"It’s fine for her to join, but the highest salary I can offer is the same as yours. Also, if you two can’t meet the targets in the short term, we might have to make further adjustments."

This was Su Chen’s reply.

He had to be upfront about the tough conditions. She could come work here, but she had to completely take over Su Chen’s current duties within a reasonable amount of time.

If she couldn’t learn it or do it well, then sorry.

’Delicious doesn’t support freeloaders!’

"Of course," Ling Shuyu agreed readily.

She loved a good challenge. It was just steaming a few big meat buns and boiling a pot of noodles. Ling Shuyu was confident!

"Alright, that’s all for today’s meeting. Everyone, start contacting your friends and family now. Each of you needs to bring at least one friend to eat here every day. As for the menu, give me one morning."

"Is one morning enough?" Ling Shuyu was a little skeptical.

’Develop a new dish that suited the tastes of Jingzhou people in just one morning?’

"It’s enough." Su Chen stood up and left. As he reached the door, he added, "Ling Shuyu, this morning, handle your and Zhang Li’s onboarding. This afternoon, you’ll start learning to cook."

For now, the matter was settled.

After Su Chen and Ling Shuyu left the conference room, the veteran employees of Delicious were still reeling from the meeting, unable to snap out of it.

"I didn’t mishear that, did I? The company is paying for us to treat people to dinner?"

"What good deeds did I do in my past life to land a job like this? The boss is paying for me to eat?"

Bai Xiaobo and He Shuting still found this new work assignment hard to believe.

Getting a free meal was one thing, but getting to bring friends and buddies along to eat too? That was just freaking insane, wasn’t it?

Liu Shengnan was different from them, her face full of worry. "Even though this plan doesn’t require a lot of cash flow, it’s still a money-losing venture. I’m just afraid we’ll end up with nothing but a little bit of hype."

Aunt Fang, on the other hand, was much more optimistic. "I trust the boss’s skills. He’ll definitely win over everyone who comes here to eat."

Everyone chatted casually for a bit before getting into a work mindset.

But this kind of work didn’t seem very difficult.

Bai Xiaobo returned to his workstation and opened a chat group named "Jingzhou King Group."

He thought for a moment, then closed the chat window.

The company might be paying, but if a dozen of those animals showed up at once, the loss would still be pretty significant.

Then, Bai Xiaobo’s finger hovered over the chat conversation at the very top of his list. After a moment’s thought, he tapped it open.

[Bai Xiaobo: You there?]

[Sailor Moon: Yup.]

This was the bane of Bai Xiaobo’s existence, the girl he’d had a secret crush on for all four years of college!

He had originally planned to confess his feelings after graduation, but after a few attempts at subtly probing the topic, he learned that the girl’s standards were quite narrow. She and her parents both preferred civil servants—the type who drive a Passat with rice, flour, and oil issued by their work unit in the trunk.

Oh, right, and they usually had two little red flags on the dashboard.

In a place like Jingzhou, where the "official-as-standard" mentality was deeply ingrained, people had a common understanding of employment.

"Three insurances and no housing fund, you’re not even human. Five insurances and one housing fund, you’re a normal person. A tenured position makes you one of the elite!"

As it happened, Bai Xiaobo, working at Delicious, only qualified as a "normal person." Crushed by this sense of inferiority, he never dared to confess, nor did he have the heart to study for the civil service exam.

He would just exchange a few bland pleasantries with her from time to time, sometimes using their old-classmate status as an excuse to invite her out to a meal or to see a not-so-interesting movie.

[Bai Xiaobo: Studying must be pretty tiring lately, right? Your buddy here is treating today, let me take you out for a good meal!]

The text seemed lighthearted, but no one could see the bitter smile on Bai Xiaobo’s face.

[Sailor Moon: Okay! Studying for the Shenlun has been giving me such a headache lately. What am I going to do if I don’t pass this year!]

[Bai Xiaobo: Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be fine! So, I’ll come pick you up at your apartment complex at noon?]

[Sailor Moon: Mhm, waiting for you~]

Putting down his phone, Bai Xiaobo took a deep breath.

’Even if I can never have her, just being able to watch her from afar is its own kind of happiness, right?’

Likewise, He Shuting and Liu Shengnan were also on their phones contacting various friends. Everyone had lost touch after college graduation, so a sudden invitation to a meal was indeed a bit abrupt.

Inviting relatives wasn’t really appropriate either, so for the moment, neither of them was making much progress.

Back in his office, Su Chen began to examine the inventory for suitable ingredients.

’Jingzhou is in the Northwest. The local people love noodle and wheat-based dishes most, earning it the nickname "the Carb Kingdom" on the internet.’

’But it’s hard to sell noodle dishes at a high price...’

TAP!

Su Chen’s pen tip stopped on one particular ingredient. "You’re the one!"

[Sanhuang Chicken]

There were still 25 boxes of frozen Sanhuang chickens in stock, with 6 chickens packed in each box.

Su Chen hadn’t had a use for them before. The chicken he used for hosting events was all top-grade meat bought from the wholesale market, whereas these frozen Sanhuang chickens were the most common kind you’d find in a supermarket.

They cost about 8 to 9 yuan per jin, and a whole chicken could generally be bought for around 20 yuan.

But when it came to catering to the tastes of Jingzhou people, this was where things got interesting.

How much do Jingzhou people love noodles?

When eating hot pot, you can go without meat, you can go without tripe, but you absolutely must have a pot of noodles at the end.

Eating steamed fish head with chopped chili? Add noodles to it.

Eating crawfish? Add noodles to it.

Don’t know what to eat for dinner? Boil a bowl of noodles.

Some families even have noodle soup for breakfast, braised noodles for lunch, and fried noodles for dinner, eating them every day without ever getting tired of it!

Jingzhou people also love potatoes. Every year during the potato harvest season, every household buys them back by the ’hundreds of jin.’ Any family that didn’t buy four or five hundred jin would probably be ridiculed by others: ’You bought so little? What are you going to eat this winter?’