has put them in the bio-control group, giving them old Xia's equipment is... rather strange.
"Woof woof....."
Ah Bai laughed foolishly without replying, just leading Master Fortune Fox to tour around, going down to the second basement via an independent staircase from the first basement.
The second basement is larger than the first. Descending the stairs, you can see a semicircular black leather sofa and several square leather chairs arranged like a living room.
A hundred-inch large TV hangs on a half-wall built in front of the sofa, with gaming consoles and various game cartridges scattered around, as well as yacht and airplane simulators.
Across from the living room is a bar counter, the liquor cabinet filled with ice-cold colas from all over the world.
Ansheng glanced at them and ignored them. How can you enjoy cola if it's not ice-cold?
"Woof woof!"
Ah Bai hopped to a door, showing a mischievous face to Master Fortune Fox. Standing up on two legs in front of the double doors, he wore a proud expression.
"Hmm? What's the surprise?"
Ansheng asked with a curious glance at the door Ah Bai was blocking.
"Woof——"
Ah Bai didn't keep it a secret and directly opened the door, revealing a spacious meeting room. A black walnut long table measuring over ten meters was placed right in the space at the entrance, with bookshelves lining the walls on both sides of the room that is at least seven meters high.
At four meters high, a circular walkway extends out, surrounding the meeting hall.
"Awoo!"
Ah Bai, full of joy, grabbed the door handle with one paw and gestured grandly into the conference space with the other, inviting Master Fortune Fox inside.
On either side of the black walnut table are seven chairs each, with a wide, thick executive chair at the head position.
Ah Bai said the executive chair belongs to Master Fortune Fox.
And the chairs in front of the table are for the spirit beasts. The circular walkway extension will be used for future audience seats for the most promising and potential drifter brothers from each branch of the Spirit Beast Gang.
Even though...
For now, the scale of the Spirit Beast Gang doesn't quite warrant a nearly 200 square meter meeting hall, but Ah Bai is convinced that under Master Fortune Fox's strategic guidance, more and more spirit beasts will join in, filling the entire meeting hall.
The color scheme of the entire meeting hall appears steady, with a distinct overall French-German vibe.
"A conference room converted from a sound hall!"
Ansheng walked into the meeting room, flopped into the executive chair, and looked at the long table space in front of him. A projection screen descended from the ceiling, blocking the entrance.
Ah Bai took a seat on a side chair, coolly propping up one leg on the black walnut table.
"Woof!"
Ah Bai leaned close to Master Fortune Fox, cheerfully asking.
"Oh! You even know that you need to play it cool out here?" Ansheng joked to Ah Bai upon hearing it.
"Woof!" Ah Bai raised his head high, his face full of pride.
Of the whole villa, Ah Bai is most satisfied with the current Spirit Beast Gang meeting room.
Having a base of his own is the only way to become a qualified group.
In the future, the Hall Masters of different divisions of the Spirit Beast Gang will be able to sit here dashingly issuing commands, debating which areas of Jiu Le are easy for scavenging, which districts are generous, and developing new cute begging postures to charm passersby.
For this reason, Ah Bai even installed a projector for watching short videos of outrageous pet antics.
"Not bad."
Lord Lucky Raccoon voiced his thoughts, commenting on the impressive conference room in front of him.
As they were preparing to head to the third level underground, Ah Bai spoke to Lord Lucky Raccoon.
The third level underground is currently inaccessible; it's where Lin Ying stores items with Spiritual Particles in her vault.
Although currently empty, Lin Ying has still prepared an independent secret vault separate from the Lin family.
"Hmm... that's fine too."
"After seeing the underground complex, you can also show me around the buildings upstairs! I want to see what the living standards of the cats and dogs are like..." Ansheng said to Ah Bai.
"Awoo..."
Ah Bai shrugged; the five floors aren't anything too special, just residential spaces.
Unlike the usual cat and dog nests, the Stray Home has specially customized layered platforms for cat climbing.
The layered platforms are against the wall; the ground-level space is the widest and largest, belonging to the large-sized doggies, with dog nests placed inside the shelves, and further up are the nests for medium and small dogs, while from two meters up, it's cat nests.
The custom cat climbing shelves get narrower the higher they go, resembling spiral staircases in appearance.
Though more space-consuming, this design ensures that even if those on the upper levels aren't careful in their sleep and fall, they won't hit the ground but will just land on the cats or dogs below.
The spiral staircase design also allows cats and dogs to easily run up and down independently.
Even the exotic insects have their own housing spaces and aren't all crowded together.
Though there are many cats and dogs inside, thanks to the original owner's five-constant system, the entire villa maintains constant temperature, humidity, cleanliness, oxygen, and purity, with an additional bi-directional fresh air system, eliminating any odors.
After touring the indoor space,
Ah Bai led Lord Lucky Raccoon happily to a man-made stream in the backyard.
There is spring water on the mountain, and after the Spirit Beast Gang bought the villa, they built a concrete drainage channel in the backyard, connecting it directly to the mountain spring, allowing the cool stream to flow down the channel, passing through the villa's backyard.
"Woo..."
Ah Bai jumped into the uneven drainage channel, just like the other resting doggies, slowly stretching out his front paws and kicking out his back feet.
Ah Bai submerged the area around his snout into the water, leaving his nose above the surface to breathe fresh air.
He lay lazily in an "H" shape.
"Is it really that satisfying?"
Ansheng tried to imitate Ah Bai by lying upstream, but due to his size, if he lay his head down, he couldn't leave his nose like Ah Bai did.
But on the edge of the three-meter wide canal, there were humanly placed red bricks.
Ansheng mimicked other small dogs by pulling a red brick over to rest his chin on, keeping his nose two to three centimeters above the spring water.
The originally icy cold spring water, after traveling through the canal and being warmed by the sun, was cool yet carried warmth.
The flowing stream felt like invisible little hands gently smoothing down his fur.
In the shade of the trees, the faint sunlight perfectly hit the backs of the dogs in the canal.
"Phew..."
As Ansheng pondered, he grabbed the red brick under his chin with both claws and drifted into a nap.
Although the five-constant system inside was good,
on a scorching summer day for a nap, the doggies and some cats still preferred the canal, where the doggies could lie in the water, enjoying an automatic massage.
The cats would lie on the canal's edge, enjoying the perfect temperature with lazy faces.
As animals from the desert, cats clearly had a different perspective on heat.
"An automatic dog washing machine!"
Ah Qing and Qiu Lingling, coming out from the backyard, also approached the canal. Upon arriving, they saw the dogs piled up in the canal, soundly asleep, even the little fox that had gone missing earlier and Ah Bai were there.
Qiu Lingling looked at the dogs in the canal and couldn't help but say to Lin Feiyu:
"With so many dogs here, aren't you afraid they might fight among themselves usually?"
Lin Feiyu chuckled and said:
"Not at all. We have the most professional pet trainers to teach the pets the house rules."
"Hmm? Could you take us to see?" Ah Qing asked with curiosity.
What was originally a casual inquiry alarmed Lin Feiyu.
Seeing...
Might not be very convenient.
Otherwise, you might just see the young master fox with his left hand on a notebook, right hand doodling, explaining his freeloading experiences to the dogs below...
But looking wouldn't be a problem.
But as for me, I might end up going to work in Africa.
Lin Feiyu kept smiling, agreeing wholeheartedly, while smoothly changing the topic to the intricate craftsmanship of villa renovations, adeptly using diversion tactics to delay things until nothing happened in the end.