"Zhe, when do we start?"
Lin Xiaomeng could hardly wait to get down to business with Lin Zhe.
"We'll start preparing this afternoon and get to work tonight."
Lin Zhe laid out his ideas confidently. "My plan is to start building awareness of our egg fried rice by giving it away for free.
I believe that once our guests taste our egg fried rice, none of them will be able to resist how delicious it is.
Every last one of them will be won over."
"Build awareness by giving it away for free?"
Lin Xiaomeng's eyes lit up at Lin Zhe's business strategy, and she marveled inwardly that he really was a born businessman!
Who could turn down a delicious serving of free egg fried rice?
Letting the egg fried rice speak for itself and win customers over with its flavor-no advertisement could work better than that.
"Right, we'll give it away for free. Keep an eye on the inn for a while. I'll go to the nearby market to buy some disposable food containers, then stop by the produce market for ingredients."
"When it's almost dinnertime, I'll take over out front, and you can go to the kitchen to fry the rice."
"I'm planning to give every guest staying at our inn a serving first..."
Lin Zhe briefly explained his plan to Lin Xiaomeng, and they both felt it would definitely work.
Once they had agreed on the plan, they split up and got moving. Lin Xiaomeng went to staff the front desk first, making sure the inn's basic operations were covered.
Lin Zhe went to the kitchen in the backyard and dug out a large electric rice cooker his mother had bought earlier. After cleaning it, he put the rice on to cook.
It was a commercial rice cooker that could cook more than ten pounds of uncooked rice at a time, enough for dozens of servings of egg fried rice.
After cooking the rice, Lin Zhe rode his little electric scooter out of the scenic area and headed straight for a nearby market called Hongrun Wholesale Market.
The market wasn't particularly large, but it carried a fairly complete range of goods.
Vegetables, meat, rice, flour, oil, and seasonings could all be bought in one stop.
There were also merchants selling hardware and small goods wholesale.
Lin Zhe first went to a grain and oil shop and bought a jug of peanut oil and a twenty-kilogram bag of rice.
Then he went to the produce section of the wholesale market to buy garlic scapes, carrots, ham, and other ingredients needed for egg fried rice.
After that, he went to a shop selling small goods and bought two hundred disposable food containers and disposable plastic spoons.
He also bought light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, and other seasonings at a condiment shop.
His shopping spree cost just under five hundred yuan and left him with a huge pile of supplies, far more than the little electric scooter he'd ridden there could carry.
Just as he was worrying about how to get everything back, the woman who owned the grain and oil shop where he'd bought the rice came over.
"Young man, can you manage all that on your own? I happen to be delivering to Goddess Manor in the scenic area. If you can't, I can take it along for you."
She looked about thirty-six or thirty-seven, with a plump figure, a round face, and a warm, friendly voice.
"Thank you so much! I was just wondering how I was going to haul all this back!"
Help had arrived at exactly the right moment. Lin Zhe accepted her offer without fuss; there was nothing embarrassing about accepting someone's kindness.
He could simply buy his rice, flour, and oil from her shop from now on. Returning a favor was part of getting along with people.
"Don't mention it. It's on my way," she said readily. "Wait here a moment. My husband's loading the truck.
Once he's finished, I'll drive it over, and we can load your things straight in."
"Great! Sorry for the trouble. Does your shop offer home delivery too?"
Lin Zhe thought that if they could deliver to him in the future, it would save him having to come out and run errands himself.
"We do. Spend at least a thousand yuan at our shop, and we can deliver."
"I see. Let's exchange contact details. If I buy a lot in the future, you can deliver it to me too. It'll save me the trip."
"Sure! Come to us whenever you need rice, flour, or oil. For the same quality, I guarantee you the best price; for the same price, I'll give you the best quality."
As they chatted, Lin Zhe and the woman added each other on WeChat. He saved her contact as "Sister Li, Grain and Oil Shop."
During their conversation, he learned that her surname was Li, her full name was Li Ying, and she was from northeastern China.
She and her husband, Jia Wen, had been running Old Li's Grain and Oil Shop together for seven or eight years.
"You're from Fortunate Inn? Sister Han is your mother? Why didn't you say so sooner?"
"Oh! I thought you looked familiar. You take after your mother, don't you? No wonder you're so handsome!"
Li Ying was surprised to hear that Lin Zhe was from Fortunate Inn. His mother, Han Li, had always bought her rice, flour, and oil from their shop.
"You know my mother, Sister Li?"
Lin Zhe hadn't expected such a coincidence either.
There were seven or eight grain and oil shops in the market. He had picked one at random, only to find it was the very shop his mother used to frequent.
"Of course I do!" Li Ying said with a hearty laugh. "Your mother's name is Han Li, right? Your family runs Fortunate Inn in the Mount Sanqing scenic area."
"Yes, yes, that's all right." Lin Zhe smiled and nodded. It seemed Sister Li really did know his mother and wasn't just trying to act familiar.
"Why hasn't Sister Han come by lately?" Li Ying asked with concern. "I haven't seen her in a while."
"Something came up at home." Lin Zhe gave a vague answer without explaining what had happened or mentioning his mother's hospitalization.
His connection with Li Ying was purely business, and they weren't even casual acquaintances. There was no need to go into all that.
"Every family runs into trouble sometimes. It'll pass. There's no hurdle in life you can't get over."
Seeing that Lin Zhe didn't want to elaborate, Li Ying tactfully refrained from asking more, respecting his boundaries.
After they chatted a little longer, Li Ying's husband called out to tell her the truck was loaded.
A short while later, Li Ying pulled up in front of Lin Zhe in a small enclosed cargo truck, then got out of her own accord to help him load his purchases.
"I can do it myself."
"Look at those skinny arms and legs and that soft skin of yours. I bet you're not even as strong as me."
Li Ying teased him with a smile, picked up the heaviest bag of rice, and set it in the truck. Then she helped carry the rest of the supplies aboard.
Working together, they soon loaded the pile of goods from the ground into the truck.
"Lin, take your time riding behind me. No rush. I'll drop everything off when I pass your inn."
Once they finished loading, Li Ying called out to Lin Zhe and drove off ahead of him.
By the time Lin Zhe rode back to the inn, he found that Li Ying had already carried all his purchases into the backyard kitchen.
"Sister Li really is warmhearted and dependable. I'll have her deliver all our rice, flour, and oil from now on."
In the brief time he'd spent with Li Ying, Lin Zhe had already been won over by her warmth.
After a short rest, Lin Zhe sorted out the ingredients he'd bought, then opened the rice cooker's lid to let the rice inside cool.
Once he finished those tasks, he went to the little bamboo grove and collected more than thirty eggs.
The vast majority of those thirty-odd eggs had attributes of +1, while a few had attributes of +2. Not a single one had attributes of +3.
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