It was already opening hours when Lu Fan finished explaining problems to Xu Ling'er. She was very surprised when she found that his way of teaching was very easy to understand and this made her very excited.
Problems that would have required her to revisit them more than three times for them to stick were easily understood and she could even ponder on them mentally without having to write them down once Lu Fan was done with them. It was phenomenal.
Being smart was one of the reasons Lu Fan was able to solve these problems, but it was mainly because he had gained a [Teaching] tag when he managed to help Xu Ling'er solve the problem she had gotten wrong.
It was a simple misplacement mistake that Lu Fan pointed out easily. He never expected that he would gain such a tag. Without wasting time, he directly bought 98 attributes and now he was pitifully poor.
He could only use the rest of the money to buy 16 attributes and increase his [Deduction +19]. It was not enough just to be a good teacher to teach Calculus I using monkey language. That was especially true because Xu Ling'er's foundation was very flimsy.
He had to start reminding her of simple quadratic equations and build her from there.
But he did not regret it.
Xu Linger was very fast and while she required a unique approach to learning, Lu Fan found that he was also learning new things as he was teaching her. The [Teaching] tag did more than just give him the experience and memories of teaching.
It also gave him a new perspective on problems. Take the Calculus Problems he was teaching as an example; the more he explained to her, the more he felt like he had done millions of similar questions and all the possible variations of the problems.
This made him very excited.
One must know that the [Teaching] tag turned in a white [Teacher] talent when he bought all the necessary attributes. Lu Fan was sure that it was leagues above the [Student] tag that Xu Ling'er had. I mean, he could teach her…
Anyway, Lu Fan had to put aside his plans and help out with handling the bills.
…
It was already closing time and Lu Fan helped his mother send out the last of the guests and then led her to rest at a table.
It was not easy handling a constant stream of customers and even with his help, it was still a demanding job.
This was especially the case since the soup base had become more delicious.
The flow of customers had increased and Lu Fan's soup base was becoming more popular as the days went by.
"Have some ginger tea."
Lu Fan said that as he brought tea for his mother and another cup for himself.
"Eh, Fan'er is something the matter? Business has been good lately and I have some extra cash if you need it. Your soup base has been selling more than the ones I make."
"…"
"I do need money, but that is not what I brought you here for. I have some ideas that might help grow the business."
Lu Fan had several ideas that he planned to introduce but they needed to be implemented slowly. If they did all of them all at once, they might disappoint most of the regulars.
Lu Fan started explaining some of the things that they could easily improve with the current model.
Something like the soup bases.
There were so many of them that Chen Lu was having a hard time preparing all of them. Some soup bases would even go un-ordered making her waste them when business closes. She could not possibly re-use them, could she?
Lu Fan managed to convince her to only set aside six standard soup bases and all other variations would only be prepared on reservation.
This would cut 50% of the wastage that the restaurant would incur.
The other issue was that there were too many customers.
Since Lu Fan had corrected and tinkered with the recipes, there were more and more people coming to eat their hotpot.
While that was a good thing, it was utterly exhausting. Chen Lu would look more and more haggard each time they closed the shop.
Lu Fan did not want that.
It would also affect the customer experience and it would not take long before people started complaining.
Lu Fan decided to raise prices for the product. And he did not show any mercy on this aspect. One serving was now 150 yuan for a standard set and the more specific the order, the higher the price.
Lu Fan even had an item that cost 10000 yuan on the menu and he was going to prepare it himself.
Chen Lu could not believe the changes that her son wanted to introduce but she could only accept them. She had tasted the item and if she had to price it, it would also be around there.
Lu Fan was sure that even if he increased the price, there would be people wanting to try it. He just settled on that price because it would be easier for his mother to accept.
The other thing that Lu Fan introduced was boxed lunches.
Boxed lunches were going to be a very lucrative business after the Food Safety Law would be passed soon. The law which had been drafted for 5 years now, was going to have strict restrictions on institutions like schools and other cooperate institutions, and it was going to be cheaper and less risky to outsource boxed lunches than to cook for themselves.
Lu Fan had wanted to start preparing on his own and separate that business from the hotpot joint, but he changed his mind soon after. It was just too much work and it required a lot of attention.
His age was also another matter.
It was better to have his mother do all that. And now that he had the [Teacher] talent, it would be easier to teach her about a number of things that would help her.
But before that, he managed to convince her to start selling boxed lunches to Internet Cafes and other such places like libraries.
It was tedious for Otakus and Gamers to go far from their computers just for food. Why not bring food close to them?
Lu Fan even assured her that he would be the one to ready the market for her. And that was exactly what he planned to do.
It was impossible to monopolize this business model, but it was not impossible to bind a couple of establishments for 3 months until the food safety law passed.