Chapter 275 - 235: Xu’s Braised Shop Business Recruitment Seminar

Chapter 275: Chapter 235: Xu’s Braised Shop Business Recruitment Seminar

Life after Liu Zhaowen quit his job was incredibly cushy!

He’d sleep in until noon every day, and there would always be a meal saved for him in the pot. After eating, he’d hole up in his room, blasting the AC and playing video games. At four o’clock, he’d head out with his gear, first stopping by Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant to pick up his pre-ordered braised foods, then setting up his stall at the school gate to start selling.

Three hundred pounds was certainly a lot, but on a good day, he could sell out by around seven in the evening. Even on a slow day, he’d be done no later than nine.

In other words, he only had to work three to five hours a day to earn four hundred yuan!

With money and free time, how could life not be happy and carefree?

A couple of days ago, he received an invitation from Liu Tong to attend Xu’s Braised Shop’s investment presentation and share his success story with everyone.

An opportunity to show his face, boost his reputation, and do a little bragging? Of course Liu Zhaowen wouldn’t miss it. He agreed immediately.

After confirming the time and place for the speech, Liu Zhaowen locked himself in his room and furiously scribbled out a script all night. He then sacrificed an afternoon of gaming to put together an outfit that made him look like a successful professional, making sure he was fully prepared.

You had to hand it to him, Liu Zhaowen was a real showman—the bigger the crowd, the more energized he got.

Looking at the more than forty people below the simple podium, he was so excited his very soul seemed to tremble. The only other time he’d felt this way was when he’d tried the Hellish Braised Flavor.

"Ahem—"

Liu Zhaowen put on a show of clearing his throat, then adopted a calm and serious expression as he began, "I am very honored to have been invited by the owner of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant today to share my success story with all of you..."

He had intended to recite the entire five-hundred-word self-deprecating introduction from his script, but after receiving a death glare from Liu Tong, he obediently flipped the page and got straight to the point.

"...I’ve been working with Xu’s Braised Shop for almost ten days now. In those ten days, my sales have climbed daily with incredible momentum... Currently, my daily purchase of braised foods is as high as three hundred pounds. Guess how long it takes me to sell all three hundred pounds?"

"That must take at least eight or ten hours, right?"

"Are you stupid? The way he’s asking, it must be a short time. I’ll guess six hours!"

"No way. That would mean selling fifty pounds an hour. There’s no way you’d have that many customers consistently. Impossible!"

"..."

Amidst the discussions of the forty-plus people, the most common guesses were eight or nine hours, followed by ten. The shortest guess was still six hours. This brought a brilliant smile to Liu Zhaowen’s face.

"Alright, time for the correct answer!" Liu Zhaowen loudly cut off the crowd’s chatter. "Three hundred pounds of braised food—sold out in as little as three hours, or five hours at most!"

After his announcement, Liu Zhaowen wanted to interact with the attendees a bit more and have them guess how much money he could make from three hundred pounds. But just then, both Liu Tong and Xu An shot him a death ray...

"Ahem." Although Liu Zhaowen turned his head and pretended not to see them, he obediently continued, "From those three hundred pounds, I can make four hundred yuan! After deducting stall fees, sanitation fees, and so on, I take home three hundred and ninety-two yuan!"

Many people here had only come for the free pound of vegetarian braised food they were promised after the presentation. Some were interested in the business itself, but not many.

But when they heard Liu Zhaowen could sell three hundred pounds of braised food a day, their attention finally shifted from ’When will this be over?’ to the man on stage. And when he mentioned a daily income of four hundred yuan, everyone started doing the math in their heads.

’Four hundred a day, for thirty days a month... that’s... twelve thousand yuan?’

When that number popped into their minds, they were all stunned. Even if you cut that in half, it was still six thousand yuan a month!

The crowd’s gazes toward Liu Zhaowen instantly became feverish. They listened intently as he described how he chose his location, how he built up a customer base, and how he attracted new patrons...

Xu An quietly walked to the back of the crowd. Seeing the forty-plus people listening so earnestly, he gave a slight nod.

’So far, so good,’ he thought.

Liu Zhaowen spoke about his entrepreneurial journey for a full twenty minutes, getting through all six pages of his script. Only after his mouth was dry and his forehead was beaded with sweat did he set down the microphone, content, and walk off the podium.

During those twenty minutes, no one yawned, no one’s mind wandered, no one dozed off, and there wasn’t even a whisper. Everyone was completely engrossed, as if afraid that missing a single second would mean letting the God of Wealth slip by.

Liu Tong strode onto the stage, picked up the still-warm microphone, and said quickly, "Next up, let’s have the owner of Xu’s Braised Shop, Xu An, explain the feasibility of this sales model!"

With that, Liu Tong put down the microphone and was the first to start clapping.

With Liu Zhaowen’s success story as a precedent, the atmosphere in the room had already grown electric. At this moment, whether out of genuine excitement or swept up by the fervent mood, everyone raised their hands and applauded thunderously.

Amidst this escalating atmosphere, Xu An walked briskly to the stage, picked up the microphone Liu Tong had just set down, brought it to his lips, and spoke his first words.

"In Hai City!"

With just those three simple words, Xu An’s gaze grew deep and focused. His tone was solemn yet filled with a moving, infectious energy that made people involuntarily follow his train of thought, subconsciously ignoring the slight sense of unreliability his youthful appearance might have otherwise inspired.

"Hai City alone has eighteen universities! Eighty-nine high schools! One hundred forty-five middle schools! Three hundred twenty-seven elementary schools! And seven hundred sixty-three kindergartens!"

His eyes swept over the expectant faces in the crowd.

"If we exclude kindergartens and elementary schools, where spending power is lower, that leaves us with a total of—two hundred and fifty-two schools between the middle schools, high schools, and universities! What do so many schools mean? It means that in Hai City alone, there is a limitless market waiting for us to develop!"

After this passionate declaration, Xu An’s breathing became quick and heavy, matching the atmosphere in the room.

"Alright, that’s all I have to say for now. If you have any questions, please raise your hand! I’ll answer them one by one!"

His voice was still hanging in the air when hands shot up all over the room like sprouting plants, waving frantically at him.

Wherever Xu An’s gaze fell, a chorus of loud "Me!"s would erupt. Finally, his eyes landed on a sturdy man in a white tank top. From the very beginning, this man hadn’t shown the slightest hint of doubt on his face.

"The man with the buzz cut in the white tank top—yes, you. What’s your question?"

A flash of delight crossed the sturdy man’s eyes as he was called on, and he eagerly tried to stand. But due to a physical impairment, he wobbled as soon as his backside left the chair. With help from the person next to him, he finally steadied himself and took the microphone Liu Tong handed him.

"Hello, Boss Xu. I’d like to ask, does this require a franchise fee, or do we have to give you a portion of the profits?"

Xu An’s gaze flickered imperceptibly over the man’s left leg before returning to his face. Elder Sun had told him that five people from the China Disabled People’s Federation would be attending this presentation. ’Looks like this is one of them,’ he thought. ’What a coincidence!’

"No franchise fee, and you don’t have to give up any portion of your profits. The purchasing price for the braised dishes is completely transparent..."

"How do we place an order?"

"Where do we sign up?"

"Will you take back any unsold portions?"

"..."

Before he could finish, others in the room eagerly started shouting out their own most pressing questions. After trying and failing to restore order, Xu An could only pick out the questions he could hear clearly and answer them.

"You can submit your purchase order by phone, text message, or through an instant messenger."

"To register, please see Mr. Liu Tong after the presentation."

"We do not buy back unsold portions, so please be sure to order according to your ability when you place a purchase order!"

"..."

His mouth couldn’t produce saliva fast enough to keep up with his talking, and his tongue grew dry. Before it felt like it was about to catch fire, Xu An had finally answered most of everyone’s questions. Leaving them with a "Please form an orderly line to register with Mr. Liu Tong," Xu An quickly put down the microphone, left the stage, and exited the second floor.

Liu Tong, who hadn’t yet processed what was happening, and Liu Zhaowen, who was still savoring his own performance, were swarmed by the crowd. Leading the charge was the sturdy man who had asked the first question...

After registering, the group of five headed downstairs to the first floor, satisfied.

"Brother Hua, this sounds really reliable! I’m not sure if the two schools we picked will work out, but there are so many schools. If they don’t, we can always switch. It shouldn’t be a big deal."

One person in the small group of five chattered on, his eyes a mixture of hope and worry.

"It shouldn’t be a problem. I asked; the vegetarian dishes are only four yuan a pound, so fifty pounds is just two hundred yuan. We can afford that much. It’s worth a try."

Brother Hua had the air of a true leader, calming everyone’s nerves with just a few short sentences.

Just as he was about to say more, he caught a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye. The person was standing outside Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, their back hunched and backlit, their face shrouded in shadow. It was impossible to make out their expression, and a knot of nervousness formed in his stomach.

"So, how was it? The presentation wasn’t half bad, was it?" Elder Sun asked, a hint of a smile in his voice.

Recognizing the smile in his tone, Brother Hua instantly relaxed, but that relief was followed by a flush of indignant anger. ’This was an opportunity my group and I found,’ he thought. ’Is this guy here to steal our credit? How did he even know I was at this presentation? Could there be a mole?’

"I know the owner of this shop." Elder Sun seemed to have guessed what Brother Hua was thinking, dispelling his suspicions with a single sentence. He didn’t give him time to react before continuing, "All five of you registered, right? For the next week, the money for your purchases will be covered by the China Disabled People’s Federation. This is your start-up support fund; it was already part of the plan."

Brother Hua opened his mouth to object, but Elder Sun cut him off.

"You only make one yuan per pound on the vegetarian dishes, but you can make three to five yuan per pound on the meat dishes. The school locations Boss Xu is offering you have all been researched—they’re the ones with the highest student spending and the largest populations. An order of eighty or a hundred pounds might not even be enough to meet their demand..."

Brother Hua was a sharp man; he understood what Master Sun was getting at.

He wanted to refuse again, but when he looked at the hopeful eyes of the four people beside him, his lips moved a few times, and the words of refusal ultimately came out as a single word: "Okay."

Upstairs, after nearly an hour of chaos, Liu Tong and Liu Zhaowen finally finished the registration process.

In total, twenty-seven people had expressed interest. Eleven of them completed the registration and placed a purchase order.

The remaining sixteen registered but were hesitant, planning to go home and think it over for a night before deciding whether to place an order.

Besides those twenty-seven, the rest of the attendees sobered up from the frenzied atmosphere while waiting to register. They went downstairs, collected their pound of braised food, and left directly.