Chapter 417: Let You Open a Food Shop, You Open for Business at Three in the Morning

·

·

·

Protagonist:

Lu Feng

After the program aired, on Saturday and Sunday, many voices questioning the prices of Lu Family Restaurant's dishes appeared on social platforms.

After these complaints were posted, they were quickly forwarded again and again, with traffic exploding.

Many netizens posted price lists from other shops for comparison: "I'm from Mo Du. Here, street restaurants like this sell a big bowl of beef noodles for thirty-one yuan, but his shop dares to sell noodles for sixty-something or eighty-something? Jiangcheng is just a third-tier city—are prices higher than Mo Du?"

"I'm from Deep City. Pig Trotter Noodles here cost twenty-something yuan per portion, but his sells them for eighty-eight? I suspect I'm not in the real Deep City! Selling more expensively than us in a small city? Simply outrageous!"

"I suggest this restaurant just change its name to Lu Family Luxury Goods Restaurant!"

"This boss looks decent enough, but I didn't expect his heart to be so black! Selling things so expensively, and he still has the face to go on TV? Truly, no merchant without cunning!"

"I heard this boss drives a Maybach. Tsk tsk tsk, no wonder this home cooking sells so expensively—he must be factoring the cost of his luxury car into the prices, right?"

"We ordinary commoners can't afford this kind of sky-high home cooking. Anyone who goes to eat there is purely asking to be a sucker. If you have money with nowhere to spend it, you might as well donate it to people in need!"

There were also not a few voices supporting Lu Feng online. Facing the overwhelming questioning voices, they were not willing to be outdone.

Diners who had been to Lu Feng's shop all came forward to speak.

Some posted close-ups of dishes from Lu Feng's shop and mentioned that the tea eggs were boiled with top-grade Qimen Black Tea.

Others mentioned Lin Xi, saying Lu Feng's culinary skill could make even anorexia patients open their mouths to eat, and this skill was something no chef in the whole country could guarantee achieving.

Some also posted photos of the long queue at Lu Feng's shop entrance that stretched out of sight and the hall packed full, saying if Lu Family Restaurant were really a black shop, how could there be so many people queuing every day to eat.

The opposing voices online naturally thought they were exaggerating, after all, those things really seemed outrageous in their eyes.

The two sides argued incessantly in the comment sections of various videos, and the main battlefield was naturally the official account of "Late Night Food" Program.

However, this verbal battle triggered by the dish prices at Lu Feng's shop not only failed to cool down the program, but instead raised the anticipation for "Late Night Food" to a new level.

Many people who had originally not watched the program even specially re-watched these past episodes because of this controversy.

There were also other self-media people who smelled the huge traffic brought by this debate, and they all reposted this argument, letting the topic continue to ferment over the weekend.

In the current online environment, foodies and appearance-focused fans were originally two groups with quite large numbers.

And Lu Feng happened to possess both: his culinary skill could trigger foodies' most primal desire to eat through the screen, and his looks could pique the aesthetic tastes of many appearance-focused fans.

This double attraction made many people question the prices on one hand, yet couldn't help but pay attention to the "Late Night Food" program on the other.

More importantly, when last Friday's final episode ended, host Han Lu smiled at the camera and announced: "Next Monday at ten-thirty in the evening, we will launch an exclusive special interview on Lu Family Restaurant. At that time, we will bring everyone to understand the views of diners eating at Lu Family Restaurant and nearby merchants on the price issue that everyone cares about most recently."

This instantly ignited the audience's enthusiasm, with everyone looking forward to the next episode.

Such attraction quickly radiated to cities around Jiang City.

Therefore, when Lu Feng's shop opened for business this Monday evening, many new customers from out of town were added to the queue at the shop entrance.

These included not only ordinary diners who were interested due to the online debate over the weekend and wanted to come to the shop to try it themselves.

There were also many mukbang influencers with a keen sense for hot topics and traffic.

You know, influencers like Xiao Feilong Gu Manman who discovered Lu Family Restaurant earlier—now which one of them hasn't gained over ten thousand followers?

They naturally wouldn't let go of this huge wave of traffic.

Among these influencers who came, there was a girl who was rather special.

The girl coming to Lu Family Restaurant today was different from those food bloggers; she wasn't here just to eat and gain followers.

The girl wore a white T-shirt and denim shorts, with a black duckbill cap on her head. Her clothing and appearance looked very ordinary, just like an ordinary female university student coming to eat.

Actually, this girl was a well-known anti-fake blogger on the short video platform. Her nickname on the short video platform was "Xi Xi Reviews," and she had over two million followers online.

Although Xi Xi was an anti-fake blogger, she was different from those two anti-fake bloggers who had previously come to Lu Feng's shop.

Although she exposed counterfeit and inferior products online, she would never deliberately smear merchants for traffic, nor would she, like some peers who deliberately blew things out of sight to attract attention and nitpicked, use videos taken out of context to mislead fans.

Every one of her reviews strived to be fair and just. She did enough homework in advance, personally experienced a product for a period of time, and spoke with facts.

Once she discovered a product had problems, Xi Xi would produce solid evidence. First, she would communicate with the merchant, point out the problem, and also give the merchant a chance to explain and improve.

Only those stubborn merchants who refused to admit it would she make a video calling on fans to avoid the pitfall, and she would also blur key information, not infringing on the merchant's privacy.

At the same time, she would also recommend corresponding substitutes to fans. These were all products she had long-term reviewed and felt satisfied with herself before recommending them to fans.

Basically, no one who bought things through her recommendations had stepped in a pit.

Therefore, on the anti-fake blogger track, she was still relatively well-known.

Xi Xi appearing at Lu Family Restaurant this time could be said to be somewhat coincidental.

Since the "Late Night Food" program aired, the dish prices at Lu Family Restaurant had become the focus of heated debate online.

Xi Xi also had some local fans from Jiang City, among them were diners who had been to Lu Feng's shop and eaten there.

Previously, when she was livestreaming, some people in the livestream room discussed the recent dish price controversy at Lu Family Restaurant, and soon the two sides started arguing in the livestream room, almost causing her livestream room to be shut down.

Originally, Xi Xi was not very interested in food anti-fake work.

But many fans hoped in the livestream room that she could come to Lu Family Restaurant to expose the fake, revealing the sky-high dishes in the shop.

And Lu Feng's diners were not at all afraid. They strongly recommended the dishes in Lu Feng's shop and also hoped she would come to Lu Family Restaurant to taste them, so that those people questioning the dish prices would shut up.

The two sides in Xi Xi's livestream room refused to give in to each other. To calm the conflicts among fans, Xi Xi agreed to come to Lu Family Restaurant in Jiang City on Monday to do a livestream.

At this moment, Xi Xi stood among the queuing diners, slowly walking toward the shop with the line.

Her big eyes rolled around, her gaze full of curiosity, constantly sizing up the diners around her and the shop door right before her eyes.