Lin Feng sat at the computer, scrolling through spreadsheet after spreadsheet. His brow furrowed as he studied the entries.
"This part is a little troublesome," he muttered.
Chen Ming had already done the initial filtering - removing obvious trolls, spam entries, and nonsense submissions. But some things had still slipped through the cracks. Things that required a different kind of judgment to catch.
For example, there was a high amount of "night items" entries. At first glance, it looked legitimate. But Lin Feng knew better.
No one actually wants these. At least that's what he believed. The freshmen weren't actually that much old as they had just gotten off high school. There was no way they would admit to wanting such items, not to mention wanting them delivered to them by a fellow student.
It was probably a sophisticated troll. Someone with too much time on their hands who had submitted the same thing multiple times from different accounts.
He deleted the entries without hesitation.
Then there were the genuine submissions - ones that clearly came from real students with real requests. Some of them even had quite a few entries backing them up.
But Lin Feng eliminated those too.
There's no actual market for this.
It might seem like he was rendering the entire survey useless. And honestly? He kind of was.
But that was the reality of market research. Users always thought they knew what they wanted. They would fill out surveys with complete confidence, listing items they were absolutely certain they needed.
But they didn't actually need them.
Some of these items were impulse wants - things people desired in the moment but would never purchase again. Stocking such items would just fill their storage with products that never moved.
Lin Feng continued his work methodically. Keep. Remove. Keep. Remove. Remove. Remove.
Entry after entry passed through his judgment.
After nearly an hour of analysis, he leaned back and looked at his compiled results.
The most needed items fell into five categories: drinks, instant food, snacks, toiletries, and miscellaneous daily necessities.
This was much more practical.
Things people would buy repeatedly.
He organized the data into a clean document and saved it.
Chen Ming peered over his shoulder at the finished product.
"You're quite good at this," he said, genuine admiration in his voice.
Lin Feng shrugged. "It's just so-so."
He glanced at the time on his phone and straightened up.
"I need to prepare for work," he said. "Deliver this data to Li Jun. He'll know what to do with it."
…
Wednesday, September 23rd.
[Infinite Money System]
[Total System Balance: ¥1,090.00]
[Available System Balance: ¥1,090.00]
[Personal Balance: ¥5,900.00]
It finally hit a thousand.
Lin Feng allowed himself a small moment of satisfaction before dismissing the system.
"How is it?" he asked.
Zhang Wei didn't look up from his laptop, his fingers still flying across the keyboard in rapid bursts.
"It should be fine," he said. Then he stopped typing and turned to face Lin Feng. "I sent it to you. Can you give it a look?"
Lin Feng pulled out his phone. The notification appeared almost instantly. He tapped it open and began scrolling through the mini program, testing various features as he went.
"What do you think?" Zhang Wei asked, a note of expectation in his voice.
Lin Feng's expression remained serious as he navigated through the interface. Zhang Wei watched him anxiously, wondering if something was wrong.
"It's great," Lin Feng finally said.
Zhang Wei's face lit up. "Really?"
Lin Feng nodded, continuing to explore. He noted that while the UI wasn't particularly pretty, it was definitely functional. As for overall user experience - well, Zhang Wei had mentioned this was his first time building something like this. For a first attempt, it was already impressive. Lin Feng believed Zhang Wei would learn quickly, so they could hope for significant improvements in the coming days.
At that moment, the door swung open.
Chen Ming walked in carrying a massive bag that seemed filled to the brim. Li Jun followed close behind, bearing a similar load.
"You're here," Lin Feng said, sitting up. "How did it go?"
They set their bags down with audible thuds.
Chen Ming flashed a thumbs up, his face beaming with excitement. "Everything went well!"
"The items were delivered without any issues," Li Jun added. He pulled out his phone and checked something. "I spent 1,242 yuan on inventory. Counting the 500 yuan for storage and the 500 for the marketing budget, we have 2,258 yuan left."
Lin Feng nodded. That should give them enough leeway to operate.
"I guess now all that's left is to take the site live and choose our delivery windows," he said.
"I'm mostly free in the afternoon," Chen Ming offered. "I can take that slot."
"I'm mostly free in the evening," Li Jun said.
"Then I guess I'll take the morning window," Lin Feng said. He turned to Zhang Wei. "You're free at the moment, right?"
"Yeah. My classes don't start until 10."
"Good. Then take the site live and monitor as the orders come in." He paused. "There might be some bugs you didn't catch earlier, so we can use this chance to fix them quickly."
"Alright," Zhang Wei responded.
He turned back to his laptop and, with a few keystrokes, took the site live.
…
The four of them crowded behind Zhang Wei, eyes fixed on the dashboard displayed on his laptop screen.
Silence filled the room. No one dared to speak.
The seconds ticked by. One minute passed.
Then the dashboard refreshed.
The order count changed from 0 to 1.
"We have an order!" Chen Ming exclaimed.
At the same moment, all four of their phones buzzed with notifications. They pulled them out simultaneously, and sure enough - the order details appeared on each of their screens.
Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. "Looks like we found our first bug."
"Yeah," Zhang Wei said, already turning back to his laptop. "For some reason, it's sending notifications to all of you instead of just the person who owns the delivery window." He began typing rapidly. "Luckily, it seems to be just a bug on our end. It shouldn't affect customers much. I'll work on it right away."
Lin Feng studied the order details on his phone, then glanced over at the bags Chen Ming and Li Jun had brought in. After purchasing the inventory, they had carried the items most likely to be popular so they could deliver them immediately. As for other items, they were greyed out in the app and would only become available during the evening window - when someone could retrieve them from storage.
He checked the time just as another notification arrived.
Thirty minutes remained until ordering for this window would close. Of course, customers could still place orders after that, but they would have to select a different delivery window.
The minutes passed steadily.
About half an hour later, the morning window officially closed.
Lin Feng had received five orders in total. And toward the end, it seemed Zhang Wei had successfully fixed the bug - only Lin Feng was receiving the delivery notifications now.
"How is it?" Lin Feng asked.
Zhang Wei let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair.
"There are some bugs I noticed," he admitted. "But no need to worry - they won't affect operations much. I'll work on them before class." He paused. "As for the others, maybe I'll tackle them in the evening."
Lin Feng placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Good work," he said.
He then turned toward the products and stretched his arms.
"Time to make our first delivery."