Rice falls under the food category, so it also needs QS certification, which is a food safety certification.
The requirements for QS certification are as follows:
1. A production site. 2. The necessary production equipment. 3. The required inspection equipment.
When Wu Jun heard Chen Lin list these final requirements, his head started to ache.
His rice came out of the game as a finished product; he didn't meet a single one of the conditions she mentioned.
He had no idea what any of the materials she was talking about even looked like.
"Mr. Wu, you can ask me if there's anything else you don't understand." After finishing her explanation, Chen Lin watched Wu Jun quietly, waiting for his response.
Wu Jun had thought that with an agency like this, all he had to do was pay the money and wait for the certificate. Things were not as simple as he'd imagined; there was a huge discrepancy.
"Um... Miss Chen, is registering a trademark really this much trouble? I'm in a hurry. This year's rice has already been harvested, and I have over a hundred tons stockpiled at home waiting to be sold. Is there a faster way?" Anxious, Wu Jun picked up the disposable paper cup, tilted his head back, and downed the water before cautiously asking Chen Lin.
"Yes." When Chen Lin said that single word, it was like music to Wu Jun's ears. 'I was just asking casually, but there's really a way!'
Wu Jun asked excitedly, "What is it? As long as it's fast enough, I don't mind spending a little more money."
Chen Lin said, "Mr. Wu, if you need a trademark urgently, you could buy one from someone else. It would save a lot of time, but the price is much higher than applying for one yourself. After all, it saves you nearly a year. However, they aren't that easy to find."
"How much would it cost, roughly?" Wu Jun asked, concerned.
Chen Lin replied, "A conservative estimate would be around forty to fifty thousand. We'd have to find a suitable seller and then negotiate the specifics."
"Oh, I see..." Wu Jun breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the price of buying a trademark. 'It's not as expensive as I imagined.' But he didn't have that much money on hand at the moment.
He was still short eighty thousand for his dad's surgery. He had to earn that first, and it couldn't be touched.
The trademark purchase would be another fifty thousand, and after it was done, he'd inevitably have to pay Chen Lin's company an agency fee.
To be completely safe, he'd need to earn at least a hundred and fifty thousand in total.
Although rice sales were booming, earning a hundred and fifty thousand wasn't something he could do in a day or two.
For now, selling rice on a small scale in his little supermarket wouldn't be a problem. Small supermarkets were a dime a dozen in the city, and countless of them sold loose rice. You never saw anyone coming around to check for permits or anything.
His own supermarket had been selling loose rice for three years, and to this day, he didn't even know what brand it was. And he'd been selling it just fine, hadn't he?
However, if he wanted to grow his business bigger and stronger in the future, a trademark and a registered company were must-haves, especially for food products.
The government was cracking down on food safety now. Even though there was nothing wrong with his rice, he still had to get the proper certifications.
You can never have too many credentials; more certifications open more doors.
Seeing Wu Jun lost in thought, Chen Lin said, "Mr. Wu, if you're serious about buying a rice trademark and QS certification, we can keep an eye out for you. We'll contact you as soon as we find a seller."
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Miss Chen. Please do keep an eye out for me. In the meantime, I'll get the money ready."
After speaking, Wu Jun stood up. He and Chen Lin exchanged contact information, and then she saw him out of the company office.
He returned to his small supermarket and opened for business.
The number of customers who came to shop at noon was clearly much higher than usual, and most of them were there for the rice.
Wu Jun threw himself back into the work of taking money and weighing rice. Watching the colorful bills pour in, he felt tireless.
There was nothing more joyful than making money. If there was, it was playing with the money after you'd made it.
In the evening, the small supermarket hit its evening rush hour.
Wu Jun did a rough headcount. More customers had come into the store today than in a typical month.
While the rice was selling like hotcakes, it also boosted sales of other goods in the supermarket. Some items even sold out.
At 9:30 p.m., after seeing off the last wave of customers getting off their late shifts, Wu Jun closed the doors and stopped for the day.
"Damn... I feel more tired today than I do in a whole month!" Wu Jun stretched, his back aching, his legs cramping, and his arms feeling almost too heavy to lift.
However, when his gaze shifted to the cash register, he was instantly re-energized, as if he'd been shot up with adrenaline.
He pulled the two small drawers right out of the cash register and carried them into the bedroom where he slept.
He had been so focused on making money all day that he hadn't had time to buy a bed. The bedroom still looked like it had been ransacked last night.
He bent over and upended the two drawers onto the bedsheet. A colorful pile of cash spilled out—his cash earnings for the day.
He separated the red hundred-yuan bills into one pile, the green fifty-yuan bills into another, then piles for twenties and tens. He ignored anything below ten yuan and simply pushed it to the side.
After sorting the bills by denomination, Wu Jun began the most joyful task of all: counting the money.
"12,360!" Wu Jun let out a gasp after finishing his count. Adding the more than seven thousand yuan he'd received through mobile payments, his income for the day had broken twenty thousand!
If things continued at this pace, he'd have enough for his dad's surgery and the trademark purchase in about a week!
After the excitement wore off, Wu Jun put the money away and took out the phone linked to "Resource Tycoon" to take a look.
Over the course of the day, the in-game rice production had increased by another four tons, bringing the total inventory to eight tons.
And yet, he hadn't even finished selling the three tons he had taken out on the first day!
'The ideal situation would be to sell out the daily production every day.' But for now, that was impossible.
If he wanted to expand, he had to wait until he got the trademark. He couldn't be too hasty.
If he expanded blindly and attracted the attention of the food supervision department, he would be in big trouble.
For now, he could only use the small supermarket as his "revolutionary base," developing slowly and planning his next moves carefully.
Putting his phone away, Wu Jun washed up and then made a pallet on the floor to sleep.
The next day, having learned from his experience, Wu Jun woke up bright and early.
He had already washed up and eaten breakfast by a little after five, and he opened the store for business.
Less than five minutes after opening, his first customer arrived and bought twenty-two pounds of rice in one go. An easy one hundred yuan earned.
Thanks to word-of-mouth from yesterday's rice customers, business at the supermarket continued to boom.
The morning's sales were even higher than yesterday's, with a total of 6,666 yuan collected from both cash and QR code payments.
Between 8 and 11 a.m., things in the small supermarket quieted down again.
Customers trickled in sporadically to buy miscellaneous goods and daily necessities. His real-time income plummeted, and the limitations of a small supermarket began to show.
Wu Jun thought of his mom keeping watch at the hospital and decided to just close up shop, hanging out a small sign that read, "Out on an errand. Temporarily closed."
Inside the supermarket, he gathered a pile of food and supplies for his mom.
He also bagged up fifty-five pounds of the game-produced rice.
Wu Jun planned to give these fifty-five pounds of rice to the cleaning lady who had treated his mom to a meal that day.
It wasn't that he was being stingy; with his small frame, even carrying fifty-five pounds was a strain. Any more, and he really wouldn't be able to manage it.
Carrying large and small bags and shouldering the sack of rice, Wu Jun left his residential complex and splurged on a taxi to Shimen City First People's Hospital.
Downstairs from the inpatient building.
Just as Wu Jun reached the entrance of the inpatient building, a black Honda Accord suddenly swung out of a parking spot in front of the building.
The front of the car bumped into the large bag of food Wu Jun was carrying, then screeched to a halt. The sudden stop startled Wu Jun.
"How are you walking! Did you leave your eyes at home?!"
Wu Jun had almost been hit, but before he could say anything, the Accord's driver preemptively struck, sticking his head out the window and cursing loudly.
"It's you!"
"It's you!"
Wu Jun looked up and saw the big, bald head sticking out of the car window. He instantly recognized the other man, who had also recognized him.