Chapter 47: You Expect Me to Pay You to Stay?

"Assistant Bai, what have you been busy with lately?"

Bai Lu stopped what she was doing and walked over to the guest sofa to sit down.

"Well, I've been busy looking for partners for our water conservancy projects."

Partners? Aren't we already partners!

"Assistant Bai, if it involves the AI field, we can deepen our cooperation once again!"

Bai Lu nodded. As a matter of fact, it did.

"Chen Xiao, to be honest, we haven't ventured much into water conservancy businesses in the past. But nowadays, water conservancy projects have plenty of funding and numerous operations, and many of them concern public safety. We cannot afford to be negligent!"

"Therefore, we want to expand into this sector. However, since competitors are already well-established here, we must rely on new quality productive forces to replace old, inefficient working methods if we want to break in!"

What Bai Lu wanted to tackle now was the safety monitoring of water conservancy dikes, including safety inspections during the flood season. These matters were all related to safety and could not be handled carelessly!

Another challenge was that traditional enterprises had been dominating this field for over a decade, making it extremely solid and stable. It was very difficult for a new enterprise to break through.

That was why she brought up the concept of new quality productive forces—allowing clients to enjoy higher-quality services for the same price, or the same quality of service for a lower cost.

The two engaged in a deep yet accessible discussion for a full hour.

And Chen Xiao actually stumbled upon a massive business opportunity.

First, traditional monitoring mainly relied on embedding sensors, but relying on manual analysis for massive amounts of data was extremely inefficient and overly dependent on experts.

Second, patrolling dikes during the flood season basically required twenty people stationed around the clock for every two hundred meters, which demanded huge investments in human, material, and financial resources.

Imagine replacing manual labor with AI intelligent analysis, coupled with drone patrols, and using AI to parse the massive amount of collected data.

That would be far more efficient and could significantly save labor costs.

Of course, while it sounded simple, implementation remained extremely difficult, involving various complex scenarios that would require research and development to overcome one by one.

At least it was feasible in theory, and Bai Lu's idea hit it off with his immediately!

This was a massive market, with China's annual investment in water conservancy exceeding a trillion yuan.

Since Chen Xiao was not a tech specialist and couldn't grasp certain technical details, he invited Bai Lu to Dr. Feng's Robotics to discuss things with Feng Feifei.

This discussion would be a massive engineering project, involving specific requirements and technical parameters for all kinds of complex scenarios!

Bai Lu readily agreed. It seemed that after the first stage of cooperation, mutual trust had been established between the two parties.

With this foundation, subsequent cooperation would naturally fall into place.

"Ding~! Task released: Open up a new business battleground!"

[Task Description: Facilitate deep cooperation between Dr. Feng's Robotics and the Jiangzhou Design Institute on water conservancy projects.]

[Task Reward: A random gift bag reward will be given based on the task completion status. The higher the completion rate, the richer the reward (50% initial cooperation counts as 100% completion).]

Bai Lu was simply wonderful. Every time he saw her, there was business and system rewards as well!

The reeds are deep and white, Bai Lu brings delight! Yes, sheer delight!

Chen Xiao laughed wildly in his heart.

Leaving the Jiangzhou Design Institute, he naturally had to make a phone call to report this matter to Feng Feifei, as this could very well lead to a super-sized project.

Feng Feifei wasn't at the company; she said she was out discussing business and would talk to him later.

Later? Well, she probably wouldn't have time to talk to him then, because he had to go on a "blind date" after work. Besides, after the blind date, he had to accompany Zhao Xiangjun. Who had time to talk about work with her?

Hanging up the phone, he headed straight back to Bihu Shuangxi. Yesterday, he had urged Zhao Xiangjun to finalize the daily necessities here.

She had taken some time during the day to select them and arranged for the merchant to have them delivered. Since Chen Xiao was free, he went to receive them.

He planned to rest here for a while and then pick up Zhao Xiangjun right before off-work hours to head straight to the "blind date" location.

Zhao Xiangjun couldn't figure out what was going on. Usually, the store manager was quite polite to her because she was the top salesperson, single-handedly responsible for half of the store's performance.

But today, the store manager cared about her even more than her own mother. Every now and then, she would ask if she was tired or if she needed to take a break, and for the first time ever, she even bought her a cup of milk tea.

With so many people in the store, getting a cup just for herself made her too embarrassed to drink it. But not drinking it would make her feel even worse, letting down the manager's kind intentions.

Leaving work on time was also a rare occurrence. The manager told her she had been working too hard lately and should go back early to rest.

Since Chen Xiao was coming to pick her up, she didn't stand on ceremony. Along the way, thinking about the manager's intensely caring demeanor, she found it quite amusing. She didn't look like a store manager at all; she looked more like a postpartum confinement nanny.

He and "Beauty Rivaling Flowers" had agreed to meet at a cafe named "Moonlight." This cafe wasn't as crowded as Starbucks.

The environment was relatively quiet, which made chatting convenient.

Upon arrival, Chen Xiao and Zhao Xiangjun parted ways. Although they came together, "Beauty Rivaling Flowers" couldn't see them together, or it would be too impolite!

However, when he reached the designated spot, he realized he had overthought it because "Beauty Rivaling Flowers" had also brought a male companion along!

Zhao Xiangjun, who was already sitting in another booth, blinked at him and smiled playfully.

"Let me introduce you. My name is Huajiao, and this is my male best friend, Bai Jie!"

Huajiao? Bai Jie? What kind of combination was this?

Judging by how spicily she dressed, her male best friend certainly didn't match the image of Bai Jie.

"Chen Xiao!" He introduced himself and sat down.

Huajiao's appearance differed quite a bit from her online nickname, but nowadays, as long as women were willing to spend money on their faces and apply foundation,

they still looked somewhat presentable. Well, she wasn't ugly!

Seeing that they hadn't ordered yet, Chen Xiao called the waiter over to take the order.

Huajiao said, "Let's make this clear in advance, we can go Dutch today."

Chen Xiao was speechless. No one was asking you to go Dutch; it was just a few cups of tea.

"It's fine, I can pay the bill directly!"

Huajiao sneered and said to Bai Jie beside her, "See that? That's what you call putting on a fake front of wealth!"

After ordering and paying the bill, Chen Xiao looked at Huajiao and asked, "Shall we begin then?"

"There is no way the two of us are ever going to begin!"

"......" Well, that was blunt.

"Chen Xiao, is it? There's no need to introduce your situation; Teacher Wang has already told me everything!"

The Teacher Wang she referred to was Aunt Wang, a colleague of Chen Xiao's parents.

"To be honest, if it weren't for Teacher Wang's sake, I wouldn't have come to meet you and waste my time!"

"You're a sales representative, right, and you just started a month ago?"

So direct? But he still nodded. That's right!

"Your base salary is 8,000, and it's going to drop to 4,000 next month?"

Chen Xiao said, "The 8,000 is true, but it shouldn't drop next month!"

"Fine, let's stick with 8,000. Now, houses in Jiangzhou are at least 30,000 per square meter. Did you know that?"

He nodded again.

"You currently have no car, no house, and a monthly salary of 8,000. Can you even support yourself?"

Great, this blind date had turned into a critique session!

"Your parents even said they could pay the down payment and mortgage for a house in Jiangzhou. Good lord, a 1 million down payment, a 2 million loan, repaid over 30 years, that's over 9,000 a month in repayments."

"If I'm with you, am I supposed to subsidize you out of my own pocket?"