Chicken King Fast Food opened on the east side of town, at the crossroads.
In just three days, all renovations were completed.
The establishment was large, a two-story glass building with over 150 seats. Chicken King Fast Food Company's ambition was clearly immense, otherwise they wouldn't have opened such a large venue. It was likely they intended to establish a long-term presence in the town.
Before opening, Town Mayor Jiang Ye was the first customer to inspect it.
He first checked the kitchen's hygiene. All the cooking utensils gleamed; as a new establishment, any dirt would have been unacceptable.
There were only eight employees in total, with just two humans; the rest were humanoid robots. With the arrival of Chicken King Fast Food, the town's population had reached 302.
Jiang Ye surveyed the interior and approached the ordering counter.
He looked up and scanned the menu.
Chicken leg burger 40 yuan, French fries 30 yuan, Crispy half chicken 190 yuan.
Sweet rice cake 30 yuan, Skewered chicken gizzards 10 yuan per skewer, Beef roll 200 yuan each.
Cola 20 yuan per cup, Green tea 40 yuan per cup, Hot cocoa 30 yuan per cup.
The overall dining style was similar to fast-food restaurants on Earth, with slight differences that made it feel familiar.
The prices were incredibly cheap!
Jiang Ye ordered a burger, a pack of fries, and a cup of iced green tea, spending 110 yuan.
The order was ready in three seconds, incredibly fast.
Jiang Ye picked up his tray and sat at a window seat.
Under the warm yellow lighting, the burger and fries looked beautiful. The aroma wafted out, even better than what Isabelle made.
He first picked up a large cup of wet, iced green tea and took a careful sip.
The green tea flavor wasn't strong; it was primarily sweet, with a layer of ice on top, making it refreshingly sweet.
He squeezed in ketchup and ate the fries one by one.
As Jiang Ye slowly ate his fries, town residents began to stop and observe outside the window.
Their gazes were eager, clearly showing great interest in the fast-food restaurant.
After all, there wasn't much good food in the colony, and many people were tired of eating canned meat daily. Now that a proper restaurant had appeared, many were practically drooling!
However, no one entered.
A "Temporarily Closed" sign still hung on the door.
As for why Mayor Jiang could eat inside, it was naturally due to his privilege. At the very top of the town's privileged class was Jiang Ye!
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, he finished a pack of fries and then picked up the burger to eat.
Despite it being junk food, because he ate so slowly and deliberately, he gave the impression of dining at a high-class restaurant.
It wasn't that he was deliberately showing off; eating too quickly was bad for his stomach, and with so many people watching, he had to be elegant.
It took him half an hour to finish the small amount of food.
Jiang Ye put down his green tea cup, turned to look out the window, and was startled.
There were already over a hundred people standing at the intersection, forming a human wall.
Everyone faced the fast-food restaurant, their eyes fixed.
Jiang Ye checked his watch; it was seven in the morning, and most people hadn't started work yet.
The manager of Chicken King Fast Food, a Black man with graying hair, approached, bowing and smiling obsequiously. "Has the mayor finished eating? We have many other specialty dishes."
"I'm full, I ate at home before coming. Jiang Ye smiled. "I think it's good. At least what I ate tasted fine; the fries were fried perfectly, and the chicken in the burger was very fragrant. When do you plan to open?"
"We're tentatively planning to open from seven in the morning until ten at night. If sales are good, the headquarters might send more staff, and we could switch to 24-hour operation," the manager replied. "Everything is ready. As soon as you give the word, we'll open!"
"Alright, it's about time. You may open. I wish you prosperous business!" Jiang Ye stood up.
As Jiang Ye walked out of the fast-food restaurant, the manager immediately went outside, removed the "Temporarily Closed" sign, and opened the doors.
The residents by the roadside, who had been waiting for a long time, saw that it was open and immediately swarmed towards the entrance!
Within a minute, a line had formed from inside the store to outside.
Through the glass exterior walls, one could see tables quickly filling with diners, many of whom were neighbors dining together and smiling broadly. The scene was incredibly lively.
Jiang Ye was satisfied. He received 20% of the daily profit, and the busier the fast-food restaurant was, the higher his passive income would be.
After watching for a few minutes from outside, he left the intersection and returned to his base vehicle.
He sat down at the control panel and checked his account balance.
65,017,000 yuan.
He hadn't spent almost anything in the past three days, having been saving money.
Following his daily routine, he first clicked on "Construct Factory."
The military factories were the same two as before.
In the commercial factories, a new message had appeared!
[Factory Type: Hover Lamp Manufacturing Plant]
[Factory Description: Occupies an area of 20,000 square meters, includes four hover lamp assembly lines, requires 20 workers. Simple operation, workers can be on the job after basic training. Can produce 1,000 hover lamps per hour, with a profit of 300 yuan per lamp.]
[Construction Cost: 60,000,000 yuan]
[Remaining factory slots: 5/10]
Jiang Ye's eyes lit up, and he decisively clicked to place the order!
The profit in one hour was 300,000 yuan; ten hours would be three million. This factory was a veritable treasure trove!
Fortunately, he didn't hesitate. When he saw this factory information, there were still five slots remaining. By the time he finished reading and clicked to order, only one slot was left.
Profitable factories were highly sought after by everyone.
Fortunately, Jiang Ye secured one. His account balance decreased to 5,017,000 yuan, and a prompt message popped up on the panel:
[Congratulations! You have obtained the construction and operation rights for the Hover Lamp Manufacturing Plant!]
[This construction project will be undertaken by Termite Real Estate, with Xu Yan as the person in charge. She will contact you shortly.]
[Wishing you a prosperous start and early riches!]
Xu Yan's message arrived immediately; the construction team would arrive in two hours.
Her efficiency was always high.
Jiang Ye was in a great mood. With this factory, his daily passive income would reach at least 13 million yuan. Lying at home for ten days without doing anything would earn him 130 million yuan, which was incredibly comfortable!
He looked up and gazed out the window.
The sun was bright, the streets were clean, and Jiang Ye felt touched. As of today, he finally felt that life in the colony was wonderful. In his current state, with money and leisure, he could live happily even until death.
However, there was one thing he needed to figure out.
What exactly was a hover lamp?
He opened the chat channel and sent a private message to Isabelle.
Jiang Ye: "Sister, do you know about hover lamps?"
Isabelle: "Yes, I have one right here."
Jiang Ye: "Is it okay if I come over to take a look? The town is going to build a hover lamp factory."
Isabelle: "Come on over."
Jiang Ye immediately left his base vehicle and jogged to the express delivery center.
Isabelle took him to the second-floor warehouse and pulled out a dusty cardboard box.
The box was opened, revealing a small, wheel-shaped white round lamp, about the size of a small pot lid.
Isabelle turned on the small switch next to the lamp.
The round lamp immediately lit up and floated up, one and a half meters off the ground, completely silent.
Isabelle gently lifted the hover lamp with her hand, raising it to two meters high. The hover lamp quietly floated at that height, shining brightly. It seemed this item could freely change its suspended height.
Jiang Ye was surprised. He reached out and felt around the lamp, but touched nothing.
"How does it float?" he asked.
"Anti-gravity, of course," Isabelle said nonchalantly.
"How long does it last?"
"A year."
Jiang Ye's expression grew even more astonished. He was finally encountering something with a strong futuristic feel.
After bidding farewell to Isabelle, he returned to his base vehicle.
He spent the entire day searching the group chat for employees for the hover lamp factory.
For such a profitable factory, it naturally needed to operate 24 hours a day, with three shifts, requiring a total of 60 workers.
Most people in town already had jobs, so Jiang Ye painstakingly persuaded some to give up farming or animal husbandry and work at the lamp factory.
By evening, he had managed to gather sixty workers. The new factory was now set up.
As night fell, Xu Yan knocked on his door: "The lamp factory is completed."
Built in less than a day, the construction efficiency was astonishing.
Almost simultaneously, he received a message on his panel.
Chicken King Fast Food's daily operating profit statement:
A total of 312 customers dined at the restaurant throughout the day.
Total profit: 39,000 yuan.
His share: 7,800 yuan.
It was much less than he had imagined. Jiang Ye had fully expected to earn tens of thousands of yuan from this restaurant.
However, the significance of this fast-food restaurant wasn't just about money; it was primarily about improving the town's living standards.
For at least the ten minutes they spent eating at the fast-food restaurant, many diners felt as if they had left the barbaric colony and returned to urban life.
Before going to sleep, Jiang Ye decided to expand the town's scale again.
The current population of 300 people was insufficient to build more factories.
This time, he intended to take a larger step, expanding to 800 people at once, meaning an additional 500 colony officers!
He opened the chat channel, composed a message, and sent it to the public channel.
[Jiang Ye Town is once again accepting new members!]
[The town has running water and electricity, with air conditioning and refrigerators supplied. Hover lamps will soon be used for street lighting. A fast-food restaurant and a bar are already open, and several factories are about to rise.]
[Don't want to be a barbarian anymore? Come live in the town!]
[This intake is for 500 people. Apply quickly!]
After sending the message, Jiang Ye lay down to sleep. He would screen the list of new members in the morning.
He hadn't engaged in any heavy physical labor today and wasn't tired at all, but he tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep.
He was suffering from lovesickness again, his mind filled with Cen Yemeng.
Although he had only spent a few days intimately with her, Jiang Ye was utterly captivated. He dreamed of her almost every night during this period.
His mind began its usual routine of wild thoughts: How was she doing on Node Star? Had she found someone else? Would she remember me when I go there next time? Is she thinking of me right now?
In his daze, he heard a series of rapid gunshots!
Jiang Ye jolted awake and sat up in bed.
Then came more gunshots. He could distinguish the sounds of six-barreled Gatling guns and assault rifles firing in unison, interspersed with the pops of pistols. He could faintly hear shouts!
Jiang Ye quickly got out of bed. Just as he rushed to the door of his base vehicle, someone was banging violently on the door.
Opening it, he saw Shizhi Zhizi, dressed in a police uniform, looking panicked.
"Water ghosts!" she gasped, "Lots of water ghosts on the east side of town! They've landed!"
Jiang Ye's blood ran cold. He had just started to feel a sense of leisure today, and was it already over?