Chapter 41: This Is the Power of Technology!
Total Revenue: [3866/3200]
On its very first day of business, the [Rudimentary Restaurant] pulled in an impressive 1,466 City Coins in revenue.
Roasted potatoes sold 65 portions, and roasted sweet potatoes 24, totaling 404 points—a consistently solid performance.
Two cauldrons of the one-pot stew yielded 31 portions in total, selling out completely for 465 points.
The pickled white radish sold 47 portions, bringing in 47 points.
The Malatang skewers served five tables… primarily because skewering the vegetables by hand for the middle two tables had eaten up far too much time.
Things only eased up for the final table once the automatic skewer machine was brought online.
In total, the Malatang skewers brought in 550 points.
The Cash Box was ready for an upgrade once again.
Following her usual routine, Ling Jing chose to upgrade the Item Exchange Box’s recycling payout rate.
The Cash Box’s total revenue target jumped to [3866/6400].
Well, the pattern was clear now—the requirement doubled every single time.
It looked like the difficulty was ramping up fast.
However, the shop’s earning capacity was surging right alongside it.
The system probably never anticipated that her initial daily revenue of a mere 110 points would skyrocket to nearly 1,500 within just a few days.
To be fair, today’s earnings hadn’t quite reached the ceiling she had envisioned.
Ling Jing knew the bottleneck all too well.
—Threading the skewers took far too long. The Malatang table sat empty for most of the day while patrons simply waited around for her to finish prepping.
Setting prep time aside, a single table took about 30 minutes to dine. Add a quick wipe-down and dropping the next batch into the simmering broth, and a full cycle took under forty minutes.
Operating from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, she theoretically could turn over 15 tables a day.
Even if diners took their sweet time, turning over twelve tables should have been easily achievable.
Yet because she had spent two grueling hours prepping just enough for one table during operating hours today, business had crawled at a snail’s pace.
Over the entire day, even factoring in the two hundred skewers prepared in the morning, she had only managed to serve five tables.
And that was only thanks to the automatic skewer machine coming to the rescue.
By the time skewers for a sixth table were prepped, the evening bells had already tolled.
Furthermore, with her hands tied the entire day, she hadn’t had a spare second to cook another batch of the one-pot stew once the thirty-one portions ran out.
That meant missing out on the revenue of at least fifteen more servings of stew.
Her current balance of disposable points stood at 1,196.
Purchasing the automatic skewer machine this afternoon had cost 280 points, and the standard shop maintenance fee had deducted another 50 points, but completing the daily quest rewarded 60 points.
—The daily quest quota had shot up from 200 to 500 points, yet the stingy system had only bumped the reward by a measly 20 points.
Ling Jing cast an appraising eye over the Chinese Restaurant’s dining hall, pondered for a moment, and tapped into Shop Expansion.
[Expand by 10 Square Meters] — 250 Points.
Confirm.
Mall — Specialized Malatang Skewer Table: 400 Points. Purchase.
Round Stools (Six): 30 Points. Purchase.
Large Stainless-Steel Stockpot: 40 Points. Purchase another.
Burning through a substantial chunk of points in one breath, Ling Jing rearranged the placement of the two Malatang tables within the layout editor.
With the new space added to the left side of the restaurant, she could set the two long tables side by side.
Eight stools around each table.
—Today’s trial run had proven that while ten stools could fit, the dining experience suffered.
It was cramped, elbows bumped constantly, and a single pot’s worth of skewers wasn’t quite enough to go around.
With a line waiting behind them, each group naturally settled their bill the moment the pot was emptied, meaning each customer only ate around twenty skewers.
Almost everyone who ate Malatang ended up buying roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes afterward to fill the remaining void.
They simply hadn’t eaten their fill.
Customer experience was the absolute bedrock of running a business.
With two tables, she could seat 16 diners at once.
Backed by the automatic skewer machine, keeping the pots continually stocked with fresh skewers should be a breeze.
There would be no more awkward lulls where the pots were licked clean while the next wave of hungry patrons waited for the kitchen to thread skewers by hand.
Foot traffic would only grow from here on out. Ling Jing had no desire to play games with artificial scarcity; as long as she had the capacity to meet demand, she would provide.
Back in her old world, outside of peak rush hours, Malatang shops almost always had open seats ready for walk-ins.
She wanted to cultivate that exact atmosphere.
[Automatic Skewer Machine]: Automatically arranges sticks and threads ingredients. 5s/skewer, 720 skewers/hour. Handles common ingredients. (Upgradeable)
Ling Jing checked its specifications; the machine featured branching upgrade paths as well.
Upgrading its speed, for instance, would allow it to thread two skewers simultaneously.
She ran a quick mental tally.
A rough estimate placed today’s customer count at just over a hundred—call it a hundred and twenty to be safe.
If a hundred out of those hundred and twenty ordered Malatang, and assuming a generous average of thirty skewers per person, that totaled three thousand skewers.
The automatic skewer machine could knock that out in a little over four hours.
There was no pressing need to upgrade its processing speed.
She was relieved of manual skewering, the shop’s seating capacity had doubled, and seating sixteen people simultaneously meant each table only had to turn over about six times. Ling Jing’s workload for tomorrow would be drastically lighter.
All she had to do was top up the pots as needed; her primary task would simply be tallying sticks and collecting coins.
Ling Jing still had 476 points left—a relatively comfortable operating budget for the evening.
She bought three thousand wooden skewers and loaded them into the machine.
She then spent 40 points on six catties of beef marrow bones and another 40 points on four large bags of Malatang seasoning base to build up stock, setting two large pots of broth to simmer for tomorrow’s service.
The milk powder was still well-stocked, so there was no need to buy more.
Hiss… buying ingredients from the Mall always felt like a raw deal.
Probably because the rest of her produce was essentially “free.”
Restocking the sesame paste cost 20 points. Ling Jing pondered briefly, then dropped 50 points into both the automatic slicer and the automatic skewer machine to unlock “Auto-Refill.”
To her pleasant surprise, unlocking the feature allowed her to set precise quotas.
She programmed the batches into both machines accordingly.
The skewer machine was set straight to 3,000 skewers. Combined with the two hundred leftover from today, it would easily cover tomorrow’s demand.
The automatic slicer could be configured by ingredient type. Ling Jing estimated the poundage required to yield roughly 300 skewers per vegetable and queued the batch orders into the machine’s system.
Still had points to spare?
After a moment’s thought, she spent 100 points on five oversized stainless-steel trays, placing them onto the heavy-duty metal racks in the kitchen.
The extra skewers could be neatly stacked inside these trays for storage.
Ling Jing walked up to the automatic skewer machine and opened the system panel to inspect its upgrade paths.
[Auto-Transfer] — 50 Points.
Upgrade!
Once the upgrade registered, she selected the destination for the automated transfer on the expanded menu: Target — Large Stainless-Steel Trays on the Metal Rack.
While she was at it, Ling Jing upgraded the slicer with Auto-Transfer as well, designating its destination: Target — Ingredient Hopper of the Automatic Skewer Machine.
And just like that, wasn’t the pipeline fully automated?
Standing in place, she powered on both machines to observe the programmed workflow in action.
The auto-feeding slicer’s active queue was currently set to potatoes.
Thump. Two potatoes were smoothly drawn into the chute.
Ch-ch-ch-clatter—neatly sliced potato rounds spilled out.
Just as the receiving bin was about to fill, with a soft whoosh, the sliced potatoes vanished into thin air.
Simultaneously, the skewer machine sprang to life.
A single wooden skewer rode the conveyor belt beneath the mechanical press. With a crisp thump, the press loaded with potato slices stamped down firmly.
It rose back up smoothly.
A finished skewer of sliced potatoes was assembled.
Incomparably faster than doing it by hand.
This was the power of technology!
The completed skewer rolled forward along the conveyor belt.
Reaching the edge, instead of tumbling off, it vanished cleanly with a flash.
—Reappearing instantly, stacked neatly inside the stainless-steel tray across the kitchen rack.
Excellent. Running without a hitch.
Ling Jing nodded in deep satisfaction.
Alright, time to restock disposable paper plates, cutlery, and takeout boxes for the one-pot stew and pickled radish.
Her remaining points were pretty much wiped clean once again.
However, her hands were entirely freed from the grueling prep of skewering ingredients.
Time to tackle the rest of the chores!
