"Sophia, I want to make a deal with you. I want the right to buy this painting first if someone else offers the same price. What do you think?"
Professor Zhou sent the money first, then talked to Sophia.
Sophia had never seen someone act like this before. She sent a message to Professor Zhou and said, "Professor Zhou, you didn't need to do that. We've already done business before, and you're my senior's teacher. Of course I'll give you priority."
Professor Zhou replied, "It's okay. This is the rule in our field. When it's a rare and real painting, you must pay to get the right to buy it first."
So the thirty million wasn't a deposit. It was the price for the right to buy the painting first, and only if the price offered by someone else was the same. If someone else paid more, then Sophia couldn't do anything. She didn't have that much money.
Sophia opened her chat with Amelia and asked her about this. Amelia said it was true.
Then, Professor Zhou and Sophia agreed on a time through WeChat.
Sophia asked, "Professor Zhou, I have some other paintings. Do you want to see them too?"
Professor Zhou was curious but didn't expect anything special. She thought, how could Sophia have another rare piece?
But Sophia really did.
Professor Zhou replied with ten exclamation marks.
"Can I bring someone to see them in person?"
Sophia thought she meant someone to check if the paintings were real. She replied, "Of course."
Then she invited her to her home.
After sending the message, Sophia remembered that Professor Zhou was still overseas. She guessed it would take at least two days for her to arrive.
So she went back to her work.
General Yves had sent her so many things. She couldn't keep holding back anymore.
Didn't he want to develop land? Didn't he want to build things?
She added ten more excavators, ten more water trucks, and also added cranes, drilling machines, and measuring tools.
She prepared everything. Even a mountain could be moved now.
To open a mountain, she needed explosives.
Sophia found a recipe for making gunpowder and sent it to General Yves.
Then she called the frozen food supplier late at night.
"Yes, it's me. I want to order something. Don't you still have yellow croaker, squid, and mackerel? I want fifty thousand pounds of each. Can you deliver them tomorrow?"
These were for General Yves. They could be eaten now or dried and stored for later.
After that, she called Ronin and placed more orders for all the machines and tools she had listed.
As for General Yves, he had given her so many treasures. She couldn't be selfish.
He worked hard, so she bought a massage chair for him.
If he didn't eat well, she ordered bird's nest soup, shark fin, and lots of fresh meat just for him.
The beds in the past were hard. So Sophia ordered over a hundred mattresses.
They were latex mattresses, each one cost over a thousand.
She also ordered a super soft natural latex mattress just for General Yves. It cost much more than the others.
Before, she saved money and didn't buy instant noodles because potatoes were cheaper and gave more food value. So she didn't buy noodles anymore.
But today she had money.
Now she could give instant noodles to the soldiers.
Not just the noodles. They would also have sausages and eggs.
So Sophia went on Alibaba and ordered ten thousand boxes of instant noodles. Each box had twenty-four packs. That meant two hundred forty thousand packs in total.
There were four flavors: braised, seafood, scallion pork ribs, and pickled mustard greens.
When soldiers were out on missions without water, they could eat the noodles dry. If they were camping near a river, they could add some water to soak them and still enjoy a bag of noodles.
Sophia also ordered side snacks to go with the noodles. A full box had sixty sausages. She ordered ten thousand boxes, which added up to six hundred thousand sausages.
Each sausage cost less than one yuan. It helped the soldiers get some salt and eat some meat. Very affordable.
Eggs were hard to carry and store, so Sophia ordered braised eggs instead. Some of them had soft yolks inside.
One small box had thirty eggs. Sophia also ordered ten thousand of these.
Just to let the soldiers eat a good meal with instant noodles, she had already spent over a million. With the fish and mattresses, the cost went up to two or three million.
This didn't even include the equipment Ronin had to order. Those were the most expensive and could cost over a hundred million.
All of this would already fill up her warehouse space.
Sophia decided to stop for now.
"I just ordered a batch of food. It will be delivered within five days. The machines for land clearing will take longer. They should arrive within half a month."
After finishing everything, Sophia ate something simple outside. By the time she got home, it was already ten at night.
As her car reached the house, the headlights lit up the front door. She saw someone standing there.
She looked closely. It was Ronin.
"Ronin, why are you still here this late?"
Ronin had gotten Sophia's call during dinner.
He usually understood what she did, but this time, the amount of money involved was too big. His heart was shaking just hearing it. He couldn't relax at home.
After dinner, he came straight to Sophia's house to wait. He wanted to talk to her in person. He didn't expect her to come back so late.
He guessed she must have been meeting a client. Maybe she even got a new order over dinner.
"Boss, what you said on the phone wasn't clear. I need to confirm the machine types and sizes with you face to face."
Sophia thought for a moment and agreed. She invited Ronin into the house.
The two of them talked until very late at night.
The next day, Sophia naturally woke up late.
As soon as she cleared her mind, she remembered the furniture she bought yesterday should have arrived.
She went to the new house next door. Sure enough, the furniture was already placed where it should be.
Now only the home appliances were missing.
Yesterday, she had thought about it and decided to go with a smart home system. That way, she wouldn't need to choose items one by one.
She knew Ronin was too busy now, so she contacted the smart home company herself.
They said someone would come to her place in the afternoon to check the site.
Yesterday she also planned to buy a massage chair for General Yves but didn't order it. Now she decided to include that in the smart home setup too.
Sophia went to the warehouse to clean up the treasures she received last night. While she was doing that, she also sent a message to General Yves, asking for his height, weight, and body size.
General Yves didn't understand why a chair needed that kind of information, but he still sent it to her.
Sophia sent the details to her contact at the smart home company.
The contact could feel that Sophia was serious, so they gave very good service.
They replied that someone would arrive before four in the afternoon.
Before they arrived, Sophia had already finished cleaning the jewelry. She made picture collections and sent them to both Deron and Litde.
Then her phone suddenly rang. It was Professor Zhou.
"Sophia, sorry to bother you. We just arrived at the airport. Could you send us your location?"