49: Chapter 49: Gathering for a Meal 49: Chapter 49: Gathering for a Meal “Family, I’m back!”
Allen Zhang and Simone rode their bicycles back to the bridge underpass headquarters.
Sieg came running upon hearing the news, and immediately jogged over to help carry some of the many items.
“Did you buy so much stuff?”
Dominic was also surprised, this meal seemed to have cost as much as several days of hard work picking up cans.
Taking over the dishes, he realized they were all in containers that needed heating to taste better, and decisively took out today’s trophy from foraging in the wild – a food heater picked up from the entrance of a community apartment.
Following the local custom, owners would generally place unwanted items at their doorstep for those in need to take.
Clearing out old furniture and appliances is a hassle, requiring a call to professional towing services and transport personnel to recycle these items, which costs extra for transport based on weight and size of each item – quite a large sum of money.
It would be better to just leave them at the doorstep for others to use.
Dominic had intended to sell the heater as scrap metal another day, but now it could be put to good use.
Though the food heater was a bit old, it was still a product from last year with complete functions.
“Leo, how’s your day going?”
Allen also turned to the homeless Leo, as well as the unfamiliar faced woman beside him.
“Not bad at all, at least I wasn’t bullied today, all thanks to your help, Mr.
It got me a stable job.”
Leo expressed his heartfelt gratitude and introduced the woman beside him, “This is Monica.”
“Hello Monica,” Allen greeted her with a smile.
She too was white, around the same age as Leo but not as aged in appearance, dressed neatly with a red scarf around her neck.
She looked somewhat haggard, her blonde hair seemed to have lost its luster.
That’s how it is living as a vagrant outside, not all vagrants could have a stable life like in the bridge underpass camp.
It was unclear how Leo managed to persuade her to join the Scavenger team.
“Hello, Hanberger,” Monica seemed a bit reserved.
She knew about Allen from what Leo told her and understood he was a man of influence, and that he was quite ruthless to the black people on the streets.
But she knew he treated his own people well; he even generously divided his territory among other vagrants for can collecting work, only taking a small cut from the profits, which was incredible.
He was definitely someone destined for great things!
“Don’t be shy, it’s just like being at home here; none of us are bad people,” Allen reassured her.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity and a place to work,” Monica said gratefully.
Allen waved it off, signaling her not to be overly courteous.
Our Beggar Gang’s purpose is to make sure every member lives a better life!
Pulling out a soot-blackened oil drum, he used a lighter to ignite the kindling and waste paper, forming a circle around the bonfire.
He took out his phone to play some relaxing music, placed snacks and various foods in front, and as they chatted and laughed, the atmosphere heated up and was filled with mirth.
Before long, Jason and Fitz returned.
The former brought two boxes of energy drinks from somewhere, and the latter carried bags of daily necessities.
After greeting them, Jason sat down next to Allen, handing him a bottle of energy drink, slinging an arm over his shoulder, and just letting one rip, “Drink up, it’s a trophy from today’s errand activity!”
Simone asked in surprise, “How come I didn’t get any notification about a Zero-Dollar Purchase event?”
“It’s not what you think.
It was a 24-hour supermarket that went out of business.
They left their doors wide open for a clearance sale, with the most expensive items only costing 12 US dollars, and many of them for free.
Jason and I just happened to pass by, and we took away a home-use electric kettle, 6 bars of soap, two pairs of slippers, and two boxes of energy drinks.”
Black sister Fitz immediately explained, “There have been quite a few Zero-Dollar Purchase events recently, and they’re getting more frequent by the day.
There are also more officers from the Southern Branch patrolling the streets now, and we certainly don’t want to lose big over small things!”
Why didn’t you guys call me for such a good deal?
I always miss out on these opportunities!” Simone was somewhat annoyed.
“How’s business going?”
Allen Zhang asked, “I heard from Simone that you guys are partnering up with some people to plant leaves?
Are those people reliable?”
Jason and Fitz glanced at each other, both somewhat helpless, “It’s alright, I guess…”
“It might be a technical issue that caused the leaves to wither during sprouting.
We plan on buying another bag of seeds to try planting again.
If it still doesn’t work, then we’ll just give up.”
The two of them were clearly not giving up yet.
Investing hundreds of dollars and seeing it go down the drain, who would feel okay with that?
Allen Zhang remained silent.
What he really wanted to ask was whether they were being scammed?
How hard can it be to grow leaves?
Could it be a problem with the raw materials?
As long as you get the greenhouse right, it should be effective very quickly.
That stuff, as long as it’s in the right environment, grows like weeds!
But seeing their determination to keep at it until they hit a wall, he didn’t have the heart to dampen their enthusiasm.
Simone sat down and joined them.
The three huddled together and began to talk in low voices.
Allen Zhang wasn’t too interested in their business and turned his focus to join the Beggar Gang team, to talk with Dominic and the others.
“Dominic, how many cans did everyone pick up in total today?
You must have counted them, right?” Allen Zhang approached and asked.
Dominic immediately laughed and replied, “Of course, I was just about to report the results to you.
We now have four streets’ territory for can picking, and today we picked up a total of 2869 cans.
On average, every street yields a stable six to seven hundred cans.
That’s more than what I would pick up in half a week!”
“I also went to the street with the pawnshop you mentioned, but there aren’t actually that many cans there.
You hardly find any cans on the roadside, and all the garbage bins when emptied only yield about four hundred cans, many of which are glass bottles.
However, Leo did find half a box of decent leaf candy, and David and Gate have already gone to sell them on the streets.”
“There are about eight to nine hundred cans that you can pick up on Hopson Street.”
The quantity might seem large, but divided among six people scavenging outdoors, it’s not that much.
On average, each person picks up about four hundred cans a day, which amounts to roughly twenty US dollars.
But this is already a very decent income level.
Leo’s usual earnings were mostly below 15 dollars, and most of the time, he would be robbed, ending up with nothing and earning no money.
Picking cans was never the main avenue for Scavengers to make a fortune.
It’s the rarities from the treasure boxes that really bring in the money; otherwise, it would take a long time just to make one thousand dollars from cans alone.
Dominic and Leo had other finds.
The former picked up a usable food warmer, which could sell for maybe 5 to 10 dollars, or could be kept for personal use.
Leo found half a box of leaf candy with decent quality and quantity, which could be worth tens of dollars.
Commercial stores selling leaf products, including leaf oil vape cartridges, leaf candy, inhalable leaf flowers, and various kinds of leaves, range in price from 16 to 200 dollars—much higher than the street prices.
These stores only accept cash, unaffordable for the poor, and most people still prefer street shopping.
A gram of leaves is typically priced at around a dozen dollars, while the indoor cultivation of leaves costs only 0.3 dollars per gram.
Cigarettes with added ingredients are only mixed with a small amount of leaves and are not expensive.
It has to be said this business is hugely profitable!
Allen Zhang didn’t have any requirements for compulsory recovery of the small things they found on the street.
Unless it was on his order to take part in a specific operation, such as raiding a certain community or a Rich District, valuable items found would then be confiscated.
Just like the Vantini gold necklace he found today or the Cartier watch Dominic once found, such valuable items must be turned in.
For other insignificant trinkets, a symbolic dividend of 20%-40% was enough.
The dividend for cans remains unchanged, a stable 20% take.
After all, even if a person ran themselves ragged, at most they’d only be able to pick up a few thousand cans in a day.
If you are even more ruthless and take half of the profits, who would still want to work for you?