Even though the amount in the charity funds appeared quite substantial at first glance, it would have to be divided between numerous victims.
Jin knew how much a dimensional instance would cost based on the System’s requirements and the store owners currently allocated cut of the funds alone was not sufficient.
If possible, Jin would have preferred not to use the fat cheque which Xiong Da had handed him, but in order to create the ideal version of the Tiangong Shopping District he envisioned and more importantly do so in time before the upcoming Christmas, he had to spend that money to earn more money.
When Jin had offered the store owners his services for instance making, and the System had promptly jacked up the prices accordingly. This would allow him to earn some of the cash back, but he quickly asked the System to ease up with the prices for this first batch of tenants.
Subsequent tenants wouldn’t be let off the hook merely because he would have proven that paying his prices would be worth it at that point.
The dungeon supplier explained that the owners did not need to worry about electrical or water fees. Instead, they would be charged a standard maintenance fee each month along with the rent which he had decided to lower to 50% of the original price.
Jin understood that losing business during a festive period was extremely devastating and offered some help to the store owners. He had sworn a pledge to aid the store owners when he was fighting against the Ruby Rats and Jin intended to keep it.
Until they managed to get back up on their feet, he would not touch the rent pricing because if they prospered, he would prosper too. (Definitely way more than what he spends right now.)
The store owners were very surprised that Jin was willing to lend them so much help. Those prospective tenants he had not interacted with, will wonder whether the kid even knew how to be a proper landlord or if he was just too rich for his own good. Yet Lai Fu casually reminded them that it was his business sense that allowed the old Tiangong Shopping District to pick up some slack after the pachinko accident.
That was when the store owners clearly misunderstood Jin’s kindness and probably with a tinge of shrewdness for his portrayed stupidity, and many unconsciously swore to aid his cause if things ever were to go south again.
Jin at that point then asked this first batch of tenants to start writing or draw how they wanted their new stores to be. Even if they could create their dream store, it was the dungeon supplier who would be the one to create the instance for them.
Thus, he needed them to accurately visualise and articulate what they wanted in their stores.
It was a fairly simple procedure considering all of them were experienced business owners, and many started by listing their demands prioritising the practical stuff such as cash registers or specific appliances for the various stores like coffee makers, stoves and fridges.
Going through their requests, Jin realised many of those things he could provide at a fraction of the cost compared to buying it wholesale as well at a superior quality too. (However, he kept quiet and retained the pricing as per Earth’s market price to earn some profit. At the very least, those machines will definitely be more of a higher quality.)
Upon glancing through the request list, there were even some things that Jin believed the System could improve. For example, it should be easy to overhaul cash registers and the need for computers to do their accounts.
Jin felt with Kraft’s help, he could create a simplified program that could link the System’s powers to the computers that they had, allowing them to easily manage their accounts while he could keep track of the amount of money that they earnt. (For analytical purposes too. If he knew everyone was earning decently, Jin could subtly increase the maintenance fees and rent without too much of a complaint.)
After receiving the wish lists of items and their own depiction of their dream stores, he sat them down in the conference room and spent some time getting to know them better. (As if he was Santa Claus in the room, addressing the kids about their toy wishlist.)
Since they would all be working under his umbrella, Jin did not wish for them to compete against each other, but rather earn the customer’s money as a collective group. That was one of the few ways how Tiangong Shopping District could survive the harsh ‘winter’ that was coming.
To his surprise, most of the store owners had already specialised long before he opened his store and there were not much of repeat in terms of stores. Lai Fu had his General Store, selling everyday goods and other sundries, Si Fang was the only café store in the shopping district. He Rong was no different, dealing toy merchandises for hobbyists while Ke Ru had the only fast food restaurant in the neighbourhood.
Qian Qian owned a bakery, and her bread had won her several die hard fans, especially among the workers going to the subway station. Man Tang was the only karaoke entertainment owner within a five kilometre radius, and her establishment was considered the bigger few within the shopping district. She could be on par in size with Lai Fu or perhaps even more substantial than his.
Bai Wan and Bai Xin were a pair of twins, brother and sister, who had taken the opportunity of the dungeon supplier store and revamped their stores in facilitating the sales of weapons and armoury. However, because of the Ruby Rat attack, they also suffered the most due to the triad members being raiding their place first and had picked their store clean from the attack.
Jin knew that their insurance was surely insufficient to cover, especially when their two connecting stores had been from their parent’s generation, and they hadn’t had much to cover such expenses. (That also gave Jin the perfect opportunity to help them.)
Yu Xiang, handled her parents’ Chinese medicinal store before the destruction of Tiangong Shopping District but she also possessed her knowledge of western medicine and a graduate certificate in pharmacy had given her the license to operate a western pharmacy corner in the shop too.
There were some disagreements with her parents, but ultimately, they knew that not everyone believed in Chinese medicine and their daughter’s knowledge in western medicine hopefully would augment their store’s profit and reputation.
Unfortunately, the loss of their shop made them lose a lot of valuable medicine, and the insurance coverage was also not sufficient to cover for their losses. Yu Xiang only came because her parents were not able to make it, as they went to attempted to source for other medicinal suppliers hoping it would be cheaper.
Thankfully, all hope was not gone for this family store nor for the Bai Twins. Jin saw a lot of potential in aiding Yu Xiang as his chi generating potions had been mainly derived from Chinese medicinal herbs and he believed she could sell his potions and potentially…improve them further.
The last one but definitely not the least of them all, had made quite the impression on Jin. Yong De was the store owner who owed an arcade in the shopping district. Initially, he wanted to sell all the different mini games to He Rong but seeing Yong De mentioned how he sold not just arcade and UFO machines, but even hosted card tournaments it made him the perfect person to deal with. If those two store owners worked together, there was a possibility that they could push the mini games Jin created to a higher level.
There were others that sold food too, and Jin was not very interested in them since he had Lynn, who was clearly superior to them in terms of food. He did not wish to brag nor did he want to simply remove those choices, so he had instead decided to open a food court to cater their food. However, that did not stop him from wanting to sell ingredients to them because of Lynn’s request.
Even the chef working under the Dungeon Supplier welcomed the competition when Jin had previously discussed about aiding the store owners. Lynn claimed that only through competition was she able to excel among others. Of course, in terms of ingredients, Jin would be selling only what could be found on Earth although they were still thoroughly enhanced in quality by Ke Mi’s and Shu’s aid in the farming aspect.
Juicy, tastier and nutritionally more valuable than the ones Jin bought in Lai Fu’s general store, not to mention no insecticides or pesticides used at all because of the strict growing environment that the System had regulated.
It was truly the wonder vegetables that Jin would be selling at a higher cost price. But he was not stupid to sell it immediately and rather planned to give out a few as a sample for the store owners to try.
As Jin got to know them personally while learning about their requests, the other store owners began to network with each other by brainstorming what their instances would going to be like. They were hoping that all of them had a different theme, so it would be an assortment of experiences for the customers.
It was the food store owners that believed that they had picked the short straw among the rest of them since Jin announced that they would be placed together.
Some were disappointed for not receiving the same treatment as the rest but that was when Lynn entered the conference room. Accompanied by a few of her penguins they brought in some refreshments for the group, and it was none other than Lynn’s speciality, Black Pepper Pork Buns. Along with cans of bamboo juice, the drinks and food did perk the store owners’ mood up a little as they continued with their brainstorming session.
That was also when Jin had a breather and decided to face the entire group of food store owners in order to address their issues. While the store owner’s complaints were valid, the dungeon supplier replied that he was aiming to catch the attention of the surrounding neighbourhood by providing this collective food court concept.
“Your maintenance fees as a collective will be significantly lesser as a group, and there was a reason why I am putting you guys together. By aiming to attract a large crowd, a crowd larger than what you all were used to handle. See those penguins over there? Because you are in an instance, these penguin NPCs will be able to help you cook your food too.” Jin said as he asked the penguins to come forth and let the store owners feel them.
Some of the store owners who had never been to a dungeon supplier were shocked to see how real these penguins felt but still questioned their abilities. As if on cue, Lynn took out a portable stove from her storage ring for her peggies to demonstrate.
The store owners knew that these mobile stoves can be used as efficiently as the ones in kitchens since many of the street vendors used them as well. Most did not remember that not too long ago, Lynn had been a street peddler selling her famous Black Pepper Pork Buns.
Jin humbly asked the store owners to move to the side of the room while his chef brought out a mobile sink and plugged in a five litre tank of pressurised water so the penguins in the area could prepare the simplest and yet one of the most demanding dishes in Chinese cuisine.
Egg Fried Rice.
While Jin was amazed by Lynn’s preparedness of cooking supplies, Si Fang said that it was actually quite a standard set of items in a chef’s storage ring and the food store owners nodded their heads.
They also had these portable stoves and sinks as an emergency backup (though not all as modern as Lynn’s) in case an appliance suddenly went faulty in their stores, or when they needed extra manpower to cook, the store owners could provide their temporary workers without using up much space.
The penguins immediately started by first cracking the eggs smoothly, beating them up in a rather fast pace and the store owners could see that the actions were not dramatised and instead efficient.
Lynn left and came back into the room quickly with some cooked rice that was stored in a fridge with a steady temperature of 23-24 degrees Celsius. This was because everyone in the room knows that half of the secret of making fried rice is to have the cooked rice be at an appropriate humidity. The amount of moisture locked in the rice would prove to be one of the essential properties in preparing a good quality egg fried rice.
The penguins took the fairly large bowl of cold cooked rice and threw them in the wok to stir fry, ensuring that the chunks of rice were gradually separated because any chunk of rice will spoil the taste of it.
The food store owners themselves saw how the penguins had the strength and delicacy in stir frying the rice. Only when the penguins deemed appropriate, they poured the egg mixture into the rice and did a quick stir fry.
At that point, the store owners could see a slight amount of chi power being emitted out into the wok, and it was coming from the penguins themselves. They realised that the penguins were controlling the wok as if it was an uphill battle to get the egg liquid to slowly but surely wrap each and every grain.
With a slight pinch of salt, and one last shake of the wok, the penguins began to place the Egg Fried Rice on the plates while adding the final touch, chopped minute pieces of green onion on the top of the fried rice.
“Please, enjoy.” The penguins said as they could see the mouths of the store owners were salivating non stop just by the smell and sight alone. Like a horde of camels who saw a miraculous oasis at the centre of the desert, each and every the store owners shamelessly went ahead to have a taste of the fried rice only to be rendered speechless by its taste.
These were the first time that some of the food store owners had tried the food in dungeon supplier’s store, and they could not believe that the egg fried rice could be this incredible. Si Fang was then curious why Lynn did not sell this as part of her main dishes. She was guaranteed to earn a ton from it.
“This is due to the fact that the supplier we have contracted is still growing the supplies for the eggs and rice. To ensure they are of top quality and of sufficient quantity, they temporarily delayed their shipment.” Lynn had begun advertising their ‘food supplier’ to the rest of the store owners.
While listening to the dungeon supplier’s main chef, the food store owners began to eat with more focus and realised that the rice was so much juicier and the egg that was wrapped around it made very succulent. They had no doubt that the quality of the food plays a part.
“As we are the supplier’s exclusive customer, we can sell you a portion of our food supplies which is not cheap at all and the option of renting you our penguins as part of the food court instance to reduce your overall monthly expenses. These penguins can learn and become part of your store, so you do not have to worry about manpower.” Jin pointed out the advantages and Si Fang and Ke Ru had already shown signs of wanting to rent those penguins.
They saw how skilful those penguins were in an instant and if they would be able to serve a bigger crowd, these penguins definitely could play a pivotal role in their stores. While some did not like the idea of artificial intelligence in taking over cooking assistants, they kept quiet knowing that they were no doubt superior.
Lai Fu then asked if he could have these penguins to help with his store as well, but Jin said those were mainly for food specialities. However, the dungeon supplier said he could recommend other monsters to serve with Lai Fu’s workload.
“Now! That sure is helpful! Recently kids these days just want high pay, more rights and less hours. If these…NPCs is it? Yeah these monsters can help us, and we just pay a portion as part of the maintenance fee, that would be a huge help.” Lai Fu commented and unknowingly helped Jin to strengthen his sales pitch.
Eventually, the food store owners were pacified that they had something unique other than the shared food court instance and decided to stay on board with Jin. Hence, Jin spent all of his time for the rest of the day in helping his tenants to shape their dream instances while the System prepared the materials needed and crunched the estimate amount they need to spend.
A lot of them, in fact, all of them were astonished by the astronomical amount, and many felt like jumping off the ship upon seeing the numbers. Jin then reassured them that they could pay in instalments and told them that this was already the discount price and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for them.
“All of my dungeons are this expensive, if not, how do you think they can become so strangely close to reality? Because of this striking resemblance to reality, the high number of people coming to my dungeon allowed me to earn more while maintaining if not, pushing the quality of the dungeons even further.” Jin commented in front of them.
“It takes money to earn money.” Si Fang gritted his teeth as he repeated what all of them knew. He sighed but was the first to go forward and sign the contract with Jin thus setting an example.
Jin nodded his head sincerely as a thanks for his support. The store owners saw how the most conservative and most level headed person among all of them had decided to bet everything on this chance, they all felt that they should trust Jin a little more.
“We all will be hounding you for refunds if there’s no profit to be made!” One of the food store owners shouted, and everyone laughed at that moment. Jin subsequently promised them and reinforced that they would not regret it.
As the meeting was finally adjoined, Jin laid back at his chair in the conference room and sighed heavily. “I guess it’s a win today…?” he wondered to himself as he stared at the ceiling for a moment.
This was barely the prelude of the battle. The worst had yet to come as Jin promised to get everything sorted out with all of his might in the next few days. “Time to call out the maximum number of Another Jins to start cracking with the work.”
For a new Tiangong Shopping District and a brand new start for everyone.
