At seven o'clock, Jiang Ye, who was fast asleep, was woken by his phone.
He fumbled for his phone with his eyes closed and put it to his ear.
“May I ask if this is Mr. Jiang Ye? You have a package being delivered, and it will arrive at your home shortly.”
The voice was quite familiar. Jiang Ye opened his eyes to look at the phone screen, then put it back to his ear. “Isabelle, what are you playing at?”
“Are you home? Is it convenient for you to receive the package?” Isabelle adopted the tone of an unfamiliar delivery person.
“I’m home, I’m home. Come over. Mengmeng is making breakfast, and you can still have some hot food if you come now.” Jiang Ye sat up from bed, his back aching.
“I’m on a diet and only eat fruit,” Isabelle finally resumed her normal tone. “I just remembered, the first time I met you, I was delivering a package to you. Do you miss the delivery person named Isabelle from back then?”
“Aren’t you still a delivery person named Isabelle now?”
“Not for long.”
“What do you mean? Hello? Hello?”
Jiang Ye looked at the screen; the call had been disconnected.
He got out of bed and stepped on the sweeping robot.
“Ouch, I’m sorry.” Jiang Ye moved his foot.
“Master, you’re not looking where you’re going,” the sweeping robot said.
Jiang Ye was startled. He kicked it, but the sweeping robot started to run after speaking, flashing to the doorway and wiggling provocatively before leaving.
“Damn it, is the sweeping robot rebelling!” Jiang Ye was shocked.
He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and went downstairs.
Isabelle’s spaceship had just landed in the manor.
She had actually changed into her old delivery uniform. Opening the trunk, she began unloading cardboard boxes.
Jiang Ye went over to help. “What is all this? Did Mengmeng buy these things?”
“No, they’re gifts for you,” Isabelle smiled. “More accurately, they’re gifts for Forest.”
As Jiang Ye carried the boxes inside, he glanced at the label on the side of a box. It read: [Green Sandalwood Giant Custom Building Blocks Integrated Toy].
Cen Yemeng, who was busy in the kitchen, was also alerted and ran over to help move the boxes. “Where should these boxes go? What are they?”
“Toys for Forest,” Isabelle said. “You should have some empty rooms in your house, right? Rooms over sixty square meters?”
“Yes, plenty. There are two on the first floor. Follow me.” Cen Yemeng led the way.
There were more boxes than expected, twenty-odd boxes of various sizes, all incredibly heavy.
Jiang Ye was sweating profusely and felt a bit out of breath. He thought to himself that his physical condition was indeed not as good as before and that he needed to exercise more in the future.
Isabelle ran to the steps outside and carried Jiang Senlin, who was catching snails, into the house. “Forest, you told Auntie last time that you wanted toys. Do you remember what you said you wanted?”
“Building blocks!” Jiang Senlin’s eyes lit up as he looked at the cardboard boxes.
“Auntie brought them for you. They’re building blocks that can build an entire city. You can assemble them box by box according to the numbers on the boxes and see how long it takes you to finish,” Isabelle coaxed him.
Jiang Senlin was already impatient. He ran to box [1], tore open the cardboard, and poured the contents onto the floor.
The exquisiteness of the building blocks surprised Jiang Ye. The green sandalwood was carved into buildings, vehicles, roads, and streetlights… everything that could be seen in a city was present.
The assembly structure was simple, but each piece was like a work of art. The windows on the buildings were all different – some half-open, some fully open, and there were even window cleaners hanging outside the windows. Each tiny worker was only the size of a mung bean, yet their arms, legs, and helmets could be distinguished. It was incredibly detailed.
Based on Jiang Ye’s childhood experience, such detailed toys were always exorbitantly priced. These twenty-odd boxes were likely worth no less than six figures in a store.
Jiang Senlin took out a schematic diagram from a box and immediately began assembling it according to the diagram, placing the street blocks and buildings together according to the labels on the bottom. He was playing very seriously.
“This child is very intelligent,” Isabelle said softly to the child’s parents from the doorway, her tone like that of a kindergarten teacher praising a child in front of their parents. “Look, with no one teaching him, he knows to identify each building block puzzle according to the schematic diagram. His spatial imagination and thinking abilities are very strong. And I only taught him three-digit numbers once, and he can distinguish them perfectly now.”
“Yes, he’s so smart, he must take after me,” Jiang Ye said. “And he has a good aunt.”
“However, your sister bringing these building blocks probably isn’t just for him to play with, is it?” Jiang Ye squatted down and looked at the cardboard boxes beside him. More than half of them contained building blocks shaped like delivery spaceships. “If I’m not mistaken, these are building blocks made according to the logistics city plan.”
“Like father, like son,” Isabelle smiled. “You guessed correctly.”
“Logistics city? What logistics city?” Cen Yemeng didn’t understand at all.
“Let’s eat first, and we’ll talk after the meal,” Jiang Ye said.
…
Jiang Senlin spent the entire morning assembling half of the city.
The scale was quite large, already occupying twenty square meters of floor space.
After finishing breakfast, Isabelle and Jiang Ye moved small stools to the side and watched, discussing the logistics city plan as they watched.
“The design of this logistics city is largely based on small logistics cities on other planets. Xu Yan and I made a few minor modifications,” Isabelle said. “Once completed, it will directly provide about 150,000 jobs and indirectly provide 300,000 jobs, solving the employment issues for 450,000 people.”
“So many!” Jiang Ye was astonished. “Why specifically fifteen thousand people?”
“The largest business of the logistics city is interstellar material import and export,” Isabelle said. “In this regard, we will cooperate with Ju Lanlan. Thousands of people will frequently travel to other planets to conduct market research, sign various orders, and then send and receive goods through the logistics city’s routes.”
“Why can’t you use trading posts?” Jiang Ye asked.
“The cost of trading posts is high. Although it’s not apparent on the surface, the items you buy from trading posts are priced about thirty percent higher, and some individual items are even several times higher,” Isabelle said. “The logistics city will have more advanced transmission workshops, greatly compressing transportation costs. A small portion of these costs can be given to you, as an import and export tax.”
Jiang Ye nodded vigorously. He was naturally happy to receive money.
“The machines for distributing goods will still need people for maintenance and repair. Maintenance engineers will require about twenty thousand people,” Isabelle said. “Then there will be fifty thousand of my colleagues.”
“Delivery personnel?” Jiang Ye was taken aback.
“Yes, responsible for driving spaceships to various major cities around the world to deliver goods,” Isabelle nodded. “These fifty thousand people can meet the delivery needs of about twenty million people. It will be sufficient for a long time. Once the population exceeds twenty million, we will recruit more.”
“The remaining are very trivial but indispensable occupations,” Isabelle counted on her fingers. “For example, for live cargo, specialized breeders are needed. Different types of live cargo require breeders with different specializations and qualifications. This aspect is very strict. Several departments of the Galactic Empire conduct regular inspections. If qualifications are missing, there will be sky-high fines, and I will go bankrupt directly, so we cannot afford to be short.”
“For the unloading of some valuable goods, machines alone are not enough; people are still more reliable in many aspects.”
“Security guards and sanitation workers for the various warehouses will also require twenty thousand people. You saw the building blocks Jiang Senlin is assembling; there are super many warehouses. There are 890 warehouses for flammable and explosive goods alone, 500 for dangerous chemicals, 300 for weapons and near-weapons, 400 for aquatic live cargo…”
“The logistics city also needs a dedicated cargo space station, with over ten thousand related staff.”
Jiang Ye listened point by point and nodded continuously.
“I roughly understand why so many people are needed,” Jiang Ye said. “Now the most critical question is, how much value can this logistics city bring? How much money do I need to invest?”