Chapter Twenty-Three: Profits at Last

One month after opening the restaurant.

Shen Ye began to reflect and sum things up.

Tsk, tsk!

Over the past month, there hadn’t been many customers each day. In fact, there were none at all for the first four days. On the fifth day, including Wan Peng and the takeout orders he brought, there were only six customers. The sixth day, eight customers. After that, things stabilized at about twenty guests per day.

However, every dish here was expensive. It wasn’t difficult to earn two or three hundred yuan per customer. At the end of the day, that meant three or four thousand yuan in revenue, of course, before deducting costs. At the end of the month, that added up to eighty or ninety thousand. After deducting rent, ingredients, taxes, and other expenses, he was left with fifty or sixty thousand yuan in profit for the month.

At this moment, Shen Ye felt immense gratitude toward the Professional System that had allowed him to change careers and become a grandmaster chef. If he were working for someone else, he’d make maybe two or three thousand a month—four or five thousand if he was doing well. But now, running his own business was a windfall. What was even better was that he’d chosen the high-end, high-profit route: with only about twenty customers a day, he wasn’t tired at all.

How delightful!

In high spirits, Shen Ye decided to share the good news with his parents. He hung a “Closed Today” sign on the door, hopped on his little electric scooter, and puttered home. On the way, he thought that after earning for a few more months, he could buy himself a car. After all, as a grown man, riding a little scooter wasn’t exactly impressive.

When he got home, his mother Lin Mei and his father Shen Jia Ping were arguing. There’s no family without a few squabbles. When asked about the quarrel, Shen Ye found out that his father had lost a thousand yuan playing cards. No wonder his mother was upset—earning money was already hard enough for her, and although his younger sister had excellent grades, the school still charged for extra tutoring.

This was a problem easily solved with money.

Shen Ye directly told them he’d earned over fifty thousand yuan in his first month, which stunned both his parents. His father exclaimed, “Are you sure you didn’t earn Korean won or Japanese yen?”

Without further explanation, Shen Ye dumped fifty thousand yuan in cash right in front of their eyes, leaving them dumbfounded.

He then explained that his dishes were priced high and the profit margins were enormous, which finally made his parents somewhat believe him.

Having made money, Shen Ye was in an excellent mood. He handed his mother twenty thousand yuan and then bought his little sister, Shen Xiaoyun, an iPhone 6S Plus. Naturally, he also took the opportunity to upgrade his own phone, swapping out his old five-hundred-yuan smartphone for a Huawei MATE 8. He upgraded his parents’ phones to Huawei flagships, bought his mother a gold necklace, and in no time had spent nearly twenty thousand yuan.

But spending this money felt worthwhile and brought him real joy.

...

In the Shen family, Shen Jia Ping’s generation had four brothers: the eldest, Shen Bao Ping; the second, Shen Jia Ping; the third, Shen Wei Ping; and the youngest, Shen Guo Ping.

The third brother, Shen Wei Ping, was the most successful, running a large hotel in Yangcheng and rarely interacting with the other three brothers. The eldest, Shen Bao Ping, used to own a printing factory, but it had long since gone under, leaving him unemployed. He and his wife, Lin E (who was Shen Ye’s aunt), ran a small general store with modest means.

Lin E and Lin Mei both came from the same village and often gathered for square dancing in the evenings.

One day, when Lin E arrived at the square dance, her eyes were immediately drawn to the gleaming gold necklace around Lin Mei’s neck. She was taken aback—after all, both the Shen Jia Ping and Shen Bao Ping families were just scraping by. How could Lin Mei afford such a thing? As she moved closer, she noticed the necklace was quite thick.

Amazed, she asked, “How much did that necklace cost? Where did you get it?”

“How much? My son said it was over four thousand. I don’t know where he bought it—it was a gift from him.” Lin Mei, seeing her necklace had been noticed as she intended, couldn’t help but lift her brows with pride. She had worn it out precisely to show off. “Not only did my son buy me this gold necklace, but he also bought me a new phone—a Huawei, cost over three thousand yuan, though I’m not sure what kind it is.”

Lin E was shocked. “Your son bought it? But he just graduated from university, and didn’t work for the first half year. Now he’s only had his shop open a month, and he’s already got enough money for a gold necklace and a good phone?”

With her chest puffed out, Lin Mei replied proudly, “My son’s restaurant—didn’t everyone stop by when it first opened? At the time, people thought it wouldn’t last, since the prices were so high. I myself thought the initial investment of over a hundred thousand would be gone. Who could have guessed, my son just told me he made fifty thousand yuan in profit his first month.”

“He bought our whole family new phones. Especially for his little sister Xiaoyun—he got her one of those Apple phones, the most popular among young people, five or six thousand apiece. He’s really spoiling her. This child just loves to spend money,” Lin Mei said, though her tone was pure pride, not criticism, as she basked in the chance to show off.

Lin Mei’s boasting was a little much for Lin E, but she was too shocked to care—Shen Ye’s little restaurant had made fifty thousand in a month! Unbelievable.

The other women from the neighborhood who came for the square dance soon gathered around, all talking at once.

“Lin Mei, your son is amazing—fifty thousand a month from his restaurant!”

“Incredible. My son graduated from a top university and is only making ten thousand a month,” said Aunt Liu, who usually bragged about her son but now realized there was always someone better out there.

“Liu, your son’s ten thousand a month is already great. Mine only earns two thousand. Sigh, not studying really does make life harder,” another aunt lamented. Her son had fallen in with a bad crowd in middle school and ended up working on a factory line.

“Lin, does your son have a girlfriend? I have a niece—very pretty, just twenty-one,” said Aunt Ba, already trying to arrange a marriage for Lin Mei’s son; a young man making that much money couldn’t be let go.

“I have a niece too, even prettier, and she’s twenty-three,” Aunt Li chimed in, unwilling to be outdone.

On that day, Lin Mei’s urge to show off was completely satisfied. In the past, with a husband who gambled, a son who barely finished technical college and once got scammed, she had never dared lift her head among the square-dancing women. But now, things were different.

(Today I was outside playing with my child, so there’s one less chapter. Usually, I update three per day.)