Chapter 232 - 197: Hitting It Off

Chapter 232: Chapter 197: Hitting It Off

At 7:00 PM, Xu An was heading over to Xu’s Braised Shop to check on the day’s sales. Just as he left the bus station, he spotted a regular customer, Liu Zhaowen, squatting under a streetlight at the intersection. Liu Zhaowen had his left hand propping up his cheek as he dozed off, his right hand tucked inside his coat.

Xu An looked up at Xu’s Braised Shop. It was the evening rush hour, and the long line at the entrance snaked around three times, with at least forty or fifty people. Just then, a bus pulled up to the stop, and many of the passengers who got off walked straight toward Xu’s Braised Shop.

’Is he trying to buy some braised food but the line’s too long, so he fell asleep waiting?’

"Brother Liu, are you here to buy some braised food?" Xu An walked over, squatted down beside Liu Zhaowen, and patted his arm.

The moment Xu An spoke, Liu Zhaowen’s eyes snapped open. He stared intently at Xu An, shoved a document—warm from being held inside his coat—into Xu An’s hands, and said, gazing at him with deep affection, "No, Boss Xu. I was waiting for you!"

Liu Zhaowen successfully gave Xu An a case of goosebumps, making him shiver twice.

’That tone... Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting!’

After a brief moment of revulsion, Xu An’s gaze fell on the document Liu Zhaowen had thrust into his hands. It was still warm from his body heat. The title on the cover read: Xu’s Braised Shop Franchise Plan.

In a single glance, Xu An’s attention was completely captivated by the word "Franchise," which was bolded, thickened, and enlarged in the title. His hands opened the plan of their own accord, and he began to read it right there, squatting under the relatively bright streetlight.

When he saw the word "Franchise," Xu An assumed the proposal was for a model similar to national chains like Zhou Baiya, where the headquarters provides guidance, training, personnel development, technical support, and so on. However, while the proposal Liu Zhaowen gave him used the word "franchise," the details between the lines leaned more toward a distributor model.

For example, with cola, if the factory price is 1.5 yuan and the retail price is 2.5 yuan, the one-yuan difference is the distributor’s profit. This was exactly what Liu Zhaowen wanted to do: purchase a large quantity of braised food from Xu’s Braised Shop at a price lower than the market rate and then resell it.

Looking further into the proposal, the suggested sales locations didn’t overlap with his own operational area, so it wouldn’t affect his business at all. He would be in charge of production and controlling the supply, while Liu Zhaowen would handle retail sales and be responsible for his own profits and losses.

’Xu’s braised food is actually perfect for this kind of distributor model!’

First, the production of Xu’s braised food was simple. Once the ingredients were prepped, Zhang Dezhen and two assistants could fry the braising spices for four different flavors and cook nearly a thousand jin of food in about four hours. The subsequent packaging process was even simpler. With each container holding twenty jin, a thousand jin was only fifty containers. Finally, transportation was also a breeze; it could all be delivered in a single trip...

Following Liu Zhaowen’s line of thought, the more Xu An considered it, the more feasible the plan seemed.

Most importantly, if Liu Zhaowen’s attempt was successful, Xu’s Braised Shop could try using this model to expand its sales territory. If his attempt failed, he would be the one to bear the loss. Xu An would have already earned his money from the braised food.

The sales area planned at the end of the document didn’t overlap with his own shop, so it wouldn’t affect his sales. Plus, Liu Zhaowen had even conducted a simple survey, and the feedback was quite good...

Liu Zhaowen watched from the side as Xu An flipped through the proposal he’d created. After reading it once, Xu An turned back to the first page to read it again more carefully. Liu Zhaowen’s heart, which had been caught in his throat, finally settled.

’I think this might actually work!’

Xu An read the proposal from beginning to end one more time before finally closing it. He looked up at Liu Zhaowen and, meeting his expectant gaze, slowly said, "This is a pretty good idea, very experimental. How about this: let’s start with a one-week trial partnership. During this week, regardless of the quantity you purchase each day, the factory price for vegetarian braised dishes will be four yuan per jin. For meat dishes, the price will fluctuate up or down by three to five yuan depending on the specific item. If you can keep it up for a week, we can discuss a deeper partnership. How does that sound?"

This proposal was exactly what Liu Zhaowen wanted. A week was the perfect amount of time for trial and error, to see if his idea was truly viable. It would also allow him to gauge whether running a street stall was more profitable than opening a small shop.

Although Liu Zhaowen had initially planned to open a small braised food shop with a rocking chair inside—serving customers when they came and leisurely playing on his phone when it was empty, openly slacking off—after setting up a stall at Hai City University of Technology that afternoon, he suddenly thought that running a small stall wasn’t so bad either...

Without the slightest hesitation, Liu Zhaowen agreed to Xu An’s proposal. He then took out another paper from his coat—also warm—and handed Xu An a purchase order. The list included four types of vegetarian braised food and two types of meat, one of each in spicy and five-spice flavors, for a total of one hundred and twenty jin.

After reaching a short-term agreement with Xu An, Liu Zhaowen left without a moment’s delay to go purchase the various items he would need for his stall.

’Tomorrow is the official start. I can’t be as makeshift as I was today. A little handcart definitely won’t cut it. I at least need to get an electric tricycle! And an electronic scale! And a portable folding stool made for vendors! The sign needs to be a bit more professional, too...’

Xu An watched Liu Zhaowen get on the bus and leave. Then, holding the proposal behind his back, he walked into Xu’s Braised Shop. The first thing he did was open the cooler where the braised food was stored. He found only five containers left. Including the food in the front display case, there was only a little over a hundred jin remaining.

His eyebrows shot up. ’I prepared a full thousand jin today! It’s not even 7:30, and there’s only a little over a hundred jin left. The customers still waiting in line could probably finish off this much. Looks like tomorrow’s first-prize challenge event is a sure thing!’

When Zhang Dezhen saw Xu An come in, he handed the cash register he was managing to a new part-time university student and walked over to Xu An cheerfully to report on the day’s sales at Xu’s Braised Shop.

"We stocked a total of one thousand jin of braised food today. So far, we’ve sold eight hundred and thirty-seven jin, for a total revenue of 15,903 yuan!" Zhang Dezhen’s voice was full of excitement. "The main thing was we had two big customers right when we opened. Both of them bought fifty jin in one go. One of them came back later and bought another eighty jin in several trips. That alone accounted for one hundred and eighty jin."

"One person bought one hundred and thirty jin? Was it Liu Zhaowen?" Hearing such a large quantity, Xu An instinctively assumed it was him.

"No." Zhang Dezhen shook his head. He turned and leaned out of the shop, seeming to make eye contact with someone and giving them a nod. Then he pointed at the person and said to Xu An, "It was that guy. He didn’t buy it to eat himself; he’s giving it away to fans or something. Anyway, I saw a lot of people just show him their phone screen and get a free one-jin bag of braised food."

’Giving it away for free? Did this guy have the same idea as Liu Zhaowen?’

Xu An followed Zhang Dezhen’s finger and recognized the young man with a single glance. He had seen a photo of him on the invitation list Tang Wen had prepared for the opening event. He seemed to be named Yu Liang and ran a Big Eye account with over ten thousand followers.

’But Tang Wen’s invitation was only for yesterday. Why is this guy here today too? Is he piggybacking on the hype and riding the traffic from Xu’s Braised Shop’s opening event?’

He pulled out his phone, opened the Big Eye app, typed in Yu Liang’s account name, and hit search. After navigating to the user tab, the first result was Yu Liang’s account. The follower count displayed below his name read—26,000.

’Whoa! Just the day before yesterday he had a little over 10,000 followers, and in less than two days, it’s already up to 26,000! Even the official account for Xu’s Catering, the event organizer, didn’t grow that much!’

He tapped on Yu Liang’s account. The latest post was from 7:00 PM tonight, and its content was, shockingly, a sales report for Xu’s Braised Shop.

’7:00 PM: Xu’s Braised Shop has sold eight hundred jin today! Three hours left until closing! Only two hundred jin away from the one-thousand-jin requirement to bring back the first prize!’

His fingertip swiped quickly across the screen, and more than ten posts scrolled past his eyes.

’6:00 PM: Xu’s Braised Shop has sold six hundred and eighty jin today...’

’5:00 PM... sales have reached five hundred and seven jin...’

’4:00 PM... three hundred and ninety-two jin...’

’...’

’Even the official time signal isn’t as punctual as Yu Liang’s posts! What’s even more ridiculous is that of the dozen or so posts he made today, each one averaged over eight hundred shares, twelve hundred likes, and one hundred comments...’

’Are modern netizens this bored? They’re following this like it’s a TV series?’

Before logging out, Xu An couldn’t resist liking the post from 7:00 PM.

’This is great. Free publicity. He gets his traffic and hype, and I get traffic, hype, and a tidy profit. Everyone gets what they want. It’s a win-win, no losses here~’