The Lord’s Empire

After arriving at Holy Light City, Zhao Fu was about to go to the real estate office when he suddenly saw a player’s stand filled with realistic wooden sculptures. There were pandas, dolphins, penguins, and all sorts of other animals, and these novel wooden sculptures attracted many of the residents over.

Zhao Fu suddenly had an idea – opening a restaurant here would be quite good. He could bring over many cuisines from the real world, such as hotpot, teppanyaki, and the like. As the saying went, ‘Food is the god of people,’ so this venture could earn him quite a bit of money because the residents here did not lack money at all.

Zhao Fu arranged his thoughts and walked into the real estate office. He had brought all of the money he had, which was 103 gold coins. Of those 103 gold coins, he had obtained 45 of them from the Advanced Orc Village.

Zhao Fu bought two lots of land at two bustling streets: one was 100 or so square meters and cost 25 gold coins, while the other one was 400 or so square meters and cost 65 gold coins. In total, he spent 90 gold coins.

This was almost all of the money that Zhao Fu had. Zhao Fu knew that most players were currently quite poor, but in the future, they would gradually become richer as their economies of scale became greater.

Adding on the lot of land he had bought for Jiang Rou, Zhao Fu had now bought three lots of land. He could still buy another seven, as Third-Ranked Barons could buy 10 lots of land.

It was likely that he would be able to buy even more land if his status increased again. He could also go to Soldier Forest and Demon Tree City to buy more land.

For now, Zhao Fu would establish his restaurant and equipment shop. Perhaps there were other people who also had the idea of opening a restaurant, but they were unable to buy any land. As such, Zhao Fu took this opportunity to open the first restaurant.

He knew that Jiang Rou was planning to open a clothing store with the land he had helped her buy. She told him that she had obtained the Seven Arts Weaving Technique, which allowed her to create clothing. Even though the clothes she could make were only Normal grade, they were exceptionally beautiful and would draw many female customers.

Of course, Zhao Fu did not help Jiang Rou too much. Even though he knew that Jiang Rou would most likely not act against him, that did not necessarily apply to the Jiang family. After all, a family always placed profits first.

As such, Zhao Fu left a way out for himself. Even though the Jiang family had bought the property, it was still under his own name.

Within the Jiang family, the highest status that anyone had was Citizen, so they could not buy land for themselves. As such, Zhao Fu was completely justified in leaving this way out for himself. If they dared to try to do anything to him, he would mercilessly take the land back. He didn’t want to be someone who kindly helped someone else but was trampled on in the end.

Zhao Fu was going to use the 100 square meter space as the equipment shop after doing some simple renovations to the building. However, the restaurant’s decorations needed to be exquisitely furnished. He could fit 90 or so tables in the hall on the first floor, 12 private rooms on the second floor, and 4 VIP rooms on the third floor.

Zhao Fu then contracted for the renovations to be done for 30 gold coins. He also needed to hire chefs and waiters for the restaurant, while his own people could manage the equipment shop. All they would have to do was write out the prices and receive money.

However, running a place like a restaurant was fairly risky because others could easily gossip about it and make trouble for it. As such, apart from the manager, Zhao Fu decided to hire players.

He hung a sign outside the restaurant, seeking to hire 15 waitresses – the only requirement was that they were hardworking and diligent. Their monthly wage would be 3,000 copper coins. He also wanted to hire 5 chefs, and their genders did not matter. However, they had to be able to cook all sorts of cuisines from the real world. Their monthly wage would be 8,000 copper coins per month.

As soon as Zhao Fu hung up the sign, it immediately attracted quite a few people over. Even though the wages were only 3,000 copper coins per month for a waitress, in the real world, that would be $30,000. That sort of rate for a waitress was amazing, and it was even more so for the chefs.

Many people started to apply, and the waitresses were quite easy to select: Zhao Fu generally chose those who had good looks and were used to working in such environments. However, it was much more difficult to choose the chefs.

Even though they all said that they could make all sorts of cuisines and seemed quite professional, how could he know just how good they were without trying their food? As such, Zhao Fu took the applicants into the kitchen and asked them to cook some dishes for him to try.

The applicants all started by picking out ingredients, all of which were fairly basic, such as radishes, cucumbers, potatoes, etc.

After washing the ingredients, they started to cut them.

Zhao Fu watched on the side as the applicants quickly chopped the ingredients on the cutting boards, turning the ingredients into slices or cubes. Everyone looked like a proper chef, and at least from their skills with a knife, it seemed that there were not any scammers among them.

Zhao Fu even saw a skinny youth who had knife skills that were close to a godly level. He pressed a chunk of radish against the chopping board, and without even looking at it, his knife seemed to dance with a mind of its own… as chopping sounds rapidly sounded out, he looked as if he was a master pianist elegantly playing the piano.

Zhao Fu anticipated what his food would taste like. The youth had introduced himself as Huo Qing, and he was only slightly older than him.

Zhao Fu had been wearing a cloak this entire time, so none of them were able to see what Zhao Fu looked like. They only knew that he was a man, and all of them were quite curious towards their mysterious boss.

This was the first restaurant opened by a player, and just this alone was able to attract many people. With Zhao Fu’s black cloak, he seemed even more profound and mysterious.

Afterwards, everyone started to cook their food. Huo Qing once again caused Zhao Fu’s eyes to light up – Huo Qing flicked his pan, sending his ingredients high into the air before falling back into the pan perfectly. He lightly sprinkled some condiments into the pan, and every one of his movements seemed as graceful and flowing as water and clouds.

The most anticipated moment came. Everyone had cooked a dish and placed it in front of Zhao Fu. The 15 waitresses that Zhao Fu had chosen also stood by the side and looked on curiously. Zhao Fu was quite excited to try the dish made by the youth called Huo Qing – after seeing his skills in chopping and cooking, he was certain that his skills were master level.

Zhao Fu couldn’t help but grab his chopsticks and try the julienned radish dish made by Huo Qing.

Every strand of radish was the same size and looked incredibly well-presented. They were as white as snow and did not look like they had been cooked at all. There was a bit of spring onion sprinkled on top, giving the dish a faint but delicious aroma.

Zhao Fu picked some up with his chopsticks and gently placed them into his mouth. He slowly chewed and savored the taste when his face suddenly froze as he spat out a mouthful of radish. He completely took back what he had thought before – a professional scammer had mixed his way in here!

How could this dish look so good but be so appalling? It was neither salty nor sweet, and it was simply indescribably horrible.

When Zhao Fu split out his mouthful of food, everyone was quite surprised.

Huo Qing awkwardly smiled and asked, “Boss, why did you spit it out? Is it not to your liking? That’s a special dish that I created.”

As he spoke, he took the dish to the waitresses to try. Zhao Fu did not stop him – he wanted to see if it was just him who thought that it was disgusting.