Chapter 15 – The Province Is Not Enough… Or Is It?
By the end of summer, Li Ming's Italian restaurant chain had sprawled across nearly every major city in the province.
Thirty-two locations.
Half of them rented.
Half—unfortunately for his balance sheet—purchased outright.
To him, those purchases were "dead money."
To his accountant, they were "future gold mines."
The Factory That Wouldn't Stop Growing
The pasta and dough plant, meant to serve only his restaurants, had turned into the largest supplier in the province.
Orders came in from every corner: school cafeterias, small-town dumpling shops, even a local military base.
Li Ming tried raising prices to scare them off.
They just paid without complaint.
He even considered making the noodles slightly worse—until the production manager threatened to quit.
"Boss, if we cut quality, it'll hurt your restaurants too!"
Li Ming cursed under his breath.
It was like the whole province was conspiring to make him richer.
Pushing Toward Saturation
At a quarterly meeting, his operations manager laid out the expansion map:
"We're at 90% market coverage in the province. Only a few mid-sized towns left."
Li Ming leaned back.
"Then take them. All of them. I want every last town with one of our restaurants—rented or bought, I don't care."
The "bought" part worried his finance team, but not enough to stop him.
When a landlord in a prime district refused to lease, Li Ming offered 20% over market price to buy the property outright.
He thought he'd just overpaid.
What he didn't know was that the city was planning a new metro line that would run right past it.
The Burger Idea Festers
One afternoon, while visiting a new Italian branch, he saw a huge crowd outside that same American burger chain he'd noticed months earlier.
The smell of grilled beef drifted across the street.
A thought bubbled up again.
"If they're doing that well, maybe I should start my own burger chain. I can throw money at it—buy the buildings, set up an entirely new supply chain just for it. I'll lose a fortune!"
He didn't say it aloud yet.
For now, he kept the idea locked away, like a secret weapon for future financial ruin.
The Hidden Loop
Meanwhile, without realizing it, his operations were forming the beginnings of a closed supply loop:
Noodles and dough from his factory
Meats transported by his own cold trucks
Fresh produce from "short-term contracts" he signed to stabilize prices (which suspiciously looked like the start of a produce network)
If he launched another chain in the future, all the parts were already there.
Li Ming just didn't see it yet.