The next day, at the Financial College campus.

After the morning classes ended, the group from Room 302 conveniently had lunch at the west area cafeteria where the public lecture building was located.

The Financial College has several cafeterias, two in the east area and two in the west, along with a faculty cafeteria. Though it's officially for teachers and staff, regular students can eat there as well, just under the guise of being faculty, so it's not exclusive.

The cafeterias are privately contracted, and there is competition between them. The dishes and flavors of the east and west area cafeterias are different, so sometimes people try different ones for variety.

The food is way more diverse compared to high school, offering a dazzling array of choices.

Besides the local Zhejiang cuisine and neighboring Jiangsu cuisine, there are also the four major cuisines of Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, and Huaiyang.

Su Zelin got dishes from the Jiangsu cuisine saltwater duck, Min Nan cuisine drunken chicken, Jiujiang County's steamed pork with rice flour, Sichuan cuisine spicy beef, along with local sweet osmanthus glutinous rice lotus root and stir-fried seasonal vegetables. One meal covered five cuisines, showing his penchant for novelty.

Four meat dishes and two vegetables is quite a feast, yet it only cost three dollars and fifty cents. Prices in 2000 were absurdly low, especially in schools.

However, this situation would start to change in a few years.

As the real estate market heated up, prices in various industries, including dining, would swiftly rise in response.

At this point, one should definitely not leave money in the bank, because it devalues too quickly, and the pitiful interest can't keep up with the rising prices.

Zeng Kaiping ordered a claypot rice with preserved meat and ribs, a signature of Cantonese cuisine. This spirited young man always proudly claimed that Cantonese cuisine is the best, looking down on all other cuisines.

His thirst for novelty mainly shows in his interest in girls, which is very different from Su Zelin's all-around curiosity. That's why Yan Qiuwen believes this guy inherently craves fresh experiences.

"Ah Ping, why do you people in Guangdong Province call this claypot rice?"

Curious Cai Wensheng jokingly asked, "The name sounds spooky, almost like you're cooking kids!"

"You don't know anything. In our Guangdong Province, this kind of claypot is called a claypot!" Zeng Kaiping sharply clarified, "Don't make it sound like we're eating everything; we're not that extreme!"

Su Zelin thought to himself, you guys really do eat everything—rats, earthworms, placenta, locusts, water beetles, cow offal... Oh right, you even eat Min Nan people.

Fortunately, this joke appeared later, otherwise, Cai Wensheng from Min Nan might not dare sit next to this spirited guy.

In a past life, he got along very well with Zeng Kaiping and often went to Shenzhen to hang out. Each time, the Hed-rich would rack his brain to entertain him with exotic foods, extremely heavy tastes. Luckily, the curiosity-loving guy also enjoyed it; otherwise, others might have been scared off right away.

After lunch, on the way back to the dormitory, they passed by a computer shop. From afar, Su Zelin saw the big "Prosperous Shop for Rent" sign on the door.

There are quite a few business areas within the university, with supermarkets, snack bars, bubble tea shops, fruit shops, clothing stores, book rental stores, newsstands... These can be found everywhere, regardless of the area or on the way.

The financial college has only one computer shop, which can be said to have a monopoly.

However, despite the booming computer and accessory market, it's tough to run a computer business within the school.

Students prefer going to computer malls for their setups, thinking such small campus stores are unreliable, too expensive, with no after-sales service. Computer malls are considered more professional, with more choice options, and there's no need to worry about pricing and after-sales services.

Additionally, the shop owner's unscrupulousness, charging fifty bucks just to install a system, tarnished its reputation, resulting in even fewer customers setting up machines there, forcing the shop to survive on selling mice, keyboards, and discs, with pitiful profit.

The shop owner had long lost the will to operate, and couldn't transform into other areas due to strict regulations on the specified business scope for campus shops, which had to focus on computers, digital products, and related businesses.

But Su Zelin's grand entrepreneurial plan starts with this disregarded computer shop!

Although there are valid reasons why the computer shop can't make it at the financial college, the store owner is also quite a significant problem.

If it were Su Zelin, he's confident he could make it successful, with notably high profits.

Though the easygoing guy doesn't have a particularly strong desire to make money in this life, financial independence is a must, allowing his parents to live comfortably without so much hardship.

Besides, at school, besides campus life, having something else to do makes life more fulfilling.

This matter can't be delayed and needs swift resolution.

By New Year's, many parents will change their minds, agreeing to buy computers for their freshman kids, leading to a small peak period for computer setups. This chance shouldn't be missed; it's essential to get the shop running by then to capitalize on this wave.

"I'm going in to buy some discs; you guys head back first!"

Su Zelin told his roommates, then headed straight into the computer shop.

It was peak lunchtime, yet inside, it was eerily quiet, with no customers in sight, so idle that even flies could be swatted.

The store wasn't big or small, about fifty square meters, but it had no decoration whatsoever, very rough, with everything piled up messily, dust accumulated everywhere, unclear how long it hadn't been cleaned.

The entire store only had one demo machine. Back then, computers were still quite expensive, requiring four to five thousand for even a basic setup. With business so slow, there was no way they'd stock many demo machines, especially during this clearance and transfer phase.

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