I couldn't take it anymore; when I went home for Chinese New Year, the family genealogy book ha

When the first batch of strawberry jam came off the production line, Jiang Chen was standing at the end of the line.

Rows of glass bottles slid down the conveyor belt, their surfaces smooth and filled with bright red strawberry jam, gleaming under the lights.

He picked up a bottle, unscrewed the cap, and scooped out a mouthful with a small wooden spoon.

The moment it enters your mouth, the sweetness bursts out first, followed by the tartness of the strawberry itself. The two flavors fight, and in the end, the sweetness wins, leaving a clean aftertaste in your throat.

"This stuff is really delicious."

Jiang Chen put the bottle back on the conveyor belt, turned around and looked at the row of finished products, feeling quite satisfied.

He was satisfied, but after staring at the bare bottle for a long time, he felt something was off.

A jar of top-quality strawberry jam, just sitting there naked, what's the difference between it and the mass-produced strawberry jam that sells for 9.9 yuan per kilogram in the supermarket?

If you were to sell this, customers might just skip over it at first glance.

He called Su Qing over, pointed to the bottle of sauce, and asked, "What do you think of the packaging?"

Su Qing leaned closer, picked up the bottle, examined it from all angles, and then said very bluntly, "It's ugly."

"Just those two words?"

"Hmm." Su Qing put the bottle back. "It's not worth thirty yuan at all."

Jiang Chen sighed.

He took out his phone, entered the family group chat, typed a few words, and sent them in.

"Second Uncle, Uncle Jiang Jianwen, Teacher Jiang Qiming, there's something I need to discuss in the factory conference room at 2 PM."

Less than two minutes after the message was sent, Second Uncle Jiang Jianmin replied.

"What's up? Want to eat?"

Jiang Chen: "No food, let's have a meeting."

Second Uncle: "Could I bring my jar of homemade chili sauce with me? You can try some."

Jiang Chen did not reply.

It was exactly 2 PM.

In the conference room, three people sat facing three different directions, like the Three Kingdoms meeting.

Second Uncle Jiang Jianmin sat on the left, legs crossed, phone on the table, looking ready to speak at any moment.

Jiang Jianwen, the pedantic scholar, sat on the right, his tattered folding fan already in motion, his chin held high.

Retired teacher Jiang Qiming sat in the middle, buttoning his white shirt all the way up, looking very proper and poised for a formal occasion.

The three of them glanced at each other, but no one spoke first.

Jiang Chen walked in and placed a bottle of strawberry jam in the center of the table.

"Elders, the sauce is ready, and the taste is fine, but there's one problem." He sat down in the head seat. "We need to figure out how to package it to get a higher price. What do you all think?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than his second uncle interrupted.

"Is that even a question?" Jiang Jianmin sat up straight, his eyes shining, looking completely confident. "The color has to be red! A bright red background with gold lettering on top, festive!" "And print your picture on it too, Chenzi, just like that Lao Gan Ma brand, it looks reliable, it's a brand!"

The meeting room fell silent for a second.

Jiang Chen quickly went through the word "godfather" in his mind, then suppressed it.

"Second Uncle," he said, trying to remain calm, "I don't really want to have my face printed on the bottle."

"Why? Aren't you ugly?" Uncle said, looking puzzled.

"It's not a matter of whether it's shabby or not."

Jiang Jianwen had been waiting for this opportunity. He closed his folding fan and slammed it on the table with a crisp sound.

"Tacky!" He used this word to definitively dismiss his second uncle's plan. "Bright red background with gold lettering, do you think we're selling Spring Festival couplets?" "We're going for the high-end route, it has to have cultural depth and substance." He gestured in the air. "My idea is to find an antique-style porcelain jar, print the 'Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion' on it, or add a couple of lines of ancient poetry. That's called cultural premium, understand? A jar of sauce, placed on a bookshelf, that's a work of art."

After hearing this, my second uncle frowned.

"Cultural premium? Are you asking people to buy jam or a book? There are so many words printed, can customers even read them all? Besides, what does the 'Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion' have to do with strawberry jam?"

"Do you even know what style is?"

"Can style put food on the table?"

The two men stared at each other, and the tension in the air escalated rapidly.

Jiang Qiming cleared his throat and used his authority as a Chinese language teacher for twenty years to quell the argument.

"You're both wrong." He placed his palm-leaf fan on the table and said slowly, "I've studied the current consumer market. What's the biggest selling point of our sauce? It's Jiangjia Village, it's local flavor, it's nostalgia." "So the packaging should have the words 'Top Scholar' printed on it."

His second uncle and Jiang Jianwen both turned to look at him at the same time.

"Top scholar in the imperial examination?" Uncle didn't understand. "What does this have to do with strawberry jam?"

Jiang Qiming waved his hand, looking confident.

"These days, parents will spend any amount of money on their children's exams." "Think about it, before a child's college entrance exam, buying them a jar of 'Top Scholar' strawberry jam is a good omen, isn't it? Buying jam to send blessings, precise marketing, do you understand?"

There was a two-second silence in the meeting room.

Then my second uncle took the lead and rejected the plan.

"Teacher Jiang, I just have a question for you." Uncle slammed his phone on the table. "A customer bought this jar of 'Top Scholar' tea, but their child didn't pass the exam. Will you refund the money?"

Jiang Qiming: "..."

"That's not my problem."

"Then that's your problem!" Uncle pointed at him. "You bought sauce as a blessing, but the blessing didn't work. Whose fault is that?"

"I never said it would guarantee it would work!"

"Then why are you printing those four words? Are you trying to mislead consumers?"

Jiang Jianwen chimed in, "If you ask me, both of these plans are ridiculous. One wants wealth, one wants literary talent, and one wants luck. With all three of you combined, who are we even going to sell this sauce to?"

This remark offended the other two people.

The three people spoke at the same time, none of them giving way, their voices overlapping, making the meeting room as chaotic as a vegetable market.

My second uncle said that to attract wealth, one must be conspicuous and easily visible.

Jiang Jianwen said that one should have a refined and tasteful demeanor, and not appear vulgar.

Jiang Qiming said that you need luck, you need to seek good fortune, and you need to tap into the psychology of consumers.

The three of them argued for nearly twenty minutes, examining the jar of strawberry jam on the table over and over again countless times, but they still couldn't reach any consensus.

Jiang Chen sat in the main seat, his elbows propped on the table, his palm supporting half his face. Listening to the three elders talking back and forth, he felt like he wasn't in a product planning meeting, but rather listening to a modern version of the Three Heroes arguing.

He turned his head and glanced to the side.

Su Qing hadn't said much since she came in. She sat by the window with a notebook open beside her, drawing something on it with her head down.

Jiang Chen glanced at her, but couldn't make out what she was drawing.

I saw her suppress a laugh, her shoulders twitched, and then she buried her head and continued drawing.

Inside the meeting room, the argument between the three old men continued.

"Let me tell you, you've all misunderstood the packaging." Jiang Jianwen slammed his folding fan on the table. "What's the core competitiveness of this sauce? It's the ingredients! It's the strawberries from Jiangjia Village! So the packaging must highlight the ingredients, making it immediately clear that this is authentic, high-quality stuff!"

"Then tell me, how do you stand out?" Uncle asked back.

"Use a painting!" Jiang Jianwen gestured. "Hand-painted strawberries paired with the landscape of Jiangjia Village—it'll be artistic and high-end!"

"Hand-drawn?" Uncle sneered. "Can you even draw?"

"...I can have someone draw it."

"How much would it cost to have someone paint it?"

"This is a cost issue, it has nothing to do with aesthetics!"

Second Uncle: "..."

Jiang Chen rubbed his forehead, feeling a throbbing sensation in his temples.