Chapter 260 - 223: To Be Honest, Someone Else Is Interested In This Shop Too

Chapter 260: Chapter 223: To Be Honest, Someone Else Is Interested In This Shop Too

Many people had noticed that Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant’s ordering site had launched a membership card feature, but not many had seen the other function introduced at the same time. Wang Huiwen was one of the few who did.

Wang Huiwen was a freelancer and a Hai City local.

But her sleep schedule was completely nocturnal—she wouldn’t sleep until the sun was up and wouldn’t wake until the moon had risen. During the time she worked from home, she got chewed out every single day, so she finally made the resolute decision to rent an apartment on her own and only go home on weekends.

However, she was completely clueless when it came to cooking and had no interest in learning, so she ate all three of her daily meals at the fast-food joint downstairs.

Later, she discovered Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, which offered delivery. After trying it once, she was blown away and became a loyal customer. Every day, she would order two box meals, one for lunch and one for dinner.

One time, however, she stayed up so late that she was completely delirious and forgot to place her order. She didn’t realize until she woke up in the afternoon and had to drag her exhausted body downstairs to eat before coming back to continue sleeping.

After that incident, she set a dedicated alarm to remind herself to order food. The alarm was set for 9:58 AM. She would place her order, go to sleep, and wake up for the first time just as the delivery arrived at 1:40 PM. After eating, she would go back for the second half of her sleep.

Today, as usual, her alarm went off at 9:58 AM.

Wang Huiwen quickly exited her work application, opened her browser, and clicked the link to Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant’s website from her bookmarks.

Unlike other days, the online ordering page for Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant actually had two new sections today.

One was "Huge Discounts on Membership Top-Ups"; the other was "Brand Story."

’The "Huge Discounts on Membership Top-Ups" is obviously just for getting a member card or something, nothing new there. But "Brand Story"... that’s much more interesting. I wonder what it is.’

Wang Huiwen tentatively clicked on the "Brand Story" tab, and to her surprise, it actually led to a new page.

This page had only two sections. The first was called "Daily Story," and it had one lone video posted on it. The video’s thumbnail was the Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant logo, and below it, the date was written in a free font: September 7th, 2012.

The second section displayed the corporate clients of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant: Aisha Clothing Company, Jidu Network Technology Co., Ltd., Jiangyuan Mechanical Technology Co., Ltd....

Wang Huiwen’s gaze shifted from the second section back to the video. She moved her mouse over it and left-clicked. The video quickly expanded to fill the entire screen, the thumbnail slowly faded away, and what appeared before her was the familiar yet unfamiliar storefront of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

In the video, the sky had not yet fully brightened, but the entrance of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant was already packed with all sorts of delivery vans. A constant stream of people unloaded goods from the vehicles and carried them into the restaurant.

The camera slowly pushed in, soon arriving next to a bald man. The camera angle shifted to focus on the various cuts of pork in a van. A large hand lifted the paper covering a crate to keep dust off, revealing large slabs of pork belly. The camera continued to push in, so close that the texture of the meat was visible, the colors of the lean and fatty parts distinct.

Suddenly, the crate of meat was lifted and moved out of the frame.

The camera moved again, this time to a woman in a well-fitting red outfit. Crates of fruits and vegetables were laid out in her vehicle. As the camera panned over them, you could still see damp soil clinging to the roots of the vegetables.

The shot slowly tilted up, showing cucumbers with little yellow flowers still on the stem, tomatoes glistening with dew, the distinct white or light green ring just below the cap of an eggplant...

All these details served as proof to the viewers: these ingredients were incredibly fresh...

Crate after crate of ingredients were brought into the restaurant. Several middle-aged women, all wearing uniform aprons printed with the Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant logo, disposable hairnets that completely covered their hair, and clear plastic splash-guard masks, took the ingredients from the crates and gave them a quick rinse with clean water.

As they were picked up, Wang Huiwen could clearly see that the soil on the roots of many vegetables hadn’t been fully washed off, and there were still stains on the leaves. This made her furrow her brows.

’They’re obviously not clean yet! Are they really this careless with the washing?!’

Just as Wang Huiwen was feeling displeased, one of the women took the roughly rinsed vegetables to a machine. She tapped the machine’s display screen a few times, then opened the lid, poured all the vegetables inside, closed it, and pressed a large, red start button. The WHIRRING sound of the machine running filled Wang Huiwen’s ears.

The other fruits and vegetables, just like that crate of greens, were poured into other machines by the other women.

In the next second, the shot cut to the machine’s indicator light turning from red to green. A woman turned off the power, opened the lid, and took out the vegetables she had just put in. Wang Huiwen’s eyes flew wide open.

The soil on the roots was gone! Only jade-white rootlets remained! The stains on the leaves were gone too! All she could see was a field of vibrant green!

Next, these cleaned vegetables were sent into another machine that looked slightly different.

Long, thick eggplants went in and came out as uniformly sized strips; whole tomatoes were turned into perfect wedges; the roots, stems, and leaves of the greens were separated into three different batches...

’What kind of magical machines are these?!’

Before Wang Huiwen could finish marveling at this, the scene shifted to the kitchen, where four chefs in pristine white uniforms stood before cutting boards, wielding large cleavers.

Bones were put into stockpots to simmer into broth; marbled pork was fed into a grinder and turned into mince; the pork belly was cut into identically sized cubes and neatly arranged on stainless steel trays...

Finally, some of these prepared ingredients went into woks, where, with the help of the flames and the flurry of spatulas, they were transformed into delicious dishes. Another portion of the ingredients was sent to a different kitchen, where a sturdy man led two others in systematically adding ingredients in batches to a bubbling vat of braising liquid that went GLUG GLUG...

Afterward, the cooked dishes were placed into enormous stainless steel basins, then portioned out into individual meal boxes. Long labels with customer information were affixed to each box, which were then put into plastic bags. The bags of box meals were placed into insulated containers, and the containers were moved onto heated delivery carts.

Finally, all the insulated containers were loaded onto a vehicle. The wide-open doors of the van were slowly pushed shut by two people, revealing a large Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant logo. And with that, the video abruptly ended.

Only then did it dawn on Wang Huiwen: that was a complete recording of how Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant prepared its dishes today! From the arrival of the vegetables, to the processing, cooking, boxing, packing, and transport—every single step was included!

Recalling the scenes she had just watched, the only thing she could possibly find fault with was that the restaurant space was too small. She saw employees having to turn sideways to let each other pass while they were busy...

’But what kind of a complaint is that?!’

After exiting the page, Wang Huiwen clicked the "Huge Discounts on Membership Top-Ups" section, which took her to the membership card registration page. After glancing over the bonus amounts, she unhesitatingly chose the one-thousand-yuan option, quickly entered her other information, selected pay, and the payment was successful!

’Sixteen yuan for two meals a day, plus the occasional braised snack... fourteen hundred yuan will be gone in just over two months. That’s not much at all!’

After placing her order for the next day, Wang Huiwen was about to shut down her computer and go to sleep when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the icon for the "Hai City Food Delivery Ordering" group chat bouncing in the bottom right corner. Curious, she clicked on it.

The moment the chat window appeared, messages began scrolling up at a frantic pace.

’They’re just trying to take the money and run! I bought a membership card at a hair salon once, used it only three times out of twenty, and then the shop closed down! They never even refunded the rest of my money!’

’Didn’t Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant have a food safety issue before? Can they even be trusted?’

’I feel like I’m losing out if I don’t take advantage of a deal. I’ll just put in a hundred yuan. It’s not too much, not too little, so it won’t hurt even if the restaurant does a runner.’

"..."

Some people in the group were worried the restaurant would take their money and disappear, some were worried about food safety, and some were worried about both.

Wang Huiwen skimmed through the chat history, thought for a moment, and then typed out a message. She sent it, posted the link to the "Brand Story" section on the Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant ordering page, and promptly shut down her computer to go to sleep.

’They have catering contracts with so many companies and get tons of delivery orders, so what would be the point of running off with the money?! Plus, here’s a video of them making the food. The ingredients are all incredibly fresh, the staff’s hygiene is impeccable, and they use a bunch of machines to help... Just watch it and you’ll see.’

As soon as Wang Huiwen’s message appeared, everyone went quiet, except for one or two people who had posted at the same time. The page views on Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant’s ordering site began to climb at an astonishing rate.

If Xu An hadn’t paid to expand the server capacity, the site would have been on the verge of crashing.

「Victory Supermarket Office」

In the few short days since her last proposal was rejected, Lu Shengnan had submitted a total of five business expansion plans for Victory Supermarket. Today, she finally received a response.

Four of the five plans were shot down; only one was approved, receiving permission and funding to be implemented.

This plan, which she had modeled after Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant’s delivery service, was a grocery delivery service! Spend 39 yuan or more, pay an extra one-yuan delivery fee, and get your groceries delivered to your door!

"Tsk." Even though her plan was approved, Lu Shengnan was still dissatisfied. "These old coots really won’t lift a finger unless they see a reward. Only the plan that has already been proven viable by Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant got approved. Not a single one of the other innovative proposals made it through!"

「Lijie Real Estate」

A young real estate agent stood outside the storefront, speaking respectfully into his phone. Suddenly, he pulled the phone away from his ear, holding it at a great distance.

Even from that far away, the middle-aged man’s voice on the other end came through the earpiece, loud, high-pitched, and full of fury.

"...I’ll fucking say it again, so you listen up! For this property, I’m only taking cash, not a single cent in loans! If you don’t have that much cash, then you can fucking get lost!"

After that roar, the middle-aged man’s voice on the other end became somewhat smug.

"I won’t lie to you, someone else is interested in this property, and they can pay the full amount in cash. If it weren’t for the fact that your side offered a higher price, I wouldn’t even be talking to you..."