166: I need to buy ginseng! It must cost at least 12 yuan per piece, right?

"Alright, I'll go take a look myself."

Chen Kai chuckled and walked towards Cold Storage No. 9 with the keys.

At the warehouse entrance, Chen Kai pressed the electronic key, and the warehouse door slowly opened. Once Chen Kai walked in, he checked the warehouse space and the remote temperature control panel.

He set it to four degrees to test the temperature. The warehouse was quite good and met the requirements for storing Fresh Ginseng that he had researched yesterday.

Moreover, the warehouse came with shelves, so once the ginseng was transported over, he just needed to place them on the shelves one by one.

Chen Kai nodded to himself, then came out of the cold storage, turned off the chiller and closed the warehouse door. After saying goodbye to the Fatty boss, he walked outside and got into his mercedes-benz gle.

"Hiss... where should I go to buy ginseng?"

Chen Kai sat in the car, feeling troubled. ginseng wasn't like other things. If he tried to buy it at the Local Produce Market, he wasn't sure if he could get it for 10 yuan a root.

Furthermore, he needed 20,000 roots of Fresh Ginseng at once, so the farmers' market would probably have to find a wholesaler to get them.

If he went directly to a wholesaler, he didn't have any connections. Without connections, he couldn't be sure if they would rip him off.

Chen Kai thought for a moment. Just thinking about it wouldn't help; he had to go and investigate on-site to find out.

He navigated to the largest farmers' market in Jiangnan City, a place that sold various mountain goods, Lingzhi, deer-antler, as well as wild mushrooms, wild blueberries, and all kinds of mountain supplements.

After setting the destination, he shifted gears and quickly headed towards the farmers' market.

...Less than half an hour later, the mercedes-benz gle pulled up to the chaotic parking spaces in front of the farmers' market entrance.

After parking, Chen Kai grabbed his phone and slowly walked towards the farmers' market.

As soon as he entered the farmers' market, Chen Kai was shocked by its scale.

The scale of this farmers' market was no less than a small shopping mall, with signs hanging from the ceiling guiding where certain types of agricultural products were located.

Chen Kai wandered around and found that the goods in the farmers' market were quite fresh; for instance, the fresh termite mushrooms in the mushroom section still had soil on them.

"Young man, want to buy some termite mushrooms? They're very fresh, not expensive, 80 yuan a jin!" The middle-aged woman in the mushroom shop smiled and waved at him.

Chen Kai politely declined with a smile and, following the signs hanging in the air, walked towards the mountain goods section where the ginseng was.

In less than ten minutes, he walked from the mushroom section to the mountain goods section. What met his eyes were vendors in various shops displaying boxes of dried ginseng.

Chen Kai gasped. He looked into the mountain goods shops and realized that there didn't seem to be... any Fresh Ginseng.

Most of the ginseng was dried; besides that, there were deer-antler, Lingzhi, monkey head mushrooms, and so on.

However, 90% of the items were dried and packaged in gift boxes.

Chen Kai felt troubled. Damn, if everything was dried, it would be hard to deal with.

According to the Intelligence System, there was a market gap for fresh ones, but weren't dried ones everywhere?

You didn't have to worry about how to store dried ginseng; as long as it didn't get wet, it wouldn't spoil. A factory could easily stockpile a large amount.

There was no need for a source to supply him with ginseng every single day.

For Fresh Ginseng, one had to consider storage conditions and the spoilage rate of bad ginseng.

One would also have to spend a huge amount of money to build a warehouse for storage; it wasn't cost-effective at all.

The owner of the ginseng and mountain goods shop saw Chen Kai standing at the entrance for a long time without coming in, so he put down his phone, walked to the front of the shop, and asked.

"What's wrong? Young man, is there something you want to buy? Are you gifting it to your father-in-law, mother-in-law, or a superior? Just tell me who you want to gift it to, and I can give you a recommendation."

Chen Kai thought for a long time before slowly speaking.

"I want to buy some Fresh Ginseng, but it seems you don't have any here."

The owner chuckled, "Fresh Ginseng? It's hard to store. How could we have Fresh Ginseng for sale? For that, you'd have to go to the Local Produce Market. They have the wild ginseng newly dug up by the old men and Old Women there, all fresh."

"This thing requires storage conditions. We basically don't stock fresh ones; if we can't sell them, they'll just go to waste. It's impossible to sell this stuff."

As the owner said this, he turned to go back into the shop.

Chen Kai thought for a moment, "Is everything at the Local Produce Market dug up by them in the mountains?"

"Yes, though the price is a bit higher. It's possible they are artificially cultivated too; who can guarantee that?"

Chen Kai nodded silently, then shook his head.

"That won't work. I need a lot of Fresh Ginseng; the ginseng at the Local Produce Market definitely won't be enough."

When the owner heard this, he immediately turned his head and looked at Chen Kai with a bewildered expression.

Judging by his expression, he nearly laughed out loud.

"Are you kidding me, young man? You probably haven't been to that Local Produce Market, right? There are many people there. If you add up all the old men and Old Women, they can scrape together a hundred ginseng roots for you. Is that not enough?"

"Who are you trying to overdose with supplements? Is one or two hundred not enough?"

Chen Kai shook his head helplessly, "It's really not enough. I need to buy a lot; this little bit isn't even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth."

The owner heard this and sneered. Did he think he was a manufacturer? Not enough to fill the gaps between his teeth?

How could one or two hundred ginseng roots not be enough for him?

"You might not have heard me clearly, young man. I said the whole market combined might have one or two hundred Fresh Ginseng roots. Do you understand? That's definitely enough for you."

Chen Kai nodded, "I know. Just one or two hundred roots; that's not enough."

Owner: ?!

The owner looked at Chen Kai, completely bewildered, muttering something. A strange expression appeared on his face, as if he had smelled a business opportunity.

"Then tell me, how many Fresh Ginseng roots do you want? I know a Ginseng Planting Base, but they only sell in large batches, not one by one. They only sell wholesale. How many do you want?"

Chen Kai frowned and thought for a moment, "How much per root? I need a large quantity."

"What variety of ginseng?"

When the owner heard that the quantity needed was large, he became excited. He took his phone out of his pocket, ready and eager to call the Ginseng Planting Base.

People like him who sold mountain goods had to know a few source manufacturers, more or less.

Others had stable supply channels, but he didn't. That destined his prices to be higher than others, and business would naturally be a bit slower.

"American Ginseng, roughly how much per root?"

Chen Kai asked without hesitation. If he could buy it here, he wouldn't bother making a trip to the Ginseng Planting Base.

"Hiss, if you buy a small amount, it'll have to be 12 or 13 yuan a root."

Chen Kai raised an eyebrow, "How much is considered a small amount?"