My hometown is far away in Moscow.

Chapter 97 We're Rich Now!

Wang Shen was completely confused. Hu Yi pouted and explained, "Think about it, your GG only listed four kinds of fried noodles, while our GG only had two or three sentences. Brother Fang simply didn't use GG and relied on word of mouth. There was no problem with doing this before; everyone relied on their own abilities, and everything was peaceful."

"But now that Sixth Brother is here, we're no match for him," Hu Yi continued. "Look at Sixth Brother's flyers. Boxed lunches, dumplings, wontons, all kinds of staple foods, all kinds of stir-fries, they're all listed in a dense, saturated way. No matter how they taste, at least at first glance they look very professional, and people will naturally be more willing to choose from their menu, easily ignoring us."

"That's right," Li Baoqing interjected. "And their flyers are printed in color, so they look very professional."

"That's right. None of us have the same strength as Sixth Brother, so we need to join forces and try to enrich the takeout options on our flyers."

This is called—well, what's the effect again? Anyway, it makes it easier for people to focus on us when ordering food. Whether they buy your fried noodles, our boxed lunches, or Brother Fang's steamed buns, the point is to work together and first break down Sixth Brother's momentum!

"Okay! Let's do it this way!" Wang Shen wasn't sure if Hu Yi's words made sense, but he was so persuaded by Hu Yi's incessant chatter that he felt a surge of excitement and couldn't help but slam his hand heavily on a large box next to him: "Thump!"

"Oh my god! Excuse me!" Wang Shen exclaimed in surprise, "What is this thing?"

"My friend made this; it's authentic Korean kimchi." Hu Yi smiled as he opened the box. "Would you like to try some? If you like it, take some back with you."

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"Kimchi!" Wang Shen took two pieces, popped them into his mouth, and chewed. "It's alright. My mom can make this too, and she makes it even better."

"Your mom can make that too?" Hu Yi's eyes lit up. "Then ask her to teach you! I can buy it from you later—maybe you'll find it useful yourself, like—you could try making an 'authentic Korean kimchi stir-fried noodle'."

"This is all?" Wang Shen seemed a little dismissive, then nodded and replied, "Okay, I'll call my mom tomorrow. Hehe, that makes me seem like I have some value as a partner, doesn't it?"

After explaining everything to Wang Shen, Hu Yi and Li Baoqing went to persuade Fang Qing.

Fang Qingben felt that his steamed buns were already well-known in Youda University, so there was no need to make any more mistakes. However, he had been annoyed by Sixth Brother's takeout orders these days. Since Hu Yi and Li Baoqing had taken the initiative to come to him and offered to handle all the delivery work so that he wouldn't have to run errands, he was happy to join them and boost their reputation. He readily agreed.

The next day, Li Baoqing arrived at Building 10 early and personally guided Wang Shen to improve his stir-fry noodle-making skills. Hu Yi took the subway to Lao Wei's house to buy some preserved meats. After returning to the dormitory, he went to find Yu Feifei to reprint a stack of GG (presumably referring to a type of food), and then called Xia Yan to help him post and distribute them everywhere.

With so much more to write on the paper, GG looked much more presentable. Hu Yi gave their collaboration a catchy name: the Building 10 Fast Food Alliance.

Fang Qing's steamed buns, dumplings, and fried dough sticks were on top, Wang Shen's various flavors of fried noodles were below, and Hu Yi placed the boxed lunches and Lao Wei's braised meats in the middle, then racked his brains to add a caption: "Building 10 Fast Food Alliance is officially open! To thank all students for their continued support, starting today, every purchase of fried noodles comes with a free serving of authentic Korean kimchi, and every purchase of a boxed lunch comes with a free serving of authentic Korean kimchi and a serving of secret-recipe five-spice braised beef. Gifts are limited daily, first come, first served. Welcome to call and order!"

With one post from GG and one flyer distributed, the effect was immediate. With the combined support of Kim Hee-jung's kimchi and Lao Wei's braised beef, the sales of fried noodles and boxed meals soared, and Fang Qing's noodles sold out early every day.

Hu Yi felt a great sense of pride. Although he felt a little bad about giving away a lot of braised beef and kimchi every day, it did open up the market for the two items as expected. In particular, Lao Wei's braised products were often in short supply.

Fortunately, just as they had hoped, Lao Wei took on the evening shift chef job at the Oriental Dragon Hotel, and soon after, he moved into Zhou Dali's apartment. From then on, every morning he would buy beef, pork hock, chicken legs, and various offal, throw them all into a soup pot, and simmer them over low heat. He would first let Li Baoqing choose what to buy, and the rest could be sold to other Chinese people in the apartment.

With Lao Wei's continuous supply, braised meat quickly became another flagship product for Hu Yi and Li Baoqing besides boxed lunches. Sixth Brother also tried to find someone to make some braised meat, but the taste was always far inferior to Lao Wei's, so he gradually gave up.

The fast food alliance quickly overshadowed Sixth Brother. A few weeks later, through Wang Shen's efforts to relay information between the two sides and create a tacit understanding, Hu Yi was the first to terminate the promotion of giving away beef and kimchi with the purchase of boxed meals.

Sixth Brother followed suit, tacitly adjusting the price of his boxed meals and ending the opening promotion. However, their boxed meal sales were currently far lower than Hu Yi's, making them seem rather lackluster. Therefore, they stopped investing too much energy in them and instead focused their efforts on stir-fries and other dishes.

As a result, Hu Yi and Li Baoqing worked even harder than last semester, busy every day, and after dinner they just wanted to take a shower and lie in bed to rest.

Despite the hard work, they naturally earned more money than before. As winter turned to spring, the two not only made up for the stolen amount but also had a large sum of cash on hand.

Hu Yi gradually laid carpets in the room, added multi-tiered shelves and a microwave oven, found a second-hand Sony flat-screen TV, replaced the original bulky writing desk and wooden chair with simple modern tables and chairs from IKEA, and even got himself a computer. The whole room took on a completely new look.

For nearly a year, Li Baoqing had been living in Zhou Dali's apartment. As soon as he had some money, his first thought was to split the rent with him. However, Zhou Dali was wealthy and generous, and didn't care much about money. He simply said that the rent for the next few months would be paid by the two of them, and that the previous months' rent would be wiped clean.

Li Baoqing was extremely grateful and bought several electrical appliances for the apartment. He also took the initiative to cover most of the couple's daily living expenses. After returning home in the evening, he would often invite Lao Wei to the apartment to drink and chat together.

The fast food business was booming, they were making more money, and everything seemed to be going very smoothly, even making many of their classmates envious. But after all, they were still students, and at the beginning of June, the final exams of their second semester of freshman year became their top priority.

Hu Yi's situation is not bad. Although he has not devoted much energy to his studies in the past few months, he has not missed too many classes.

In addition, he was eloquent and would bring small gifts to the teachers on various holidays, which made them very happy. As a result, he passed most subjects smoothly without encountering any major setbacks. The only tricky subject was Professor Sergei's exam.

Throughout his freshman year, Sergei only attended a dozen or so classes. Because the late class times affected his fast food preparation, Hu Yi's attendance rate that year was less than 30%, and he hardly showed up in any of the professors' classes during the entire second semester.

He knew in his heart that the odds were against him, but he had no choice but to bite the bullet and wait in line with everyone else outside Sergei's office. He was filled with anxiety and was secretly trying to come up with an excuse for his absence.

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