This time, Ye Xu's eyes lit up: "It's out!"
"What is it?" Shuangshuang quickly asked.
"It's a waiter!"
Waiters can do so many things, Ye Xu didn't care about anything else and quickly made a reservation.
"Help me count the skewers first." The moment the waiter appeared, Ye Xu couldn't wait to give the order. The waiter didn't hesitate and rolled up his sleeves without saying a word, getting to work faster than the semi-skilled dishwasher.
Ye Xu looked around at the four robots and belatedly realized that none of them had suitable work uniforms. But he didn't have time to worry about work uniforms right now, nor did he have the spare money to do so. He could only write it down in his memo as usual and arrange it when he had time.
With an additional SR-level worker, efficiency indeed increased rapidly. Since Ye Xu was no longer needed, he became a full-time vegetable deliveryman.
After making so many trips back and forth, Ye Xu felt like his legs were about to get thin. After a few trips, he couldn't resist buying a food delivery cart, and it turned out to be really useful, saving him a lot of energy.
Shuangshuang didn't need his prompting; she ordered fifty skewers from each table and then moved on to the next table. This way, everyone could eat first, and the remaining skewers could be brought over little by little.
Ye Xu would save them up and deliver them all at once when he had ten plates. Before the food carts were available, he could only carry two plates at most, which was too much trouble.
Hosting nearly thirty guests at the same time is indeed a huge challenge. Moreover, they are almost all working alone, so it's important to avoid mixing up each other's orders.
Come to think of it, how could someone who hasn't eaten dinner this late have a family? If they were a family, they would have already taken care of their own dinner; it's impossible for the whole family to be unable to cook.
Ye Xu was busy from a little after eight o'clock until nearly midnight, finally seeing off the last customer. He was exhausted, but he couldn't rest immediately. The robot had been working for so long and had consumed a lot of power. To ensure normal operation tomorrow, he had to get the charging room ready.
"Manager, there's a pot of tomato soup left over from the previous soup delivery. It's more than half full. What should we do with it?" Shuangshuang flew over and asked.
Ye Xu had always been thrifty and didn't want to throw it away, but it wasn't good to leave it overnight, and he and Shuangshuang definitely wouldn't be able to finish it. After thinking for a moment, Ye Xu boiled the soup again, then simply poured it out in a bowl, and called the robot to go out and deliver it to the neighbors who were still open for business.
The aroma of the hot pot had filled their evening. Since they were all in the same industry, they probably felt embarrassed to come over and freeload off the soup. Now, it was perfect to use it as a gesture of goodwill. Ye Xu wasn't expecting anyone to come to the restaurant anyway; he was just happy that such delicious soup wouldn't go to waste.
The neighbors were quite surprised by Ye Xu's arrival and somewhat embarrassedly accepted the soup bowls. The more particular ones poured the soup out of their own bowls, washed Ye Xu's bowl, and returned it. The less particular ones simply gulped it down, thanked him profusely, and praised the taste of his food.
Everyone was so kind and simple, which made Ye Xu a little embarrassed. He quickly grabbed his bowl and left, unable to bear such exaggerated praise.
After finishing the remaining soup, everyone returned to the shop and closed it for the day. Shuangshuang pressed a button by the door, and another door appeared outside the glass door, blocking the view.
The dishwashers went back to work on their own, and the vegetable cutters and washers could rest, but Ye Xu ordered the waiters to clean. When there was a shortage of manpower, the waiters were like bricks, moved wherever they were needed.
"Finally, I can rest." Ye Xu stretched. "Let's go upstairs."
After working so hard all morning, it's perfect to take a nap. If I can just extend my nap time a bit and turn it into a normal nighttime sleep, I should be able to get over my jet lag.
Before going upstairs, Ye Xu fully displayed his capitalist exploitative nature, instructing the idle vegetable cutter to "cut a plate of watermelon and bring it upstairs" before turning to leave.
Shuangshuang was filled with the thought that she could finally have some fun after get off work, and she excitedly flew ahead to lead the way.
The staff dormitory is on the fifth floor, and the elevator is currently locked, so you have to climb up yourself. Fortunately, the fifth floor isn't very high. Ye Xu's previous rental apartment was in an old, run-down building without an elevator, and he lived on a high floor, so he was used to climbing.
"The only apartment on the fifth floor is for the store manager. Where do you live?" Ye Xu asked as he climbed the stairs.
Shuangshuang said, "There's a large living room on the fifth floor that's a gift. In the corner, there's a fake tree decoration, which is the elf's treehouse. It's quite spacious for me, a bit bigger than your apartment, Manager."
Ye Xu was relieved. He was worried that Shuangshuang wouldn't have a room and would have to squeeze in with him, but that was absolutely unacceptable, since Shuangshuang was a girl.
The second to fourth floors of the shop are reserved for private rooms, but they are not yet open and are sealed off. Ye Xu walked past without looking at them; the private rooms were too expensive for him to afford at the moment.
Upon arriving on the fifth floor, Ye Xu couldn't wait to take a shower to wash away the smell of hot pot. After coming out, he didn't stay in his room to rest, but instead sat on the sofa in the living room.
We haven't tallied today's profits yet; we need to do the accounting with Shuangshuang. It's inconvenient to stay in the room.
You wouldn't believe it until you see it. Ye Xu had already anticipated earning several thousand copper coins. But the fact that his points balance had also skyrocketed to eight thousand was something he hadn't expected.
"It must be because the guests were hungry and waited for so long, and were so moved when they finally got to eat that they had more energy." Shuangshuang leaned on the armrest of the sofa, bent her knees, and let her two little legs tap tap tap leisurely behind her.
Considering the cold outside and the time of day, Ye Xu nodded understandingly. Eating hot pot late at night certainly brings a stronger sense of happiness.
Ye Xu had accumulated several thousand points and coins, and completed numerous tasks. He wasn't surprised at all when he discovered he had leveled up again. Being level 5 was nothing to him.
Ye Xu had played some management simulation games in his spare time. The basic formula was the same: there were many easy tasks in the early stages, and the leveling up was rapid. The tasks became increasingly difficult later on, and it might take ten days to half a month to complete just one. He had long seen through this.
Think about massively multiplayer online games (MMORPGs). You can reach level 15 in 15 minutes, leave the starting village to find an apprentice, and then the leveling speed slows down to a crawl. If you play normally, it takes one or two months of quests to reach the maximum level. Dimensional systems are even more exploitative, so you have to cherish the early-game leveling packs.
Looking at the newly acquired employee coupon, Ye Xu's eyes were filled with eagerness. It was almost midnight; should he wait until his luck stat was full before drawing the card?
Chapter 12 Tangtang
Before drawing cards, Ye Xu suddenly thought of something: "I'm at level 5 now, so will I no longer be able to get ingredient vouchers from the upgrade packs?"
If I remember correctly, the gift packs for levels 1 to 5 give points, employee coupons, and ingredient coupons. Starting from level 6, the points and employee coupons remain the same, but the ingredient coupons are replaced with something else.
As Shuangshuang had mentioned, Ye Xu could only see the rewards for the next level. He opened the gift pack preview and, sure enough, saw that the ingredient vouchers in the level 6 gift pack had been replaced with dish vouchers, still three in total.
"Will they not be giving out ingredient vouchers anymore?" Ye Xu asked.
Shuangshuang nodded: "Yes, what's wrong?"
“Then we can spend money to unlock ingredients.” Ye Xu said, opening the backend and glancing at it. He found that 19 kinds of ingredients had already been unlocked. The stingy shopkeeper immediately changed his mind, “We’ll add more ingredients when we have more points than we can use. These are enough for now.”
"Uh..." Shuangshuang thought to herself, judging from the current situation, with a total of 15 food vouchers given for levels 6 to 10, the shop manager will probably use the excuse that there are enough dishes and won't spend any more money to buy more. It's all the system's fault for being poorly designed. If the rules stipulated that the shop manager could only eat the unlocked ingredients, the other party definitely wouldn't be so stingy.
"What are the rewards starting from level 11? Tell me about them." Ye Xu poked Shuangshuang's chubby little face.
Shuangshuang pushed his fingers away, wrinkled her nose, and snorted, "I won't tell you, you bad shopkeeper!"
If you don't want to talk about it, then so be it; Ye Xu won't force you.
Amidst their banter, the clock struck midnight. As soon as midnight passed, Ye Xu was instantly revitalized and swiftly opened the hiring interface.
Having a lot of money means he can do whatever he wants. This time, he plans to keep trying until he gets an SR. After all, each refresh only costs 10 points, and the value that an SR employee can provide far exceeds this small amount of money.
Afraid of wasting his points, Ye Xu didn't even count how many times he refreshed the page, and just kept flipping cards. After flipping three cards without getting an SR, he refreshed and started over, repeating the process endlessly.
Ten minutes passed before a flash of blue light appeared before my eyes—"SR Slime Candy".
Ye Xu looked at the card with some hesitation. It was indeed an SR card, but it was a pet-type card. Intelligent races could help with chores, but what could pets do?
It seems wasteful not to hire one. But if you do hire one, it doesn't seem very useful. Plus, you'll probably need to provide a separate bed for the pet, which is another expense.
Frosty was afraid that the shopkeeper would really release the pet, so she quickly advised, "The Western Fantasy World is quite dangerous. Although the shopkeeper has the system's protective shield, if someone comes to cause trouble, it will greatly affect the business if it is not dealt with in time. Therefore, we really need some combat or support pets to help us."
"But what combat power do slimes have?" Ye Xu asked doubtfully.
Just looking at the picture on the card, it's a big, bright green, transparent jelly. The jelly has a pair of adorable big eyes on it, making it look very cute and not at all dangerous.
Shuangshuang replied, "Its combat power is not strong, but its support capabilities are very strong."
After saying that, he pulled up the slime's resume and let the shop manager look at it himself.
“SR Slime Candy”
Dimension: Western Fantasy;
Salary: 100 points;
Category: Mount/Pet;
Skill: [Mount Tai Pressing Down];
"What the hell is 'Mount Tai pressing down'?" Ye Xu took a long time to find his voice.
Shuangshuang coughed lightly: "Slimes are land creatures that can move forward by slow shuffling or jumping. When shuffling, their speed is only half that of an adult walking, but when jumping, they can leap more than 10 meters in one go. So they are quite good as mounts. When they jump, they can also fall from the sky and smash people down, pinning troublemakers down and preventing them from moving."
Sounds pretty good... what a joke! What kind of bizarre way of propelling people forward is this? Won't I be thrown off by its jumps if I'm sitting on it?
Ye Xu took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly: "I think I don't need a mount for the time being. Troublemakers can also be controlled in other ways, such as by hiring adventurers."
This giant jelly is way too big! Ye Xu was afraid that if it crashed down, most of the tables and chairs in the shop would be smashed. A demolition-type thug is absolutely out of the question!
"Manager, don't you think it's a good idea to have the slime keep the troublemaker under control until he agrees to pay a generous compensation before releasing him?"
Ye Xu: An unexpected path!
Suddenly, a thought struck me. That's right, this is a Western fantasy world, not a modern one. There's no law here that forbids a shopkeeper from extorting—cough, I mean demanding—compensation from troublemakers. In the Transi continent, might makes right; if you can't win, you have to accept defeat.
Ye Xu was absolutely thrilled, completely forgetting that he didn't need that many currencies at all. But then he thought, the shop wasn't exactly staffed enough; wouldn't it be a waste to use the coupons on his pet?
At this point, Shuangshuang added, "Actually, if there's only one pet, we don't necessarily need to prepare a separate place for it right now. Letting it live in the living room on the fifth floor is fine too. Also, it would be best if the shop manager had a vehicle to get around when going out in the future, since the snow outside is so deep and it's freezing to walk. Even if we don't go out, we can still use it in the shop. It can replace the elevator so we don't have to climb the stairs ourselves."
"Replace the elevator?" Ye Xu's ears twitched, but his brows furrowed again. "That won't do. What if it bounces around and damages the stairs?"
"No, apart from the ingredients purchased from the purchasing panel, everything else in the store is produced by the system and is very difficult to damage. Even the seemingly most fragile ceramic bowls and plates are made of new materials. Even a Mahayana cultivator might not be able to damage them, let alone things like stairs."
Ye Xu did not respond, seemingly lost in thought.
Shuangshuang was a little anxious and racked her brains to come up with some other ideas: "If all else fails, we can let the slime slowly move upstairs. It won't be fast, but it will be comfortable. Just think of it as installing an escalator, or an escalator with a built-in sofa."
After hearing Shuangshuang's explanation, Ye Xu also felt that the slime was indeed a very cost-effective and multifunctional mount, and it wouldn't be a bad buy. As for the problem of not having enough staff, he could simply spend money to accumulate the experience points needed to unlock it, and he could use the money he saved on pet housing for this purpose.
"Then let's hire it." Ye Xu bought the giant jelly.
Slime Candy is as sweet as its name suggests, a clingy and adorable creature. As soon as it appeared, it immediately moved over, wanting to snuggle up to the shopkeeper. Ye Xu's boyish heart was touched when he saw it stretch out its two bouncy little tentacles for a hug, and he quickly went over to hug it.
With that hug, he was completely captivated by Tangtang. The giant jelly skillfully shifted its jelly tentacles, lifting the person in its arms up. Soon, Ye Xu's position changed from facing Tangtang to having his back to it as he nestled into the jelly sofa.
Ye Xu felt like a grown-up baby being held in front of an even bigger parent. The jelly sofa was incredibly comfortable, perfectly conforming to his body's curves, and the semi-reclining position, with its slight swaying motion, was very soothing.
"I feel like I'm sitting in a baby rocking chair," Ye Xu said.
Shuangshuang covered her mouth and chuckled: "I forgot to mention, slimes do indeed treat their owners like little babies."
Ye Xu: "..."
"Stop shaking." Ye Xu quickly stopped Tangtang. He was already exhausted from working half the night and was sleepy enough. The work wasn't finished yet, and he couldn't fall asleep now.
Tangtang readily stopped swaying and even straightened the "sofa" backrest so Ye Xu could sit up. This helped Ye Xu feel a little less sleepy, so he reopened the shop's backend and started thinking about how to add more items to his cart.
It would be great if we could get another employee voucher to fill the gap in contract pets.
After searching for a while, I finally unlocked a bunch of things, including chili sauce and minced garlic.
The chili sauce is for customers who want spicy food but don't have a hot pot, so they can try it out. If they really don't want to eat tomato broth, they can just boil the ingredients in water and then dip them in the chili sauce. Ye Xu plans to pick out a really delicious chili sauce later, so that even if the customers don't order it, he can keep it to mix with his rice.
As for minced garlic, every time Ye Xu sees it appear with hot pot, he can't help but think of his university cafeteria.
There was a window selling hot pot rice noodles, which came with a small bowl of garlic oil. Every time Ye Xu ate this, she would scoop out the rice noodles separately, then pour the garlic oil into them and mix well. It tasted absolutely delicious, and the aroma was enough to make everyone in her dorm drool.
Ye Xu ate there every day for a while and never got tired of it. Now that he's graduated, he can no longer go back to those food stalls at school to eat for free, which is quite a pity.
Goodbye, hot pot rice noodles, chopped chili noodles, minced meat rice noodle rolls, seafood wontons...
Ugh, I'm hungry.
Ye Xu pulled a family-sized bag of potato chips from his backpack; it was unclear when he had bought it or when he had put it in there. He munched on it for a while, barely managing to get half full, before starting his second card draw.