Building a sect from scratch.

Hu Manyue was pointing to a group of huge mushroom houses. The largest one had a small protruding window under its top canopy, while the smaller mushroom house had a round door.

The rooftops of the houses are all red, decorated with scattered white spots. The mushroom-shaped stalks, which form the main body of the houses, are plump and round, only slightly narrower than the rooftop canopies.

The entire mushroom house looks plump and cute, as if it stepped out of a fairy tale world.

Hu Manyue said, "The others are all pointed, and they look small and thin. This one is prettier. It's round, and it looks a lot like the houses in our Hu family village!"

"That's right! It's red on top! The same color as my fur!"

"Just as fat as my older sister!"

"Yes, yes!"

Upon seeing it, the Jade Emperor exclaimed, "So it's a mushroom house! That's quite suitable!"

Upon hearing the Jade Emperor's words, the little foxes continued to ask questions out of curiosity.

"A mushroom house? Is it made of mushrooms?"

"Mushrooms can be used to build houses?"

"Can I eat it?"

"Huh? A house that smells like mushrooms?"

Zhao Qing patiently explained, "A mushroom house is a house that looks a lot like a mushroom!"

A little fox shook its head and gestured with its paw, saying, "But it doesn't look like a mushroom at all! Mushrooms have very big tops and very thin stems!"

Hu Manyue patted the blueprint and said, "It does look somewhat similar! Look, it has a top and poles too!"

"You've just gained a little weight!"

"Yes, yes!"

Seeing that everyone agreed with her, Hu Manyue nodded in satisfaction: "Anyway, this is fine!"

The Jade Emperor confidently replied, "No problem! We'll have the house built in three to five days at most!"

Zhao Qing tugged at the Jade Emperor's sleeve and whispered, "It just so happens that this place is quite close to the Gugu Chicken Village. Shall we take the foxes to eat 'Kaifeng cuisine' later?"

Before the Jade Emperor could speak, the sharp-eared little foxes overheard what Zhao Qing said and began to exclaim curiously:
"Huh? What's 'Kaifeng cuisine'?"

"Are all the people in She-eup, the 'Cuckoo Chicken' community, 'Cuckoo Chicken'?"

What kind of chicken is "Gugu Chicken"?

Zhao Qing explained awkwardly, "This 'Kaifeng cuisine' is, well... a whole chicken feast! All kinds of delicious dishes made with chicken!"

Hu Manyue jumped up and down excitedly at first, then became conflicted: "Yay! But how much does 'Kaifeng Cuisine' cost? We need to save our money, Aunt Zijun only gave us five hundred spirit stones..."

Zhao Qing quickly replied, "It's not expensive at all. Even if you eat as much as you want, it probably won't cost more than one spirit stone! And this meal is on us! After all, it's your first time visiting our Taiyin Sect, how could we let you spend money! Besides, you treated me several times back in the Crimson Plains Cave!"

The Jade Emperor chimed in, "That's right! Even if we treated you to meals every day, it wouldn't cost much!"

"Yay! Now I can eat chicken every day!"

Hu Manyue cheered first, then complained, "Although there are many chickens in Chiyuan Cave, you have to catch them yourself!"

However, a fox spirit revealed Hu Manyue's secret: "But eldest sister, you always steal the chicken that Aunt Zijun roasts!"

Hu Manyue grumbled and argued, "Anyway, she can't eat it..."

Another fox said, "That's because Aunt Zijun knew you could steal, so she specially roasted an extra one!"

Hu Manyue tucked her ears back and nervously wagged her big, red, fluffy tail before quickly changing the subject, saying to Zhao Qing and the Jade Emperor, "Ahem! Fellow Daoist! Why don't we go eat that 'Kaifeng cuisine' now!"

Zhao Qing, with a beaming auntie smile and eyes that were almost crescent-shaped, pointed in a direction and led the way, saying, "No problem! It's over there. I already spoke with the president of Gugu Chicken, so let's just go there!"

This time, since the distance was not far, everyone did not use magic or magical artifacts, but walked normally.

The little foxes hopped and skipped around, chattering amongst themselves: "This place is a mess, we'll have to clean it up later!"

"Plant fruit trees, tall fruit trees, and short fruit trees!"

"Should we plant some spirit herbs?"

"We don't need any spirit herbs here, do we? And you don't even know how to grow them, do you?"

"I don't know how, but the foxes from Wild Fox Plains do! We can ask them to plant it!" "But it's no use! What would you do with planting spirit herbs?"

"How can it be useless! It's you who's useless! Ouch! I'll bite you to death!"

"Bite you to death!"

"You two are not allowed to fight! Nor are you allowed to quarrel! Otherwise, I'll tell Aunt Zijun to send you both back!"

"Actually, you can sell the medicinal herbs for money, right? With the money, you can buy chickens to eat!"

"Isn't the point of opening a shop to make money?"

"Huh? Are we going to sell spirit herbs in the shop?"

"No, no! They're selling fox cubs at the shop!"

"What?! Selling fox cubs?! Don't sell me!"

"Hey! Don't listen to Nineteenth Brother's nonsense! He's selling fur!"

"No, no! It's selling tea!"

"The tea you brewed is so bitter! How could any demon like to drink it! It's impossible to sell it!"

"It's not for you to drink! It's for the humans! Maybe the humans just like the bitter taste!"

"It's selling fur! I clearly remember that as long as humans touch our fur, we can get money! Fellow Daoist, don't you think it's selling fur?"

As the foxes talked, they were about to start arguing. One of them, whose white fur on its chest was shaped like a heart, excitedly scratched at Zhao Qing's skirt, looking at her expectantly as if wanting her to agree with him.

Zhao Qing glanced at the expectant fox spirit, then at the remaining adorable little fox spirits, and said with difficulty, "Uh, actually... actually you're all pretty much right! It is indeed selling tea, and it is indeed selling fox fur, but not in the way you imagine. To be precise, it's selling 'services'!"

A group of little fox cubs, hearing the word for the first time, parroted it repeatedly: "Service?"

"Strictly speaking, all restaurants, eateries, and milk tea shops that sell food are actually selling 'service'! Selling 'service' means meeting the needs of customers—of course, not all needs are met. Some unreasonable demands not only don't need to be met, but can also be rejected!"

The foxes exclaimed in surprise in unison, "Fight them out?"

“Yes, like this,” the Jade Emperor said, making a lewd expression, chuckling a few times, and saying in a high-pitched voice, “Hehehe, little fox, come home with me, and I’ll buy you chicken to eat!”

Then, he returned to his normal voice and explained, "You can throw away requests like these that are disgusting, shameless, and make you very unhappy!"

The foxes all twitched their ears: "Ugh! That's really disgusting!"

"That fox is terrifying!"

"I really want to breathe fire!"

Hu Manyue asked, "So, our shop also sells 'services'?"

"That's right! Simply put, when customers come into the store and buy some food and drinks, they can pet your fur. Compared to other stores that also sell food and drinks, you can offer an extra 'service,' which is petting fox fur! This way, everyone will be more willing to come!"

"But won't I rub myself bald?"

"You shed your fur every spring anyway, so what's there to be afraid of!"

"Going bald is really ugly!"

"You can use magic to conjure up fur!"

"As you said before, the fur created by magic is no good! Humans don't like it!"

"Then, then, then..."

"Hey, it's alright. If you don't want customers to touch you, you can refuse! Anyway, the shop sells food and drinks. You're just 'friendly' offering the 'service' of touching fox fur. It's not like there's a price for each touch!" The Jade Emperor began to teach the unscrupulous merchants some tricks: "They pay for food and drinks. Once they get the food and drinks, the transaction is complete. Even if they don't offer the service of touching fox fur, it's not considered cheating customers. So whether or not customers can touch the fox fur is up to you!"

The youngest fox had a bad feeling, but listening to the Jade Emperor's words, it seemed to make sense. It hesitated and whispered, "Wouldn't this be a bad idea?"

The Jade Emperor waved his hand and said, "What's wrong with that! At worst, we can just put up a sign at the store entrance that says, 'Whether we offer petting services depends on the staff's mood,' and that would be perfect! Moreover, this way of doing business is called 'scarcity marketing,' and everyone will flock to your store even more!"

"Why?"

Seeing the little foxes' puzzled looks, the Jade Emperor launched into a long explanation: "It's because of comparison! Look, you bought a cup of tea, and I bought a cup of tea, but I got to touch the fur while you didn't. Doesn't that give you a sense of superiority? See, I'm better than you! I'm more popular with the foxes! Then the other fox gets resentful and thinks, 'Why can you touch it but I can't? I'll spend more money and I'm sure I can't.' So they spend several times more money buying a bunch of things. Now that someone has bought so much from you, you can't very well refuse a customer's small request to touch the fur, right? So they got to touch it, didn't they?"
"Look, the first customer to touch the fur got a sense of superiority, the later customers who paid more got to touch the fur, and you all made money—a win-win situation! The first kind of customer is called a lucky winner! The customer who paid more is called a big spender! The latter's sales service model is called 'bundling'! There's a lot to it! It's all marketing knowledge!"

These words sounded perfectly logical, and the foxes nodded repeatedly, exclaimed in amazement, and even expressed great admiration for the Jade Emperor.

Only Zhao Qing, standing to the side, twitched her lips and couldn't help but mutter in a private chat: "This is fucking outrageous! Your Majesty, you shouldn't be here; you should be hanging from a street lamp!" (End of Chapter)