Chapter 270 - 230: Money Is the Primary Driving Force

Chapter 270: Chapter 230: Money Is the Primary Driving Force

Despite some trouble, Xu An successfully obtained the land use certificate for the furniture marketplace. He’d gotten it for the incredibly low price of 1.3 million, which even saved him enough to cover the renovation costs.

Although Xu An had done it to get the furniture marketplace for a low price, his actions had prevented six families from losing all their money. As for what happened to them in his past life, Xu An had no idea.

But Xu An knew exactly what would happen to Mr. He. He would be doing a few years in prison, at the very least. ’Who knows if he’ll still be able to rush off to reunite with his son abroad after he gets out...’

Clutching the brand-new land deed he had just received, he looked at the somewhat dilapidated shop before him. The more he looked, the more he liked it. Even the mottled exterior wall seemed to have an artistic flair.

’After two lifetimes, I finally own a fixed asset outside the village!’

In his past life, Xu An had once read a folk etymology for the word "rogue." In ancient times, someone with land but no house was a "peasant." Someone with a house but no land was a "vagrant." And someone with neither was a "vagrant peasant"—a rogue...

’Well, I have both a house and land in the village, so I’m definitely not a rogue...’

Although he had the shop, the walls were in such a state that the plaster flaked off with a RUSTLE at the slightest touch. A simple cleanup before moving in was out of the question. He needed a designer and a construction crew. Walls needed to be scraped, patched, and partitioned!

He wasn’t worried about the construction work. Among Uncle Dongliang’s friends, the most numerous were skilled workers from various trades. The main issue was the design!

’After all, this is the lair... ahem... headquarters for Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant and Xu’s Braised Shop. Even if it can’t be high-end, grand, and classy, it should at least look respectable.’

As soon as Xu An told Uncle Dongliang his thoughts, Uncle Dongliang immediately drew up a list for him. It was a record of good, reliable, and professional designers the construction workers had encountered on their jobs.

The list had the names of six design studios: "Effortless Action," "Green Peak," "Highest Good," things like that. Setting aside everything else, the names alone screamed prestige. One look at the design portfolios on their company websites confirmed that their fees would be anything but low.

Working on the principle that consultations are free, Xu An called the first studio. The design fee was 320 yuan per square meter. The second was 280 yuan per square meter. The third, 360 yuan...

After calling all six studios, not a single one had a design fee below two hundred yuan. The lowest was two hundred and twenty...

Based on the lowest rate of 220 yuan per square meter, for a shop of over four hundred square meters, the design fee alone would be more than eighty thousand yuan. ’Unnecessary, truly unnecessary. That’s enough to buy an insulated food truck outright.’

No wonder the construction workers said they were professional and reliable. At that price, if they weren’t, wouldn’t their studios have been torn down by angry clients long ago?

As for cheap design... well, they say cheap + beautiful + high quality = a living saint = doesn’t exist.

’Forget it. I’ll think about it some more today. If I can’t come up with a better solution, I’ll just have the workers partition the walls, give them a coat of white paint, and move in. When I have more cash on hand, I can fix up the storefront, and that’ll be that.’

After walking a few laps around the shop, Xu An returned to Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

It was exactly 10:30 AM, the time when the delivery riders came to eat and clock in for their shifts. The restaurant was bustling and full of energy.

Although classes had started at Hai City Nautical College, Old Han and a few of his roommates would still come over on mornings when they had no classes to continue working as riders and earn some spending money. As soon as Xu An walked in, he saw Old Han and a roommate eating and chatting, looking incredibly animated.

So, Xu An got a plate of food himself and sidled up to their table, eating while he listened in on what interesting thing they were talking about.

"...How’s the competition going? Any chance you’ll win an award?"

"It’s going okay. We’re gathering some more materials right now, but the chances are pretty good. I’d be happy with third place. The prize for third is a thousand yuan! There are only two of us in my group, so we’d each get five hundred, hehe!"

"Whoa, I’m so jealous! Too bad our group got eliminated in the preliminary round. Sigh..."

"Competition? What competition?" Xu An, who had been listening in a complete fog, subconsciously asked.

"A design competition our professor recommended to us. The first prize is five thousand yuan in cash!" As he spoke, Old Han pulled out his phone, opened his messenger app, found the message his professor had posted, and held the phone up for Xu An to see.

’...To better assess the academic standards of university students, the universities of Hai City jointly present the Southern Star Design Competition... First Prize (1 winner): 5,000 yuan. Second Prize (3 winners): 2,000 yuan. Third Prize (5 winners): 1,000 yuan. Fourth Prize (10 winners): a trophy and a certificate of honor...’

It was a pretty standard competition. In his past life, Xu An had been a liberal arts major, so most of the competitions he encountered were writing-based. He had participated in quite a few but seemed to lack the talent for it. In four years of university, he hadn’t managed to win even a single certificate of honor, let alone the prize money, which would have been a considerable sum for him at the time.

Now, looking at this kind of competition again, Xu An realized the prize money that once made his mouth water wasn’t all that much.

After lunch, Xu An clasped his hands behind his back and leisurely strolled over to Shop No. 2. By now, the lunch boxes had all been packed and were being delivered to various transfer stations and companies by Uncle Guosheng and Wang Datou. Nanny He and the others were diligently washing a mountain of pots and pans. When they saw Xu An come in, they all called out, "Boss."

Before Xu An could respond, the sound of THUMP THUMP THUMPing footsteps came from upstairs. A slightly portly, middle-aged man’s head poked out from behind the staircase. The moment he saw Xu An, his eyes lit up with joy. "Boss, you’re back! I was just looking for you!"

This was Wang Fulong, who had been out hustling for many days. He was actually back in the office today. It seemed all his deals were finalized.

Sure enough, the first thing Xu An heard when he entered the office was Wang Fulong’s voice: "Boss, mission accomplished! Two companies with two hundred employees, three companies with three hundred, and two companies with five hundred—I’ve secured them all!"

"Here are the catering contracts we signed. The shortest is for three months, the longest for a year!" Wang Fulong handed a stack of contracts to Xu An with both hands, unable to hide the joyous smile on his face.

Among the seven companies, three had a ten-yuan meal allowance, two had an allowance of exactly eight yuan, and the remaining two had a six-yuan allowance.

However, regardless of their meal allowances, the price of Xu An’s lunch boxes was fixed at eight yuan for three dishes and a soup.

Employees at the companies with a ten-yuan allowance would inevitably order other products to use up the remaining two yuan. As for the companies with only a six-yuan allowance, the employees would naturally have to pay the two-yuan difference out of their own pockets, but that was none of Xu An’s concern.

Xu An couldn’t help but smile as he looked at the seven contracts. With these seven companies, the corporate catering side of the business had finally, truly taken off.

When he recruited Wang Fulong to join Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, Xu An had promised that for every deal Wang Fulong closed, he would receive a bonus. Furthermore, the bonus would be paid out immediately upon completion of each deal, not held back until payday.

Now that Wang Fulong had met the requirements Xu An had set, Xu An certainly wouldn’t go back on his word.

For the two 500-person companies, both with three-month contracts, the bonus was one thousand yuan.

For one 200-person and two 300-person companies with six-month contracts, the bonus was one thousand four hundred yuan.

For one 200-person and one 300-person company with one-year contracts, the bonus was one thousand six hundred yuan.

The cumulative total of all these bonuses came to four thousand yuan for Wang Fulong!

After finishing the calculation, Xu An immediately took out his phone and transferred four thousand yuan to Wang Fulong via Alipay, carefully noting in the memo field that it was the signing bonus for the seven companies.

Wang Fulong had set up transaction notifications before he even reported to Xu An. The moment Xu An sent the money, a loud, mechanical female voice announced from Wang Fulong’s phone: "Alipay transaction received: four thousand yuan!"

Hearing that sound, Wang Fulong felt as if he were soaking in a pot of honey. His energy bar instantly refilled, and full of motivation, he returned to his desk with soaring morale to begin planning a new round of bids.

’Money really is the ultimate motivator!’

Xu An didn’t feel the sting of this expense at all. The profit from these seven orders would be more than ten times the amount of this bonus!

As he turned to leave, a thought suddenly popped into Xu An’s head.

’If catering services can choose suppliers through a bidding process, then what about design? Could I use a bidding process to get a design plan for my shop that meets my requirements?’

Along with this idea came the memory of the conversation he’d overheard at lunch between Old Han and his roommate.

’A competition with a measly five-thousand-yuan first prize, and a total prize pool of just over ten thousand, can attract so many students. What if I launched a competition that not only offered a generous cash prize but also the chance to see the winning design built, and for the designer to follow the construction crew and learn the process firsthand? Wouldn’t they be tempted by that?’

Xu An’s gaze shifted between Tang Wen and Wang Fulong, finally landing on Wang Fulong. "Supervisor Wang, do you have any experience planning a bidding process?"