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The editors at the publishing house were quite surprised. They did not understand why Tang Shi would rather cling to an online channel with an uncertain future than choose the clearly superior publishing route. But Tang Shi, having come from the future, naturally understood better how sweet the enormous cake of online literature could be. Besides, he planned to enter a talent show and embark on the path to stardom. Every year, so many newcomers entered the entertainment industry. Tang Shi was neither the most outstanding nor the most well-connected, and compared to Lu Hengzhi, he had even less acting talent. He had to preserve some advantages to compete with the countless newcomers and veterans of the entertainment world in the future. Online popularity and support ratings were precisely what Tang Shi wanted to cultivate and maintain.

With so much tied up in this, Tang Shi naturally would not abandon his long-term plans for immediate profit.

You could not have both the fish and the bear's paw. Tang Shi naturally lost the chance to have Prosperous Tang Strategy published as a book. Fortunately, magazine readers differed quite a bit from people who read novels online. Although the magazine had some complaints about Tang Shi's insistence on continuing online updates, it had no intention of dropping the matter. Once they learned that Tang Shi insisted on updating online, they proposed signing the magazine serialization rights for Prosperous Tang Strategy at the rate of thirty yuan per thousand characters, the standard price for second-hand manuscripts. Tang Shi found it somewhat regrettable, but with the spirit of "even a mosquito is still meat," he obediently signed the contract.

It was already late May. According to the magazine's layout schedule, Prosperous Tang Strategy would be published in early August, so Tang Shi would not receive his first payment until at least mid-August—unless the online version of Prosperous Tang Strategy went premium before the magazine release. That would depend on the book's future bookmarks and click-through numbers. But from Tang Shi's experienced perspective, given the current data, it was practically certain that Prosperous Tang Strategy would go premium with over ten thousand bookmarks by early July.

Even calculated at a ten-to-one click-to-bookmark ratio, as long as he could ensure timely updates, Tang Shi could at least become an ordinary white-collar worker earning ten thousand yuan a month. Just thinking about it made Tang Shi feel delighted.

However, what Tang Shi had not expected was that the first pot of gold he earned in this life would not be the manuscript fees he had planned for, but something else—

☆, Chapter Ten

As mentioned above, Tang Shi, a twenty-six-year-old elderly youth in terms of mental age, got up early every morning to help Mother Tang sell buns in order to ease his guilt over living off his parents. However, after helping Mother Tang sell buns for a week, things changed somewhat.

He had sharply noticed that the bun stall's customer flow was limited. The people who bought buns from Mother Tang every day were always the same. Aside from hospital patients, the family members caring for them, and hospital staff, there were only nearby residents. That customer base might seem large at first glance, but people could not eat buns every morning. They occasionally wanted a change of pace, switching to soy milk and fried dough sticks, milk and bread, noodles, or something else. So the people who spent money at Mother Tang's stall each day were fixed, which also meant that Mother Tang's daily earnings barely varied.

Furthermore, Mother Tang was quick and capable. She could handle everything by herself perfectly well. Tang Shi's help at her side was very limited. Sometimes, he even made things worse. On several occasions, there were so many customers buying buns that Tang Shi took their money but did not package their buns quickly enough. Naturally, customers complained that he was too slow. After it happened too often, they inevitably developed complaints about the bun stall. Sometimes neither of them had taken the money, yet some customers trying to take advantage would claim they had paid the other person while urging them to hand over the buns.

Over time, even though Mother Tang always stroked Tang Shi's head with a gratified expression and comforted him by saying her son had grown up and become sensible, Tang Shi still felt that he was superfluous.

There was a faintly sorrowful feeling of drawing legs on a snake.

Even if he wanted to help Mother Tang share the burden, he could not possibly treat trouble as fun and stupidity as cuteness, like in romance novels.

So after careful consideration, Tang Shi forced Lu Hengzhi and several close classmates to take questionnaires around the entire school, surveying how many teachers and students ate breakfast at school and what they thought of buns...

Then, in the second week, Tang Shi placed foam boxes filled with large buns on the back seats of their bicycles. One box for himself and one for Lu Hengzhi, and they hauled them to the school gate to start selling buns.

Lu Hengzhi expressed strong dissatisfaction with this, believing it seriously tarnished his elegant, handsome, dashing image. But after Tang Shi suppressed him through force and promised him all kinds of benefits, Young Master Lu immediately changed his attitude and readily took on the duty of sharing hardship and joy with his childhood friend and companion.

The two biggest school heartthrobs of No. 1 High School standing at the gate selling buns—once such explosive news spread, it naturally drew students brimming with curiosity. The buns were cheap, too. For fifty cents, you got a bun as big as an adult man's fist, far better than the cafeteria buns where you could not see any filling beneath the dough. Countless girls secretly crushing on the school heartthrobs and boys with bottomless stomachs swarmed over. Whether they wanted to eat or not, they had to buy two buns, say a few words, and make their presence known. In the process, they earned smiling thanks from the two handsome boys. Of course, some boys with ulterior motives thoroughly enjoyed being jostled around amid the crowd of girls while buying buns. (Which part was supposed to be incidental, exactly? →_→!)

But after most students ate Mother Tang's buns with no expectations whatsoever, they were surprised to discover that the buns had thin wrappers, generous fillings, and delicious, juicy meat. They were truly a rare delicacy. It seemed that the lower one's expectations, the greater the satisfaction—a genuine truth. Thus, the first day's friendly support immediately developed into sustainable business. Every morning from six to seven, the bustling crowd at the gate of No. 1 High School became a distinctive sight.

Thus, Tang Shi was fortunate enough to earn his first pot of gold after being reborn. Each bun cost fifty cents, and a foam box could hold around seventy or eighty buns. Two boxes meant one hundred fifty to one hundred sixty buns. That meant he could earn seventy or eighty yuan in a single morning. After deducting costs, he could still make forty or fifty yuan, roughly one-fourth of Mother Tang's daily income.

Having increased the family's daily income by one-fourth out of thin air, the newly reborn Tang Shi was fairly satisfied. After all, he was still young. There would be plenty of time to make money in the future!

Unfortunately, the good times did not last. The noise and congestion at the school gate, along with a report from someone with ulterior motives, drew the attention of the school security guards and logistics staff. After a thorough investigation, they learned that a student from a certain class was working to support himself. Both gratified and troubled, the school logistics department approached Tang Shi's homeroom teacher, Old Yu, hoping Old Yu could persuade the student in his class—because Tang Shi's booming business had provoked the cafeteria's dissatisfaction.

First, it was necessary to explain the ownership situation of No. 1 High School's cafeteria. To generate income and avoid certain management hassles, the school leadership had decided in a meeting long ago to contract out the school cafeteria to private individuals. Merchants naturally pursued profit. To earn more money and better serve the teachers and students on campus, the school's two cafeteria buildings provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Aside from potato pancakes, egg pancakes, and similar items favored by certain girls, buns and porridge were the main breakfast staples.

Now that most of No. 1 High School's students bought buns from Tang Shi at the school gate—without having to walk the extra distance into the cafeteria, and with buns that tasted far better than cafeteria food, not to mention that the bun seller was so handsome and also their classmate, whether in terms of friendship points or professional points, he utterly crushed the cafeteria—the cafeteria's buns could no longer be sold. Naturally, the private operators who had contracted the cafeteria stalls were dissatisfied.

There were already few students who came to school to eat breakfast, and now Tang Shi was competing for business too. The cafeteria might as well stop operating.

Since he had to pay the school a large leasing fee every year, the cafeteria owner believed the school had an obligation to ensure that his business was not affected by outside factors. Besides, students' proper duty was studying. Why were they doing all this messy nonsense? Was this not disrupting school discipline?

While contemptuously criticizing Tang Shi's actions, the cafeteria owner also pretended to be generous and suggested that if Tang Shi's family was truly struggling, he could make the decision to waive Tang Shi's cafeteria meal fees as assistance for a disadvantaged student.

Thus, such an absurd request was presented before Old Yu.

"This is simply outrageous!" Old Yu, a stubborn teacher with professional standards far beyond his colleagues and great prestige, gave no face at all as he pointed at the dean of students and the logistics director and scolded them. "Every day, you keep talking about promoting quality education. What is quality education? Tang Shi is willing to help his mother shoulder the burden of life at such a young age. He works while studying without neglecting his schoolwork. That is quality education. Besides, Tang Shi sells buns outside the school. You manage heaven and earth, so do you think you can manage what happens outside too? Your own food is like pig slop, yet you spend every day picking at other people's faults. And you still have the nerve to talk about subsidizing my student's meals in the cafeteria. Does my student need your one bite of food? Pah! As the ancients said, a man does not eat food thrown at him in contempt. Stop using your stench of money to contaminate my student."

Faced with Old Yu's intense rejection and reaction, the dean of students and the logistics director could only look at each other, shake their heads with bitter smiles, and let Old Yu vent. This stubborn old man might have a bad temper, but his professional abilities were second to none. He had worked in education for over thirty years, and his students had achieved success in every field. He could truly be said to have students everywhere. Moreover, the newly appointed director of the city education bureau was one of Old Yu's prized former students.

If not for the monk's face, then for the Buddha's face. With such a great figure who had both connections and expertise, everyone in the school, from the principal to ordinary teachers, had to treat him with respect. Now that the two of them had been scolded a few times—over such a trivial matter—they could only endure it.

After Old Yu flew into a rage and cursed the school staff bloody, he arrived at Tang Shi's bun stall the next morning with a stern face, bought four large buns, and stormed away carrying them. He left behind Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi, who looked as baffled as two quails.

The attempt to cut off Tang Shi's supply at the source was clearly aborted after Old Yu stepped in to express his displeasure. But the cafeteria owner was unwilling to watch money that originally belonged to him sprout wings and fly into someone else's wallet. Although he was a businessman, he was not an unscrupulous one. He could not bring himself to secretly plot against two students or do something nasty to force them out of business.

After thinking it over, the cafeteria owner decided to act personally and sought Tang Shi out to discuss the matter. He asked Tang Shi to deliver his family's buns directly to the cafeteria stalls. Since he would be purchasing in bulk, the price per bun was lowered to thirty-five cents. But because it was a bulk purchase, the cafeteria would order more. Counting breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they would need nearly five or six hundred buns per day.

Furthermore, to ensure the buns remained fresh and delicious, the cafeteria did not need Tang Shi's family to deliver them steamed. Mother Tang only needed to prepare the filling and wrap the buns, and the cafeteria would send a vehicle to Tang Shi's home each evening to pick them up. This way, Mother Tang even saved on gas and the effort of steaming buns. Tang Shi went home and discussed it with Mother Tang. They felt it was a win-win arrangement, and happily agreed.

This time, Mother Tang stroked Tang Shi's head again and said sincerely, "My son has grown up. He can help Mom do things now."

The result of moving from a small stall to a large cafeteria window was that Mother Tang's buns sold even better. Besides contracting the school cafeteria, the cafeteria owner also ran a mid-range hotel. After tasting Mother Tang's buns, he decided to serve them as breakfast at his hotel, where they unsurprisingly won the customers' praise. So the cafeteria owner unsurprisingly expanded his purchases, increasing his daily order from Mother Tang from five hundred buns to one thousand.

As a result, Mother Tang's small workshop model, reliant entirely on her own labor, was severely limited. Even if Mother Tang gave up setting up her stall every morning, she could only make six or seven hundred buns a day. The cafeteria owner's order volume was simply more than she could handle.