Chapter 74

Obtaining the Production Equipment

The afternoon flew past in a blink of an eye. Chu Tian went to Baibai Milk Tea once again after his afternoon classes.

Different from his expectations, the inside of the shop was quiet. There was only a man carrying five cups of milk tea, walking out of the shop.

Seeing Chu Tian, Li Niannian smiled and without a word and led him straight to the small office behind the kitchen.

This small office was originally the breakfast shop’s warehouse for storing flour and other goods. After some reorganisation, it was transformed into an office.

After entering the office, Li Niannian closed the door behind her before smiling and said, “Young Master, I have one good news and one bad news, which one would you like to listen to first?”

“Nian-Jie*, give me a moment.” Chu Tian said, “Can you first tell me how many did we sell this afternoon?”

(T/N*: Jie means older sister in Chinese, usually used to address a close older female friend.)

“About 300 cups.” Li Niannian replied, “This is the good news I wanted to tell you about.”

“That’s not considered a lot, though.” Chu Tian laughed, “That’s nothing compared to the 10000 cups I made yesterday. Seems like I can take a break this afternoon.”

“Hear me out first.” Li Niannian laughed as she replied, “The good news is that we’ve sold about 300 cups for now, and the bad news is, Young Master, I can conclude that you’d probably not be able to keep up with the demand.”

“What?” Chu Tian creased his brows slightly, “No, Nian-Jie, this… Don’t you think you are contradicting yourself? I can make about 10000 cups in one afternoon and you only sold 300 cups in half a day, how am I not keeping up with the demand?”

“We have only just opened for business today.” Li Niannian said, “Young Master, don’t forget that there won’t be many people in the morning. It’s really hot in the afternoon, so the students barely leave the campus. The real start begins when classes end. We are located near the campus after all, so our main target audience is definitely the students. Besides, our shop has a lot of growth potential. We have to look at our results in two days or so, not just today. I’ll say this first, in less than two days, you’ll definitely not be able to keep up with sales with this production volume.”

Chu Tian frowned slightly and said, “Nian-Jie, are you sure?”

“I’m 100% sure.” Li Niannian looked extremely certain, “I can tell by observing the situation today. There weren’t many people who came. The only reason why we could sell 300 cups was that each person bought at least 4 to 5 cups each. There was even one person who bought 12 cups at one go. Judging from this situation, there is no way we can keep up with the demand. Also, I have posted a job recruitment post online, there will be someone coming over for an interview. We have to hire more people or we won’t be able to keep up.”

Chu Tian wrinkled his brows as he thought about it before saying, “we're  producing 10000 cups a day , is that not enough?”

“Definitely not.” Li Niannian shook her head, “The number of students in the Medicine department alone is about 40 thousand. This is not including the public. If we’re to open this shop in the city centre, you’d be seeing a long queue right now. The population in this city is about 24 million. I have thought through it this afternoon, we should at least open 10 branches in the city. It’ll definitely become a trend when we expand nationally. The only limitation we have is our production, Young Master.”

“Hm…” Chu Tian rubbed his chin and said, “Nian-Jie, aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? We’ve only just sold 300 cups and we’re already thinking about expanding nationally as a chain store?”

Li Niannian smiled and said, “We’re indeed thinking a little too far ahead. I’m only envisioning the future from our current situation. We’ll still have to make decisions based on the actual situation in the future.”

“Alright, then.” Chu Tian laughed helplessly and said, “Sigh, I was hoping I could slack off this afternoon. It seems like I can’t afford to do that now. I’ll continue to work hard in the kitchen.”

“Then, Young Master, what would you like to eat? I’ll be buying takeout later, we can eat together.”

“Anything is fine.” Chu Tian said, “You can decide, I’ll go ahead and work first.”

……

Similar to the previous afternoon, Chu Tian returned to the office to eat lunch with Li Niannian only after making 100kg of milk tea powder.

“Oh right, Young Master.” Li Niannian said as she was eating, “Although I don’t know the production recipe or process, I think your method is indeed quite slow. Shall we contact a designer to design a more efficient production process for us? This may help us with the speed of production of the milk tea powder.”

Li Niannian might have only expressed her thoughts in passing, but after hearing that, a piece of information flashed across Chu Tian’s mind.

A blueprint for a piece of equipment that produces milk tea powder!

Everything from the type of materials needed, the sizes of each part, as well as how the equipment should be assembled and installed, were all clearly listed in Chu Tian’s mind.

What the hell?! Does it work this way?

He stared at Li Niannian blankly, thinking how he could have saved so much time. As long as he manufactured this equipment, the production of milk tea powder would increase tremendously. Besides, with that equipment, it would not be as tiring for him anymore.

Seeing Chu Tian staring blankly at herself, Li Niannian’s face flushed slightly and asked, “Young Master, what’s wrong?”

“Huh?” Chu Tian gathered himself and smiled, “Nothing, I happened to recall something suddenly. Nian-Jie, given how pretty you are, you must have had more than a few boyfriends in the past, right?”