Chapter 8: Supplies Gradually Arrive

Zhang Yi left his address, instructing the Haidilao staff to have the hot pot soup bases delivered later. As for the raw ingredients, he could simply procure those from the Walmart warehouse when the time came. Only the soup bases were unique; they were never sold to the public, and even the store-bought packets available on the market were vastly inferior to what was served in the restaurant. Otherwise, no one would bother coming to the shop to eat.

After finishing his meal, Zhang Yi prepared to head home when his phone rang—it was the manager of the five-star hotel.

"Mr. Zhang, the 500 banquet tables you ordered are ready. Would it be convenient for you to receive them now?"

"Yes, just have them delivered."

Zhang Yi returned home to wait for the arrival of the feast. These 500 banquet tables would be enough to sustain him for two or three years. With eight or nine million in his accounts, he felt no heartache in spending the money; in fact, he was anxious to spend it all as quickly as possible.

On his way back, Zhang Yi thought about what other foods he enjoyed. He promptly placed orders with several of Tianhai City’s top restaurants, requesting a hundred tables from each. Between the eight major culinary traditions and Western cuisine, he had ordered thousands of tables in total. In one fell swoop, he had secured his food supply for half a lifetime.

Before long, a convoy of catering trucks from the Hongfu Tianxia Hotel arrived at the entrance of the Yuelu residential complex. The sheer scale of the twenty or thirty vehicles blocked the road completely, leaving the neighbors stunned. Uncle You, the security guard, rushed forward to stop them and ask what was going on. The hotel manager explained the situation, but Uncle You insisted that the resident must come down to authorize entry. Given the massive scale of the delivery and the unknown contents of the trucks, he couldn't let them through without verification for the sake of the complex's security.

The hotel manager had no choice but to call Zhang Yi. Zhang Yi headed downstairs to the gate. A crowd had already gathered, including neighbors from his building and the gossiping Fang Yuqing and Lin Caining.

Zhang Yi walked up to Uncle You and said with a smile, "Uncle You, they’re here to deliver food for me. Let them in."

Uncle You looked astonished. "Food delivery? What kind of food requires a dozen trucks to deliver?"

The surrounding neighbors were in an uproar upon hearing it was a food delivery. "Good heavens, that’s at least several hundred tables! Where is he going to put all that?"

"Could Zhang Yi be hosting a banquet for some occasion?"

"Maybe he’s getting married? But hundreds of tables is just insane!"

"Look closely, that’s Hongfu Tianxia, a five-star hotel! Ordering hundreds of tables there must cost at least a million!"

"My god, spending over a million on a single banquet? Zhang Yi has really been hiding his wealth!"

"I only knew his family was fairly well-off, but it turns out he’s a tycoon!"

The neighbors gossiped incessantly, their eyes burning with a mixture of curiosity and newfound reverence as they looked at Zhang Yi. Standing by the roadside, Fang Yuqing bit her lip, more determined than ever to win him over. She approached him, smiling, "Zhang Yi, what are you busy with at home? You bought so much stuff."

Zhang Yi ignored her and handed a cigarette to Uncle You. Seeing the resident had arrived, Uncle You opened the gate, allowing the convoy to enter. Zhang Yi led the way. Though he hadn't acknowledged her, Fang Yuqing didn't seem to mind, sticking by his side and chatting away.

"Is there something going on at home that you can't tell me? Aren't we good friends?" she asked. "I hope to get to know you better. Please don't treat me like an outsider."

Zhang Yi gave her a deep, cold look and sneered, "I'm just buying this stuff for my boss. The last time we ate at that Western restaurant, he was the one paying, too." He sighed, "If only I were actually that rich."

Fang Yuqing’s expression shifted instantly. "You... you're not joking, are you?"

Zhang Yi shrugged. "Why would I lie to you? We've known each other for years; you know my family situation. My parents passed away years ago, and I'm just a warehouse supervisor. Where would I get that kind of money?"

His explanation left Fang Yuqing's expression uncertain. She had indeed been suspicious; usually, a second-generation wealthy heir would come from a prominent business family. Zhang Yi's parents had been gone for years, and while he had some inheritance, he wasn't exactly a tycoon. Now that he had personally denied being wealthy, everything seemed to make sense.

She silently put a bit of distance between them, smoothed her hair, and offered a polite smile. "Whether you're wealthy or not, we're still best friends, aren't we? I'm not a gold-digger." She emphasized the word "friends" intentionally. A "green tea" type never burns bridges completely, as she might still need a backup or a sycophant later.

Zhang Yi curled his lip and said nothing more to her.

On the other side, the hotel staff began moving the tables of food to the location Zhang Yi had specified. Having maintained good relations with the property management, he had borrowed a storage unit in the basement of the complex to house the goods. Although 500 tables of food was a massive volume, once packed into containers, the footprint wasn't as overwhelming as it seemed.

Zhang Yi had ordered the finest delicacies: abalone, sea cucumber, shark fin, Australian lobster, truffles, and caviar—it was all there. It took quite a while to move the 500 tables worth of food into the warehouse. Even the hotel manager was speechless; in all his years, he had never seen such a massive takeout order. Zhang Yi simply told them to keep moving everything inside.

Once the workers left, Zhang Yi secretly moved all the food into his interdimensional space. Others might have been suspicious or thought him abnormal, but in this world, everyone was busy with their own lives; who had the time to care about someone else? Whether it was the neighbors or the hotel staff, they gossiped for a while, but no one took it to heart.

Soon, the 500-table feast was entirely tucked away in his space.

That evening, Zhang Yi received a call from Wu Huairen, the manager of Zhanlong Company. Wu informed him that they were ready and could begin construction on his safe house at any time, asking when it would be convenient to start. Zhang Yi told them they could come tomorrow, planning to move into a hotel in the meantime.

After discussing the safe house, Zhang Yi waited for Wu to bring up the other, more important matter: obtaining an "Equality-for-All" device. After a long pause, Wu lowered his voice and said, "If you truly have a need for that, I can recommend a path. But the price will be a bit steep."

Zhang Yi nodded. He understood, but as for money, he didn't care in the slightest. "That's not a problem, as long as the quality is good."

Wu replied easily, "Very well. I will provide an introduction. In three days, I will inform you of the location for the transaction."