Chapter 29 Scammer Decides to Be a Good Person 4: A Business Opportunity, This Is Everywhere

Before Du Heng returned to the construction site, he first took Shi Lan back to the little courtyard.

They walked the whole way in silence.

Shi Lan said, “Why aren’t you saying anything? Was the food bad today?”

Du Heng said, “They didn’t come.”

His tone was noticeably downcast.

“Who? Your coworkers?”

“They’re afraid of spending money. The few who came today only came because they felt embarrassed after eating the food you brought them before. They probably won’t come tomorrow either.”

“It’s fine. If they still don’t come after trying it, that just means my food wasn’t tempting enough. What does that have to do with you? Besides, you saw it yourself today. Business was really good.”

But her words didn’t seem to comfort him at all.

As Du Heng was leaving, she called him back and counted out fifty yuan for him.

He looked at the money and froze.

“Take it,” Shi Lan explained. “Didn’t you give all your money to me to keep? This is your allowance. Well, for this month.”

It was also her first time giving someone allowance money, so she had no experience. Seeing Du Heng only stare at the money without taking it, she secretly wondered if the amount was too little.

This wasn’t the time to show uncertainty, so she forcefully made it sound reasonable. “You eat all three meals at home, you don’t smoke, and you walk back and forth so you don’t even need bus fare. Fifty yuan is about right.”

At worst, she could raise it a little next month.

Anyway, what she gave this month was definitely reasonable. Boss Shi could not possibly be wrong!

Receiving allowance money was something new for Du Heng too.

He originally wanted to say he had no use for it, but after thinking about it, he still took it and put it away. He simply wanted to experience what it felt like to receive allowance money.

Seeing that he had accepted it, Shi Lan let out a sigh of relief.

Then she ran back into the house and brought out a thermos for Du Heng. “Tea. Take it to the site and drink it there. Don’t just drink tap water straight from the pipe.”

She had originally planned to buy one of those large-capacity tumblers, but after looking all over the place and failing to find one, she had no choice but to make do with a thermos.

“Thank you.”

Du Heng took it and left, but when he came back that night, he said, “I’m not bringing it tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t taste good?”

Shi Lan went to check the thermos. That shouldn’t be possible. It was only tea, how bad could it be?

The thermos was empty. Not a single drop of tea was left.

Du Heng said, “I didn’t get a single sip. As soon as they saw I had water, they all came over to ask for some. By the time I went to drink it myself, there was none left.”

Shi Lan said, “…”

That was definitely not how she had expected things to go.

“How about I go buy a bigger teapot and pack more next time?”

Du Heng said, “It wouldn’t help. No matter how much I bring, it’ll all get drunk. Don’t worry about it. Everyone just drinks from the faucet anyway.”

There was one thing he didn’t say. A tiny selfish part of him didn’t want the water Shi Lan had specially prepared for him to be shared around by everyone else.

Shi Lan could only let it go. She hadn’t thought it through well enough.

It really did make Du Heng seem out of place if he alone brought water, and once he started, he would have to keep bringing it. If he did it for too long, other people would start to think drinking his water was only natural. Then if he stopped one day, it might even lead to resentment.

The next day, Shi Lan prepared enough ingredients for one hundred boxed meals.

She made two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes. The meat dishes were twice-cooked pork with cabbage and shredded pork with green peppers. The vegetable dishes were mapo tofu and dry-fried green beans.

Each boxed meal had the same vegetable dishes, but the meat dishes were paired differently.

In the end, she packed 105 portions.

Most of the people who had bought from her yesterday came back again, and they even brought classmates and coworkers with them.

These repeat customers were enthusiastically offering suggestions too, saying she should prepare smaller portions for one yuan each.

What could one yuan even buy? Even a single bus ride cost one yuan.

Even if she made smaller portions, there was no way she could sell them for one yuan.

As for the customers from the construction site, more came than Du Heng had expected. Besides the ones who had come yesterday, there were some unfamiliar faces too.

Du Heng hadn’t even arrived yet when someone came over first.

The man walked up to the stall with one yuan already in hand. “One boxed meal,” he said, then added, “I’m Du Heng’s coworker.”

Oh? So after hearing from yesterday’s diners that there was a bargain to be had, he’d come early today to grab it?

Shi Lan smiled brightly at every customer, quickly took the money, and even said, “Thank you for your business. For the first three days after opening, Du Heng’s coworkers get half off.”

So listen carefully, the rule was that mentioning Du Heng’s name for a discount only worked for three days!

The man was secretly delighted at first, but then a little dissatisfied. Still, he took the boxed meal and left.

Did he think he could keep getting a discount forever?

Shi Lan counted on purpose. Today, twelve of Du Heng’s coworkers had come. Tomorrow there would probably be even more.

Interestingly enough, she also ran into the agent who had shown her the house that day. He was with someone else, probably taking a client to look at properties.

“Xiao Liu!” Shi Lan waved happily.

Liu Haifeng saw that terrifying woman again, the one who had turned him from a chatterbox into a stammering wreck. He wanted to pretend he hadn’t seen her and quietly slip away, but once she’d called out to him, he couldn’t pretend not to hear.

He brought his client over and made awkward small talk. “So you’re selling boxed meals.”

“Thanks to you helping me find such a good place, let me treat you to a boxed meal.”

Shi Lan took out two boxes, one for Xiao Liu and one for his new client, and even helped Xiao Liu drum up business. “Xiao Liu is very professional. He helped me find my place, and I’m extremely satisfied. Five-star review.”

The client said, “Five-star review?”

Shi Lan said, “That means top-notch service. I hope you can also find a house you like with Xiao Liu’s help.”

“Thank you, thank you!”

“No need to be polite. Come back and eat my boxed meals again sometime.”

Xiao Liu wanted to pay, but Shi Lan wouldn’t let him. “I said it’s my treat.”

Liu Haifeng had just started to feel that this former client was different from how she’d been that day, and he even felt a little guilty for how he had described her in his head.

The next second, he heard Shi Lan say, “In the future, when you bring clients around, you can introduce them to the surrounding area too. Especially the really delicious boxed meal stall at the crossroads.”

Liu Haifeng said, “…”

Late, but not unexpected. He wasn’t even surprised.

When he thought about how this crossroads was a route he had to pass anyway, he realized there would be no way for him to avoid it in the future.

Wonderful. He already had a headache.

Shi Lan had no idea that she had successfully turned a salesperson into someone socially anxious, at least where she was concerned. She was happily going over the accounts.

Eighty-eight boxes were sold at full price.

Fourteen boxes were sold at half price, twelve to Du Heng’s coworkers and two as display samples.

Two boxes were given away, and Du Heng used up one box himself.

In total, today’s revenue was 190 yuan.

Costs were 80 yuan, and the cost per box had dropped to 0.76 yuan.

So the net profit was 110 yuan.

A perfect day!

On the way back, Shi Lan was still grinning to herself when Du Heng said, “My boxed meal seems different from theirs.”

“Of course it’s different. I packed yours separately.”

Du Heng smiled so wide that a full set of neat white teeth showed.

Well, he was a little happy. Just a little.

Shi Lan said, “Once I get a kitchen helper later on, I’ll have time to make special dishes just for you. For now, you’ll have to make do with the communal pot¹, okay? Be good.”

She patted him twice on the shoulder.

Pfft, her whole hand came away dusty.

Shi Lan said, “…”

She held up her paw-like hand with nowhere to put it and only rinsed it off after they got home.

Next time, she was never casually touching his work clothes again.

But all Du Heng could think about was what she’d said about hiring a helper.

“You’re hiring one already?”

“Or what, do you want me to work myself to death? If someone helps with all the repetitive work, then I can expand the business.”

“What kind of person are you looking for?”

Shi Lan said, “Someone clean, quick with their hands, and a little sharp. Why, do you know anyone suitable?”

Du Heng said, “No…”

“I’ll figure it out myself.”

Shi Lan’s solution was to hang a hiring sign on the pushcart while she was out selling.

It read: Hiring kitchen helper. Meals included, lodging not included. Pay negotiable. Women only.

It didn’t go smoothly. For the first few days, either no one asked at all, or after talking with them, she felt they weren’t suitable.

She wasn’t expecting to hire someone and put them to work right away. At the very least, she needed someone who wouldn’t require her to spend a ton of effort training them.

But she was still running a little street stall herself. Locals looked down on it, and outsiders thought her setup was too unstable.

In the end, she poached someone right out of Xiao Liu’s customer pool.

Xiao Liu: “…”

Liu Haifeng happened to be passing by with a customer, and that customer was also a young girl, maybe two or three years older than Shi Lan.

Her hair was combed perfectly into place, her nails were neat, and her shoes were spotless.

So Shi Lan called out to Xiao Liu and casually asked a question.

As it turned out, the girl was genuinely interested.

Her name was Li Xia. She had come out to work with her boyfriend and was helping out at a shop run by one of his relatives. Her boyfriend had been messing around with other girls, refused to admit it no matter what, and even tried to gaslight her. Furious, Li Xia broke up with him, settled her pay, and left.

She had nearly ended up on the streets, but couldn’t bear to stay in a hotel, so she came to an agency to rent a place.

Shi Lan liked how crisp and capable Li Xia seemed, and she had a good head on her shoulders too.

She made the decision on the spot.

“The salary’s 400 a month, with a two-week trial period. The trial salary is the same. After you pass the trial, you’ll get a 50-yuan monthly housing subsidy, and your pay can go up depending on the workload.”

Li Xia wasn’t shy about it either. She said she could start tomorrow.

Everyone was happy.

Xiao Liu, who had been pushed to the sidelines by his two clients and reduced to a background prop for half the day: “…”

Seeing that the two of them had reached an agreement, Liu Haifeng said, “Once she’s settled in, I’ll take her around this afternoon so she can get familiar with the place.”

The moment he said it, he regretted it and wanted to slap himself.

Why had he been so proactive? Was it because he wanted attention?

Xiao Liu was lost.

Li Xia lived up to expectations. She was incredibly efficient, mainly helping Shi Lan prep ingredients and pack lunch boxes.

Shi Lan still handled all the actual cooking herself.

Now that she had a paid helper, Shi Lan’s lunch box business had undergone a real leap in quality. More or less, she counted as a small-time boss now.

It felt great.

After half a month of business, even after deducting her helper’s wages, she had made a net profit of 1,600. Feeling generous, Shi Lan raised Du Heng’s allowance to 100 yuan a month.

Every night when she counted money and balanced the books, she never hid it from Du Heng.

When the half-month summary came out, the man whose allowance had been raised didn’t look happy at all. Instead, he grew even quieter.

A melancholy beauty was still a beauty.

Mm, actually, even more beautiful.

Shi Lan still felt she ought to show some concern.

The beauty said nothing and looked at her resentfully.

After a long while, he said, “It’s nothing.”

He just seemed to work even harder around the house.

Du Heng wasn’t willing to talk, and she couldn’t force him.

Besides, she’d never been in a relationship before. She’d only ever watched from the sidelines and had absolutely no practical experience to draw on.

But Boss Shi was good at examining herself. After thinking it over, she felt the problem might lie in the way they interacted.

Maybe, possibly, the way she and Du Heng got along was too much like boss and employee. It wasn’t all that different from how she interacted with Li Xia.

In that case, they should go on a date.

But where to?

Shi Lan wanted to go to an internet cafe². She’d been offline for more than ten days and truly missed it.

So while she was out buying supplies, she took a look around, only to find not a single internet cafe. There were plenty of stores renting out novels and videotapes, though.

Could it be that internet cafes didn’t exist yet?

What a business opportunity!

Sadly, Boss Shi didn’t have the capital right now. And just thinking about it, she knew a single computer must have been extremely expensive at this point.

Better to go with a classic option instead, a movie.

There was a movie theater on the commercial street a fifteen-minute walk away, and while she was out shopping, Shi Lan conveniently bought tickets for that evening.

From the listings, she picked Forrest Gump, one she was familiar with. So this movie had come out that early? It was still considered a classic decades later. That really was impressive.

Ten yuan per ticket.

Sigh. Two tickets meant the profit from ten lunch boxes.

Shi Lan invited Du Heng, and before they went out, the young man even changed into a different outfit on purpose.

When they arrived at the theater, Shi Lan discovered there was no popcorn, no fries, and no cola for sale.

The counter only had bottled mineral water and drinks.

One-star review!

As they entered the theater, Shi Lan whispered to Du Heng.

Du Heng was quite a bit taller than her, so he had to tilt his head to hear his girlfriend clearly in the noisy surroundings.

“There’s seriously nothing at all. Do you know how huge a gap in the market this is? I need to hire more people fast. Once my lunch box business is running smoothly, I’m coming here to sell homemade drinks and popcorn. Popcorn’s so easy to make. Do you know how much popcorn you can get from one jin of corn? Forget it, even if I told you, you wouldn’t get it. Anyway, the profit margins are insane!

Though I’d probably have to split profits with the theater, but that’s fine. It’s pure extra income for them, so what would they have to object to? It wouldn’t matter if I priced it a little higher either. I’d be targeting all those young couples who are just dating or still in that in-between stage. In front of their girlfriends or the girl they like, men are always generous.

Tsk, then again, I might not even need to work with the theater. Setting up a stall out on the street by the entrance might work too. And if I throw in gimmicky flavors like caramel or chocolate, even if I rely on volume, it’d still sell great.

That’s the plan! Ah, who would’ve thought today’s trip would lead to this discovery? This twenty yuan was totally worth spending!”

Boss Shi clenched her fist, full of fighting spirit! This was the 1990s, where gold was everywhere for the taking³, and if she was going to pick up gold, she’d better be diligent about it!

Du Heng: “…”

Wasn’t this supposed to be a date?

Translator’s Notes