Under the helpful explanation of the kiosk owner, Ding Yun quickly found the report. Although it didn't detail every inside story, it covered the general situation.
Experts estimated that the tomb contained national treasures.
However, they had already been stolen by tomb robbers.
Upon reading this, Ding Yun's first thought was how fortunate it would be if the tomb were the one robbed by the person who stole her money. After all, the original owner of her body had wished for the thief to die a horrible death. If the thief were indeed a tomb robber, while not necessarily meeting a gruesome end, the probability of receiving a death sentence would be quite high.
That would be better than her having to deal with him herself.
Furthermore, since the money had already been recovered, she figured it would likely be enough to appease the original owner's resentment.
Unfortunately, this was merely the best-case scenario.
Ding Yun didn't dare to hold out too much hope. After chatting with the kiosk owner for a while and gathering more related information, she bought several newspapers with rental listings and hurried home.
Back home, she first prepared dinner.
Only then did she begin to carefully pore over the newspapers, looking for suitable shop spaces or houses for rent nearby.
The current place was too small and hindered her performance.
Regardless of whether she continued her food business or started another venture, renting a shop space was essential. The space should preferably be a bit larger, otherwise, she wouldn't be able to open more blind boxes due to lack of storage at home.
Her current funds might not be enough to purchase a shop.
Or she might only be able to afford a small or not-so-good one.
However, renting was still very feasible.
For the next two days, Ding Yun stopped setting up her stall and dedicated all her energy to finding and viewing properties. However, this was still a transitional economic period, moving from work-unit assigned housing to commercial housing. Work-unit housing allocation hadn't entirely ended, and the development of commercial housing was only in its nascent stages.
Consequently, property listings were scarce.
Good and suitable listings were even rarer.
After two days of searching, during which her legs grew noticeably thinner, Ding Yun still hadn't found a particularly satisfactory place.
The only one she found somewhat acceptable,
a standout among mediocrity, was a shop space in a newly developed commercial property that was for sale only, not for rent.
That evening, after another night of contemplation, Ding Yun finally decided to grit her teeth and apply for a bank loan to acquire the over 200-square-meter shop space.
The total price for the shop was over 60,000 yuan, almost 70,000.
She would pay a deposit to secure it, then work diligently selling goods during this period and apply for an interest-free创业 loan. She believed this would allow her to acquire the shop.
In 1982, banks offered interest-free loans, and this program lasted for quite some time. However, few people were aware of it, and relatively few dared to take out loans. The restrictions and requirements were not particularly stringent. As long as one was willing to borrow, they could generally secure some funds; the only difference was the amount.
Ding Yun felt she could give it a try.
Therefore, her schedule became even busier. She had to research current policies and situations, prepare various documents required for the loan, and even obtain permits for individual businesses. In short, there were numerous miscellaneous and time-consuming tasks.
These were only one aspect of her endeavors.
Ding Yun also continued to open blind boxes and sell goods.
However, during this period, she primarily opened jewelry blind boxes and sold various affordable jewelry items. But after selling for a while, the local market quickly became saturated, and she currently lacked the capability to sell outside her area.
Moreover, the loan situation wasn't particularly optimistic. While she could secure funds, the amount was limited. Even with the money earned from selling cheap jewelry recently, there was still a 20,000 yuan shortfall, and time was becoming increasingly tight.
So, in the end, Ding Yun decided to take a gamble.
Oh, no, two gambles.
She specifically purchased a medium-grade jewelry blind box and a high-grade jewelry blind box, intending to try her luck and see if she could obtain some more expensive jewelry.
If she could get some valuable jewelry.
She wouldn't be so anxious.
To maximize her chances, Ding Yun specifically bathed, changed her clothes, and offered incense and prayers before opening the blind boxes.
[A set of ice-jadeite jewelry]
[A high-quality storage ring]
Seeing the two items that now appeared beside her, Ding Yun was still unsure how to feel. While both were good, they weren't what she truly needed at the moment.
For her, two gold bricks
would have been better than these two items.
Firstly, the set of ice-jadeite jewelry was indeed valuable, but it was no longer the era of the Empress Dowager. Jade prices had plummeted and wouldn't slowly rise due to speculation and other factors until decades later. Forget jade; even diamonds were not valuable in Ding Yun's current location and time period. They could only fetch a good price abroad.
Therefore, this set of jadeite jewelry was not only difficult to sell,
but it also wouldn't fetch a high price.
The storage ring was excellent, especially before Ding Yun decided to buy a shop. It could definitely store a considerable amount of items, serving perfectly as a storage warehouse.
However, now that she was 60-70% complete with the process of buying a shop, she couldn't abandon her plans halfway just because she got a storage ring. And she couldn't sell the storage ring; she could only keep it for her own use.
Using it for reselling would undoubtedly be profitable.
But she had a daughter at home.
She couldn't trust her in-laws or sister-in-law to care for her properly, so she couldn't just leave on long trips. Thus, in Ding Yun's current view, the storage ring was merely a warehouse.
It had little real value.
Regardless, after opening these two blind boxes, Ding Yun could roughly surmise that medium-grade blind boxes contained genuine precious jewelry, while high-grade blind boxes contained magical accessories with special functions.
Therefore, in order to obtain some easily sellable jewelry, Ding Yun specifically purchased two more medium-grade jewelry blind boxes. She opened them using the same procedure, and if unsatisfied, she continued to open them. She opened over ten blind boxes in this manner.
Including the previous high-grade blind box,
she spent nearly a thousand yuan.
It was only after opening these blind boxes that Ding Yun finally obtained what she truly wanted: a pair of solid gold bangles, weighing a total of one jin.
They were the most traditional dragon and phoenix bangles.
Even though they didn't look particularly attractive, and even carried a hint of being old-fashioned, they were genuinely easy to convert to cash.
They also depreciated little.
Most importantly, they were easy to sell, and there would be no shortage of buyers.
At this time, gold was priced around eighty to ninety yuan per gram. Even at the lowest price of eighty yuan per gram, this pair of dragon and phoenix bangles could easily be exchanged for forty thousand yuan. With this forty thousand yuan, Ding Yun could successfully acquire the shop she had reserved.
There would even be surplus funds for renovation and stocking.
Therefore, after opening the pair of dragon and phoenix bangles, Ding Yun immediately stopped her spending spree. She then put away the diamond jewelry, discarded spirit stone jewelry, silver jewelry, and jadeite and gold jewelry from other realms that she had previously obtained, which were either of low value or difficult to sell. Finally, she went out with the pair of dragon and phoenix bangles.
She went out to sell them, aiming to complete the transaction as soon as possible.
However, even though the process of selling the dragon and phoenix gold bangles went smoothly, Ding Yun still spent another three to five days to finally complete all the necessary procedures.
She successfully purchased the shop using her savings and the loan.
After selling the dragon and phoenix gold bangles, she had enough money to pay the full price for the shop. However, after paying, there wasn't much left. Coupled with the rapid depreciation of currency,
it made sense to use the loan.
Therefore, when making the payment, Ding Yun first used the loan money, and her own savings covered the remaining balance.
As for the loan, she would repay it upon maturity.
After all, she wasn't afraid of being unable to repay it.
From start to finish, Ding Yun spent a total of three weeks to completely finalize everything. And she still had no respite, as the shop needed to be renovated once acquired.
Furthermore, she had to consider what kind of business to run.
In short, she was very busy, extremely busy, and super busy.