It was a family of three that arrived, including Darrel who Jasper had a slight memory of.
The moment they arrived, Sally immediately went over to greet them.
It was evident that the three of them felt nervous and cautious when they stood in the magnificent villa, for they did not even dare to speak too loudly.
The three of them would glance at Jasper from time to time, wanting to say something only to swallow their words back down.
“Sigh. I heard that Jasper has become an outstanding man and is earning so much money he’s making our ancestors proud, but this is way greater than what we expected. This villa couldn’t have been cheap, right?”
Darrel’s mom, Aunt Honey, spoke enviously.
Sally sat by the side, her expression filled with pride. Jasper being praised made her happier than when people praised her.
“Sigh, Jasper must’ve suffered quite a bit to earn the money he’s got today.”
“What’s the point with having too much money anyway? How can you even spend it all when you’ve made such a fortune?”
Sitting beside Jasper, Darrel carefully pulled out a box of cigarettes from his pants pocket. It was an unopened box of premium grade CW hard cigarettes.
It was evident that they had gone out of their way to buy it.
“A cigarette, Jasper,” Darrel courteously passed the cigarette to Jasper and spoke embarrassedly.
While Jasper did smoke, he did not do it daily. Seeing how polite and careful Darrel was being, Jasper took the cigarette and smiled. “What do you do now, Darrel?”
Darrel quickly replied, “I did two years of temporary work with the county government after I graduated college, but I resigned in the second half of the year.”
Jasper nodded. He was about to speak when Honey interrupted him, “Darrel just doesn’t know how to take it easy, Jasper. He has his mind set on doing business.
“He said he has his eyes on a shop in the county a while ago and now he wants to open a hotpot restaurant. Not everyone can open a hotpot restaurant, okay? But he’s just too stubborn to listen, and he even resigned without telling any of us. Now he’s saying he wants to open a hotpot restaurant or he won’t do anything else.’
Darrel looked determined. “You guys just don’t understand. I don’t just want to open any sort of hotpot restaurant, this is a special kind.”
Jasper was intrigued and asked, “Oh? What kind of hotpot restaurant do you have in mind?”
Darrel’s eyes shone at Jasper’s question. He pulled out a deck of pictures he had prepared from his pocket. Handing them to Jasper, he spoke, “This is what I saw in the large cities when I was in college. Look at them, they’re very different, aren’t they?”
Jasper took a look at the pictures and immediately had an idea.
While the hotpot restaurants in the pictures were not as systematic or standardized as they were in his past life, its trend toward becoming the country’s number one hotpot brand was already visible.
This was Hello Hotpot.
It was a brand that truly introduced the F&B industry to the concept of service first.
“You want to open this hotpot restaurant? If I’m not wrong, I don’t think they accept franchising,” Jasper asked intriguingly.
Ignoring everything else, the fact that Darrel was interested in Hello Hotpot right now had proven his eye for business.
Darrel was shocked. “You know about them too? They opened four outlets in Elden City. Have you been there?”
“Not myself, but I heard about it from a friend.”
Jasper gave a smile.
“Tell me how you plan on opening this. Will you completely copy their scale?”
