"Boss, your snails are cooked very well, but the chopsticks are too soft and not easy to use."
The stall owner chuckled a couple of times sheepishly. "No choice, it's a small business, please bear with it."
Li Hao Chen felt the timing was right. He took out a large pack of chopsticks from beside him and said sincerely, "Boss, I also run a chopstick factory. These are our products. Can you take a look at mine?"
The stall owner wanted to refuse, but Li Hao Chen had just spent money at his stall, and felt it wouldn't be right to do so. He picked up a pair and looked at them. They were indeed much better than the ones he had bought.
"Boss, your chopsticks are really good, but..."
"Brother, if my chopsticks are the same price as yours, what do you say?"
"Really?"
The stall owner was clearly tempted. Many customers had already mentioned the chopsticks, but replacing them would increase costs. Although it was only a small amount, it would add up over time.
"Honest dealing, no deception."
The stall owner opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked at the pack of chopsticks on the table, becoming a bit cautious. "Young man, you see my small business, I rely on it to support my family. If anything goes wrong, it'll be the end. Are your chopsticks hygienic?"
Li Hao Chen had already considered this question. He immediately took out photocopies of all the factory's licenses and permits, along with scanned copies, and showed them to the stall owner.
"Brother, it's a legitimate factory, registered. You can check online, absolute guarantee."
Seeing that the stall owner was still hesitant, Li Hao Chen took out three packs of chopsticks and put them on the table, one hundred pairs per pack.
"Brother, how about this, you try these first. If you think they're good, contact me. How about that?"
"Alright, I'll try them out first."
They added each other on WeChat, and the stall owner got busy. This was the busiest time of the night, and he couldn't afford to be careless.
Li Hao Chen naturally moved on to other stalls.
Throughout the night, a whole carton of chopsticks was distributed. Li Hao Chen's stomach was almost as big as a seven-month pregnant woman's. He had done a professional job of sales. It was hard work, but there were rewards.
He reached cooperation agreements with a stall selling spicy hot pot and another selling beef offal. Looking at their business, it was decent, consuming about four to five hundred pairs a night.
Although it was a small amount, even mosquito legs were meat. He understood the principle of accumulating small amounts to make a large one. What about ten or a hundred stalls?
After this night, Li Hao Chen had his schedule fully booked.
He ran along the main streets in the morning, darted into alleys at night, and in the afternoon, he entered his space to cultivate seedlings and prepare bamboo poles. Every day was incredibly fulfilling.
One day, Li Hao Chen was promoting chopsticks on the main street. After successfully securing a breakfast stall, he was happily drinking Vita-Milk and eating rice noodle rolls.
Huang Haibo's call made him jump up from his stool in surprise. "It's completed? That's great..."
After paying, Li Hao Chen stopped his promotions and sped towards Butterfly Bay at 25 miles per hour.
Upon returning to the village, he parked his car in a random spot and hurried towards Butterfly Bay. As soon as he entered the gate, he slipped into his space and brought out his snorkeling gear.
Li Hao Chen now stored these commonly used items in his space for easy access.
After putting on his gear and entering the bay, the turbidity caused by the construction had cleared up, returning to its original clarity. Due to the receding tide, the stainless steel guardrail about a hundred meters away was exposed quite high up.
Li Hao Chen slowly walked into the water. When the water reached his waist, he plunged into the sea with a "plop." A hundred meters was only a few minutes for Li Hao Chen.
However, Li Hao Chen didn't swim in a straight line. Instead, he dived deep and moved slowly.
It took him about half an hour to swim to the long and high stainless steel guardrail. He was surprised to find not a single large fish, only a few barracudas the size of his little finger.
"Could the construction have scared all the fish away?"
After much thought, this seemed like the most likely reason.
Li Hao Chen followed the guard net, carefully inspecting the condition of each cage opening. This was a huge task. The guardrail for the entire Butterfly Bay had nearly 200 cage openings installed, and each opening was fitted with an bait box, designed for the spatial divine bait.
Twenty acres of fish traps! Just the thought made him excited. Although there were many boats coming and going in the outer sea, some lucky ones always managed to escape and end up here.
As Li Hao Chen inspected the cage openings and reached the end, a sea bass about ten centimeters long swam into a cage opening in front of him. This was a good sign, entering but not exiting, like a mythical creature that hoarded wealth.
To fill these two hundred bait boxes with mussels was a time-consuming and labor-intensive project.
Li Hao Chen dived to the seabed and entered his space. He walked to the reef area, broke off several kilograms of mussels, and used a fist-sized rock to smash all the mussels.
Carrying these mussels out of his space, he put a small handful into each bait box until he ran out of mussels. Of course, Li Hao Chen wasn't foolish enough to fill all the bait boxes.
Without any boats, filling over 200 bait boxes with mussels would take at least half a day.
Looking at these dozen or so caged openings that had been baited, he felt a sense of anticipation. It would be great if there was a monitoring system.
Li Hao Chen waited in the water for about fifteen to sixteen minutes. The mussel meat had already started its magical effect. During this time, he saw several black porgies, three to four fingers wide, swim into the few cage openings nearby.
The effect seemed very good. This way, he might be able to catch a lot by simply waiting by the trap every day.
After watching for a while longer, Li Hao Chen swam back to shore. He noticed that many sea snails had climbed onto the rocks and decided to pick them up to breed in his space after lunch.
Back at the villa, he took a shower and then started cooking instant dumplings. Eating alone at home was simple.
After resting for nearly an hour, Li Hao Chen's figure was busy again in Butterfly Bay. He sat on the rocks on the upper edge to rest only when the sun was about to set.
The harvest this afternoon was quite good. He collected over ten kilograms of sea snails. In fact, he could have collected more, but Li Hao Chen only picked the smaller ones. The larger ones were left there, so in a while, there would be more small snails to pick.
He couldn't repeat the mistake of his last visit, when he cleared out everything, and it took several months for the area to recover.
"Now, the fishing bait will be added to my schedule."
From then on, Li Hao Chen began his busy life of working from sunrise to sunset.