Chapter Sixty-Two: Selling Bullets

At the shooting range, Chen Hao could collect a large number of spent cartridge cases, and practicing his marksmanship there meant he didn’t have to worry about wear and tear on his firearms. If he didn’t exploit this loophole, the cost of honing his shooting skills would be ten times higher—just the damage to his guns alone would be a significant expense. Naturally, he couldn’t pass up the chance to enter the range.

He had no choice but to go to the shooting range. Wu, the quartermaster, made things so difficult for Chen Hao that he wished he could put a bullet through him—though that was only a fleeting thought. Just as he was about to haggle with Wu, inspiration struck. He swallowed the words he was about to say, replaced them with a broad smile, and said, “Master Wu, your advice is sound. From now on, I’ll buy two hundred rounds every day—maybe even more if that’s not enough.”

Wu’s face lit up with satisfaction. He’d quoted two hundred rounds as an outrageous price, never expecting this foreigner to agree. Selling two hundred rounds daily, then handing ten silver coins to the captain, meant a net profit of twenty coins for himself.

Wu was in high spirits. The damage to the quick-loading gun from reloaded ammo wasn’t much of a concern; he didn’t even bother to inspect it before letting Chen Hao return the firearm to the armory.

Chen Hao breathed a sigh of relief—his guess had been right. Greedy NPCs like Wu cared nothing for the condition of the guns. Chen Hao took sixty silver coins from his pouch and said, “Master Wu, I’ll be practicing more when I get home tonight. How about you sell me four hundred rounds?”

Wu’s eyes widened at the sight of the glittering coins, his chubby cheeks bunching up with delight. He hurried over to the armory, his corpulent body surprisingly nimble at that moment.

Wu returned carrying five boxes of ammunition—one hundred rounds per box, five boxes meant five hundred rounds. Placing them on the table, his round face blossomed with a smile as he said, “Chen Baxian, since you’re buying so many at once, I’ll throw in an extra box for free!”

“He actually knows how to run a ‘buy four, get one free’ deal,” Chen Hao mused, gazing at Wu’s rotund figure. It was almost a waste that Wu wasn’t in business.

Chen Hao deftly stowed the five boxes in his pouch, paid Wu sixty coins, and was left with only four coins on him. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment purchase; he’d just thought of a clever way to make money.

Right now, players didn’t know they could buy 8mm rounds from the Quartermaster at the defense camp; instead, they went to the foreign trading house, paying twenty copper coins per round. So Wu’s insistence that Chen Hao buy bullets wasn’t a bad thing—in fact, it might let him make a tidy profit.

Chen Hao soon arrived at the player trading market in Penglai County, found a spot, took out his five boxes of ammo, and opened the lids to reveal the gleaming yellow rounds.

In the early days of the game, players hadn’t established any munitions factories, so there were no bullets for sale on the market. Chen Hao’s stall was labeled, “8mm Bullets, 19 Copper Coins Each”—a straightforward sign that quickly drew attention. Four or five players gathered around his booth.

Most players bought bullets from the trading house at twenty copper coins apiece, but Chen Hao sold his for nineteen. That meant a hundred rounds would save a whole silver coin. Many players now owned guns, and ammo was a consumable item—the more, the better. So, he had no trouble selling his bullets.

A middle-aged player, about thirty, asked, “Brother, do you have a munitions factory? How come your bullets are cheaper than the trading house?”

Chen Hao shook his head with a bitter smile. “I bought them for myself, but someone killed me and took my gun. I have to sell the bullets to buy a new one.”

The player nodded in understanding. “I see! Brother, if you drop the price to eighteen copper coins a round, I’ll buy them all.”

Chen Hao shot him a cold look. “Nineteen copper coins—no haggling.”

Every game has players who specialize in trading. They rarely level up, instead spending their days at the market, buying low and selling high. Since most players don’t have time to run stalls, these game merchants easily snap up cheap items and resell them at a premium.

The middle-aged man in front of him was clearly one of these merchants. If it were any other item, Chen Hao wouldn’t mind giving him a discount, but he trusted the bullet market and was unwilling to let the man pocket five silver coins so easily.

Just as Chen Hao expected, there was no shortage of buyers for bullets. Hearing the merchant’s attempt to buy them all, another player immediately said, “Brother, I’ll take fifty rounds.”

“I’ll take eighty.”

“I’ll take thirty.”

In less than a minute, Chen Hao sold all five hundred rounds, effortlessly earning thirty-five silver coins. There were still two hours to go before nightfall in the game. He decided to make a few more deals to earn enough for his marksmanship training.

Chen Hao didn’t know when players would discover that bullets could be bought from the defense camp quartermaster, but until then, he had to seize the opportunity to make as much as he could. After leaving the market, he kept a close eye behind him and soon noticed someone tailing him. He snorted and strode toward the East District.

With his pursuer in tow, Chen Hao walked all the way to the alley behind Li Pisun’s courtyard. He climbed onto the wall using a foothold, and his tail quickly followed. The person tracking him was the same middle-aged man who’d tried to haggle at the market. Once the man had passed, Chen Hao jumped down from the wall and said in a low voice behind him, “Big brother, you’ve been following me all this time—aren’t you tired?”

The man turned, his face showing an embarrassed expression as he forced a laugh. “Brother, I mean no harm. If you have a steady supply of bullets, let me sell them for you. Eighteen copper coins per round…”

Chen Hao had little regard for the man’s character, but he did consider letting him help sell bullets. If the bullets were purchased from the defense camp quartermaster, Chen Hao had no worries about their sale and didn’t want the merchant taking a cut. What he planned to sell him were reloaded rounds.

Externally, reloaded bullets looked little different from factory-made ones. Even if smokeless powder was used, reloaded rounds tended to jam and caused significant damage to firearms.

Chen Hao had never considered selling reloaded bullets, since once buyers discovered the issue, the seller’s reputation would be ruined. But since this merchant’s character was questionable, Chen Hao felt no guilt about tricking him. If he sold reloaded bullets at eighteen copper coins apiece—even using smokeless powder—he could make twelve copper coins profit per round at current success rates.

The supply of spent cartridges at the range was limited. Reloaded rounds were more than enough for practice, but not nearly enough to sell. To run a long-term business in reloaded ammo, Chen Hao would have to buy back spent cases, reducing the profit per round to about ten copper coins.

Now that he could buy bullets directly from Wu, selling them to the merchant still earned him three copper coins per round, so there was no need to reload himself.

Chen Hao decided to sell the merchant some factory rounds first; once other players learned they could buy from Wu, he’d switch to selling reloaded bullets.

(P.S. It’s Monday, and I can still hang on the new book rankings for a few more days. Please click, recommend, and help me climb the charts.)