I've been reborn, I'm definitely going to become an internet celebrity!

Chapter 121 [Still Can Cut]

Whether it's online sales of beef balls, videos, stalls, or any other miscellaneous matters, Liu Zhuohao has put them all out of his mind right now.

The company has just been registered, and he now has only one goal: to acquire the store.

Or rather, rent it.

At the agreed time, Liu Zhuohao left the alley and turned onto the main road.

In December, cold air can arrive unexpectedly. Yesterday it was as hot as summer, and the streets were full of people wearing short sleeves. Today, the wind blowing down our necks has dropped the temperature by at least ten degrees, and some people on the street have started wearing long sleeves or even jackets.

Liu Zhuohao shrank his neck and walked to the left along the sidewalk.

The two shops in front are next to each other. One is a milk tea shop with a pink and white lightbox on the door that says "Yihetang". Two girls in school uniforms are standing at the door, taking pictures with their cups.

The other shop was a fried chicken store, with golden chicken legs piled up in the glass display case. The owner, wearing disposable gloves, was packing a bag for a man riding a motorcycle.

Liu Zhuohao took a few steps, stopped, took out his phone, and glanced at the address again.

wrong.

He walked back, stood at the alley entrance again, and looked to his right.

On the right is a clothing store, with several hoodies hanging in the window. The mannequin is wearing a fluorescent green windbreaker, which looks like last year's style.

The shop next to the clothing store had its roller shutter closed, and a "For Rent" sign was pasted on the door. The paper was faded from the sun and the edges were curled up, but the phone number was still legible.

This is it.

He took out his phone and glanced at the time.

10:50.

It's 11 o'clock, ten minutes to go.

He put his phone back in his pocket, took two steps back, and sat on a stone bench next to a roadside tree to wait.

After taking the photos, the two girls selling milk tea went inside.

The fried chicken shop owner handed the bag to the man on the electric scooter. The man took the bag, twisted the throttle, and the scooter sped off, driving down the ramp along the edge of the sidewalk, turning onto the main road, and waiting for the red light.

The owner of the clothing store stood at the door, looking to be around thirty years old. She was dressed quite fashionably and was watering the green plants by the door with a spray bottle, looking quite relaxed.

Noticing that she was being stared at, she paused for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

Liu Zhuohao politely returned the greeting and nodded, but neither of them spoke.

After the proprietress finished watering the plants and turned to walk back into the shop, he could clearly sense that she glanced at him every now and then.

9:55.

An electric scooter turned into the alley and onto the sidewalk, riding slowly.

The person riding the bicycle was a middle-aged man, wearing a gray jacket, with slightly messy hair, and a bunch of keys hanging on the handlebars, making a clattering sound.

He parked his electric scooter in front of the shop, turned off the engine, and glanced at Liu Zhuohao.

"Boss Liu?"

"Yes, it's me, Mr. Xie, right?"

The two shook hands. Mr. Xie's hands were a little cold, probably from riding his bike. With this cold air today, even a jacket felt too thin.

"Is it cold in this weather?" Liu Zhuohao asked casually.

"That's right. I was wearing short sleeves yesterday, and this morning I was rummaging through my closet looking for a coat." Mr. Xie said while taking out his keys. "I've heard of you, Boss Liu. You were quite famous around here a while ago, and you were on the news twice."

He turned to open the roller shutter door.

"When your friend came to see the house before, he mentioned it, but I didn't remember it at the time. I only remembered when I got back that I had seen your stall on TV."

The key was inserted, and it was pushed upwards. The roller shutter made a rustling sound as it slowly rose.

"Wow, she's really young and promising; she's already opened a shop!"

It was pitch black behind the door, and I couldn't see anything.

As the door was pushed halfway open and light shone in, the interior slowly came into view.

After the door was fully pushed up, Mr. Xie went in first, walked to the wall and pressed a switch. The fluorescent light flickered twice and then turned on.

Liu Zhuohao stood at the door without moving, looking inside.

The shop is quite deep and rectangular.

The floor was made of cement, but not the kind of cement you'd find in a bare-bones apartment; it had been treated with a non-slip finish and had a fine texture. The walls were painted white, but the lower parts were a darker shade, as if something had rubbed against them.

Several lights were hanging from the ceiling; they were the warm-colored lights commonly used in restaurants, not ordinary fluorescent tubes.

He stepped inside, the soles of his shoes scraping against the ground, and he could feel the friction of the anti-slip treads.

After walking a few steps further in, you can see a row of glass cabinets at the back, covered in dust, but you can tell they are the kind of refrigerated cabinets used for storing food.

Next to the glass cabinet was a stainless steel workbench with several dusty cutting boards on it. Further inside was a door, which Liu Zhuohao pushed open and peeked into; it was the back kitchen.

The kitchen is deeper than the front of house.

The stove was ready-made, with several powerful burners and a blackened iron pot on top.

Next to the stove is a huge stainless steel exhaust hood, covered in grease, but it's clearly a proper restaurant exhaust system.

The exhaust hood is connected to pipes that go upwards, through the ceiling, and should lead to the roof.

Liu Zhuohao reached out and pressed the switch next to the stove. The exhaust hood made two buzzing sounds and was still able to turn.

"Oh, this still works?" He was a little surprised.

"It's usable. They didn't take it apart when they moved out, saying they'd leave it for the next family." Mr. Xie followed behind. "Keep these things if you can use them, otherwise I'll have someone come and take them away."

Opposite the stove is a double stainless steel sink.

He turned on the tap, and water gushed out, a little yellow, and it took a while for it to clear up.

Next to the sink is a small door; push it open and you'll find a cold storage room.

It was about seven or eight square meters, surrounded by white cold storage panels. There was a drainage channel on the floor and a thermometer on the wall, with the pointer at minus five degrees Celsius.

Several plastic crates were piled up in the corner of the cold storage, covered in dust, but the cold storage itself was fine, with the compressor outside humming.

He stepped out of the cold storage and walked a few steps deeper into the kitchen. He saw several rows of stainless steel hooks nailed to the wall, with a few dusty iron hooks hanging on them, the kind used for hanging beef.

Liu Zhuohao seemed to know what kind of business this shop used to run.

He stood there for a while, then walked back to the front hall and looked around again.

This time he noticed more things.

There were several wooden planks piled up in the corner by the door, covered in dust, but you could tell they were signs or menus. He walked over, turned the top one over, and wiped it with his sleeve.

— "Fresh beef", "Sliced ​​and sold on the spot", "Chaoshan beef hot pot".

The words are red, and the paint is already peeling.

"Oh one"

Liu Zhuohao drawled, "So that's what you do."

Mr. Xie chimed in from the side, "That's right, it's run by people from out of town."

"You think this is just asking for trouble? Even Chaoshan people themselves might not be able to run this business properly. An outsider came and opened it, managed to keep it going for over a year, but in the end, he couldn't keep it going and moved away."

"Sigh, what was he thinking, opening a Chaoshan beef hot pot restaurant when an outsider came to Chaoshan? Wouldn't it have been much better to open a Sichuan hot pot restaurant or a lamb hot pot restaurant?"

Liu Zhuohao nodded, put the wooden board back, dusted off his hands, and walked out.

Standing on the sidewalk, he offered a cigarette to Mr. Xie and lit one for himself.

People walked by on the sidewalk: an old lady carrying a vegetable basket, a man collecting recyclables on a tricycle, two more people queuing in front of the fried chicken shop, and the two girls from the milk tea shop still hadn't come out.

It was rather deserted.

Even during the day, it shouldn't be this deserted, especially since it's almost noon.

"Mr. Xie, this shop is about 150 square meters, right?" Liu Zhuohao asked, having already learned some basic information from Huang Weixiong.

He asked the question knowing the answer already, not to confirm, but to negotiate a lower price.

"Yes, it's almost 160 square meters."

Mr. Xie pointed inside, "From the door to the back wall, it's about twelve meters deep and twelve and a half meters wide."

Liu Zhuohao nodded, then glanced towards the kitchen. "Did you leave all these things behind when you moved out?"

"They were all left behind."

Mr. Xie waved his hand, "The cold storage, the stove, the exhaust fan, and all these cabinets, I'll keep them all."

97

They said I couldn't take it with me and that I should deal with it myself.

"I can't be bothered with it, I'll just leave it there. You can use it if you need it, and if you don't, I'll have someone come and take it down later."

Liu Zhuohao nodded again, showing his willingness to help, which was quite reasonable.

He turned his gaze back to Mr. Xie, "I remember the monthly rent is one..."

"Seven thousand five."

Mr. Xie continued, then immediately understood what was going on, and replied with a smile, "Boss Liu, you're quite a celebrity in our area, so I won't bother with any of your empty talk."

"The normal price for this street is 40 to 45 yuan per square meter. The foot traffic isn't bad, but it's just okay."

"The reason I'm offering this price is because my shop is one of the few on this street that's this spacious, 160 square meters, and my previous tenant was in the restaurant business."

"Look, this cold storage is ready-made, the exhaust system is ready-made, the water supply and drainage are ready-made, the gas pipeline is ready-made, the stove, the worktable, and the refrigerator are all ready-made and complete."

"How much money can you save by doing this when you renovate?"

Liu Zhuohao didn't reply, but took two more steps towards the door and stood there looking across the street.

Across the street was a hardware and general merchandise store, with plastic buckets, water pipes, and mops piled up at the entrance.

Next to it was a rice noodle stall with a few plastic stools set up at the entrance, where a few people were having breakfast. Next to that was a closed shop with its roller shutter door covered with little GG stickers.

"Mr. Xie, if I may ask—" he flicked his cigarette ash, "how many shops do you own on this street?"

Liu Zhuohao had noticed the large bunch of jingling keys when the person opened the door.

Mr. Xie raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Liu Zhuohao took a step back, leaning against the doorframe, and asked in a flat tone, "Since Mr. Xie knows my reputation, I wonder if he knows about the night market foot traffic of my steak stall in the past?"

Mr. Xie was taken aback.

"If Mr. Xie really does have other shops on this street, wouldn't you be interested in making an investment?" Liu Zhuohao said. "I'm not the kind of person who tries to get something for nothing; I've already achieved tangible results."

"The foot traffic greatly affects the rental price of this street. The foot traffic on this street is average, so it's only worth this price."

"On the contrary, in places like pedestrian streets and archway streets, a shop of a few dozen square meters can be rented for tens of thousands of yuan."

This statement is actually quite clear.

Mr. Xie remained silent, his expression complex, and asked, "So you're thinking that if you can move into this street, you'll bring in foot traffic and cause other shops to rent out?"

"You want me to lower the rent for you?"

Liu Zhuohao didn't answer directly, but instead exhaled a puff of smoke and looked outside.

"Some people do business simply because they want to do business; they look at the location and the flow of customers."

"But some people are different. Good wine needs no bush, especially in Guangdong. Everyone here values ​​food. No matter where it is, even a farmhouse restaurant in a remote mountain valley will be willing to drive an hour or two just to eat a few free-range chickens and fresh fish, as long as the food is good enough."

"It's quite possible that the popularity of an entire street depends entirely on a single store. When the store opens, the popularity comes; when the store closes, the popularity dissipates."

As he spoke, his gaze drifted outwards, seemingly towards a distant place. "This raises the question: should we be short-sighted, or long-term vision?"

"Mr. Xie, if you ask me if I'm confident I can build up my popularity, I can tell you with certainty that it's absolutely true. Putting aside everything else, even if all my original customers were willing to come to this street—I'm not saying all of them would come, but only half, no, a third!"

"Only one-third of the people come here. The foot traffic on this street isn't like this anymore."

"Of course, you'd better go to my stall and see for yourself, and ask the other stall owners if that's true. After all, people believe what they see with their own eyes."

"Actually, if you had the chance, Mr. Xie, you might be able to take over the other shops on this street, like the one across the street."

Liu Zhuohao pointed to the opposite side, to the closed shop next to the rice noodle soup shop.

"It's like if a school suddenly moved next to our commercial street. Wow, the daily foot traffic is completely different. There's business for students going to and from school, business for parents, and business for teachers—"

As Mr. Xie listened, he couldn't help but reach out and touch his messy hair.

It's very itchy.

The more I think about it, the itchier my head gets.

"Then—"

'

He hesitated for a moment, as if making a great decision, "Six thousand five?"

Mr. Xie lowered the price by one thousand.

Renting a 150-square-meter shop for 6,500 yuan is definitely a great deal, even in a small city.

"Mr. Xie, I'm not talking about whether it's seven thousand five or six thousand five. What I'm talking about is whether you believe I can make this shop successful and bring more foot traffic to this street?"

Liu Zhuohao did not respond.

Renting a 160-square-meter shop for 6,500 yuan, complete with ready-made kitchen equipment, is indeed cheap in a small city.

Previously, this was probably the price he had expected.

But now? He's still not satisfied; he can still chop!

Mr. Xie remained silent for a while.

"Six thousand five is already very low."

He muttered to himself, as if talking to himself.

"Five thousand five," Liu Zhuohao said.

Mr. Xie suddenly raised his head, "No—"

"Two months' deposit and six months' rent in advance, three-year contract."

Before he could even finish speaking, Liu Zhuohao continued, "No increase in the first year, but starting from the second year, it will increase by ten percent every year."

Mr. Xie was taken aback: "Ten percent increase every year?"

This amount doesn't sound low.

"right."

Liu Zhuohao explained, "If you give way, I'll give way too. It's the first year since I opened, and I don't have much working capital. Let me get through this first, get the business up and running, and attract customers."

"It's reasonable for you to raise the rent a little in the second year. A 10% increase from 5,500 will make it 6,000."

"6