Chapter 125: Charge

Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Charge

Xu An explained everything he knew about farming Jumping Fish on the mudflats. To make his case more convincing, he even pulled out his phone and searched for a few videos of mudflat aquaculture to show everyone.

Although the videos he found weren’t all about farming Jumping Fish—some showed prawn and abalone farming on mudflats—this didn’t disappoint the crowd. On the contrary, it piqued their interest even more.

’So that seemingly useless mudflat has so many uses?’

Whether it was Jumping Fish, prawns, or abalone, these were all high-value seafood products. If they could successfully farm them, the profits would be substantial.

Everyone knew that numerous fishmongers roamed the beaches of Qianhai Town every day, specifically to buy Jumping Fish.

As a farmed product, Jumping Fish were easy to keep alive and incredibly convenient to transport.

As long as the Jumping Fish weren’t injured, you just had to add some mangrove leaves and a little seawater to keep them moist during transport, and they wouldn’t die easily.

Thinking about the various benefits of farming Jumping Fish, the crowd grew restless, their eyes all turning to Second Grandpa. They were waiting for him to make a decision. After all, he was the chief of Xu Family Village!

After hearing Xu An’s words and watching the videos he shared, Second Grandpa fell silent, seemingly contemplating the feasibility of the project.

The cost of leasing it wasn’t a major issue. It was a deserted mudflat that nobody cared about, so the price couldn’t be too high.

First, this would be a village collective enterprise, and according to policy, they could take out a loan in the village’s name. Second, the mudflat on the southeast corner of Qianhai Town was one of those assets not worth much but a shame to waste. No one had ever shown interest in it before, so they didn’t have to worry about competition from anyone else for Xu Family Village...

"Next week, Dongliang, you’ll come with me on a trip," Second Grandpa finally said. "We’ll go investigate mudflat aquaculture in other provinces. We’ll see what the costs are, how difficult the technology is, and what the potential profits are."

"Second Uncle, I still have to work at the construction site!"

Before Xu Dongliang could finish, Second Grandpa cut him off with a death glare.

"I’ve already spoken to your mother. You’ll be working with me from now on. She has no objections. Go quit your job at the construction site tomorrow."

"But I’m doing just fine..."

"Your mother agreed."

"You didn’t even ask for my opinion..."

"I asked your mother, and your mother agreed."

Xu Dongliang’s meager protests were forcefully suppressed by Second Grandpa. And with that, the "Xu Family Village Future Development Conference" came to a successful conclusion.

As they were leaving, Second Grandpa clapped Xu An on the shoulder and praised him, "Young people really are quick-witted and think big. The future development of Xu Family Village will depend on your generation."

「At Lin Xinyue’s home.」

After returning from the amusement park a few days ago, Lin Xinyue had transferred the photos from her camera to her computer.

She had originally planned to just zip them up and email them to Xu An, but looking at the pictures, her hands started to itch. She opened up her editing software and began making minor adjustments.

At first, she just wanted to tweak the color tone, but as she edited, she found more and more things she wanted to fix.

In the end, she spent three or four whole days on them, only finishing the edits today.

She organized the photos into a folder, compressed it, attached it to an email, and after double-checking that she had the right email address, Lin Xinyue hit send.

’Finally done,’ she thought. ’If this were a real job I took on, it would definitely be a money-losing deal.’

’One hundred and fifty yuan for over two hundred photos, with more than half of them finely retouched... Even Grantai would feel like he was getting a steal and pay up without hesitation.’

Xu An had just finished preparing the ingredients and was about to start cooking dinner when his phone chimed with a notification.

Thinking it was a customer placing an order through QQ, he quickly pulled out his phone to check. But when he opened it, he saw an email from an account with a somewhat unfamiliar name.

Lin Xinyue?

He stared at the name for a couple of seconds, and a pretty face appeared in his mind—the young woman who had taken photos of Xu Kang and Xu Le at the amusement park.

Xu An downloaded the compressed file to his phone and used his browser to view the photos inside. A look of surprise appeared on his face.

’These aren’t the original shots; they’ve been retouched!’

After scrolling through all the photos and confirming there were no issues, he wanted to pay her. He found Lin Xinyue’s chat window in QQ, but after scrolling for a bit, he suddenly remembered that this was 2012. QQ hadn’t launched its red envelope feature yet.

Well, this was awkward. How was he supposed to pay the remaining one hundred yuan?

’Do I have to ask her to meet in person?’ he thought. ’That makes me sound like I have ulterior motives, like some creep trying to trick a young girl.’

After wrestling with it for a moment, Xu An decided to stop overthinking it and just toss the problem to Lin Xinyue to solve.

’If she chooses to meet in person, I definitely won’t refuse, though,’ he mused.

"Hello, I’ve received the photos and am very satisfied. How can I pay the remaining balance?"

After a short wait, two messages appeared in the chat window. One of them was a URL link.

"This is my friend’s TaoBao store. Just find the one-hundred-yuan item and pay for it. She’ll transfer the money to me."

"Okay."

Xu An clicked the link Lin Xinyue sent, and the page quickly jumped to TaoBao. It was a design shop.

There were only three items in the shop: one "Graphic Design" for 999 yuan, one "Shipping Fee Link" for 1 yuan, and a final one named "Remaining Balance" for 100 yuan.

As he selected the last item to place his order, he realized he hadn’t registered a TaoBao account yet.

When it came time to register a username, Xu An hesitated for a moment before typing in the four words: Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

After completing the registration and linking his bank card that had online payment enabled, the transaction was complete.

Afterward, Xu An clicked on the "Graphic Design" product link out of curiosity. The review section actually had more than ten reviews with pictures. Looking at the customer feedback images, the design level was quite good, at least higher than his own.

As he scrolled through the review photos, a thought suddenly popped into Xu An’s head. ’Maybe it’s time to get a logo designed for Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant?’

When Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant first opened, everything was rushed, and funds were tight. He had cut corners wherever he could, making do with what he had.

This resulted in the take-out boxes for Xu’s Fast Food being almost identical to those of other fast-food places, with no brand recognition.

Xu An wanted people to be able to recognize a meal box from Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant at a glance, just by its logo or packaging.

Currently, he was selling nearly two thousand take-out orders a day. Including the marinated goods and other products, the number of boxes and bags he went through each month was countless.

With such a large volume, getting them custom-made from a manufacturer wouldn’t be more expensive than buying from the wholesale market; it might even be cheaper.

Xu An clicked on the customer service icon on the product page, which opened TaoBao’s merchant chat window.

"Do you take orders for logo design?"

A message suddenly popped up in the notification bar, covering a quarter of the phone screen and coincidentally obscuring an obstacle. By the time she realized, it was too late to dodge.

GAME OVER!

"Yueyue, I died again! Yueyue, I’m so sad! Yueyue, why aren’t you comforting me? Do you not love me anymore?"

The short-haired girl lying on Lin Xinyue’s bed rolled over, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"You die that many times a day, I can’t save you every time. You’re on your own," Lin Xinyue said, glancing at her QQ. Seeing Xu An’s message that the payment was complete, she quickly reached out and nudged the short-haired girl’s leg. "Chengcheng, the payment went through! Quick, check if the money has arrived. If it has, we’ll go out for a big dinner tonight."

"You just don’t love me anymore," Chengcheng mumbled as she exited the game and opened TaoBao. An order awaiting shipment appeared in her seller dashboard.

Mark as shipped, remind the buyer to confirm receipt, confirm receipt, and the money was in the account.

After receiving the final payment, Chengcheng noticed there was also an unread message in her inbox.

Curious, she clicked on it. The inquiry was about logo design, but Chengcheng’s attention was drawn to the customer’s name—Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant?

Chengcheng kicked Lin Xinyue’s butt with her foot. ’Hmm, pretty springy. Let me kick it again before she notices~’

"Chengcheng, are you tired of having that foot?" Lin Xinyue was getting annoyed by the constant prodding and spun around to grab the misbehaving limb.

"Yueyue, the guy you took pictures of at the amusement park, does he work at Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant?" Chengcheng quickly threw out a question before Lin Xinyue could get angry, successfully distracting her.

"I think so. Why?" Lin Xinyue’s attention was indeed diverted.

"He just asked me on TaoBao if I take logo design orders. Should I take it?"

Lin Xinyue tilted her head and thought for a moment, then opened Xu An’s QQ profile. She loaded a picture of a flyer and handed her phone to Chengcheng. "Take a look. This is his restaurant’s current flyer."

Chengcheng took the phone and glanced at it, her face twisting into an expression of extreme disgust.

The line spacing was inconsistent, the color scheme was an eyesore, and the layout was a mess. Aside from highlighting the key information, it had no redeeming qualities.

After seeing that flyer, Chengcheng suddenly felt she could do this.

"Why don’t you give it a try? It doesn’t look like his standards are very high, and you’ve been drawing since you were little. Your aesthetic sense isn’t bad," Lin Xinyue encouraged, seeing that Chengcheng was tempted.

"Then what do you think is a good price to quote?" Chengcheng asked hesitantly.

Technically, Xu An was the shop’s first real customer. All those reviews he saw before were fake...

"Hmm?" Lin Xinyue thought about it seriously before saying, uncertain and with very little confidence, "Five hundred?"

"That high?" Chengcheng exclaimed.

"Then... three hundred?" Lin Xinyue quickly changed her answer.

"But what if he thinks three hundred is too expensive?"

"..."

The two newbies debated the price for a full three minutes, finally deciding to quote three hundred. If Xu An thought it was too expensive, they would drop it to 280, with a rock-bottom price of 220!

When Xu An saw the "three hundred" sent by the other party, his expression immediately turned strange.

He had been working with Wei for so long that he had some understanding of standard design prices in the advertising industry. A simple logo started at two thousand yuan, and one with a few more requirements would be three thousand and up.

’Three hundred yuan... This price doesn’t seem very reliable,’ he thought. ’Maybe I should just forget it. Wei’s company seems pretty good, aside from being more expensive...’

Just as Xu An typed "No thank you" into the chat box and was about to send it, another message came through.

"Full refund if you’re not satisfied!"

Well now! A full refund if not satisfied. Anyone who dared to say that was either a complete newbie who knew nothing about the design industry, or they were a master with supreme confidence in their skills.

But what kind of master would take a small three-hundred-yuan job? So this had to be a newbie, no doubt.

Still, a full refund if not satisfied... it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

’If it doesn’t work out, I can just go to Wei,’ he figured.

Let’s do it!