Chapter 143: Yue Xiang’s Future Path
## Corrected Full English Text (Numbered Lines – NO CHINESE CHARACTERS):
Xiang Chuan was stunned, forgetting to put down the fruit milk in her hand, half-opening her mouth and lightly biting the straw, looking at her father in surprise.
“Father, do you mean… all of them?” Xiang Chuan asked.
“Correct.” Xiang Weiguo nodded heavily, “Unlike before when we purchased individual dishes, I, or rather we Yue Xiang, hope to obtain authorization for all soy products processing and production.”
Xiang Chuan fell silent.
Previously, Xiang Chuan and Yue Xiang’s cooperation had all been contracted per dish. At first, Yue Xiang’s board of directors had hoped to obtain full recipe authorization for a certain type of dish, such as all kinds of buns, but Xiang Chuan proposed a 20% revenue share for this. It wasn’t that she was asking for too much; the highest profit proportion an information turbulence contactee could obtain for external sales of information usage authorization was 20%. Of course, if one had the ability to bypass the space-time network and government to sell authorization, a higher price might be possible, but Xiang Chuan, now an official second generation and rich second generation, knew that would only harm both her father and mother, so she still planned to follow the proper procedures honestly. Even so, it couldn’t make the board budge, and the final agreement was a licensing fee of 10% of total profit per dish. The board had originally planned to press further, but in the end, Xiang Weiguo, as the father, suppressed it.
—No matter what, it was something his own daughter had come up with; as her father, he could help where he could. Moreover, the usable authorization period for information turbulence contactees was only fifty years; after fifty years, all of it would become public resources, and not a single cent of dividends would need to be given. What was wrong with helping his daughter save some pocket money for the future now? Absolutely nothing.
However, revenue shares were only settled in the last quarter of each year, so Xiang Chuan still had to use her own pocket money now. By year-end, she would become a little rich girl. Ever since learning the dividend timing, Xiang Chuan had been extremely expectant for the end of the year, looking forward to it while wondering if she should come up with some snacks or the like to let Yue Xiang transfuse more blood to her—after all, buying cutting-edge kitchen equipment was really expensive.
Yue Xiang Restaurant’s continuously rising turnover and procurement orders from various company canteens and school cafeterias had the board grinning from ear to ear, so they weren’t too concerned about not being able to further lower the revenue share proportion.
Xiang Chuan thought this cooperation model between both sides would at least continue until she went to university, but she didn’t expect her own father to suddenly propose hoping to contract the entire soy products production line now—this…
“Father, is this the intention of Yue Xiang’s board of directors?”
“No, it’s my personal idea.” Xiang Weiguo took another sip of soy milk. “If you agree to the authorization, once soy sauce is made, I am confident I can convince the board.”
“Then you could easily wait until next month when I make soy sauce and then tell me. You haven’t even tasted dishes made with soy sauce—why are you so certain it will succeed? What if soy sauce doesn’t suit our taste?” Xiang Chuan asked. Although she naturally had no doubts about this seasoning that 21st century Huaxia people couldn’t live without, she was very puzzled by her own father’s eager appearance.
What was her old man in such a hurry about?
Xiang Weiguo and Lin Minzhi exchanged a glance, and Lin Minzhi smiled. “See, even daughter has noticed something off about you. You should explain it properly to her.”
With that, Lin Minzhi opened her terminal light screen, pulled up a document chart, and sent it to Xiang Chuan.
Xiang Chuan swiped the screen, scanning the document at her many years of corporate slave reading speed.
This was an Agriculture Bureau plan for the second half of spring and first half of summer, newly adding aquaculture, with the priority fish species for breeding being the ones Xiang Chuan had fished up with Class Eight classmates in the class competition. The vegetable planting plan added ginger and garlic to large-scale planting categories, listed yam among vegetable types, and cooperated with Yue Xiang for small-scale planting in experimental fields, determining planting proportions based on subsequent market reaction and mass production trial planting results. Edible fungi newly opened experimental fields to cultivate starter cultures, expected to undergo mass production planting in production escort ships in main ship time autumn…
Simply put, all the dish-related ingredients she had publicly disclosed externally in the past month or so had been targeted by the Agriculture Bureau, and the next quarter’s production escort ship production planning had been adjusted based on folk feedback from Yue Xiang Restaurant.
Xiang Chuan wasn’t surprised by this. In fact, Xiang Weiguo and Lin Minzhi often talked to the children at the dinner dining table about recent major events. Secondly, quite a few Class Eight classmates’ family elders and relatives worked in agriculture-related fields. The Third Fleet valued agriculture most, especially with the fleet exchange period approaching—to show off well in front of other fleets, there hadn’t been a pause in big and small actions this past month. However, seeing so intuitively the changes triggered by her series of indulgences in desire for food, Xiang Chuan was still somewhat shocked.
At the same time, it also solidified a view for her: people would indeed pursue delicious flavors no matter what era they were in.
But what did this have to do with her old man’s proposal to contract soy products authorization? Xiang Chuan pushed the light screen aside and looked at Xiang Weiguo doubtfully.
Xiang Weiguo had floated in the business world for many years and could grasp his daughter’s look.
“Xiao Chuan, you know what kind of group Yue Xiang is, right?”
“I do know that. A large group focusing on food processing, the leader in processing industry of the Third Fleet.” Xiang Chuan blinked her eyes.
“Correct, but all our processing technology so far has been built on solid food and liquid food processing. And following the current trend, if you can continue obtaining ancient recipes from information turbulence afterward, then in no more than five years, the Third Fleet’s dietary habits will be completely changed. In fact, ever since we started providing buns and dough drops to various company canteens and school cafeterias, the company’s solid food and liquid food efficiency has already begun to decline—down 10% just this month. If production escort ship ingredient supply catches up later, liquid food and solid food will completely lose market in the Third Fleet.”
“At that time, the ones occupying the food market will be these ancient foods you provide, and considering trust cost, you will basically prioritize cooperating with Yue Xiang, resulting in us Yue Xiang dominating alone in the Third Fleet.”
“Isn’t that good?” Xiang Chuan blinked her eyes.
“Yue Xiang also has limits; we can’t swallow the market and factories of other food processing groups in the Third Fleet. Even if we do, will the old employees of other groups be willing to follow us? Can they adapt to Yue Xiang’s system? Will it cause unnecessary conflicts? These all need consideration, so over these five years, I and even the board have intentionally restricted Yue Xiang’s further expansion. Secondly, even if we can truly convince those employees to work together with our group, once we occupy more than 80% market share, we might touch the red line of antitrust law and very likely be targeted by the Finance Bureau. Even if the Finance Bureau knows our products are the result of market and consumer choice, once the red line is touched, there will be many restrictions afterward.”
“And the most important point is that other groups more or less involve some other political connections. If we offend other groups, not only will Yue Xiang be targeted by some people, it might even implicate family.”
As he spoke, Xiang Weiguo glanced at Lin Minzhi, who returned a grateful smile full of affection, making Xiang Chuan’s skin crawl: Was she eating her parents’ dog food? How did she not know in her previous life that her parents could exchange glances like that?
However, by hearing this, she had already somewhat read her old man’s intention: he, or rather Yue Xiang Group, planned to focus on the soy products market going forward, and authorization for other ancient foods would be judged case by case on whether to purchase. In other words, she might need to sell new dish authorizations to other groups to earn pocket money in the future.
At that time, would she have to run business again? Xiang Chuan, who had run business for several years as a corporate slave in her previous life, silently prayed in her heart that other groups would automatically deliver the money. Having run business for so long in her previous life, she could finally lie flat this life, with eat and wait for death just short of completing the “eat” target—how could she want to run business again.
