Chapter 74 A meal took so long... The office door opened, and three...
The ingredients I prepared today still didn't last until dinner time.
It was only a little past 2 p.m. and all the vegetables were sold out.
An Fusheng watched as Xu Sannian closed the ordering system and asked, "Are we still open for dinner tonight?"
Xu Sannian: "You're not open for business anymore, are you? It was the same yesterday. It's too much trouble to go buy groceries now."
An Fusheng asked this question mainly because he remembered the situation yesterday where some people wanted to eat dinner but couldn't. "Wouldn't it be bad if we never opened for dinner?"
Xu Sannian thought An Fusheng's words made sense: "How about we start selling in limited quantities from tomorrow? We'll sell forty orders each for lunch and dinner, and then we'll close up shop when we're done. What do you think?"
An Fusheng nodded: "Yes, I think that's a good idea. This way, we can better plan the quantity of ingredients we need to buy, and we won't be as flustered as we were today when we did so much."
Roughly calculated, they sold about sixty or seventy orders this morning. An Fusheng and Xu Sannian have been working non-stop since they started buying groceries this morning, without even having time to drink water, let alone eat. If they start selling in fixed quantities tomorrow, they can take a break in between.
“But why not fifty orders each in the morning and afternoon?” An Fusheng asked.
"Ah, why does it have to be fifty orders? I roughly estimated forty orders based on the optimal workload," Xu Sannian asked doubtfully.
An Fusheng rubbed his nose: "No, I just think that 100 orders a day is a round number, and 100 is a three-digit number, which seems like a lot, but if 80 is more appropriate, then let's go with 80."
Xu Sannian: "???" Isn't eighty a whole number? And there are many numbers larger than one hundred, aren't there?
With the shop closed, An Fusheng and Xu Sannian could finally have lunch.
The others had already eaten, so Lou Lan told them to rest for a while while she went to heat up the food for them.
After being exposed to cooking fumes all morning, Anfu was worried that Xu Sannian would lose her appetite, so he found some oranges for her and told her to go outside to eat oranges and get some fresh air.
He then helped Lou Lan heat up the dishes in the kitchen.
The food was left over from lunch and hadn't cooled down completely yet. It could just be heated up in the microwave. There wasn't much to do, but An Fusheng really enjoyed helping his elders with chores.
"It must have been really tough on Niannian. A pampered girl like her has come here to help with the dirty and tiring work," Lou Lan said. "I bet she's never done any of this kind of work at home before."
An Fusheng thought to himself, "That's right. When Xu Sannian first arrived, she couldn't even wash vegetables properly. He never expected her to endure such hardship."
"How about we sell less in the future? We're so busy every day that we don't even have time to eat. This will ruin our health if we keep doing this," Lou Lan said.
An Fusheng nodded: "Yes, Niannian and I have just discussed it. Starting tomorrow, we will sell forty orders each for lunch and dinner. Once we sell them all, we will close. We will also adjust our business hours to 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Lou Lan: "That's good. Your mother-in-law also told me that you like cooking and want to open a shop. She's letting you do it, just to give you some experience. She doesn't expect you to make a lot of money. She'll find a way to pay for your cochlear implant at 14."
"I understand." An Fusheng felt a pang of sadness.
According to the original owner's age, Wen Mama was not more than ten years older than An Fusheng, but she always treated him like a child. It is said that Wen Mama was only twenty-five years old when she took over the orphanage. Others' twenty-five-year-olds were still children in their eyes, but she herself became Wen Mama at the age of twenty-five. Although the children in the orphanage were abandoned, having Wen Mama and Lou Mama was a kind of luck.
They're not open in the afternoon, so An Fusheng and Xu Sannian can take a nap after lunch.
When An Fusheng returned to his room, Wen Xinglan had just woken up. Seeing An Fusheng lying down, he wanted to climb onto the bed to play, but was forcibly taken away by Lou's mother. An Fusheng finally had his own bed.
I woke up feeling refreshed and energized.
An Fusheng hummed a little tune as he went to the living room on the second floor to play with everyone, but on the way he was intercepted by Xu Sannian and taken to Wen Min's office.
"Why?" An Fusheng asked. "I told you I'd practice typing tonight."
Because Wen's mother often works in the office during the day, he didn't want her to see him looking cowardly.
"Let me show you the accounts," Xu Sannian said. "Other businesses check and reconcile their accounts every day before closing, but you, you just run off far away after cooking every day."
“Mother Wen said I haven’t learned it yet, so you can help watch over me first.”
The small accounts from before opening the shop were driving An Fusheng crazy. He didn't want to look at the accounts, especially the kind on the computer, where the spreadsheets were big and long, and he felt dizzy every time he flipped through the pages.
"I don't even want to talk to you. I bet you'll get a beating if Dean Wen finds out about what you've done."
"Keep your voice down, Mrs. Wen is in her office."
She's not here.
"I just wanted to let you know about the sales situation these past two days." Xu Sannian forcibly pulled An Fusheng away.
Xu San Nian, being a Sanda practitioner, was incredibly strong, leaving An Fusheng with no chance to struggle.
"Sales have been pretty good these past two days." Xu Sannian tossed An Fusheng into his leather executive chair.
"How much...how much?" An Fusheng asked.
Girls, can you please not be so violent!
Xu Sannian: "Yesterday we sold 27 orders. If we include the order from Hua Xiaopang's mom last night, that's 28 orders, with a total income of 3782."
An Fusheng was shocked: "So many!"
"Because we had several large orders yesterday, we sold 70 orders this morning, with a total revenue of 6,352 yuan. The total revenue for the two days is 10,134 yuan."
An Fusheng's mouth dropped open: "You mean we earned more than 10,000 yuan in just two days? And that's just from selling lunch?" An Fusheng suddenly felt that he wasn't that tired from being busy from morning to afternoon.
"This is just the total revenue, not the total profit. You still need to deduct various costs," Xu Sannian said.
"That's right." An Fusheng was a little too excited about earning 10,000 yuan for the first time in his life—no, in both his lives. He tried to calm himself down for a few seconds before asking, "So, what's our profit?"
"It's not easy to calculate the profit after only two days. If we include the initial investment, the profit is still negative. But if we only calculate based on the cost of these two days, the profit is fifty percent."
An Fusheng: "Wow, that's not bad either!"
"Do you know where the other 50% of our costs are?" Xu Sannian asked.
An Fusheng: "Where?"
Xu Sannian said, "Not counting labor and utilities, the cost of ingredients and packaging accounts for 15%, and the delivery platform's pickup fee accounts for 35%."
"How can the food delivery platform take so much?" An Fusheng stared incredulously at the dense array of numbers on his computer screen. "If we add in the initial investment and the costs of utilities, we still don't earn as much as the food delivery platform?"
"This is even without much promotion from us. Food delivery platforms only generate traffic when there are orders. Relying solely on free delivery, low-price customer acquisition, and free meals will only lead to higher commission rates if we want to increase traffic in the future."
Xu Sannian also reminded him, "You just forgot to calculate the labor and venue costs. Although they are free, they are still costs."
An Fusheng fell silent.
After a long pause, An Fusheng finally found his voice, "It will be fine once we open the shop."
"Now that you've opened a physical store, you're not going to do anything online anymore?" Xu Sannian asked.
An Fusheng opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say for a moment. Young people nowadays are very busy and don't have time to go out to eat. Even if they are not busy, they may not be willing to go out to eat. The online demand is huge. Even if there are restaurants, it is probably not enough to just do offline business.
"Is it because this platform takes a high commission? Should we try a different platform?" An Fusheng asked.
Xu Sannian: "They're about the same."
The saying that capitalists are all bloodsuckers is becoming increasingly true.
Xu Sannian thought for a moment and said, "However, there are other ways."
An Fusheng asked urgently, "Through what means?"
Xu Sannian asked, "You must have bought things at those chain fast food restaurants, right? Like fried chicken and cola, have you noticed that they ask you to scan a QR code to place an order?"
An Fusheng shook his head: I've never bought it, I've never scanned it. Please continue, Teacher Xu, I'm listening attentively.
Xu Sannian: "Usually, scanning the QR code leads to the store's official WeChat account or mini-program. When placing an order, you can also choose takeout. I was thinking, could we also create our own mini-program or official WeChat account? Customers can place orders by scanning the code, and we can connect to a delivery platform for direct delivery. Wouldn't that work? After the restaurant is built, we can continue to use the official WeChat account or mini-program."
An Fusheng understood after Xu Sannian said this: "But other people have QR codes posted in their stores. Customers scan the code when they enter the store and can directly access the store if needed. We don't have a restaurant, so where are our customers supposed to scan the code?"
Xu Sannian: "Of course we need to advertise now. What can you do without advertising these days?"
An Fusheng: "How do we advertise?"
He had only ever seen people handing out flyers, but there are too many scammers these days, and everyone is very cautious about scanning QR codes. They don't even have a physical store, so if they use this method to advertise, the effect probably won't be very good.
Xu Sannian was thinking that advertising online seemed too expensive for their restaurant. To save money, they could ask their parents to help them advertise on their company website, but their products were targeted at consumers nationwide, and their delivery service was limited, so that didn't seem suitable either.
“I understand!” An Fusheng suddenly said, “We can print the QR code on our packaging bags or stick it on the food boxes, and then tell them that they can also scan the code to buy. At this time, we can offer a discount and gradually attract customers to our platform. However, if we do this, we will have to continue selling on the food delivery platform for a while.”
"Ah! Master, you're amazing! This method is fantastic! We can also establish a membership tier system, where the more customers buy, the more discounts they get, thus retaining the customers we attract!"
An Fu nodded vigorously: "Yes, yes, yes! You came up with this method, you're really amazing."
"Hahahaha! We're so clever!"
Xu Sannian laughed: "But I think we can use the official account and the mini-program at the same time. The mini-program can be used to order food, and the official account can be used to publish articles to promote our restaurant culture and increase our visibility. What do you think?"
An Fusheng nodded vigorously: "Yes, yes."
We had a large batch of bags and lunch boxes ordered before, but none of them had QR codes printed on them. We can't let them go to waste.
After some discussion, the two decided to print a batch of small cards and put them in the takeout bags when customers place their orders. The cards could also be printed with messages telling customers that there would be discounts when they scanned the code to order. It was perfect!
Finally, the two got carried away with the discussion and improved the discount plan. In addition to the membership registration and coupons and upgrade discounts that Xu Sannian had mentioned before, they also decided to set up coupons that could be transferred to friends. After the friends received the coupons and registered, they would become customers. In this way, the coupons would not only lock in customers for repeat purchases, but also deeply explore customer resources, killing two birds with one stone.
When Wen Min entered the office, he saw the two of them, their faces flushed with excitement. If he knew they were discussing work, he would be fine, but if he didn't know, he would think they were doing something strange.
"It's time to make dinner," Wen Min said.
An Fusheng: "Okay! I'm going right now!"
Xu Sannian: "Master, wait for me!"
An Fusheng sprang from his chair like a monkey and darted out of the office; Xu Sannian did the same...
Wen Min tapped his head, trying to recall if he had ever been this naive before.
Impossible, absolutely not!
An Fusheng rushed into the kitchen, then suddenly stopped: "Wen Xingrui!"
Wen Xingrui, who was feeding the cat with a lively fish in his arms, was startled and looked up at An Fusheng in confusion. The big fish in his arms flicked its tail a few times, causing Wen Xingrui to fall to the ground.
"What are you doing!" An Fusheng walked over in a few steps, helped the staggering Wen Xingrui up, and took the fish away.
Afu even chipped off a few scales from the fish's tail. Anfu put the fish back into the bucket, and the big fish seemed relieved as it circled around in the water a few times.
"Ah!" Wen Xingrui pointed anxiously at the fish in the bucket.
"This isn't for Afu to eat."
An Fusheng then noticed that Wen Xingrui's clothes were completely wet, with water even dripping from the front. "You're doomed, Wen Xingrui."
Wen Xingrui, completely unconcerned about his clothes, pointed at the fish and said to An Fusheng, "Ah!"
"What do you mean 'huh'? This fish is bigger than Afu, how can it eat it?" An Fusheng picked up Wen Xingrui. "Also, when did you two start hanging out together? Doesn't Afu run away when it sees you?"
Wen Xingrui: "Huh?"
An Fusheng picked up the equally wet cat with his other hand.
Afu: "Meow~"
Ignoring their struggle, An Fusheng, holding the cat in one hand and the child in the other, came out of the kitchen and shouted, "Aunt Lou, there are two naughty kids here, come and clean them up!"
While Lou Lan was changing Wen Xinglan's diaper, she turned around and saw An Fusheng carrying a cat and a baby out of the kitchen, looking like he was carrying a wet rag.
An Fusheng walked up to the second floor, leaving two long water streaks on the floor.
"Did it fall into the water?" Lou Lan asked worriedly.
“He got himself wet while stealing fish from the kitchen,” An Fusheng said.
"Why is Afu so wet too?"
An Fusheng guessed wildly: "He probably helped press the fish and ended up in the water himself."
The water was already a bit cold in late autumn, so Lou Lan quickly pulled Wen Xingrui to change his clothes, and An Fusheng also found a handkerchief to wipe the water off Afu.
Xu Sannian, who watched the whole thing, laughed so hard he almost fell over.
Lou Lan helped Wen Xingrui change his clothes and supported him as he walked over step by step. Only then did An Fusheng realize that Wen Xingrui could actually walk!
“He can walk while holding onto the wall now,” Lou Lan said. “Children learn to talk and walk like this; once they learn, they learn very quickly.”
An Fusheng suddenly felt that children were particularly remarkable; at such a young age, they knew nothing, yet they could learn so many things.
"He can even hold onto the handrail when he walks up the stairs?" An Fusheng asked in surprise.
"No, he was playing on the first floor when Xiao Ba peed. I didn't have a diaper with me, so I took him upstairs to change him. I thought it would only be for a little while, but I didn't expect him to run to the kitchen with A Fu to catch fish."
Being able to walk is something to be praised, but Wen Xingrui made a mistake and was still punished.
Wen Xingrui was calm and obedient, standing still when told to, but he showed no remorse for his mistake and stood there chatting with Afu.
"When did they get together?" An Fusheng still found it unbelievable. Before, Afu would run away whenever he saw Wen Xingrui. Isn't it said that kittens hold grudges?
Lou Lan laughed and said, "Afu loves playing with Xiao Ba. Recently, Xingrui has been playing with Xiao Ba every day. They must have gotten to know each other better after playing together so much."
An Fusheng: "Hmph, they're not allowed to play together anymore, lest they cause trouble."
Xu Sannian sighed from the side, "Human babies are terrifying. They can talk for n hours after just five minutes of charging."
...
An Fusheng never expected that there would be guests who couldn't get a meal coming to his door today.
And not just one, but three!
An Fusheng explained repeatedly that all the vegetables had been sold out for the day.
The people opposite continued to pester him, saying, "Boss, you can't be so lax in your business. What kind of vegetables don't you have at the market? You can just buy more and cook them again quickly. How can you just close up shop like this?"
An Fusheng said helplessly, "We'll definitely have it tomorrow night, you can eat it tomorrow too."
One of the boys said, "You guys closed yesterday afternoon too, but my niece came over yesterday and got to eat there, didn't she?"
An Fusheng: "..." Your niece ate our dinner yesterday. If you three young men come to eat today, our dinner won't be enough for you!
Another boy, on the verge of tears, said, "Boss, do you know that our school isn't within your delivery range? We had to overcome all the difficulties and go to the next school to place our orders at noon. Do you know how much determination that took for us, who finally have a weekend where we can stay in our dorms playing games and not even leave the house? Tonight, we even traveled a long way to your store, and you're just going to refuse us?"
The others, with pained expressions, played along, saying, "That's right, the most important thing is that we have an elderly and frail teacher at home who is waiting for us to bring him food back."
Since things had come to this point, even Mrs. Lou couldn't stand it anymore. "Why don't we see what else we have and make something for them?"
An Fusheng: "Let me see what's left in the refrigerator. Just don't mind it."
"We don't mind at all!" the three assured each other.
I've been buying groceries every day lately, so there's hardly any food in the fridge. Anfusheng searched high and low in the fridge and found a few eggs, a few green peppers, and two eggplants. Luckily, there was still some meat left.
An Fusheng also experienced what it means to be "a skilled cook cannot make a meal without rice".
An Fusheng cooked rice for them again. While rinsing the rice, the student who had performed the most convincingly stretched his neck and shouted for more rice. Don't forget their elderly and frail teacher.
An Fusheng: "..."
An Fusheng decided that he would remove the sign at the entrance after closing time, so that if someone knocked on the door, they could say that they had the wrong address and that this was not Xingchen Cafeteria.
After the rice was steaming, An Fusheng went to the vegetable garden and picked a large basket of green vegetables, including lettuce and yellow-hearted cabbage.
Yellow-hearted cabbage is also known as a quick and easy dish, ready to eat in a month, but it's been more than half a month now, I don't care anymore, I can't control it.
In their early twenties, they were quite energetic, except for being lifeless in classrooms and laboratories.
For example, right now, the three of them went to watch the boss cook, and started looking around here and there, without any sense of being a stranger.
While strolling around, someone suddenly discovered that there was a family of children in the neighboring yard.
"Wow, come quick! There are so many kids here!" the man exclaimed from the wall.
The other two jumped onto the wall as well.
The child was playing on the slide when he suddenly heard people talking above him. He looked up and saw a row of heads.
"Who are you?" Wen Xinglin asked. "Are you child traffickers here to kidnap children?"
The three of them said, "No."
"Then why were you sneaking around and lying on the wall?"
The man in the middle said smugly, "We didn't do anything sneaky, we did it openly and honestly."
Another boy asked, "Whose children are you? How come you have so many? How many children can you have now?"
“We are our own children,” An Shisi asked. “Why are you on our wall? What are your names?”
The boy in the middle said, "We're here for dinner. My name is Duan Jing." He pointed to the boy on his left, "His name is Chen Changyu." Then he pointed to the boy on his right, "His name is Qi Zhao."
An Shisi said, "Hello, my name is An Shisi. Are you here for dinner?"
Duan Jingdao said, "Yes, your family's food is delicious."
An Shisi nodded: "Yes, my eldest brother's cooking is the best in the world."
Wen Xingmou interjected, "Our restaurant is over here, so why are you guys over there?"
Chen Changyu said sadly, "Because we are guests, and that is your own home where you eat. We are not worthy."
Wen Xingmou said, "Guests are welcome too, including Hua Xiaopang, Lin Wuyang, and many uncles and aunts."
Qi Zhao's eyes lit up: "Can we do it too?"
Before he could finish speaking, Duan Jing slapped him across the face. "You're so great! Think about why the boss didn't call you over there and made you wait here?"
Unexpectedly, Wen Xingmou said, "I need to ask Aunt Lou about this." And then she actually ran off to ask.
Instead, Wen Min was the one who appeared. Wen Min looked at the group of people grinning on the wall with a complicated expression: "Why don't you come to our house and eat with us?" She saw that Fu Zai was already getting ready to pull up the third type of vegetable seedlings.
"Great! Great!"
The group jumped off the wall.
Wen Min glanced at the wall and decided to raise it a little more in a few days.
Everyone went over to eat together, so An Fusheng didn't want to prepare too many dishes. He used what he had on hand to make a stir-fried egg with green peppers, stir-fried shredded cabbage with pork, and braised eggplant. With the dishes from his own home, that should be about enough.
Before the meal, An Fusheng reminded them not to forget that there was a teacher there.
Only then did they remember to pack a dinner for their teacher, who was anxiously waiting at home.
After starting to eat, the group thought it was a good thing they had packed up some food for their mentor in advance, otherwise they wouldn't have any left to pack after the meal.
Since they were eating at someone else's house, the group ate quite restrainedly at first. But when everyone announced they were full, only Wen Xingrui was still eating slowly. The others quickly filled Wen Xingrui's bowl with food and then started a food-grabbing frenzy.
As Lou's mother watched the three young men eat without even looking at the food, stuffing whatever they could grab into their mouths, she sighed and wondered why, in this day and age, children still had to endure such hardship while going to school.
With more people around lately, it's hard to estimate the amount of food to cook, and we always end up cooking too much. Since the kids have leftovers, it's not good to eat them the next day. An Fusheng has been struggling to deal with the leftovers by himself every day. But today, these three people took care of it for him. They not only ate all the food clean, but they also seemed to want to lick the plates clean.
The three of them were already amazed by the takeout they had for lunch, but they didn't expect dinner to be even better. It's true that hardworking people get to enjoy good food first! The one who only knows how to bury himself in the lab and hospital doesn't have this blessing! Luckily, he's fortunate to have three good apprentices.
The three of them also helped An Fusheng tidy up the table and wash the dishes before leaving with the packed lunch for the teacher, turning back every few steps. They also reminded An Fusheng that he couldn't be lazy in business, that he should prepare more ingredients in the future, and that he shouldn't be arrogant even if the food was delicious. He should consider things from the perspective of the diners and not close down so easily!
...
"Does a meal take that long?"
Sure enough, as soon as the office door opened, the three of them saw a face full of resentment.
-----------------------
Author's note: This chapter has 6,000 words, so let's count it as two chapters. It'll make up for what I owed last week. If I write a lot tomorrow, I'll update more.
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