Volume 2 Chapter 53 - High defect rate (1/2)

“Sir chairman, you don’t have money?” Agnes who had been silently following him since he came into the Falling Rain Forest suddenly stopped and turned to look at Xu Yi. She dug around in her clothes for a bit before taking out a gold coin to hand to Xu Yi, “Here, I only have this much on me now, you can take it for now.”

Xu Yi looked at the gold coin in Agnes’ slender fingers in surprise before looking up at Agnes’ serious expression and saying in a confused voice, “What are you doing?”

“Didn’t you say to chief Siluka that you don’t have money? I don’t have any use holding onto these gold coins for now, so you can take them.” Agnes responded with a natural look on her face.

Xu Yi finally understood her meaning and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he pushed her hand back while saying, “Agnes, I said that I don’t have money, but more accurately it isn’t that I myself don’t have money, rather it’s the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that doesn’t have money. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Ah? The company doesn’t have money?” Agnes’ eyes popped open in surprise and she looked at the gold coins in her hand before shaking her head, “This bit probably won’t be enough. How about when we go see the elder later, you can talk to the elder about borrowing some from her? Didn’t you give the elder wages for our clansmen, it seemed to be several thousand gold coins.”

Seeing Agnes’ innocent face, Xu Yi couldn’t help finding it funny.

“Agnes, looks like you still don’t understand what I mean. When I say the company doesn’t have money, I’m talking about how we have no floating capital. It means that if the company really needs money to use, we can’t take out the capital. If the company really needs to use money, several thousand gold coins is far from being enough.”

“Then what do we do? If we can’t take out money when we need it, wouldn’t our company be in big trouble?” Agnes was a bit anxious, “Sir chairman, have you thought about what we should do?”

“Relax, it’s not as serious as you think, it’s just a temporary lack of funds. Then again, after another period of time, the company will be able to naturally earn plenty of money.” Xu Yi waved his hand as he comforted her.

“Oh, that’s good.” Agnes’ expression calmed down. She thought about it before doubtfully asking, “But sir chairman, why is the company suddenly out of money? I remember that our Frestech Chamber of Commerce has been earning a lot during the past few months. Last time I heard manager Sebas say that just last month, the company earned several tens of thousands of gold coins.”

“Then you didn’t pay attention to him saying how much we spent?” Xu Yi said with a smile, “Let me tell you, our company’s earnings haven’t been small in the past few months, but we’ve spent even more. Not mentioning anything else, we’ve already invested three hundred thousand gold coins into the Falling Rain Valley. Adding in the over a hundred thousand for the Falling Rain Road and the hundred thousand for the road between Banta City and Karma City, as well as the various expenses and fixed costs the company has, the company doesn’t even have twenty thousand gold coins in cash. We really can be considered out of money.”

Anges stuck out her tongue, “So there’s still twenty thousand gold coins, I thought there wasn’t even a single gold coin left.”

Xu Yi couldn’t help rolling his eyes. He thought that after Agnes followed him for several months, why did she still not care about worldly matters?

Could it be that the elves really were like the rumours? Because of their long lives, it was hard for them to change?

Thinking of this, Xu Yi couldn’t help looking at the dark Falling Rain Forest in front of him. If the elves really were like this, elder Illusia’s hope of letting the elves live in harmony with humans really would be hard to realize.

“I am also worried about this.” Elder Illusia gave a slight nod, “So I had Agnes follow by your side the entire time because human merchants have the most ideas among you humans and are the most flexible humans. If Agnes can live normally by your side and learn how to be flexible like humans from you, I believe that the other elves can do the same.”

“The problem is…...I feel that Agnes hasn’t changed much from the first time I’ve seen her. Rather I feel that she’s become even more innocent compared to before.” Xu Yi said with a frown.

“No, just the opposite. Compared to back when she lived in the tribe, there’s already been a large change in Agnes.” Elder Illusia shook her head with a faint smile, “Agnes was just a very pure child before, she would only think simple thoughts about matters. But now, according to what you’ve told me before, she has learned to not appear as soon as you mentioned that you didn’t have money, rather she waited until you came to the Falling Rain Forest to express her thoughts. This can be considered her learning how to use proper timing from you humans.”

Xu Yi was speechless. This was a skill humans had innately, how did it become something this worthy of praise when it came to Agnes?

“This is because you are humans and we are elves.” Elder Illusia answered Xu Yi’s question with a very general and real answer.

Xu Yi shook his head, as he still couldn’t understand the thoughts of elves.

“Alright, putting the change with Agnes aside, we should talk about business.” Xu Yi took out a cover for the new generation Magic Fan from his backpack and handed it over.

Elder Illusia took it to look over before curiously looking at Xu Yi, “Is there a problem with this plastic cover?”