Chapter 122: Absconding with the Money

Chapter 122: Chapter 122: Absconding with the Money

They had a lot of boxed lunches to deliver today, so Xu An and Xu Guosheng left early after lunch. They managed to deliver all the boxed lunches just in time.

Since there were many scattered orders from the Silver Star Office Building, Xu An also called Old Han and his roommate to come over and help with the deliveries.

He did a quick mental calculation. It was already mid-August. In September, Old Han and the others would have to go back to school, so they wouldn’t necessarily have time to work as delivery riders every day.

He needed to recruit more riders. Otherwise, once this student army dispersed, he wouldn’t have many riders left.

By the time they finished the deliveries for the Silver Star Office Building, it was already 12:30 PM. That left them only half an hour before they had to go to the Hai City Library and Red Brick Creative Park at 1:00 PM to collect the empty lunch boxes. The two of them decided to just sit in the small truck with the AC on and chat.

As they talked, their conversation gradually shifted to Second Grand-uncle.

A few days ago, Second Grand-uncle and Uncle Dongliang had gone to the city for a conference on new rural development. Normally, a village-level cadre like Second Grand-uncle wouldn’t have needed to attend a city-level meeting, but he had shamelessly fought for the opportunity.

After returning from the conference, Second Grand-uncle had been somewhat disheartened, muttering the same few phrases over and over.

’Why doesn’t Xu Family Village have any historical or cultural relics? It would be great even if we could dig up a few dinosaur eggs! No dinosaur eggs, fine, but we should at least have something unique, right? How can we have nothing at all?!’

’Such a great policy, such a great development opportunity. It’s a real shame if we miss out!’

’...’

Xu An remembered this. After the conference, Second Grand-uncle and Uncle Dongliang had stopped by his shop to take a look and even had lunch before heading back.

’But isn’t this about improving the village’s appearance? You know, fixing roads, adding trash cans, cleaning up—basic infrastructure. What does that have to do with dinosaur eggs or historical relics?’

That’s what Xu An was thinking, and it’s also what he asked aloud.

Xu Guosheng was stunned by Xu An’s question for a full three seconds before he slowly came to his senses. He asked with a puzzled look, "Who told you it was about improving the village’s appearance?"

’That’s how Ma Family Village did it in my past life!’

Of course, he could only think this and would never say it out loud. Xu An quickly came up with an excuse, "I just heard some other villagers talking about widening the roads and fixing up the exterior walls of the houses. Isn’t that what’s happening?"

Hearing this, Xu Guosheng sighed and began to explain.

After hearing Xu Guosheng’s explanation, Xu An finally understood why Second Grand-uncle had so shamelessly insisted on attending the conference as a village cadre.

Because it wasn’t just about improving the village’s appearance—it was about supporting new rural industries!

Any industry suitable for rural development that followed the proper procedures, showed promise, could create jobs, and increase farmers’ incomes would receive a certain level of support.

For example, neighboring Beitun Town, being close to the sea with a high-quality natural beach, received support at the conference. They planned to develop a seaside tourist spot around the beach to attract residents from Hai City on weekends.

’No wonder Second Grand-uncle was muttering about dinosaur eggs all the time. So that’s what it was all about.’

Xu An thought about the location of Qianhai Town and Xu Family Village and couldn’t help but sigh. For Qianhai Town to develop a tourism industry would be as difficult as climbing to the heavens.

It was true that Qianhai Town was surrounded by the sea on three sides, but its coastline consisted mostly of tidal flats. The rare beach it did have was long and narrow.

Its widest point was just over three meters, while its narrowest was less than half a meter. The beach was covered in jagged rocks, making it unsuitable for recreation.

Besides tourism, the most promising sector was greenhouse farming. The fruits and vegetables grown in Qianhai Town, especially in the area around Xu Family Village, were delicious, high-quality, and very popular.

But this also had an inherent disadvantage: the arable land in Qianhai Town was fragmented and scattered, making large-scale development and management impossible.

Who would have thought that the plot of land where Aunt Hong’s greenhouse stood was already one of the top five largest farming plots in all of Qianhai Town.

’Thinking about it this way, it seems all paths to development are blocked.’

Just then, Xu An’s phone rang. It was a call from Liang Dani. The deliveries at Red Brick Creative Park were done, and the empty boxes were ready for collection.

Xu Guosheng stepped on the gas and headed for Red Brick Creative Park. Xu An’s attention shifted away from the new rural development, but the matter still weighed on his mind.

After collecting all the boxes from the two drop-off points onto the truck, Xu An and Xu Guosheng headed back to the shop first.

With the help of Nanny He’s six friends, the shop was kept very clean. The floor was spotless, there were no piles of dirty dishes on the tables, and Zhou Qi was no longer complaining that scooping food had made his right arm twice as thick as his left.

Compared to when Xu An had left to make deliveries, there were far fewer customers in the shop now, and plenty of empty seats could be seen.

What surprised Xu An was that the marinated dishes had also sold out, and the first to go was actually the spicy mala flavor.

Another thing was that the sales of apple vinegar had reached a new level.

Before the marinated dishes were introduced, apple vinegar sales were around three hundred cans a day. After their introduction, sales grew to three hundred and seventy cans a day.

Today’s sales broke a new record, reaching an astonishing five hundred thirty-seven cans!

There were still two weeks left in the Haiquan Apple Vinegar one-yuan trade-in promotion. If he could maintain the current sales volume, he could easily make an extra six or seven thousand yuan.

After busying himself in the shop for a while, Xu Heping returned with the riders to settle their wages. However, neither Xu Heping nor the riders looked very happy.

’What’s going on? Weren’t things fine just now when we were collecting the boxes?’

Xu An looked at Xu Heping, but Xu Heping just shook his head, signaling that they would talk later.

Seeing this, Xu An didn’t press the issue and started settling the riders’ wages.

When he got to the end, one name on his notebook remained unchecked. That person hadn’t come to collect his wages for the day.

Well... Xu An had a pretty good idea what had happened. Someone had run off with the money.

After the other riders had left, Xu Heping finally came over and explained the whole story.

This rider was one of the new recruits from last week. He’d been working for over a week, was a smooth talker, and worked pretty efficiently.

When he came to work this morning, he said he’d left in such a hurry that he forgot his ID. Considering he’d already worked for a week without any problems, and with the surge in orders today requiring all hands on deck, they made an exception and let him stay.

The first few orders went fine. Who would’ve thought that on his last delivery—after dropping off an order of twenty boxed lunches plus marinated dishes and apple vinegar—the guy would just take off with the 233 yuan...

Xu An checked the wages this person had earned as a rider this week. The most he made in one day was ninety-two yuan, and the least was fifty-nine. In total, he had earned almost five hundred yuan for the week.

’Works a little over two hours a day, gets a free lunch, and makes almost five hundred a week. And he’d throw away such a good job for a little over two hundred yuan?’

’That’s absurd!’

Still, Xu An didn’t want to assume the worst. What if he had a sudden emergency? Like falling into a pit, getting his phone stolen, or getting lost? He should give the guy a chance.

"Let’s wait until noon tomorrow. If he hasn’t returned the money by then, call the police."

Xu Heping nodded and posted the message in the riders’ group chat, asking them to pass it along.

Xu An put away his notebook, took out his phone, opened QQ, and clicked on his chat with Ye Ning.

’God Ye, are you there? I have some new requirements for the ordering website.’

When he first had the website built, Xu An had wanted to add an online payment function.

But implementing this function required integrating with Alipay, which involved a huge amount of paperwork. The cost of adding the feature wasn’t low either, so the idea was shelved.

Now, with someone running off with the cash, on top of the many orders from this morning that were outside the delivery range, Xu An finally made up his mind to upgrade the ordering website.

Actually, Xu An had also considered implementing QR code payments at the physical store, but at this stage, QR code payments had major limitations, and the general public wasn’t familiar with them.

Most importantly, QR code payments would even be suspended in 2014 and wouldn’t be fully rolled out until 2016, which was when they would enter a phase of rapid, nationwide development.

’If I set it up now only for it to be suspended in two years, I might as well wait until it’s officially rolled out for good.’

Ye Ning’s reply was just as straightforward: Two new functions, three thousand yuan, all-inclusive, done in five days.

’Let’s do it!’

At Qiansheng Group, a meeting was in session regarding the partnership between Victory Supermarket and the greenhouse farmers.

The leader seated at the head of the table had an extremely ugly expression. His gaze swept over everyone present, his aura imposing without any visible anger. Everyone in the room lowered their heads, not daring to meet his eyes.

"How did you guarantee this to me? ’We’ll resolve this in three days, no loose ends.’ That’s what you said." The leader sneered. "How long has it been now? Not only is the matter still unresolved, but it’s also ended up on television? And on a Hai City local station, one with massive local influence? Are you all just freeloaders?! Huh?!"

Everyone in the conference room bowed their heads even lower, wishing they could stuff them under the table.

"At first, this was just a Victory Supermarket issue. But now that it’s been on TV and the public outcry has grown, it’s no longer just about Victory Supermarket. It has dragged down the reputation of our entire Qiansheng Group! You all know the group is planning to acquire that plot of land to the east, right? This current public opinion is already affecting that deal."

The leader’s gaze swept over everyone’s heads again, finally landing on a capable-looking woman in a professional suit. He called her out by name.

"Lu Shengnan, resolve this matter with minimal cost and in the shortest possible time. Can you do it?"

Lu Shengnan, having been called out, slowly raised her head. She looked at the others in the meeting, and they all averted their gazes, not daring to meet her eyes.

Lu Shengnan sighed softly to herself. As expected, this thorny problem had landed on her shoulders. "Yes, I will complete the task as soon as possible."

"Not ’as soon as possible,’ not ’do your best,’ not ’try your best.’ You must—you absolutely must—complete this task! You cannot let it affect the group’s reputation! Or hinder the group’s development! Understand?"

"Yes, sir! I guarantee the task will be completed!"