Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

Business at the restaurant had picked up a bit yesterday. Jin Dayong, the owner of Delicious Restaurant, hadn’t even had a chance to celebrate before he noticed that today, many people were just taking their tea eggs and leaving.

’Things were fine yesterday, so why is everyone leaving today? Barely anyone is staying. What’s going on?’

Jin Dayong stopped a worker who had eaten lunch at his restaurant yesterday, asking with a wide smile, "Not eating here today? If there’s anything about our service you’re not happy with, I’ll fix it right away."

Seeing Jin Dayong’s ingratiating smile, the worker hesitated for a moment before speaking his mind.

"Xu’s Fast Food has salt-baked chicken thighs today. They’re fresh and flavorful, and everyone loves them."

With that, the man hurried away, afraid that if he were any later, all the big chicken thighs would be gone, leaving only the pitifully small ones.

Jin Dayong stood there, baffled. ’That’s not right. Didn’t the flyer say Xu’s Fast Food’s meat dish today was shredded pork with green peppers? How did it become salt-baked chicken thighs? Did they change the menu at the last minute?’

Watching worker after worker come in, grab their tea egg, and then promptly leave, Jin Dayong couldn’t sit still any longer. He strode toward Xu’s Fast Food, determined to see for himself.

Before he even reached the entrance of Xu’s Fast Food, he saw a massive crowd of people outside, holding plates and waiting to be served. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy.

He quickened his pace, and when he got to the front of Xu’s Fast Food, he stood behind the workers and craned his neck to look at the hot food counter. Sure enough, he saw a tray of salt-baked chicken thighs.

Besides the salt-baked chicken thighs, there was another meat dish: shredded pork with green peppers.

Jin Dayong was shocked. Eight yuan for four dishes and a soup, and two of them were major meat dishes.

’Is this young boss so scared of me that he’s starting to make stupid moves?’

Jin Dayong gloated inwardly. ’I can’t believe this kid can’t even handle a little pressure. Just a small setback sent him reeling.’

He even started calculating in his head, wondering if he should buy out Xu An’s shop after it went out of business from poor management.

After all, the location of Xu An’s shop was far superior to his own.

Suddenly, he heard the man serving the food speak.

"The chicken thigh or the shredded pork with green peppers, which one do you want?"

"I’ll take the chicken thigh."

"Alright." Zhou Qi deftly served a portion of salt-baked chicken thigh onto the man’s plate.

Two workers waiting next to Jin Dayong looked at the two main dishes on the hot food counter and started chatting.

"They have salt-baked chicken thighs and shredded pork with green peppers today. Which one are you getting?"

"The salt-baked chicken thigh looks good, but the shredded pork with green peppers looks delicious too. I’m torn."

"How about this: one of us gets the chicken thigh, the other gets the shredded pork. Then we can swap and try both."

"Yeah, let’s do that."

Many workers teamed up like this in twos and threes, each getting a different main dish to share.

Jin Dayong was stunned again. ’What’s going on? Isn’t it supposed to be four dishes and a soup? How did it become three dishes and a soup?’

The clueless onlooker, Jin Dayong, stood to the side and watched for a good while before he finally understood what kind of trick Xu’s Fast Food was playing.

’I finally get it! I’ll do the same thing tomorrow.’

’No, I can’t just follow his every move like a copycat. Tomorrow, I’ll offer three main dishes! I’ll crush you!’

Feeling like he had seen through the strategy of Xu’s Fast Food, Jin Dayong returned to his own restaurant gleefully and began planning tomorrow’s menu.

「At the entrance to the Hai City Library construction site.」

On Xu An’s side, order deliveries were proceeding in an orderly fashion.

The number of meal boxes per delivery had been reduced, and the quality of the insulated delivery bags had improved. The riders no longer needed to be overly cautious, so their delivery speed had increased.

Because they had to leave their ID cards as a deposit, and because the current riders were all university students, there hadn’t been any incidents of riders absconding with the money.

Everything was proceeding smoothly and in an orderly manner.

With six riders on the job, over 150 meal boxes were all delivered in just under an hour.

Furthermore, Xu An’s officially implemented "receptionist strategy" was showing clear results. The six riders returned not only with the payment for over 150 meal boxes but also with more than 200 new meal box orders.

Looking at the sharp increase in orders, Xu An finally breathed a sigh of relief. With these orders, he no longer had to worry about the vicious competition from Delicious Restaurant.

’It seems office workers are the correct way to beat this game!’

Business at the entrance to the Hai City Library construction site had been a bit slow lately. Besides the increasingly hot weather, another reason was that more and more workers were leaving the site.

This little food street, which only existed because of the construction workers, saw its business decline day by day as the workers gradually left.

Some stall owners were even discussing moving to other construction sites. Staying here was just toughing it out; their daily income wasn’t even enough to cover daily expenses.

Xu An couldn’t help but feel fortunate. He had unintentionally tapped into the office worker demographic, and his meal boxes happened to perfectly suit their needs. Just like that, he had smoothly transitioned his main customer base from being primarily workers to primarily office workers.

’Otherwise, I’d probably be thinking about whether to find a new market at another construction site right now.’

Back at the shop sorting through the next day’s orders, Xu An noticed a few strange addresses.

’This address... it looks more like a normal residential home, not a company address.’

’Could it be that residents near the Hai City Library are also interested in meal boxes?’

Ye Ning considered himself a homebody. Though he wasn’t into anime, he loved staying home. Unless absolutely necessary, he would never take a single step out his door.

Unfortunately, humans need to consume external energy to survive.

Simply put: if you don’t eat, you die.

What to eat every day, and where to eat it, were problems that gave him a massive headache.

But, starting tomorrow, that problem would be solved!

It all started with a flyer he found at three o’clock this afternoon.

Three in the afternoon was Ye Ning’s unbreakable, daily trash-disposal time. He had determined through multiple experiments that this was the time when the fewest people were out and about in his residential complex.

As usual, he gathered up his household trash and, fully geared up, headed out the door.

He made it to the trash cans without a hitch. All he had to do was toss the bag in his hand, and today’s trash-disposal mission would be a resounding success.

But just then, he saw a piece of paper on the ground not far from the trash cans.

His OCD kicked in. How could there be a piece of scrap paper on such clean ground!

He walked over, picked up the paper, and was about to throw it in the trash when he suddenly realized it was a flyer—a flyer for a fast-food restaurant.

"What’s for Lunch? Xu’s Fast Food—Delicious Meals, Delivered to Your Door."

Ye Ning glanced at the daily menu listed below the slogan, and his eyes instantly lit up.

Then he looked at the restaurant’s delivery range: delivery was available within a 1.3-kilometer radius of the Hai City Library.

He quickly calculated the distance from his home to the Hai City Library in his head. 1.2 kilometers. It was just within range.

At that moment, Ye Ning felt as if a ray of light had pierced through his dim, dreary days. It was so dazzling, so brilliant!

He pulled out his phone on the spot and added the messenger ID from the flyer.

In less than two minutes, his friend request was accepted. Ye Ning decisively placed an order for two meal boxes.

’Tomorrow! Starting tomorrow, I won’t have to leave the house for anything except taking out the trash!’

Then, he sank into deep thought. ’When will the day come when I don’t even have to take out the trash and can just stay home forever?’