The waiter immediately tensed up and stammered, "Recently, the cost of buying chicken has increased. If we don't raise the price, we'll be operating at a loss."

Annie was also a little puzzled by this and subconsciously asked, "There haven't been any major news stories in the food market lately, so why is the price of chicken going up?"

The waitress didn't know much about purchasing matters either, so she quickly called over the store manager to answer her questions.

The manager walked into the lobby, glanced at the group, and knew they were not ordinary people. He said sincerely, "Gentlemen, I'm so sorry."

"The shop's chicken supplier used to be fixed, but for some reason, several of the suppliers we regularly cooperated with said they had no stock left."

"So we had to contact other suppliers."

"However, there's a rule in our industry that if it's a temporary collaboration, we can't get the lowest price, so the cost goes up."

Chen Nan assumed that what he was saying was just an excuse to raise prices, so he said irritably, "Chicken prices are going up, what does that have to do with duck? Why are duck prices going up too?"

The manager chuckled twice and patiently explained, "Because duck meat is a substitute for chicken, after the price of chicken rose, more people bought duck meat, creating a seller's market for duck meat, so the price of meat also went up."

This market principle is truly everywhere. Zhou Huimin slowly put down the menu. "Sister Nan, what would you like to eat?"

"Let's have a mushroom hot pot," Chen Nanqing said leisurely.

"Please wait a moment, guests. We'll be right there."

The group quickly forgot about this little incident.

While waiting for the pot to boil, Chen Nan finally lost his patience and said directly to Annie and Zhou Huimin, "Don't blame me for rushing you."

"Chen Dong is getting on in years; it's time for him to get married."

"Besides, don't you want to marry Chen Dong?"

Annie lowered her head deeply. She never expected that Sister Nan would say such embarrassing things in front of so many people.

“I would like to marry him, but he might not want to marry me,” Zhou Huimin said bluntly.

Chen Nan quickly grasped the key point and asked in confusion, "You've followed him for so long, don't you have this much confidence?"

......