Homo Sapiens

「June 20th.」

After more than two months of preparation, the Precious Metals Bank was officially established within the Homo Sapiens Company.

This subsidiary’s primary business was exchanging precious metals and rare raw materials like rare earths and helium.

Compared to Gold alone, raw materials like silver, platinum, rare earths, and helium have a much wider range of industrial applications.

For example, the Precious Metals Bank’s listed price for rhenium was 50 Jin Yuan per gram.

However, the retail price for rhenium in Huaguo was only 50 Huayuan per gram.

For many, this presented a golden opportunity to profit from the price difference. Even if Huaguo raised the price of rhenium, it would remain highly attractive to the many businesses and individuals who needed Jin Yuan.

Before the various parties in East Asia could even react, the Precious Metals Bank had already attracted a large number of ”tourists.”

Flights from Yangcheng to Xing Island, Thonburi, and Manila were almost instantly booked solid.

To prevent an outflow of Gold, the powers in East Asia had already lowered the export limit; currently, a person could only carry 10 grams of Gold out of the country at a time.

However, restrictions on other rare metals had not yet been implemented.

Many people seized the opportunity to purchase various rare metals, processing them into accessories, watchbands, and buttons to sell to those who needed to travel abroad.

「At Xingdao International Airport.」

A few young people pulling suitcases headed straight for the local Precious Metals Bank on Xing Island.

When they arrived at the Precious Metals Bank, the group saw that quite a few people were already waiting, so they hurried to the back of the line.

”It’s so hot,” said one of the young men, who was wearing a white shirt, fanning himself with a travel guide as he spoke.

Another young man, Blondie, waved his hand. ”It’s not that bad! Money’s tight these days, but reselling a few more bottles of Lanf Anning will earn us several months’ salary.”

These young men were Chinese resellers who had previously been active on Xing Island. As soon as they saw the Precious Metals Bank open for business, they immediately sensed an opportunity.

After all, Lanf Anning Gen 2 was not available in Huaguo, and many patients needed the drug, which had given rise to an overseas reselling market.

Previously, however, the restrictions on taking Gold out of the country meant that many people didn’t have much Jin Yuan on hand, which severely limited the scale of these reselling operations.

Now, the appearance of the Precious Metals Bank gave many people the opportunity to obtain Jin Yuan.

After more than an hour, it was finally the turn of the man in the white shirt, Blondie, and their friends.

The man in the white shirt took a box of rhenium accessories and some platinum ones from his backpack, handing them directly to the inspector at the counter.

The inspector placed the accessories into a mass spectrometer and quickly determined their composition and net content.

”572 grams of rhenium, 32 grams of rhodium, 24 grams of platinum... The total comes to 53,700 Jin Yuan. Do you have a bank account?”

The man in the white shirt quickly took out his Qingye Bank Card.

After the transaction was complete, the man in the white shirt, Blondie, and the others rushed to a local pharmacy.

These local pharmacies actually catered to foreign tourists; Homo Sapiens Company employees didn’t need to go to a pharmacy to buy medicine themselves.

Inside the pharmacy, the man in the white shirt and his group ran into many of their counterparts. It wasn’t just the Chinese who were reselling; East Japanese and Koreans were doing it too.

The man in the white shirt also spotted a dozen or so people with Latin American features, who were likewise purchasing various drugs. These were resellers for the Aztec Gang, and the drugs they bought were primarily intended to be smuggled into North America.

”Lanf Anning... Huh? When did they release a new version?” the man in the white shirt asked, holding a newly marketed bottle of Lanf Anning Gen 3.

A nearby salesclerk advised, ”That’s the new version. It’s mainly for drug-resistant variants. Those variants aren’t common where you’re from, so you’re better off buying Gen 2. The price for Gen 2 has dropped, it’s 300 Jin Yuan now.”

The man in the white shirt knew the salesclerk fairly well, so he grabbed 20 boxes of Lanf Anning.

There were four people in their group, so they each took five boxes. They didn’t dare buy more, mainly for fear of getting caught during an inspection.

”I’m so jealous. At your hospitals, a box of this only costs 20 Jin Yuan,” Blondie said, holding a box of Lanf Anning Gen 2.

The salesclerk simply smiled without replying. The company offered its employees enormous discounts on medical services.

This was one of the reasons why many locals would rather give up on immigrating to Kangaroo Country or Europe and choose to stay and work for the Homo Sapiens Company instead.

After all, while those developed nations claimed to offer free healthcare, the problem was the long waiting lists. The only alternative was to go to an expensive private hospital. And without insurance, the cost of treatment at a private hospital was enough to financially cripple a middle-class family.

Waiting for free care at public hospitals could sometimes take several months, which was a terrible system for patients.

If you had a medical emergency, you might die before you even got off the waiting list.

The Homo Sapiens Company was different. For its own employees, it only charged for the cost of materials and labor.

Many drugs exclusive to the Homo Sapiens Company were sold to the public at extremely high prices, but the internal prices for employees were very low.

For matters like scheduling surgeries, the Medical Division had a dedicated administrative office that could rationally schedule procedures based on the urgency and severity of a patient’s symptoms.

In fact, the Homo Sapiens Company’s network of hospitals was extremely dense in the locations where the first batch of fully-authorized branches were established.

The Hongsawaddy Branch, for example, had 120,000 medical personnel and approximately 200,000 reserve medical personnel for its 56 million employees, along with 450,000 regular hospital beds and 45,000 ICU beds.

This scale was absolutely enormous.

Furthermore, the Homo Sapiens Company didn’t separate the roles of its medical staff; in other words, both doctors and caregivers were licensed to practice medicine.

This was mainly thanks to the bio-chips in the New Human employees, which allowed for the rapid training of professional doctors. The nurses in the hospitals naturally benefited from their proximity; through their bio-chips and studies, these caregivers also acquired impressive medical skills.

As for the reserve medical personnel, they were stationed at institutions such as nursing homes, infant care centers, kindergartens, sanatoriums, and rehabilitation centers, all of which maintained a large reserve of medical staff.

This situation ensured that the Homo Sapiens Company had abundant medical resources, with virtually no risk of being overwhelmed by a surge in demand.

Xing Island’s medical resources were already quite sufficient to begin with. After the establishment of the Homo Sapiens Company’s fully-authorized Xing Island branch, they became even more abundant.

Having traveled between Xing Island and Hongsawaddy before, Blondie and the man in the white shirt were naturally well aware of the internal benefits at the Homo Sapiens Company.

If Blondie hadn’t believed he could make a fortune from reselling, he would have wanted to join the Homo Sapiens Company himself.

After purchasing the Lanf Anning, they also bought eight boxes of Ai Qingling. The price of Ai Qingling had also dropped recently, with a single box now costing only 5,000 Jin Yuan.

They weren’t buying the Ai Qingling on a whim. They had already found clients back home and collected deposits before making the purchase.

Otherwise, getting stuck with such an expensive drug—5,000 Jin Yuan a box—would be a devastating blow to their wallets.

The man in the white shirt paid with his card, a total of 46,000 Jin Yuan.

Seeing the 7,700 Jin Yuan remaining on the card, the man in the white shirt suggested, ”Let’s go get a big seafood dinner!”

”No way. Let’s just get some regular steak. Making money isn’t easy, after all,” Blondie said, shaking his head.

In the restaurants around the Homo Sapiens Company, seafood was quite expensive, especially wild-caught products that couldn’t be farmed. Their prices were more than ten times that of beef.

The man in the white shirt laughed. ”What’s the point of earning money if you don’t spend it? It’s my treat today.”

”You said it,” Blondie replied. He certainly had no objection to a free meal.

Many overseas resellers like them were international students, and when it came to spending on food, drinks, and fun, many of them were quite lavish.

After all, people who could afford to study abroad typically came from families with considerable assets.

After their big seafood dinner, the group didn’t rush back home. Instead, they mailed the drugs, as they had dedicated contacts in their country to receive the packages.

These overseas resellers, active around the Homo Sapiens Company’s Southeast Asia Headquarters, included people from nearly every region of the world.

There were official-channel resellers, such as those from Saudia Arabia and Persia.

There were also private resellers, like the man in the white shirt and Blondie.

And then there were the smuggling channels, like the Aztec Gang.