Chapter 120: Current Wish
When entering the half-hour club activity break class in the afternoon, A Bite of China Club’s fairly spacious club activity room suddenly became packed full, even with two groups of people sitting together to share tables, which left Zhu Bingwen stunned.
The A Bite of China Club members were still sitting in the seats closest to the kitchen side, staring blankly at the filled seats in front of them and the line outside the door. Ouyang Yating and Liang Gong were still thinking whether to vacate the table they were sitting at, but in the end, Xiang Chuan stopped them: “It’s just one seat, don’t sacrifice your comfort zone for such a small profit.”
As she spoke, she opened the light screen and instructed the kitchen AI to make fruit cake for afternoon tea. Seeing their own leader holding steady, the three also had no choice but to sit obediently. As a result, until the cake was served, the number of people lining up outside showed no sign of decreasing, which made Xiang Chuan a bit impatient. She directly took out the megaphone that Xiang Xue had found fun and stuffed to her yesterday, and shouted loudly, “Those who don’t want to wait can choose takeaway directly!”
This shout made the modern people who had been brainwashed these past few days by field training and live streams of “ancient customs” snap back to reality: right, although A Bite of China Club doesn’t support takeaway, it does allow takeout!
Then the students leisurely sitting in the A Bite of China Club Small Restaurant watched two starfish-shaped robots extend nearly twenty tentacles, carrying a bunch of takeout boxes back and forth between the main door and the kitchen. Five minutes later, the A Bite of China Club’s main door returned to quiet, with only a few scattered students persisting in waiting for seats.
“Not bad, at this rate, maybe by the end of this semester, the pocket money you spent on the club, Club President, can be earned back.” Ainuo opened the light screen and glanced at the total income just now, eyes lighting up, casually teasing.
“You’d better deduct the operating costs before saying that.” Xiang Chuan didn’t even look up as she opened the club management page on the terminal. Seeing the numbers above, her eyelids couldn’t help but twitch. Good grief, it had reached five figures! After deducting water and electricity fees and cheap ingredients and seasonings costs, the pure profit was also nearly over nine thousand star coins. In her previous life, a viral new store in a busy downtown area would have similar turnover, but the problem was, this was a school! The consumers were all students.
But the reason was actually quite simple—
“I say, do these things really have to be priced so high?” Xiang Chuan opened the menu, looking at the yam cake priced at fifty star yuan per serving, trembling. Although now, due to the popularity of Yue Xiang Restaurant, yams had become hot commodities, but the Agriculture Bureau and Administration for Industry and Commerce had jointly stabilized the ingredient prices. With twenty star yuan cost yams and ordinary quality fruit, more than fifty servings of yam cake could be made, so now it could be considered huge profits.
“This price was set referencing Yue Xiang’s side.” Ouyang Yating looked at Xiang Chuan with a condemning gaze as if to say, don’t you even follow the latest news about your own family’s restaurant? This left Xiang Chuan speechless.
“Haha, rest assured on this front. When new products are launched, they enjoy a three-year price protection period. During this time, they can rely on intellectual property rights laws to attach additional value like development, research, and property rights to the new products.” Zhu Bingwen explained while savoring the freshly baked fruit cake. “After three years, when the price protection period expires, the price must not exceed fifty percent of the cost price.”
“But these can’t even count as any research achievements.” Xiang Chuan looked down at the fruit cake in front of her. “These are just made following ancient recipes from the information turbulence. Simply put, it’s picking up ready-made stuff.” The implication was that she felt uneasy about the current pricing. After all, in her previous life, she was just a hardworking corporate slave and couldn’t stand this kind of price gouging.
“Don’t underestimate your own position, Classmate Xiang Chuan.” Zhu Bingwen speared a piece of apple with a fork, coated it with some cake cream, and put it in his mouth. The novel sensation from the apple’s sweet-tartness and the cream’s sweetness was still not tiresome to him. “If everyone could explore the information turbulence, the Twelfth Fleet wouldn’t still be stuck in the deadlock of being unable to explore ancient history records. Moreover, ancient ingredients are different from modern ones. Digging up some uses for ingredients forgotten by modern people has very important significance for historical research and agricultural development—you proved that just last week, didn’t you?”
The four looked at each other: it seemed… to make some sense? As expected of a teacher capable of being a homeroom teacher, so eloquent.
“So just enjoy the benefits these ancient knowledge bring to you and even us with peace of mind. Develop more new food, I’m really looking forward to it.” Zhu Bingwen said, winking flirtatiously at the four, which didn’t move them but instead made Xiang Chuan’s scalp tingle: their own teacher looked just like a scholar, how was he so… playful?
The next morning, Xiang Chuan arrived in front of Class Eight Grade One’s classroom. Looking through the window at the classroom she hadn’t seen for a week, she finally felt a real sense of returning from the wilds to modern society. The previous week had basically been spent in the woods dealing with ingredients, almost making her feel like she had transmigrated to the ancient era to pioneer human civilization instead of enjoying high tech in the future era.
Sure enough, the modern society with advanced technology suits me best. Xiang Chuan sighed inwardly and opened the classroom door—
Two seconds later.
“Didn’t I tell you to open the windows when eating buns!”
Xiang Chuan’s distraught shout caused another chaos in Class Eight Grade One. In the end, it turned out that the ventilation equipment had been turned off when they left last week, so as soon as Xiang Chuan entered the classroom, she was hit with the nauseating mixed food smells from her student days, giving her a headache. She really didn’t know how the modern kids could stand this smell.
To the point that even Zhu Bingwen could still faintly smell it when he walked into the classroom.
“Classmates, you all performed brilliantly last week, so everyone might still be immersed in that tense and exciting field training life, but it’s time to refocus. We should continue our study life of starting class after finishing breakfast buns.” Zhu Bingwen said, his eyes scanning a few students trying to sneakily finish their uneaten buns
“The teacher hopes that in the next three years of school life, you can carry forward the spirit you showed that week, to study diligently, to explore, and the teacher is your greatest supporter.” Zhu Bingwen looked at the youthful faces under the podium, couldn’t help but smile, and then snapped his fingers.
The students of Class Eight Grade One were surprised to discover that a line of text had unexpectedly appeared on the wall above the screen on the lectern. Those with better memories immediately looked toward Classmate Xiang Chuan, who was also momentarily stunned, because it read——
[If you fail, you might be disappointed; but if you don’t try, you are destined to fail]
It was what she said to the homeroom teacher after declaring in class on the first day of school that she wanted to establish a club, quoting the famous soprano singer Beverly Hills.
“This is what Classmate Xiang Chuan said at the beginning of the school year. The teacher likes it very much. After seeing your activity last week, I feel that this sentence is not only suitable for Classmate Xiang Chuan and Classmate Chou Manman, the two students hosting the new club, but also should become the main theme of action for Class Eight over the next three years.”
“Try more, challenge more. Next up is the Fleet Exchange Period, this historic activity that happens on average once every two thousand years is something many people won’t see in their lifetime, so don’t forget the gains from this week of field training, carry the spirit of courage to challenge, go broaden your horizons, and find your own path.”
“——I can’t tell that Teacher Zhu is quite good at moving people.”
During break time, the three club members and Chou Manman and Nancy gathered as usual, and everyone also looked up at that line of words engraved on the wall using special laser technology.
“But it’s indeed very good. Did you come up with it?” Nancy tilted her head and looked at Classmate Xiang Chuan.
“I saw it in the information turbulence.” Classmate Xiang Chuan said casually, making something up. “I quite like it, so I memorized it.” This wasn’t a lie; she really did like this sentence quite a bit when she was in school and even wrote it down on the first page of her favorite planner. Unfortunately, the beatings from society after entering the workforce left her without the energy, and she never took out that planner again.
“Then we can take that as a warning from ancient people to us.” The Class President pushed up glasses and walked over, followed by Mandy, Fu Chengkai, and Long Xiaoxian.
“Then let’s just go with that.” Xiang Chuan smiled, stretched lazily. It wasn’t her fault; Teacher Zhu’s classes were interesting, but the modern era timeline was too long with too much to remember. During the just-finished history class, she had been fully focused on listening, and now she was tired.
“But Xiang Chuan, why didn’t you accept the invitation from the Agriculture Bureau or the Historical Research Institute?” Chou Manman asked curiously. “They are willing to provide better equipment and manpower, giving you more opportunities to challenge and try ancient food.”
“I don’t want to be caught in the middle pulling tug-of-war.” Classmate Xiang Chuan said irritably, “Moreover, student life from now on including university is only seven years, and even if pursuing a PhD or master’s afterward, student life won’t exceed thirty years old. Once graduated, it means finding a job—people spend most of their lives working, so why should I sacrifice my precious student life to tangle with those old slickers?”
After speaking, she discovered everyone looking at her with blank faces: Tug-of-war? Dough sticks? What are these things?
Thus, Classmate Xiang Chuan had to start acting as 100,000 Whys again to explain ancient common knowledge to them.
Of course, there was one sentence she didn’t say, which was—she found that she actually quite liked staying with these kids.
