The white rose I picked up cried and said she liked me.

As the days went by, and more and more students learned that they could order takeout in their dormitories, Xu Xi and others' food delivery business grew bigger and bigger.

Xu Nian increased the number of insulated boxes in the back of his car from one to three to ensure that he could take all the takeout orders in one trip during the lunch and evening rush hours.

On campus, Xu Xi provided Zhao Lin with an electric scooter and assigned her the same work as Qi Yu.

The number of delivery personnel in each dormitory building has also been increased from two to three.

Each position has a backup staff member to ensure the food delivery chain continues uninterrupted when another person is in class or has other commitments.

A wooden sign reading "Temporarily Closed" was hung at the entrance of Xu Nian's restaurant.

Xu Nian's regular life of working from 10 am to 8 pm without overtime has made her more and more energetic.

Xu Xi's complexion grew increasingly worse.

In addition to her regular classes and studies, she was responsible for organizing orders in real time. After finishing work in the evening, she also had to calculate the commissions collected from each restaurant and then calculate the wages for her part-time classmates.

Even though Wen Yao helped her with a lot of the accounting work, Xu Xi still lost clumps of hair every day.

The bright moon hangs high in the sky, and darkness shrouds the earth.

12:30 AM, Xinian Dumplings, second floor.

On the bed, Xu Xi's soft body leaned against her brother's chest. One hand flew across the calculator as she murmured strings of numbers, while the other hand scrolled through pictures on her phone screen.

Xu Nian gently combed the girl's long hair with a horn comb, looking at her increasingly dark eye sockets, her eyes filled with uncontrollable heartache.

He really wanted to help his sister with some of the work.

However, given his limited education, he couldn't understand the densely packed ledgers, let alone calculate how much to collect from other restaurants or how much to pay the part-time students.

These things can only be accomplished by Xu Xi.

All he could do was comb his sister's hair.

"Xiaoxi, how about we hire another accountant? I saw on job postings that they only charge three to five thousand yuan a month. With our income, we can afford it."

After deducting the students' wages from the commission income, the remaining net profit was split equally among Xu Nian, Xu Xi, Wen Yao, Zhao Lin, and Qi Yu.

Each person can receive 300-400 yuan per day.

A few months ago, Xu Nian would never have imagined that she could earn more than 10,000 yuan a month.

No, it's 20,000, because Xu Xi also gave him her share.

He would be more than willing to take out five thousand yuan to hire an accountant to help ease his sister's burden.

Xu Xi rubbed her sleepy eyes and gently shook her little head.

"No, brother."

She pointed to a picture of a takeout order taken by a deliveryman and said to Xu Nian.

"Look, this lunchbox clearly contains two servings of braised pork knuckle rice, but the merchant only reported one to us. He underreported the revenue by 15 yuan, which is equivalent to a 2.25 yuan commission."

"And this, the merchant sold a whole Orleans chicken for 20 yuan and a Coke for 4 yuan, but only reported to us a half chicken for 13 yuan and a bottle of mineral water for 1 yuan, missing out on 1.5 yuan in commission."

"Several delivery drivers also reported 110 orders when they delivered 100, 170 when they delivered 150, and even sent duplicate orders. We have to check each one of them."

"I will punish merchants who deliberately overreport their income, and I will replace delivery drivers who are deliberately dishonest. If I hand it over to the accountant, I won't be able to find out, and in the end, it will be our profits that are lost."

Xu Nian sighed and scratched his head.

This is also why Xu Xi has to work on the accounts until very late every day.

After the students placed orders with various merchants in the dormitory, the merchants would then notify Xu Xi via WeChat of the names, prices, and quantities of the dishes ordered. Xu Xi would then help Xu Nian keep track of the order in which the meals would be picked up, and use this information to settle the commission.

This makes it very easy for merchants to manipulate the commission calculation.

On-campus food delivery workers are required to provide proof of receiving meals by taking photos with their mobile phones and sending them to a group chat. The number of photos is used as the basis for calculating their wages.

In the long run, there will inevitably be multiple occurrences and repeated reports.

Sometimes, it's not intentional, but rather a mistake that occurs because they're too busy.

During peak dining hours, restaurants would cook two or three dishes on their stoves at the same time, and delivery drivers would carry dozens of meals up and down the dormitory buildings.

Expecting them to make no mistakes on every order is simply a pipe dream.

"Xiaoxi, when your brother used to deliver food, he never seemed to have to worry about these things. The platform would take the orders and settle the payments. No one would ask the merchants for money or pay us."

"Do you think it's possible to develop a similar tool that can replace or reduce some of your workload?"

Xu Xi fell into deep thought after hearing her brother's words.

......

The next morning, Yuncheng University, School of Business Administration, Computer Lab 434.

"You want to make software?"

Wen Yao and Zhao Lin stared wide-eyed at the lines of code on Xu Xi's computer screen, completely dumbfounded.

Xu Xi nodded seriously.

"Yes, as our food delivery scale grows larger, we need a systematic software system to support it, as human management is too inefficient."

"But...we've only learned basic website building. Software development is way beyond our scope. Maybe I should find a software company to do it for us."

Zhao Lin raised an eyebrow, took out her phone, and prepared to search online for shops that provide software development services.

"No need. I reported my needs to many software companies this morning, and they all start at 100,000 yuan, plus monthly maintenance fees ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan. It's too expensive."

Xu Xi's calm words were like a bucket of cold water poured on everyone's hearts.

"Damn! I should have studied computer science too, it's so lucrative..."

Wen Yao touched her chin and couldn't help but click her tongue in amazement.

"I'll rely on myself. Luckily, the e-commerce major teaches some programming. These days, I'll have Yao Yao help me with the work of coordinating orders for my brother. I need to finish making this software first."

Xu Xi took a sip of coffee, her slender fingers typing and deleting rapidly on the keyboard.

In front of her were textbooks on website building and operation, as well as several programming language books borrowed from the library.

I would sit there for the entire day.

Xu Xi realized that she had been making assumptions.

The website building programming language taught by the teacher and the language suitable for software programming are completely different concepts.

She spent the entire day learning the language.

Not a single function has been implemented.

As dusk approached, Xu Xi sighed, tidied up the scattered books, and left the computer room in frustration.

At this rate, it will probably take several months to complete the management system.

Otherwise, let's just give up on developing the system. At worst, we'll just sleep a few hours less each day.

It's only been a month since school started, and the National Day holiday hasn't even arrived yet. Even if everyone pooled their money together, they still couldn't afford to hire a software company to do it for them.