This way, Xu Tingting and Xie Yu would neither have to worry about Clear Breeze Temple swindling too much money out of them for stock up front, nor about getting stuck with unsold goods later. It completely put their minds at ease.
Having Xu Tingting and Xie Yu as student sales agents was also all upside and no downside for Clear Breeze Temple. After all, even if none of the merchandise sold and everything was returned, at least those university students would have heard of Clear Breeze Temple. Some student might mention it to their family back home and bring another batch of fresh blood to the temple.
Clear Breeze Temple's development strategy was to snowball anyway, rolling along little by little. As long as you visited Clear Breeze Temple, there would always be some food or merchandise that suited you. Failing that, there would always be a Daoist who suited you.
But although they now had sales agents, exactly what Clear Breeze Temple merchandise to sell on university
campuses
was still up for discussion.
The easiest thing to sell would undoubtedly be Clear Breeze Temple's food, but that had already been ruled out.
As for bamboo pen holders and bamboo-leaf bookmarks, neither was exactly a necessity for today's university students. Plenty of students completely gave up trying once they entered university. Never mind reading and writing-they might not even bother going to class.
Perhaps it was an aftereffect of having just attended the Daoist conference, but Yun Zhaozhao now wanted to hold a meeting at the drop of a hat.
This time, not only did Clear Breeze Temple's few staff members attend, but Xu Tingting and Xie Yu, their two student sales agents, were also invited to take part in the entire meeting.
However, as soon as the meeting started, the group predictably went off topic.
Jingting said, "University, huh? Come to think of it, I've never even seen what a university looks like!"
Xiaojiu said, "I've seen what one looks like, but my grades were pretty average back then. Forget university-I couldn't even get into high school. In the end, I barely managed to get into a vocational secondary school."
Daoist Chang Kong said, "I hear university cafeterias have all kinds of delicious food, from every corner of the country..."
Xu Tingting was quite modest. "There's really nothing special about university. The campus is just a tiny bit bigger than lots of elementary, middle, and high schools, and there are just a tiny bit more people..."
Yun Zhaozhao struggled to steer the discussion back on track. "...The point right now isn't university. It's what we're going to sell there."
Daoist Chang Kong said, "Weren't we going to sell bamboo-leaf bookmarks and bamboo pen holders?"
Yun Zhaozhao said, "We can sell those, but I keep feeling neither is special enough. They don't really fit the mental state of today's university students."
Daoist Chang Kong didn't quite understand. "What sort of mental state are university students in these days?"
Yun Zhaozhao said, "I don't know about anyone else, but when I was in university, I prayed every day that knowledge would automatically enter my brain, that I'd know every answer on the exam, and that every guess would be right..."
Beside her, Xu Tingting couldn't help laughing. "Hahaha, exactly! And on top of that, you hope you can eat as much as you want without gaining weight, and get a tiny waist and manga legs without exercising."
Xie Yu said a little bashfully, "Sometimes you also hope you're a true heiress who's been lost all these years, and a luxury car will pull up beside you while you're walking across campus to take you home to your real family or something."
Jingting, beside them, said, "Got it. University students are all daydreamers!"
The university students said, "..." How rude!
Yun Zhaozhao's original idea had been to engrave sayings that matched the mental state of today's university students on these bamboo tubes and bamboo-leaf bookmarks, like "Get filthy rich every day" and "Only those who love lying flat can win," which they had already used before.
But on further thought, she still felt that wasn't distinctive enough. You could find heaps of sayings like those online, and ultimately, they didn't have much to do with Clear Breeze Temple.
Yun Zhaozhao sighed. "If only someone here knew how to draw talismans."
Before Daoist Chang Kong could speak, Jingting suddenly piped up beside him. "Draw talismans? That's easy. How about I give it a try?"
Deep down, Yun Zhaozhao didn't believe for a second that Jingting could draw talismans. Still, with a might-as-well-try attitude, she casually tore a page out of her notebook and handed it to him.
Xu Tingting, beside them, said, "..." Is drawing talismans at Clear Breeze Temple really this casual? You're using scratch paper instead of talisman paper????
Then, a second later, she watched Daoist Jingting write the large words "Guaranteed-pass talisman" on that already perfunctory sheet of scratch paper, in even more perfunctory handwriting.
Xie Yu said, "..." Mom, I've made something of myself. I can actually read what's written on talismans now.
After writing "Guaranteed-pass talisman," Jingting decided he hadn't had his fill and swiftly added "Beauty talisman," "Get-rich talisman," "Safety talisman," and "Slimming talisman"...
Any ordinary temple master would probably have been unable to resist purging the sect by now. But was Yun Zhaozhao an ordinary temple master? She was not. So the more she looked, the more she felt this actually wasn't a bad marketing idea!
After all, university students might not want a pen holder, but if they sold talisman tubes, those students might well insist on getting one. Back when she was at university, after all, the only businesses outside the campus gates that did as well as the milk tea shops were the scratch-card sellers.
Besides, talisman paper was so cheap that it would barely increase their costs.
Having made up her mind, Yun Zhaozhao, Daoist Chang Kong, and the others spent the night turning the bamboo tubes into talisman tubes. They even specially added snug bamboo lids, then turned the talisman tubes into blind boxes.
Besides a random assortment of beauty, slimming, get-rich, and guaranteed-pass talismans, the tubes also contained a secret-edition bamboo-leaf talisman. Simply put, they engraved a talisman on a bamboo leaf and sealed it up. These bamboo-leaf talismans were a little more refined than ordinary paper ones, making them perfect secret editions for the blind boxes.
Only once everything was ready did Yun Zhaozhao hand these upgraded talisman tubes over to Xie Yu and Xu Tingting.
That evening, Xu Tingting put up a new post on the campus forum of University A, where she studied. Its title was: [Ding! Your talisman tube blind boxes are now available. Please collect them!]
Although it was winter break, plenty of people were still browsing University A's campus forum, so many students noticed the post and even enthusiastically joked about it. Many University A students replied that their students really were at the cutting edge of the times: students elsewhere spent their winter and summer breaks drawing designs and writing drafts, while only University A students were busy drawing talismans.
Besides having them post advertisements on the campus forum, Yun Zhaozhao also suggested that Xu Tingting and Xie Yu look for any fellow students they knew who had exceptionally good grades, or who were pretty and lucky with windfalls. If they knew anyone like that, they could give them a set of talisman tube blind boxes for free. Clear Breeze Temple would cover the cost of those gifts, but the recipients would have to post a promotion on their WeChat Moments.
At first, Xu Tingting didn't quite understand Yun Zhaozhao's intention. "I understand giving them talisman tubes, and I understand asking them to promote them on Moments, but why all the extra requirements?"
Yun Zhaozhao smiled. "That's what they call the idol effect. Think about it. If the student with the best grades around you was using our Clear Breeze Temple talisman tubes, wouldn't you, as an ordinary university student, want one just like theirs?"
Xu Tingting followed Yun Zhaozhao's line of thought and had to admit that if this really happened, she wouldn't be able to resist following the crowd either.
It had to be said that Yun Zhaozhao really knew a thing or two about getting a grip on consumer psychology.
Xu Tingting asked, "Zhaozhao, did you major in psychology at university?"
Yun Zhaozhao said, "No, I studied philosophy. But I've been teaching myself fortune-telling lately."
Xu Tingting said, "..." This senior really has a wide range of interests!
The upgraded talisman tube blind boxes had only just launched at University A. Whether there would be a market for them, and how large that market might be, remained unclear and would need time to tell. Within Clear Breeze Temple, however, these bamboo tubes had become more popular than before.
Yun Zhaozhao had also deliberately made an adjustment. The secret edition in the blind boxes sold at the university was a bamboo-leaf talisman, but in those sold at Clear Breeze Temple, it was a Clear Breeze Temple food gift package.
Many visitors came to Clear Breeze Temple specifically for its food. Now that they knew the talisman tube blind boxes might contain a food gift package, naturally they had to try their luck. The biggest purchase was when one customer bought an entire row of talisman tube blind boxes.
And so, merely by getting a new skin, the bamboo tubes that had previously sold only lukewarmly at Clear Breeze Temple found a new lease on life there.
Besides the launch of the revamped bamboo tube blind boxes, the hawthorn wine Daoist Chang Kong had brewed earlier was now ready to drink.
Yun Zhaozhao wasn't much of a drinker herself. Even fruit wine was something she had rarely drunk before. Still, to promote it, she opened a jar of hawthorn wine and tried a few sips. The wine was a slightly translucent red and smelled of fresh fruit. It tasted sweet with a hint of tartness, and because its alcohol content was low, at only five percent, it barely tasted alcoholic and wasn't likely to get anyone drunk. It was a drink better suited to women.
The weather had turned cold. Although drinking wine made people feel warmer the more they drank, they couldn't just drink without eating. So Daoist Chang Kong prepared a variety of foods suited to accompanying wine in early winter for Clear Breeze Temple's guests.
There were stir-fried pork intestines with scallions, salted peanuts, and cucumber with century eggs. Besides those, Daoist Chang Kong also braised a large pot of pig's trotters and beef.
The moment Yun Zhaozhao saw the braised beef, she couldn't help thinking of the friends she had met at the Daoist conference, who had been utterly captivated by its aroma. So she deliberately took a few close-up photos of the braised beef and sent them privately to those friends, with the message: [Your favorite braised beef is in my hands. Come to Clear Breeze Temple as soon as possible, or I'll kill the hostage.]