With no time to eat, seeing the two documents that he had just received, he couldn’t help but to feel excited.
Yuan Zhou found a roadside food stall, then ordered a plate of egg fried rice. While sitting inside the greasy restaurant, he quietly opened the task display and realized there were obviously still many things yet to be done. This time Yuan Zhou was certain the tasks would be considered complete only when the shop officially opens.
“Here is your egg fried rice, the soup is in that pot. Help yourself to it.”
The arrival of his egg fried rice cut off his thoughts.
As the reward from the system will be Divine Class Egg Fried Rice technique, Yuan Zhou wanted to try out the ordinary egg fried rice first.
Inside this plate of normal fried rice, there were thin slices of ham, some cubes of carrots, the indispensable chopped green onion and a small dish of pickled vegetable at the side.
Yuan Zhou straight off finished eating and felt how much tastier can a egg fried rice be.
“Would the Divine-class Egg Fried Rice technique rewarded by the system actually be as brilliant as the one featured in Cooking Master Boy?” Yuan Zhou could not help but doubt it.
Along the road, Yuan Zhou managed to find a shop which sells wallpaper. He successfully negotiated a price of 18 RMB per square meter and hopped onto their three-wheeled electric bike/car to return to his shop. A smart thinker like Yuan Zhou even managed to save the public transport fee back.
Returning back to the shop, Boss Wang had finished fixing all the various pipelines, including the installation of the dual gas stoves. All these along with the previously cleaned kitchen gave off a bright and clean feeling.
Once Yuan Zhou finished giving instructions to the wallpaper workmen, he approached Boss Wang and thanked him, “ Thank you Boss Wang, sorry for the trouble. Here’s the payment, please check it.”
“It’s no trouble at all, the money is spot-on, I shall make a move first. If there are any problems, just give me a call.” Boss Wang received the Grandpa Maos and checked once, then stuffed the money in his pocket and nodded courteously towards Yuan Zhou before returning to his own shop.
*Swish Swish*
Aside from the sound coming from the workmen doing their work, the shop seemed very quiet. The shop seemed especially vacant after discarding all the old table and chairs. He began pondering over what kind of tables and chairs he should purchase while waiting for the wallpaper to be done.
Yuan Zhou was actually confident towards the system, thus he prepared to fill the hall with tables and chairs to accommodate more guests.
“Ha Ha Ha.”
Thinking about the delightful scene of guests pouring in, and him opening more branches in the future caused him to uncontrollably laugh out loud.
Hearing the laughter, the two workers who were focused on fixing the wallpaper turned their heads on reflex. The younger one faced the other and threw him a bewildered look. The older worker stared fiercely back, indicating for him to just focus on doing his job well and not be nosy.
The tall youngster shrugged his shoulder. Upon seeing that the older worker was about to get angry, he hurriedly turned back to focus on his work.
After laughing for a few moments, Yuan Zhou realized that he had to maintain his image. He immediately scanned his surroundings and found that nobody was passing by the entrance. He then turned to check the two workers who were doing their work seriously.
Since he was idling around, he started calculating today’s expenses: Fixing the gas pipes and gas stove totalled to ¥1500 and 60 meters of wallpaper cost ¥1080.  Since he cleaned the washroom by himself, he incurred no costs from there. Then the administration fees costed him ¥600, and he set aside a ¥10,000 budget for the tables and chairs together with pots and pans. After calculating everything, only ¥36 820 remained from the ¥50 000 previously. Of course, selling the waste products earned ¥320 back.
The remaining balance left Yuan Zhou disheartened. Such simple renovations already cost so much, this made the thrifty Yuan Zhou have some difficulty accepting reality.
In addition, his heart ached when he thought about the tables and chairs he had planned to purchase this afternoon. It was Yuan Zhou’s decision to purchase more table and chairs in the afternoon to fill up the 30m2 empty space so as to accommodate more guests. If it wasn’t for the strict city management during the past two years, Yuan Zhou would even plan to arrange table and chairs on the empty space outside the shop.
Pasting the wallpaper took a short while. Afterall, Yuan Zhou had already torn away the old wallpaper last night and with two workers, the new wallpaper could be attached swiftly. After checking the completed work, Yuan Zhou made the final payment and the two workers left soon after.
After the renovation was complete, the beige coloured adorned with small fragmented flower wallpaper neatly covered half of the wall on both sides, making the whole space feeling cozy and warm. Yuan Zhou simply cleaned up the floor and the whole place became sparkly clean.
After he pulled down the roll-up entrance door, Yuan Zhou took the public transport to a second hand marketplace. Only here can he unleash his frugal and economical virtues to his fullest potential.
Indeed, Yuan Zhou was expressing his excellent ancestral virtues of being frugal, but he only intended to purchase new goods and not the used ones. The new products there were cheap but of superior quality.
Following the ancient tradition of going from shop to shop to compare prices, Yuan Zhou strolled around the second hand marketplace until he settled to approach a shop near the corner with a banner that wrote warehouse clearance.
He heard that the shop will be handed over to a new owner, thus they needed to clear the goods.
“Boss, how many more sets of these tables do you have left?” Yuan Zhou selected a set of ivory-white coloured table patterned with green vines on the sides and asked while pointing at it.
“Youngster, have you taken a liking to this set? The quality of this set is the best in our shop. There are four sets left in the store room, how many sets would you like?” The boss pushed up his glasses and smiled while speaking in an amiable tone.
“Only 4 sets left, I want 6 sets.” Yuan Zhou creased his eyebrows and estimated the size of the table while considering the size of his shop.
“How about this red one? There are 6 sets of them.” Seeing that he was about to lose the business, the boss hurriedly pointed to the red coloured set and asked.
Finally, after Yuan Zhou’s deliberate consideration, he purchased 4 white coloured sets and 2 red coloured sets. He also used the excuse of not having 6 white coloured sets that he wanted available to get a further discount. After successfully purchasing these tables, Yuan Zhou did not get to witness the boss wiping his sweat. He continued to stroll around the shop in good spirits and noticed that they sell pots and pans too, after going through another round of fruitful negotiation he managed to purchase the goods he wanted.
“Boss, since I purchased so many items from you, would you please have them delivered to my shop?”
Yuan Zhou looked at his wrapped purchase, faced the boss who was standing at the entrance with the stance of seeming to send a customer off and said to him with a familiar tone.
“We don’t provide delivery services, but you can go to the front of the market as there are numerous lorries specializing in delivering goods parked there. I can help to look after your things.” The boss replied directly, trying to shirk away from this responsibility.
“Boss, that is very irresponsible of you. Even if you don’t provide delivery, introducing me to a driver would be nice. Otherwise, how would I know which driver is trustworthy?” Seeing the boss’s unwavering attitude, Yuan Zhou had no choice but to settle for a second best option.
Eventually, under Yuan Zhou’s thick skinned persistence, the boss had to personally search for a delivery lorry with lowest charge. Of course Yuan Zhou made use of the complexity of explaining his shop’s location as an excuse to ride together with the delivery lorry back to his shop. With the 2 RMB bus fare that he managed to save, he can buy two herbal eggs.
When the sky was approaching darkness, Yuan Zhou had all of the things arranged neatly. He did not even have the time to wipe the sweat on his forehead as he excitedly settled on the newly purchased chairs and opened the mission progress display.
[Mission]: Own a shop that belongs to you – [Completed]
(Mission Prompt: As a future Godly Chef, how could you not even have your own store, Youngster, go strive a little.)
Before Yuan Zhou could show his euphoria, the system in his brain spoke.
System: “The first mission is complete. Godly Chef system is officially activated, and will now enter the shop reforming mode.”
*Ping Ping Bang Bang*
“System, what does reforming the shop mean?” Yuan Zhou heard the sound from the kitchen and hastily questioned.
System: “System will upgrade the host’s shop free of charge, to provide a higher standard of food to the customers.”
A bad premonition was felt in Yuan Zhou’s heart.
“Since it is like that, why not reform it straight away?”
System: “System will upgrade the host’s shop free of charge, to provide a higher standard of food to the customers.”
“What about the things that I previously bought?”
Yuan Zhou’s heart ached as he watched the tables and chairs ridiculously vanish into thin air one by one.
System: “System will provide free reforms, thus all previous goods will be confiscated.”