Chapter 44: Technological Barriers

"Hey!"

Hearing the call from behind, he turned around blankly, instinctively walking back into the shop, and raised his phone to scan the QR code. "I'm sorry, I forgot just now..."

"Oh no, wait, you've already paid." The breakfast shop owner handed him an umbrella. "It's pouring rain, take this."

He looked down at the umbrella, still seemingly uncomprehending of the situation, and made no move to take it.

"It's fine, just bring it back next time like you always do. I see you around here often enough anyway."

In the end, however, he only shook his head slowly, paying no heed to the raindrops falling upon him, and walked away with unsteady steps.

"...This rain is really something else." His colleague shook the rainwater from the soles of her shoes at the doorway. "Good grief, didn't you bring an umbrella? You're soaked to the bone!"

He smiled politely. "Having one would've only kept my head dry."

"True that. Look at my pants, ugh! Wait a minute, I remember you had a car, right? Didn't drive it today? Well, it seems like you haven't driven it in ages anyway. Ah, driving is a nightmare anyway with traffic like this; you're better off walking a few extra steps and taking the subway."

The colleague chatted on by herself, not really needing any response from him.

He nodded. "The traffic is indeed heavy when it rains."

"...Did you hear clearly what I just said?" The supervisor pulled out a lighter, glanced at him, put it back, and tapped the ashtray with an unlit cigarette.

"I heard it clearly." He repeated it accurately, like a broken record.

The supervisor sighed. "This work attitude of yours lately..."

He nodded along earnestly, looking submissive and docile, which only made the supervisor more displeased and wave him away.

"...Teacher Fu, what do you think?"

Fu Lan finally snapped back to his senses. "Think about what?"

"The pricing, of course." Shi Ningyu repeated with a hint of impatience, then looked at him with a trace of unease. "Are you alright lately? If this is because of the divorce—"

"I'm fine," Fu Lan interrupted promptly.

Shi Ningyu pursed her lips, muttering "such a prideful facade" inwardly.

With a straight face, she said, "Glad to hear it. It's already been two days; this deal is very time-sensitive, and we need to make a decision quickly."

Fu Lan nodded silently. Indeed, they could not drag this out for too long.

Yet, there was no precedent for the selling price of such an item within the Demon Ash industry, and the cost of refining recipes offered little reference value.

Because recipes were inextricably bound to a chef's personal craftsmanship, and given the special nature of this trade, rather than purchasing a set of techniques, bosses were far more inclined to simply poach the chef himself.

Let alone a newcomer like him, even Shi Ningyu was unable to make up her mind.

Over the past two days, she had been sounding out peers in the industry while Fu Lan handled the cost accounting, but neither of them had been able to pin down a suitable price.

Moreover, they could not simply approach Lao Tian and offer to sell. The breeding farm had just suffered an incident, and someone rushing over to sell techniques right on the heels of it would make Lao Tian immediately suspicious.

They had to find a way to make the other side "accidentally" discover that they could safely hypnotize the spherical beasts, prompting them to take the initiative to buy the technology.

"Or how about this?" Fu Lan suggested. "We sell the technology to other raw material suppliers first. Although Lao Tian operates across the entire industrial chain, he will eventually need to rebuild his breeding farm, but that won't happen overnight. Suppliers who intend to sell materials to him in the near future might need this technology even more."

In truth, he preferred this approach; if Lao Tian found out they had come up with yet another new technology, his efforts to win them over would likely intensify.

Shi Ningyu rested her chin in her hand. "That could work. Although we'd earn slightly less, it might be relatively safer. Besides, I do know a few candidates... The real question is, how much should we price it?"

According to Fu Lan's calculations, after introducing the hypnosis technology, the savings in management costs coupled with the increased production of sphere-hounds would stabilize and boost profits by at least seventy-five percent, and with a little effort, doubling them wouldn't be out of the question.

Therefore, based on the profits this technology could generate, asking a supplier with large-scale breeding capabilities for five hundred thousand would be quite reasonable, and that was merely the net profit increase for a single month.

Unfortunately, the market did not operate in such an ideal fashion.

The so-called core technology amounted to just a single sentence. Putting aside who would be willing to pay five hundred thousand for a single sentence, such a thin patent in an environment utterly devoid of technical protection was far too easy to misappropriate and steal.

By then, the first boss to buy it would end up playing the fool, and once that happened, who else would be willing to spend money?

Yet, selling it too cheaply was naturally something neither of them could reconcile themselves with.

Simple as the technology sounded, it was enough to spark a revolution in the Demon Ash industry. At least before it was forced to become widespread and worthless, they needed to make a substantial profit.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Fu Lan asked, "Do you think anyone would accept a revenue-sharing model? Based solely on our word, suppliers certainly won't easily shell out a huge sum to buy out the technology outright.

"However, if we share the revenue with them, or even display more confidence by taking a cut only from the profits gained after applying the technology, it might be much easier to accept."

Shi Ningyu slapped her hand down on the table. "Brilliant! That way we definitely won't lose out; even if we only take a five percent cut, it's still a very substantial income in the long run!

"Of course, taking a cut from the net increase shouldn't be limited to just five percent; we'd need to take a larger share. By comparison, I think taking a percentage of the total revenue is better, while the net increase percentage can serve as a backup plan—"

"However, Teacher Lan," she asked suddenly, her voice dropping slightly, "you'd probably prefer a buyout deal, wouldn't you? Is revenue sharing too slow for you?"

Fu Lan didn't react immediately. "Not at all. If things go smoothly, this will be higher than the income we make from selling Demon Ash every month right now."

"Uh, I mean..." Shi Ningyu averted her gaze. "Never mind, it's nothing.

"That's the right mindset to have. I'm just being impatient; if we can't actually get our hands on the money, then fifty or a hundred thousand is nothing more than an illusion. We might as well choose the method most likely to succeed."

Fu Lan pretended to adjust the Newton's cradle on the desk and said nothing more.

By this point, however, he had caught on, capturing some information Shi Ningyu had accidentally let slip.

It was basically certain that during her previous investigations, she had even dug up the matter of his heart condition; otherwise, she wouldn't have made remarks like that on multiple occasions.

He wasn't very surprised by this, nor did he feel much aversion. In his past life, this kind of probing was a daily occurrence, and from Shi Ningyu's standpoint, investigating him was nothing out of the ordinary.

As long as the secret of being a magical girl wasn't breached, anything else was acceptable to him.

What was somewhat unexpected, however, was Shi Ningyu's subsequent attitude toward him.

Rather than abandoning her partner upon discovering his illness, she faintly harbored intentions of giving him a helping hand. Was she trying to curry favor with him so she could get her hands on the formula for ice all the sooner?

Fu Lan shook his head inwardly. Even if Shi Ningyu had previously made her covetousness of the formula clear, she wouldn't go quite this far...

At this thought, he couldn't help but feel that he truly let down Shi Ningyu's good intentions.

He had once tried to replicate the Magical Envoy's refining process while transformed, only to find that the casual excuse he had given before turned out to be true: no matter what he did, he could not achieve the lower-tier refining process.

And when refined at his skill level, the final product wasn't crystalline Demon Ash at all, but rather those "lime chunks" Shi Ningyu had once described.

Therefore, he couldn't help worrying whether there was some insurmountable barrier at play here—one where only actual magical girls could manufacture crystalline Demon Ash.

If Shi Ningyu were to find out that the so-called "formula for ice" did not exist at all, what kind of mood would she be in?

Still, since this layer of window paper had not yet been pierced, he might as well continue playing his part for now.