Chapter 113: Mo Ziyuan, Bad At Management
The next day when she got up, Lin Xin saw Mo Ziyuan with a pair of dark circles under his eyes that could rival a panda’s, and she curiously asked, “Didn’t you sleep well last night? What were you doing?”
“Ha~ Don’t mention it,” Mo Ziyuan yawned listlessly and said, “Weren’t we worried? Spring is coming soon, and the task Your Highness gave us is about to start, but it’s not easy to handle!”
“Oh,” Lin Xin had no curiosity about these things at all; she deeply understood the reason that the more you know, the faster you die, so she casually responded and turned to go to the kitchen.
Mo Ziyuan: “······” That’s it? Why didn’t she ask more?
He chased to the kitchen, didn’t speak, and just looked at Lin Xin accusingly as she scooped water into the big pot.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Xin looked at him amusedly and asked.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?”
“Can I ask? I don’t understand your matters anyway; asking would be pointless.”
“You still have to ask!” Mo Ziyuan rarely acted domineering and unreasonable, making Lin Xin laugh nonstop.
“Alright, then tell me exactly what’s wrong?” She held back her laughter, sat on the small stool in front of the stove, added firewood to the stove while asking him.
Mo Ziyuan didn’t mind her perfunctory attitude, also pulled over a small stool and sat beside her, starting to complain to her about how several brothers including himself couldn’t make money.
“Don’t your shops have shopkeepers? They should be pretty good at making money!”
“The shopkeepers in those shops are all soldiers retired from the battlefield; it’s good enough that they can keep from losing money, making money is just wishful thinking.” Mo Ziyuan had no choice; their industries were all set up privately to accommodate those homeless soldiers. They didn’t feel any issue when money wasn’t needed before, but now it was a bit tricky.
“How about I go take a look when I have time?” Lin Xin thought that she had experienced various marketing methods from later generations, so she should be able to give them one or two ideas······ right?
“Sure! In a few days when some of the snow on the roads melts, I’ll take you to see; there’s just my two shops in town.” Mo Ziyuan agreed without much hesitation.
“Then what do your shops sell?”
“One sells cosmetics, and the other is a restaurant.”
“Cosmetics?” Lin Xin’s eyes widened; having soldiers retired from the battlefield sell cosmetics—what was he thinking? With those soldiers full of killing aura standing in the shop, which decent woman would dare go in to buy things? Even ordinary men would be scared, okay?
“What’s wrong? I checked at the time; there’s only one shop in the entire town selling cosmetics, and the business is great! So I thought of opening one, who knew hardly anyone would come buy.” Mo Ziyuan said, sounding quite wronged.
“Let’s not talk about whether the things in your shop are good or bad; I just ask, the ones minding your shop are also soldiers who can’t go to the battlefield?”
“What else? Isn’t opening the shop to accommodate them?”
Lin Xin couldn’t help but hold her forehead; this guy was too lacking in common sense.
“Have you seen other people’s shops? What kind of people do they have minding the shops?”
Mo Ziyuan furrowed his brows and thought, uncertainly saying, “Seems like young women?”
“See, cosmetics are sold to women; if you put a big man like a black iron tower standing in the shop, how can it sell? Who would dare go in to buy?”
With her saying that, Mo Ziyuan suddenly realized, slapped his forehead hard, “So that’s it! I was wondering why other people’s shops are full of guests while mine has hardly any customers; turns out it’s because of this!”
“Mm, don’t your soldiers have female family members at home? Having them go would be better than the soldiers!”
“I’ll go ask later.”
“Forget it, don’t ask yet; I’ll take a look first!” Lin Xin had completely given up hope on him.
“Okay, okay, okay; I’ll take you there when the time comes.”
They were chatting animatedly, mainly because Mo Ziyuan’s expression was a bit excited, making Gao Yong and the others who came to get hot water for washing up baffled; they quickly grabbed his neck and dragged him aside to ask what was going on.
Mo Ziyuan didn’t hide it, just said that in a few days Lin Xin would go to his shops to help take a look.
Gao Yong and Chu Yu exchanged a glance, immediately let go of Mo Ziyuan and crowded to Lin Xin, “Miss Lin, our family’s shops are also about to not make it; can you help us take a look too!”
Lin Xin looked into their eyes and couldn’t help but feel some regret; she wanted to lie flat and slack off, how did she take on more work again?
“Miss Lin?”
“Alright, alright, I’ll take a look at all of yours; these few days sort out your own industries and give them to me, I’ll see how to handle them!”
“Great!” Gao Yong and the others were delighted and started washing up noisily.
After breakfast, each of them held a few sheets of paper and knocked on Lin Xin’s room door.
Lin Xin, mentally prepared, let them in and started listening to them introduce their assets.
Not knowing was fine, but once she heard, she was shocked—these guys’ family fortunes were quite substantial!
Moreover, after she organized them, she found that just in this town there were about five or six shops belonging to them, and surprisingly two were even next door.
“You guys really······” Lin Xin simply didn’t know what to say.
She simply ignored them and started planning their shops: those that clearly weren’t making money in one group, those barely maintaining in another, those with profit in yet another. Doing so, she found that although many of these shops had pitfalls, overall they could barely break even.
“Right, I see this grocery shop of yours is quite profitable; what does it sell?” Lin Xin curiously pointed to a shop whose address was in the capital city and asked Chu Yu.
Chu Yu looked and said, “My uncle’s family does seafaring; every time they return, they give me quite a few things to sell on consignment; there are many novel items, so it looks quite profitable.”
“Seafaring? Imported goods?” Lin Xin’s mind immediately pictured mercury mirrors and glass cups, so she asked.
“What’s a mercury mirror? Never heard of glass cups either!” Chu Yu scratched his head and said.
“Then what do you have?”
“All sorts of messy trinkets; don’t think pearls and jade are valuable here—in overseas they’re cheap, basically half profit.”
“Really no mercury mirror? No glass cup either?” Lin Xin asked persistently.
“Never heard of those two you mentioned; why don’t you describe them in detail?”
Lin Xin described the appearances of mercury mirrors and glass cups; Chu Yu suddenly realized, “No mercury mirror indeed, but that glass cup you mentioned sounds a bit like the glass cups in my shop.”
“Glass cups?” It seemed novels did have this term; Lin Xin nodded and said, “Is this thing valuable?”
“Valuable! This stuff is always valuable, but hard to transport; every time half break on the way back, so not only valuable, ordinary people can’t buy it either!”
“That’s easy then,” Lin Xin snapped her fingers, “We make glass ourselves and blow it into cup shapes of various forms; plus glass has many uses!”
At these words, everyone looked at her like she was a fool.
