After my divorce at thirty, I developed an intelligence network.

In this place, people like him who quietly handle the garbage are no different from the pile of wood itself; they are all just doing the work.

By noon, most of the timber had been cleared.

Gong Yuelong unscrewed the kettle, which had been warmed by the sun, and took a sip of water to rest.

"Hey sir, are you still not done?" A delivery driver, also looking rather dusty, casually asked as he passed by.

"Almost done, just the tail end of it," Gong Yuelong replied.

"It's not easy for anyone." The driver nodded and drove off.

While resting, he thought to himself: it would be too much of a loss to sell these timbers, especially the good quality timbers and thick boards, directly as scrap wood by weight.

It's best to contact timber merchants who specialize in recycling construction waste wood directly. They offer much fairer prices than scrap yards, and the profit per transaction is much higher than selling it as scrap.

With this in mind, I was full of energy and quickly finished packing.

Just as he was about to report to Engineer Chen, Engineer Chen turned around from the corner of the building and saw that the site had been cleaned and tidied up.

"Are you done?" Engineer Chen asked.

"All done, Mr. Chen. The site has been cleaned up too. This is the last bit of trash; I'll take it away now."

"Hmm, you're quite efficient." Engineer Chen nodded. "Alright, let's go. In the future... if there are similar odd jobs, I'll come to you again."

"Okay, thank you, Engineer Chen!" Gong Yuelong thought to himself, finding joy in the midst of his predicament. He had just landed another money-making opportunity; what were a few boxes of white wine compared to that?

As I left the project site and passed the security office, Grandpa Sun was standing at the door.

Gong Yuelong stopped the car and handed a pack of cigarettes out the window: "Master Sun, thank you for watching over things. I'm taking it away."

Grandpa Sun took the water, nodded, and didn't say much, but his eyes were much gentler than in the morning.

Driving his beat-up pickup truck loaded with scrap timber away from the Gold Coast, Gong Yuelong, his face covered in dust, was in a good mood. The timber was worth much more than he had expected.

He took the timber directly to Lao Zhao, who specializes in building timber.

Old Zhao was an expert. He walked around the car twice, rummaged through the wood, and divided it into two piles—one pile was for resale as second-hand building materials, and the other pile was for scrap that could only be broken down.

Finally, he pressed a few keys on the calculator and scanned the code to give Gong Yuelong 420 yuan.

"The wood is fine, but the main thing is that you cleaned it up well, there aren't many cement lumps, which saves me a lot of trouble."

As Old Zhao spoke, he offered me a cigarette. He began by saying:

"I've never seen you around here before. Are you new here?"

Gong Yuelong smiled and said, "I guess so. Before... I was messing around elsewhere, but now I'm back to start from scratch."

Old Zhao nodded, not asking any further questions. Having lived in this area for so long, what kind of down-on-their-luck people hadn't he seen?

There are plenty of people who used to be successful but are now covered in mud.

He added:

"This pile of wood is quite well-organized, much better than the usual haphazardly thrown in. If you have similar pieces in good condition in the future, we can send them over. The price... won't be a loss for you."

Gong Yuelong's heart skipped a beat, and he nodded: "Thank you in advance, Boss Zhao. If there's anything suitable, I'll definitely send it to you first."

Old Zhao casually asked, "Do you live far away? The cost of fuel for this truckload of scrap material also needs to be factored in."

"It's alright, it's passable."

"Okay, drive carefully."

Old Zhao waved his hand and turned back to his small prefab house filled with all sorts of scrap materials.

As he drove the empty truck away from the material yard, Gong Yuelong touched the cigarette behind his ear and weighed the four hundred and twenty yuan he had just received.

The fatigue in my body eased up a little bit.

Life, like brewing medicine, needs to be simmered slowly over a low flame to bring out its flavor.

He didn't think that just because he had the system or earned an extra hundred or two today, he was about to have a stroke of good fortune and become invincible.

The bloody lesson learned from falling from a great height in a past life is right there:

As long as a person hasn't truly climbed out of the pit, the mud on their feet will remain mud. Any tiny change could shatter that nascent hope.

These days, you have to endure them little by little before you can create a little room to maneuver.

"If you don't hold on tight, it's not considered a real prize," Gong Yuelong thought to himself.

The progress bar for the ten tons of steel bars in the system is still slowly climbing.

But at this moment, he would rather focus on which of the four hundred and twenty dollars he should use to pay off the smallest and most urgent debt.

Should we go to the Gold Coast again and see if Mr. Chen has any new snippets of information?

How can we maintain Lao Zhao's line to make it stronger?

He continued driving the beat-up pickup truck, trying to find a place to have lunch and then wait for the system simulation to complete.

He then hurriedly ate a bowl of noodles at a roadside stall, adding two yuan worth of bean curd sheets as a reward.

Back in that beat-up pickup truck, I closed the door, leaned back in the seat,

"No matter how difficult the road is, we have to keep moving forward. Otherwise, wouldn't this system have been a waste of time?"

Gong Yuelong closed his eyes slightly, his mind sinking in.

After he presented the almost harsh realities, the simulation, which had lasted for nearly a day, was finally completed.

The screen now clearly displays only one strategy: concise, direct, and even somewhat unexpectedly... effortless.

[Item under investigation: Phased, low-risk profit-taking strategy for high-value intelligence (ten tons of steel bars)]

[Final Deduction Results]

[Core Step One: Execute Immediately: Directly call Jiang Yan and explain your purpose—you have learned that the Gold Coast project team urgently needs to liquidate a batch of rebar.]

[Second key step: Find the Gold Coast project manager and directly ask if they have any steel reinforcement bars available for sale.]

Expected Outcome: Jiang Yan will show strong interest in this information. Using this as a starting point, you can propose a cooperation model:

She will provide the principal and be responsible for the sales channels, while you will be responsible for information implementation and process flow, and profit sharing will be negotiated.

This move can achieve three goals:

1. Transform yourself from an incapable entity into an information hub and executor;

2. Temporarily transform Jiang Yan from a mere creditor into a potential partner to alleviate her pressure to collect debts;

3. Obtain the qualification and share of profits for first-time participants in this type of gray resource operation.

"What?! It's that simple?"

After reading it, Gong Yuelong was stunned for a moment, and then a wave of self-mockery washed over him.

He had racked his brains, feeling that these ten tons of steel bars were like a mountain, and that he had no money or power, so he had no idea where to start.

His mind was filled with complex schemes, ingenious calculations, and even shady tactics.

But they overlooked the most direct and effective path: find someone capable of handling this mountain and sell her its location and key.

And the most suitable person had always been right in front of him—Jiang Yan.

She has money, connections, motivation, and the courage and skill to handle such shady dealings.

"It's not that things are complicated, it's that I just didn't find the right entry point before," he sighed to himself.

The brilliance of this system lies in its complete rejection of useless emotions and excessive calculations, directly addressing the core of the problem:

What you lack is not a grand plan in your imagination, but the first, smallest, and most crucial push to turn information into action.

And this driving force is often to say the most direct thing to that person.