At three in the afternoon, the supermarket was quiet. There wasn't a single customer.
Wu Jun sat comfortably in his boss's chair behind the checkout counter.
"Xu Fei, take a break. You're going to polish those shelves until we can use them as mirrors," Wu Jun said, at a loss for words over his exceptionally diligent new employee.
More than an hour had passed since they'd finished lunch, and Xu Fei had been bustling about without a moment's rest.
After organizing the stock, she had started wiping down the shelves. As her boss, Wu Jun felt a little embarrassed just sitting there watching.
"Almost done," Xu Fei replied, her hands never stopping.
Wu Jun wondered, 'Is a salary of 5,000 yuan too low?'
'Is this girl protesting with her hard work?'
RING RING RING~
While Wu Jun was lost in thought, his phone rang in his pocket.
He pulled out his phone and saw it was an unfamiliar local number. He answered it casually, "Hello, this is Wu Jun."
"Hello, Mr. Wu. The custom bags you ordered from us are ready. Would you like to pick them up yourself, or should we deliver them? Delivery will be an extra 100 yuan," a young woman's voice said from the other end.
Hearing that the bags were ready, Wu Jun was ecstatic.
He had been waiting for this day for over twenty days!
"Deliver them, please. My address is the ground-floor supermarket at Building 27, Tianyuan Estate." Wu Jun completely ignored the 100-yuan delivery fee. That amount of money was nothing to him now.
"Okay, we'll arrange for loading and delivery right away. They should arrive in about half an hour."
"Great. The sooner, the better." After confirming the delivery, Wu Jun hung up.
At 3:40 PM, the small delivery truck arrived.
Before the driver could even come inside to announce his arrival, Wu Jun impatiently grabbed a bottle of Mizone from the fridge and rushed out.
"Thanks for your hard work, sir." Wu Jun greeted the driver, who had just gotten out, and handed him the drink.
"Thanks. You must be Boss Wu, right? Please sign the delivery form first." The driver accepted the drink with a word of thanks, then pulled a receipt book and a pen from his work uniform's breast pocket and handed them to Wu Jun.
Wu Jun took the receipt and pen and quickly scribbled his name in the recipient field.
After signing the form, he finally saw his first batch of custom packaging.
You get what you pay for. At 6 yuan apiece, the eco-friendly bags looked much more high-end than ordinary plastic ones.
Inside the small truck were 18 stacks of 100 bags each, for a total of 1,800 bags. They had even given him over 100 extra.
Unlike items sold by weight, printed products like these always account for waste during production, so printers usually make a few extra.
Hu Jianguo was quite generous. Those 100-plus extra bags were equivalent to a discount of several hundred yuan.
After counting them, Wu Jun paid the driver the delivery fee. The driver helped unload, and Xu Fei joined in as well.
The three of them made a few trips back and forth, quickly moving the bags into the bedroom Wu Jun used inside the supermarket.
"Thanks again for all your hard work, sir." As Wu Jun saw the driver out, he pressed a ten-yuan pack of cigarettes into his hand.
"Boss Wu, you're too kind. Next time there's a delivery for you, I'll make it a priority. I'll be heading back now." Having accepted Wu Jun's drink and cigarettes, the driver's impression of him had improved greatly. He said this with a friendly laugh, then turned and got into the driver's seat.
After seeing the driver off, Wu Jun returned to the supermarket and went straight to his bedroom. Looking at the pile of bags on the floor, he felt brimming with confidence.
The Resource Tycoon game had a feature to replace packaging, but it cost 100 Gold Coins to unlock—the equivalent of 10,000 yuan.
Still, when Wu Jun thought about it, it felt like a great deal.
If he had to repackage everything himself, it would be time-consuming and exhausting. A few tons might be manageable, but what about thousands or tens of thousands of tons in the future? Even if he set up a dedicated repackaging company, he would need dozens of employees to handle it.
Having reasoned this out, Wu Jun decisively spent 10,000 yuan to top up 100 Gold Coins in the game.
A game prompt appeared: [Activate the external packaging replacement service?]
[Yes!]
[The external packaging replacement service has been activated. Packaging for replacement can be stored in the game warehouse. Would you like to begin storing now? Please point the camera at the new packaging to be stored.]
[No]. Wu Jun selected "No," not in a hurry to store the bags in the game.
'If this huge pile of bags suddenly vanished, Xu Fei would probably call the police to report a thief.'
To avoid unnecessary trouble, he decided to perform the game operation after Xu Fei got off work in the evening.
Putting his phone away, Wu Jun turned, left the room, and pulled the bedroom door shut.
Seeing Xu Fei helping a customer weigh rice, Wu Jun walked over to help.
Once five o'clock hit, a steady stream of customers flowed into the small supermarket, one wave after another.
Although Xu Fei looked delicate and gentle, when it came to work, she was more efficient than Wu Jun, a young man himself.
She could lift a fifty-jin bag of rice and carry it out to help customers load their cars. She was even stronger than Wu Jun.
"Little Wu, where'd you find such a good-looking and capable helper?"
"This young lady is so quick on her feet. Much better than you, her boss."
Some of the regular customers who knew Wu Jun well didn't forget to tease him while they shopped.
Xu Fei's performance today was plain for all to see. On her first day of work, she received unanimous praise from the customers.
They were busy until nine at night, when customers became scarce. Only an occasional person getting off a late shift would stop by for some snacks.
Wu Jun hung up the small "Closed for Business" sign, ending the day's operations.
Seeing Wu Jun close up, Xu Fei picked up a broom to sweep the supermarket one more time, her eyes always finding more work to do.
Throughout the day, Xu Fei had shouldered more than half of Wu Jun's usual workload without a single complaint.
"Xu Fei, I'll sweep up later. Let's go get something to eat first." Wu Jun stepped forward, took the broom from her, and placed it against the wall.
"I'm almost done. If you're hungry, Boss, you can go ahead. Don't worry about me." Xu Fei picked the broom up again and resumed sweeping.
Seeing her so full of energy, Wu Jun had no choice but to let her be. He stood to the side and said, "You've been busy since this afternoon. You have to eat. Otherwise, your aunt will come looking for me."
"I'll go after I finish sweeping. It'll just be a minute." Only after she insisted on finishing did Xu Fei walk out of the supermarket with Wu Jun.
They chatted as they walked side-by-side toward the entrance of the residential complex.
Once outside the complex, Wu Jun pointed at several restaurants that were still open and said magnanimously, "Pick whatever you want to eat. Dinner's on me, and you can eat your fill."
Xu Fei said, "Anything is fine. You can decide, Boss."
After spending a day with her, Wu Jun was starting to understand Xu Fei. He knew he wouldn't get a specific answer if he kept asking, so he decided to just choose himself.
The two entered a small restaurant. After Wu Jun ordered two hearty dishes from the menu, Xu Fei stopped him. "Boss, that's enough, that's enough! There's no way the two of us can eat all that."
"You've worked hard all day. You deserve a good reward." Wu Jun ordered two more dishes before finally stopping.
At this hour, there were very few diners, so the food arrived quickly.
"Hurry and eat before it gets cold." Wu Jun unwrapped a pair of disposable chopsticks and handed them to Xu Fei before grabbing another pair for himself.
"Thanks, Boss. Then I'll dig in," Xu Fei replied with a smile, and the two began to eat.
At ten o'clock, after they finished their meal, they returned to the base of her building and said their goodbyes at the supermarket entrance.
Xu Fei went upstairs to Xu Minli's apartment, while Wu Jun opened the door and entered the supermarket.
After locking the door, Wu Jun headed for his bedroom, pulling out the phone linked to Resource Tycoon as he walked.
He unlocked it with his fingerprint, tapped the Resource Tycoon app icon, and found the [Deposit] option.
After more than twenty days of fiddling with it, Wu Jun's operations were now as smooth as flowing water.
He walked up to the bags on his bedroom floor, tapped the [Deposit] option, and the phone's rear camera activated.
Wu Jun aimed the camera at the bags on the floor.
A game prompt appeared: [Suspected packaging material detected. Deposit into the game warehouse?]
[Yes!]
A green light flashed in the bedroom, and with a WHOOSH, the pile of bags on the floor vanished.
In the game's warehouse, a bag icon appeared with the number 1800 displayed below it, indicating the available quantity.
There were also three large sacks of rice left over from today's sales in the bedroom. Wu Jun went through the process again and returned the three sacks of rice to the warehouse.
"It's time to witness a miracle..." Wu Jun tapped on the rice stock in his warehouse. The rear camera opened again. He aimed it at the bedroom floor, tapped [Withdraw], and entered "3 tons" for the [Withdrawal Quantity].
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Rice in brand-new packaging appeared on the bedroom floor.