I've been possessed by a culinary genius, and I've turned Shaxian snacks into a rip-off!

Three hours later, Li Zhibai finally cleaned and tidied up the entire shop, inside and out.

The restaurant isn't very big, but the layout is alright. The front is the dining area, which can fit six tables, and the back is a semi-open kitchen separated by a transparent glass partition, so you can see what's happening in the kitchen from the outside.

The only thing that didn't quite satisfy him was that the kitchen equipment was rather basic, or rather, rubbish.

After all, he now possesses god-like culinary skills, so he naturally has high requirements for kitchen equipment.

After tidying up downstairs, Li Zhibai rested for a while and then spent another half hour tidying up upstairs as well.

This is the only advantage of this store: it has two floors.

The second floor was a converted attic with a very low ceiling. Li Zhibai, who is 1.78 meters tall, had to bend over to avoid touching the ceiling.

The room was only about ten square meters in size. There was only a wooden board as a bed, a simple wardrobe in the corner, and a small window about the size of a palm next to it. Apart from that, there was only a small ventilation opening in the corner of the ceiling. The conditions were very basic.

But for him now, that's enough.

Li Zhibai pushed his suitcase into the corner, threw his backpack on the bed, and then brought up a plastic stool from downstairs to use as a bedside table.

That solves the accommodation problem.

After returning downstairs.

Li Zhibai looked at the walls of the shop and began to ponder a very serious question.

Menu prices.

He had already checked the prices on the system's menu several times, and they were all very expensive.

The cheapest one costs 128 yuan.

If the price were openly posted in the store, let alone a hundred servings, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to sell a single one.

Which passerby would buy a Shaxian snack at this price?

Even if wealthy people saw it, they would most likely not buy it. They may have money, but they're not stupid.

Those with a short temper might even retaliate by filing a report accusing him of deliberately inflating prices.

However, he cannot lower the price on his own.

The system clearly states that all dishes must be sold at the original price, with a maximum allowable rounding down by one zero.

But what's the point of getting a fraction of the price? It's still expensive.

Li Zhibai thought for a long time before he could barely come up with a bad idea.

He opened his phone, searched for a printing shop, added their contact information, and sent them the layout of the new menu.

In terms of menu design, he used a little trick: the names of each dish were in a very large font, while the prices were in a smaller font to make them less noticeable and lower customers' guard.

He had seen many world-class companies use this trick. For example, many e-commerce companies like to use big letters to write "Up to 90% off" on their promotional pages, but the word "up to" is as small as an ant. Or they put various disclaimers in tiny print at the bottom, which is particularly shameless.

He's just using the mature business methods of large corporations, isn't that a bit excessive?

Having settled the menu, Li Zhibai then began to think about the second issue—business hours.

The system task requires selling 100 servings of Shaxian snacks within seven days, which means at least 15 servings must be sold each day.

This task seems easy at first glance. After all, it's Shaxian Snacks, a national fast food chain. As long as it's not located in the middle of nowhere, it's sure to have no shortage of business.

Even if it's located in the famous financial district of Jiangdong South Road, it won't have to worry about business; it's just that the money it earns isn't enough to pay the rent.

However, if the minimum price for a bowl of noodles is 128 yuan, then the difficulty level is completely different.

People passing by and seeing this price are already being polite by not cursing at you.

Li Zhibai thought about it and decided to choose a time period that would make people most likely to spend money.

Almost everyone working near Financial Street is a white-collar or gold-collar worker. When are these elites hungriest? When are they most prone to impulsive spending?

The answer is obvious: when working overtime until late at night.

Don't be fooled by those elites in the financial world. They may appear glamorous and have high incomes on the surface, but to put it bluntly, they're just high-class drudges.

They are even worse off than ordinary cattle and horses.

Ordinary employees at least have a clear end time and leave on time. But these elites in the financial district are still in the office at one or two in the morning, frantically typing away on their keyboards.

During the day, these financial elites usually have a quick lunch at their workstations and don't have time to go into a restaurant and sit down for a proper meal.

But it's different at night. When they finish working overtime and drag their exhausted bodies out of the building to find something to eat, they don't have the mind to carefully check the prices.

Moreover, operating at night has another advantage: you don't have to get up early.

Li Zhibai hates two things the most in his life.

The first thing is to submit resumes, and the second is to get up early.

He has now solved the first problem; he has to figure out the second one himself.

Prepare ingredients during the day, open the shop in the evening, and close late at night—perfect.

Just as he was basking in the glory of his brilliant idea, the system's voice suddenly rang out.

The host's business strategy has been recorded by the system.

[Analysis Results: Using visual illusions to reduce the perceived presence of prices is an information asymmetry strategy; choosing to operate at night to reduce customers' price sensitivity is an environmental manipulation strategy.]

[Overall assessment: The host indeed possesses the talent to become a ruthless boss.]

Li Zhibai: "..."

Are you praising me or insulting me?

This system will not comment on this, but offers a word of advice: talent should not be wasted.

"Thank you," Li Zhibai retorted to the system, sounding rather annoyed.

To be honest, although he felt that this system had no bottom line, the skills and items it provided were quite practical.

His god-like culinary skills go without saying; that's the source of his current confidence.

Although the prices on the Shaxian cuisine menu seem outrageous, if you think about it carefully, there are plenty of people in this area who don't mind spending money. Plus, with the improved, divine taste, there might actually be people who will buy it.

Not long after, the deliveryman brought over the printed new menu.

Li Zhibai replaced the old menu and casually hung a small handwritten sign at the door, which read that the business hours were from 18:00 PM to 2:00 AM.

After doing all this, he took out his phone, took a video, and sent it to his mother to prove that he hadn't squandered the 50,000 yuan he got from her.

"Mom, we've secured the shop, and the location is great, so don't worry."

He didn't dare tell her that he was already in debt of 600,000 yuan before even opening for business; he simply told her that he had taken over the shop.

My mother replied with a voice message very quickly.

"That's good. Keep up the good work, but don't overwork yourself."

After hearing his mother's reply, Li Zhibai put his phone back in his pocket and prepared to go out to buy some groceries.

He wanted to cook all the dishes listed in the system menu and taste them to see if they were salty or bland.

However, after searching on a map app, he discovered that there wasn't even a proper farmers' market within three kilometers of the financial district.

"Well, the elite district is indeed an elite district; it doesn't even deserve to have a farmers' market."

However, he soon noticed that there was a large, high-end supermarket not far away, and according to the reviews, it was specifically designed to serve this area. It could find all the niche, high-end ingredients that were not available in ordinary supermarkets.

That makes sense when you think about it. After all, this is the most central area of ​​the city. The surrounding residential areas have housing prices of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan per square meter. The residents are all rich and powerful, so it's normal for the supermarket to sell some rare items.

Li Zhibai scanned a shared bicycle, rode it for a few minutes to the supermarket entrance, and pushed the shopping cart straight to the fresh produce section.

Then he started to check the ingredient list provided by the system, preparing to buy all the raw materials for both the standard and deluxe versions at once.

But as he opened the ingredient list and scrolled down line by line, his expression gradually froze.

To give a simple example, consider the ingredient requirements for a standard version of fragrant mixed noodles.

Flour: Hetao premium high-gluten snowflake flour.

Pork: Iberian black pig shoulder meat.

Even the scallions used for making scallion oil were specified by the system as three different varieties of high-end scallions.

"Wait a minute! This isn't right!"

"System, did you mix up the ingredient lists for the standard and deluxe versions? Is this really the standard version?"

[There's no reversal. The standard version uses only top-quality ingredients available on the market, while the deluxe version adds rare ingredients on top of that.]

"So you mean, even the cheapest version of the noodles, which costs 128 yuan, uses Iberian black pork and Hetao snowflake flour?"

Yes, only food made with the best ingredients truly respects fine cuisine.

"Respect my ass! What kind of Shaxian snack shop uses Iberian black pork? I sell a bowl of noodles for 128 yuan, and the cost of the ingredients alone is... uh, let me do the math."

Li Zhibai quickly took out his phone and started calculating the prices one by one, comparing them with the price tags on the shelf.

Iberian black pork shoulder, 398 yuan per jin (500g).

A serving of mixed noodles uses about 39 grams of minced meat, and the cost of the meat alone is 8 yuan.

Hetao premium high-gluten snowflake flour, a small bag of two jin (1 kg) costs 98 yuan.

One serving of mixed noodles uses two ounces of flour, and the cost of the flour is approximately 9.8 yuan.

The cost of scallion oil made by frying cold-pressed peanut oil and pork fat in noodles is not low. The cost of purchasing the three types of scallions is about 15 yuan per serving.

With just these three items added together, the direct ingredient cost of a regular serving of fragrant mixed noodles is already close to 65 yuan.

Selling for 128 yuan per serving, the gross profit margin is approximately 49%.

When you calculate it that way, it seems acceptable.

If you factor in rent, utilities, labor costs, and taxes, plus his amazing culinary skills, the price isn't unreasonable at all; in fact, it's quite reasonable.

As for the 588 luxury version, that's another story; it's definitely a bit overpriced.

The deluxe version of the fragrant mixed noodles is made with the same ingredients as the regular version, but with the addition of rendered oil from Kobe beef scraps to replace pork fat, and the variety of scallions has been increased from three to five. Southern ginger and scallions have also been added for aroma.

When kneading the dough, you need to add sea cucumber powder and abalone sauce. The minced meat topping also needs to be mixed with snow crab roe.

A small box of Kobe beef scraps costs about 268 yen, enough to make a pot of scallion oil, or about 20 servings of noodles, which averages out to 13 yen per serving.

A small jar of snow crab roe costs 480, which is 24 per serving.

The sea cucumber powder and abalone sauce cost about 30 yuan per serving.

Adding the base cost of the standard version of 65 yuan, the cost of ingredients for a single serving of the deluxe version is approximately 130 yuan.

But it costs 588!

The profit margin is much higher than the regular version.

No wonder the system awakened the "tailoring your approach to the task" skill for him from the very beginning.

This damn system is making him open his eyes wide and see clearly that when you encounter rich people, you should fleece them!