What had originally been a spontaneous act born from a sudden whim, but after tasting the benefits, Shi Xiaolei genuinely felt from the bottom of his heart that 'using portal convenience for shopping' was truly an excellent method.
He didn't have to worry about not finding what he wanted, and the prices were very reasonable too.
Take ingredients, for example.
For the same block of tofu, only a few supermarkets in New York carried it.
Even when you could find some, it was the kind sealed in plastic containers.
To extend shelf life, they added all sorts of random additives to the raw materials, so the taste obviously wasn't as pure as traditionally made tofu.
Moreover, the prices weren't consumer-friendly at all.
In comparison, if he opened a portal to Hong Kong to buy it, he could not only get the freshest products but at most it would cost seventy to eighty dollars to buy enough for a full day use.
If this were in New York, setting aside quality differences, just looking at the same quantity, the price would be at least three to five times higher.
'The only problem is this one thing, sigh~.'
Sitting by the vegetable washing sink, while busy with the work in his hands, Shi Xiaolei pondered: 'Why did I draw the Barbarian bloodline? If I could have drawn a mage class bloodline and could open portals myself, how wonderful that would be.'
Although in the game he also had a mana bar and could cast various Barbarian-exclusive skills, it was undeniable that the Barbarian mana bar had always been a weak point.
So after 'game merged with reality' this situation was reflected even more directly.
With the Barbarian bloodline comprehension ability for magic, Shi Xiaolei simply couldn't learn the most basic spell of portal creation and his pitifully short mana bar couldn't support him in training either.
After several unsuccessful attempts, Shi Xiaolei ultimately had to abandon the idea of personally learning this skill.
He had actually already guessed this would be the development and had mentally prepared himself.
But when it came to actually confirming this result, honestly speaking Shi Xiaolei still felt somewhat dejected.
'Or maybe summoning another companion with magical talent would work too. If their personality could be more family-oriented like 2B, instead of running around outside all the time like Bayonetta, that would be perfect.'
He couldn't learn it himself and as for Bayonetta, she was busy hunting interdimensional creatures to offer tribute to her contracted demons.
Going to the New York Sanctum every day to trouble Master Drumm obviously wasn't very appropriate either.
Thinking it over, Shi Xiaolei unconsciously sighed again.
"Rock."
While he was busy working, 2B lifted the curtain and entered the kitchen: "The work uniforms we ordered before have been delivered."
"Really?"
Setting down the vegetables in his hands, Shi Xiaolei stood up while wiping his hands on his apron: "Let's go take a look. By the way, haven't Claire and the others arrived yet?"
"They should be here soon."
Following behind Shi Xiaolei, 2B replied in her usual flat tone: "I just received a text from Lisa saying the three of them are on their way."
"Good."
Nodding, Shi Xiaolei came to the front hall and met the delivery guy waiting there.
The work uniforms the guy delivered totaled ten sets.
At two sets per person, these uniforms were prepared for five people altogether.
That's right, besides Shi Xiaolei and 2B, the store had added three more employees.
The store floor area had expanded by more than double, and with it came an increase in customer numbers.
During meal times, the number of customers dining simultaneously in the store was roughly two to three times what it used to be.
Although Shi Xiaolei had merged with Barbarian bloodline and had no stamina issues and 2B as an intelligent android wouldn't experience physical exhaustion either, the frustrating thing was that serving customers wasn't something that could be done well just because the two of them weren't afraid of fatigue.
After trying for two days, oversights from being stretched too thin occurred frequently.
First-time customers wouldn't directly express dissatisfaction to Shi Xiaolei or 2B—they would just silently leave, adding this restaurant to their blacklist and vowing never to return.
But the regular customers who had been waiting for Shi Xiaolei to reopen wouldn't be as reserved as first-time visitors.
For instance, Old Liu who ran a shop next door had bluntly pointed out the restaurant shortcomings without any hesitation and offered suggestions from a friend perspective.
As Old Liu said, hiring staff was imperative.
Since they had moved their home away, anything that needed to be kept from prying eyes wouldn't be done at the store anymore.
Not worried that newly hired employees would discover flaws and see through them, Shi Xiaolei briefly considered the matter before posting a handwritten job notice on the store door.
There was a high school on the street, and New York University was just a few stops away.
Even though Shi Xiaolei had limited his recruitment scope to 'students working part-time to support their studies' and hadn't thought of hiring anyone else, things still progressed quickly.
Within two days, taking advantage of breaks between business hours to conduct brief interviews with kids who came to apply, by the third day Shi Xiaolei had made his choice, selecting three from among them.
Two of them were lively and optimistic young ladies named Lisa and Claire respectively, while the remaining one was a black young man named Chappelle.
Lisa and Claire job was to help 2B in the front, handling order-taking and serving.
Chappelle, on the other hand was brought by Shi Xiaolei to the kitchen to assist him.
There was absolutely no hint of discrimination against black people—in fact, quite the opposite.
Shi Xiaolei wanted to teach Chappelle some skills, letting this young man from Hell Kitchen learn a trade so he could support himself in the future and not end up like his never-seen father—mixing with gangs and dying violently.
That's why he specifically brought him to the kitchen to assist while learning cooking skills in the process.
Of course, Chappelle had just been successfully hired and hadn't worked for many days yet.
He hadn't truly passed Shi Xiaolei evaluation, so Shi Xiaolei hadn't been completely open with him yet nor had he taken action to start teaching him cooking skills.
Getting a bit off track here.
After signing for and receiving the work uniforms brought by the delivery guy, before long the three new employees arrived at the store one after another.
The two young ladies arrived first.
"Silvia, Boss, good morning~!"
The girl with the ponytail was Claire, who had a more vivacious personality.
"Good morning."
Returning a gentle smile to the two women, Shi Xiaolei pointed to the cardboard boxes still sitting on the table: "Perfect timing, the work uniforms have arrived. Try them on and see how they fit."
"Wow~, we get to wear new clothes?"
The two women gathered around the cardboard box and found their respective packages according to the names on the plastic bags.
The base color was clean white with trim in the red representing China.
Just looking at the color scheme, these uniforms were actually quite ordinary—neither fashionable nor unfashionable.
But once they put them on, the material and style of the clothes made both young women eyes light up.
"How do they feel?"
Looking at the two women walking out of the restroom in their new uniforms, Shi Xiaolei nodded: "I specifically had someone design these, and chose relatively high-end fabric too. Calculating the cost, each set costs over two hundred dollars."
"Boss, you're so good to us. This must be the work of a professional fashion designer, right?"
Mentally evaluating Bayonetta eye and ability in fashion, Shi Xiaolei nodded without hesitation: "Indeed, it's the work of a professional-level expert."
(T/N: Like the story fellow daoist?you can read 20 chapters ahead on my P@treon [[email protected]/DaoistRongyi] Thanks for your support! 😊)