God's imitator

Chapter 108 The Secret of Vegetable Prices

"The question for this market survey is: If you buy 10 kilograms of spinach at a prime location in a rural vegetable market at 7 a.m., what is the minimum amount of money you would spend?"

“Aunt Su, you should know the answer, right? How much do you think it should be?” Li Renshu asked.

Su Xiucen was taken aback for a moment, then said matter-of-factly, "Ten yuan! Or maybe even less, six or seven yuan is possible."

Although Li Renshu had some expectations and guessed that the price might be lower than she had anticipated, she was still somewhat shocked to hear the figure from Su Xiucen.

She opened her eyes wide in surprise: "Aunt Su, are you sure? Spinach is less than a dollar a pound?"
"Moreover, this is at 7 a.m., a prime location in the rural vegetable market. Shouldn't the price be even higher?"

Su Xiucen waved her hands repeatedly: "No way!"
"Vegetable prices are cheaper in the morning and evening. As for location, it has absolutely nothing to do with vegetable prices."

Li Renshu was even more puzzled: "I understand that vegetable prices are cheaper at night, since the stalls are closing up shop and the vegetables aren't fresh anymore. But vegetables picked early in the morning are freshly picked, so why are they cheaper?"

Su Xiucen explained, "Because in the morning vegetable market, many farmers go to sell the fruits and vegetables they grow themselves!"

"Many families grow spinach. If they can't finish it all, they sell it at the market. In rural areas, there aren't really any fixed stalls at the market; whoever gets there first gets to keep it."

"These people usually pack up their stalls at 8 a.m. because they have to go back to their own fields to do farm work, and they sell the vegetables they can't sell at a low price."

"As for location, it doesn't affect vegetable prices; the prices are the same throughout the entire market."

"Because there are only so many people buying vegetables each day, and there are roughly the same number of vendors, everyone eventually sells out. If you sell at a lower price, you can just close up shop first, which won't stop others from making money, so the prices are all the same."

"I love grabbing vegetables in the morning. Most of them are grown by farmers themselves, so they're fresh, cheap, and haven't been sprayed with pesticides yet."

Li Renshu felt a little regretful: "Aunt Su, I wish you had been there at the time."

Su Xiucen asked, "What, is this the kind of question everyone has? But I can't go out right now. How about I tell you the prices of all the vegetables now, and you can remember them?"

Li Renshu shook her head: "No need, Aunt Su."

"According to the rules of the game, we take turns choosing topics. There are four different areas: [Science], [Society], [Arts and Literature], and [People's Livelihood]."

"Next time it will be our turn to choose."

"We can choose social issues or arts and literature, which are areas we are better at. As long as we don't choose people's livelihood, we don't have to answer these kinds of questions."

"Don't worry."

Su Xiucen nodded: "Okay, then you guys figure out how to arrange it. If you encounter this kind of problem again, come and ask me again."

……

After leaving the president's office, Lee In-sook returned to the office area.

"Fu Chen, Xu Tong."

“I just asked Aunt Su, and the correct answer is within 10 yuan.”

Fu Chen and Xu Tong were both surprised: "Huh? That's ten pounds of spinach!"

Li Renshu sighed silently and found a seat to sit down: "Yes, in rural vegetable markets, spinach grown by farmers themselves is that cheap."

"What a pity. If Aunt Su had gone, she would definitely have been able to answer correctly."

Fu Chen was also very troubled: "This is a bit of a problem."

"The market research covers four different areas of questions. If nothing unexpected happens, all questions related to people's livelihood should be similar to these."

“If Aunt Su were here, she should be able to answer all the questions correctly, but the three of us… “we can only answer questions from other fields.”

"After thinking about it, I realized that I can only answer questions in the field of arts and culture. I am quite knowledgeable about songs, movies, novels, and the like."

Lee In-sook nodded: "Yes, I should be better at answering questions related to the social issues."

"Xu Tong, what about you?"

Xu Tong thought for a moment: "Should I answer the [Arts and Literature] category too? However, I might be able to guess the simple science questions. After all, I studied science in college."

Fu Chen was somewhat surprised: "Huh? Shouldn't human resource management be a liberal arts major?"

Xu Tong shook her head: "No, it's not that simple. It includes both arts and sciences, but I study science."

Fu Chen was pleasantly surprised: "That's great. You can go to the market research next time. After all, you're a science student, so you're definitely more reliable than me, a pure liberal arts student, when it comes to answering science-related questions."

Li Renshu thought for a moment and said, "Let's not rush to do the market research next time, because it will be our turn to make the selection next time."

"I think either [Society] or [Arts and Literature] is fine, as they are areas we are relatively good at."

"As for Xu Tong, we can go another time. I think Tian Fan from the 8th community might choose the field of [science]."

Xu Tong nodded: "I'm fine with anything, it's up to you."

"By the way, while you were doing market research, I also studied the company management system in this game."

"I have an idea, which is..."

"Could we lay off these high-paid employees?"

Fu Chen was speechless for a moment: "...Is this your occupational hazard? You're thinking about layoffs on your very first day at the company."

Xu Tong quickly explained, "No, no, no, it's not that I'm thinking about layoffs, but judging from the game's mechanics, isn't it encouraging us to lay off employees?"
"Or perhaps layoffs are a very important part of the game's content?"
"Look, the goal of this game is to survive the economic downturn and ensure that the company has a surplus at the final settlement."

"Saving money is simply about increasing income and reducing expenditure, earning more and spending less."

"As for making money, we achieve that through answering questions in market research, so there's no need to elaborate."

"But what about spending money? There are no expenses like rent or utilities in this game. There's only one place to spend money: employee salaries."

“Every activity in the game is measured in ‘months’. That is, when we go out to conduct market research, it is equivalent to a month having passed, and 8 minutes of visa time will be automatically deducted as salary for employees.”

"That's too much!"

"Suppose we lay off some of the high-paid, low-work-effort employees and save 10,000 minutes of visa processing time, then after ten events, wouldn't we have 100,000 minutes of visa processing time?"
"At that time, everyone will get an extra 20,000 yuan."

"Furthermore, according to the rules of the game, due to the economic downturn, our company will earn less and less money as time goes on, and there is even a possibility that we will earn less than our salaries."

"At that time, in order to prevent the company from going bankrupt, we will still have to lay off employees."

"Since layoffs are inevitable sooner or later, shouldn't we prepare in advance?"

Li Renshu and Fu Chen looked at each other and fell silent.

Li Renshu seemed thoughtful: "So the game's name really does have a pun? 'Money-making game, layoff game.' Does it imply that in the process of company operations, we must lay off those who are not needed?"

(End of this chapter)