Chapter 947: Meeting Long Zhanjun Again!

It was already 12:30 when they left City Hall.

Declining Jiang Longyin’s invitation to have lunch together, Li Yi headed to a nearby hot pot restaurant with a few bodyguards.

It wasn’t that Li Yi didn’t want to give his second older brother, Jiang Longyin, some face; it was mainly that he could tell Jiang Longyin’s mind was no longer on him.

Ever since hearing Li Yi’s idea of treating infrastructure as a business venture, Jiang Longyin—who had been struggling with a lack of funding for Pengcheng’s infrastructure projects—felt as though a whole new world had opened up before him.

If road construction could be funded through attracting investment, then surely other infrastructure projects could be as well?

Jiang Longyin was a man of vision and even greater determination. As soon as he finished speaking with Li Yi, he hurriedly summoned the heads of the transportation and planning departments—clearly intending to thoroughly discuss the feasibility of these ideas.

As for treating Li Yi to a meal, he had really had no choice but to suggest it—after all, Li Yi was his brother-in-law and had come to offer advice. As his older brother, it would have been hard to justify not treating him properly.

Li Yi was well aware of this, which is why he had previously used the excuse of meeting with Long Zhanjun to politely decline the invitation.

The Grassland Beef & Lamb Pengcheng flagship store was very close to City Hall—just around the corner.

After getting out of the car, Li Yi looked at the sizable street-front store before him and nodded with satisfaction.

Setting aside the fact that the timing and other factors weren’t quite right, Long Zhanjun had shown real foresight in choosing this location for the flagship store.

On the one hand, it’s located in the city center, with fairly convenient transportation and a substantial foot traffic.

On the other hand, the City Hall is just a short distance away, and there are several banks nearby—all of which represent potential customer bases.

Although Li Yi hadn’t gone inside yet, he could tell from the rows of cars parked at the entrance that business was booming.

Once Zhang Ziqiang and Xiao Wu had parked the car, Li Yi led them toward the shop.

As soon as they reached the entrance, two young women in cheongsams approached them warmly, greeted them, and then ushered them inside.

Since it was right at mealtime, the restaurant was practically packed.

From a distance, Li Yi spotted Long Zhanjun bustling about the counter; he was currently helping the cashier ring up orders and handle payments.

Seeing how busy he was, Li Yi didn’t go over to find him. Instead, he had the waiter show them to a quiet private room, and they began ordering.

The restaurant’s decor and the flavors of the dishes were not much different from those of the branches in Beijing.

The only real difference was that the beef and lamb here weren’t authentic grassland varieties. Also, because the restaurant was by the sea, the menu featured a lot more seafood, and the drink selection included many local specialties, such as coconut water and Qingbuliang.

It was clear that Long Zhanjun had made significant adjustments to the menu to cater to local customers.

Setting aside the taste of the beef and lamb, the restaurant is generally quite good.

Li Yi and his friends were indeed hungry by then; the five burly young men polished off five pounds of beef, five pounds of lamb, and a large amount of fish, shrimp, and vegetables.

The only thing missing was alcohol. Li Yi doesn’t usually drink because he can’t hold his liquor.

As for Zhang Ziqiang and the others, they were on a mission and, according to regulations, were not allowed to touch alcohol.

After eating their fill, they checked the time and saw it was nearly 2:00 p.m.

Figuring the restaurant should be less busy by now, Li Yi immediately led Zhang Ziqiang into the main dining hall.

Sure enough, most of the throng of customers had left, and those remaining were nearly finished with their meals; the waitstaff were clearing the leftover food from the tables.

Since there were several tables of customers waiting to pay at the bar, Long Zhanjun hadn’t noticed Li Yi.

Once the customers in front of him had paid and left, Li Yi immediately stepped forward and said, “Check for the Chahar private room!”

Without even looking up, Long Zhanjun picked out the bill marked “Chahar Private Room” from among a dozen or so receipts and quickly began calculating.

“Hello, comrade. Your total comes to 68 yuan, 80 fen, and 5 liu, plus 1.6 jin of grain coupons. Just pay 68 yuan and 1.6 jin of grain coupons…”

As he spoke, Long Zhanjun looked up.

When he saw Li Yi standing right in front of him, he froze in surprise…

“Xiao Yi, you… how did you get here? When did you arrive?”

“I’ve been here for a while. I saw you were busy, so I ordered for myself and just finished eating!” Li Yi said with a smile.

“You should’ve let me know you were coming!” Long Zhanjun said with a smile.

“I didn’t come here specifically to see you—I was just passing by!”

Then Li Yi added, “Are you done with work? Let’s find a place to sit for a while.”

“Almost done. Liu and Huang should be wrapping things up soon too!”

With that, Long Zhanjun handed the stack of orders in his hand to the two cashiers beside him, then stepped out from behind the counter.

“Looks like you haven’t had lunch yet. Want to grab a bite first?” Li Yi asked.

“No thanks, I just ate at ten o’clock. I’m not really hungry yet!”

“Alright then, let’s find a quiet place to talk. Where do you think would be good?”

“Let’s go sit in my office for a bit. It’s quiet over there!”

“Okay…”

Then, led by Long Zhanjun, the group went straight to a room at the back of the restaurant.

It was a specially partitioned room equipped with a desk and chair, as well as a sofa and coffee table for guests. There was even a single bed against the wall, with a neatly folded blanket on top.

At a single glance, Li Yi realized that this room served as Long Zhanjun’s office, reception area, and living quarters all in one.

Clearly, for someone in his current situation, these conditions were somewhat austere.

“Have you been living at the restaurant this whole time?”

Long Zhanjun said as he poured Li Yi a glass of water, “Yeah, we don’t close until almost eleven every night, and I can’t be bothered to go home, so I just stay here.”

“How are things going here?” Li Yi asked again.

“Things are going great!”

Then Long Zhanjun pulled a ledger out of his desk drawer and said, “Here’s the revenue breakdown for the past six months across all our stores. You’re the big boss, so take a look!”

Li Yi smiled and said, “I won’t look at it. Just tell me how things are going!”

“Alright!”

Long Zhanjun then gathered his thoughts and said, “We currently have four stores here in Pengcheng: two in Bao’an, one in Futian, and one on Zhongying Street. The fifth store is under renovation and is expected to open next month.”

“After deducting all expenses, these stores have made a total of 4.6 million yuan over the past six months, with an average profit of 1.15 million per store…”

After Long Zhanjun had gone through the details of each store, Li Yi finally nodded and said, “The growth momentum is good, and the profits are solid!”

Hearing Li Yi’s assessment, Long Zhanjun didn’t show any sign of joy on his face; instead, he looked up at Li Yi.

After a brief pause, he said, “I’m sorry, Yi.”

“Why are you saying that all of a sudden?” Li Yi asked.

“When I spoke with Nana on the phone a couple of days ago, she mentioned that you didn’t seem to agree with expanding the stores so quickly. I acted on my own initiative…”

Before he could finish, Li Yi interjected, “It’s true I wasn’t entirely in favor of expanding the hot pot and barbecue chain so rapidly at first. Mainly, I didn’t want to be the one to stick my neck out—I was afraid of being the one to take the heat.”

“But now, I’ve come to terms with it. Some troubles are impossible to avoid, even if you try. Since that’s the case, there’s no need to hide behind the scenes anymore.”

If it weren’t for the old man and Chen Lao pushing him into public office, and those British bastards stirring up trouble, Li Yi might have continued to lie low.

But now that he’s firmly in the crosshairs of these bigwigs—and has even become a key pawn in the standoff between China and the British Empire—there’s nothing left to fear.

As the saying goes, when you’re swarming with lice, you don’t fear their bites. Compared to those troubles, the little issue on Long Zhanjun’s end was completely insignificant.

Long Zhanjun sighed and said, “Originally, I only planned to open one store, then head to Guangzhou to open another one there. But then Secretary Jiang (Jiang Longyin) approached me, asking for a favor—to open a few more stores. The main reason is that the government doesn’t have suitable venues to host foreign businesspeople!”

“I did share our concerns with him—including issues with hiring staff and the supply of grain and vegetables. Secretary Jiang said this was helping the government, and with the government backing us up, they’d take care of all those matters. That’s why I opened four stores in one go!”

Li Yi nodded and said, “Hmm, I see. Now that the stores are up and running, just go ahead and run them with confidence.”

“But my third older sister is due to give birth in a few months. What do you plan to do about that?”

Long Zhanjun thought for a moment and said, “Actually, I’ve been thinking about this too. It’s not sustainable for me to stay here indefinitely, so my idea is to start a company specializing in the food service industry. What do you think?”

Hearing this, Li Yi’s eyes lit up instantly…

………