With a clear training plan in place, football practice gradually got on track.

Lin Wanxing didn’t actively participate too much since she still had to work. This was something she always emphasized to her students—she wouldn’t constantly watch over and supervise them, but she would provide help when they needed it.

The students thought this arrangement was great.

For instance, when they needed it, they could naturally treat the sports equipment room as a recycling warehouse.

Lin Wanxing watched helplessly as bag after bag of waste plastic bottles and cans were dragged into the small storage room. Not only could she not object, but she also had to help the students hide them carefully to prevent other students coming to borrow sports equipment from seeing them.

Just like thieves.

By the evening of the 4th day of their money-making plan, the students’ daily total income had exceeded 900 yuan.

Moreover, Chen Weidong had returned to practice hurdles due to track team training. This meant that with just 10 people, while also managing their training, the students each earned 90 yuan.

This calculation left Lin Wanxing quite shocked.

After studying their accounts, she discovered that recycling waste was the students’ main source of income, with hauling construction waste for renovation teams taking second place. Chen Jianghe and the others had also earned money moving large furniture upstairs—all honest, hard-earned money.

With some initial capital, the students’ minds became more active.

Because the recycling price for mineral water bottles was too low, Qin Ao, Chen Jianghe, and others responsible for the campus team, after accumulating enough money from buying recyclables, began to entertain the idea of starting a small business.

Simply put, it was still Qin Ao’s original plan.

But they changed their approach, deciding not to negotiate with business owners, but instead to offer purchasing agent services.

The key point of being a purchasing agent was having capital on hand. Previously, the students had no money, but now with initial funds, they could continue with this plan.

At the beginning of the business, no one could be sure what would sell well, but food delivery was the least likely to go wrong.

Of course, the delivery service provided by the students was somewhat different from ordinary food delivery.

First, regular delivery services couldn’t enter the school.

Even teachers like Lin Wanxing had to pass through the school’s small grove and run to the barrier at the back gate to get milk tea. For ordinary students with shorter break times, it was impractical to sprint to the school entrance to get deliveries.

Second, regular delivery services require waiting time. Even if someone wanted to order food at noon, they would often encounter time gap problems such as the delivery person being unable to deliver on time or not having time to pick up the food during class.

Based on the shortcomings of regular delivery services, the service Qin Ao provided was simple—a menu of famous local snacks and milk tea shops nearby, allowing customers to order in advance. They guaranteed delivery to the classroom by the next break. And their 2 yuan delivery fee per order was significantly cheaper than the standard 4 yuan.

At first, the students’ delivery business had somewhat of a forced sales nature.

Lin Wanxing became the first victim—no, the first person forced to place an order.

She ordered watermelon juice, two servings of fried tenderloin, one fried chicken leg, a platter of vegetable fritters, and a coffee jelly milk tea, large cup, no ice, three-tenths sweet.

The students were shocked when they read her order—”Are you a pig?”

Without saying a word, Lin Wanxing opened WeChat, selected transfer, and turned her phone around to show a payment interface with a 50 yuan transfer.

The students’ expressions immediately changed.

“Teacher, would you like to order anything else?” Qin Ao asked with bows and nods.

Extremely flattering.

Initially, Lin Wanxing wasn’t optimistic about the students’ delivery business.

First, the delivery business itself required strong coordination and planning abilities, backed by mathematical logic. Second, the freshness of goods would change over time, inevitably leading to disputes between buyers and sellers, which seemed troublesome.

However, when she sat in the small storage room, enjoying the electric fan and drinking the ice-cold watermelon juice delivered by Qin Ao, she realized that issues like whether the watermelon juice was cold enough could be ignored.

Not having to go through the small grove under the hot sun to get deliveries herself was too comfortable, and the 2 yuan delivery fee was 2 yuan less than Ele.me, making it worthwhile!

Thus, Lin Wanxing became the most loyal customer of the purchasing agent business.

However, the students’ business development capability exceeded Lin Wanxing’s expectations.

By the second day of Qin Ao’s delivery business at Hongjing No. 8 Middle School, she could no longer get watermelon juice.

According to Qin Ao, Feng Suo’s class beauty, Miss Bao Xiaotian, had ordered 10 cups at once at 2 yuan each to treat her girlfriends.

Through word-of-mouth promotion from beautiful girls, students came flocking to Qin Ao to order iced watermelon juice. Qin Ao was overwhelmed with orders just for watermelon juice alone.

Qin Ao and Chen Jianghe ran around sweating profusely. According to them, the process of picking up and delivering food could double as variable-speed running. Running up and down stairs enhanced their starting power and explosiveness—normally they would need to wear a weighted vest for this, but carrying loads of takeout saved them the need for extra weights. Having to rush to keep the watermelon juice cold also trained their upper body strength, making it more interesting than running on the plastic track.

Lin Wanxing thought that the students might just be encouraging themselves, but being able to self-regulate mentally and maintain an optimistic attitude toward many things was very important.

In one day, Qin Ao and Chen Jianghe sold over a hundred cups of watermelon juice at school. Due to the large volume, they negotiated a discount with the juice vendor, and including the delivery fees plus the money from selling fritters, they earned nearly 800 yuan in a day.

Feng Suo, Zheng Feiyang, and Lin Lu’s team, who were responsible for collecting cardboard, also changed their core business.

It wasn’t because collecting cardboard was too hard, but because the students discovered that many people engaged in this activity were elderly people with no income or low income. After earning enough initial capital, they didn’t want to compete with grandfathers and grandmothers for cardboard and plastic bottles anymore.

Some from the recycling team planned to switch from the recycling market to selling cotton candy at the school gate, while others got a small cart to clear construction waste from renovation households in the new residential area.

These were things Lin Wanxing heard them discussing after training one day.

Lin Lu found a second-hand pedal cotton candy machine at the recycling station.

The owner said there was a small problem with the machine but guaranteed to fix it for them. He offered to sell it to them for 200 yuan after repairs, which the students found very tempting.

For this reason, they specifically researched the cost of selling cotton candy online. A pound of white sugar costs just over 5 yuan and could make 50 cotton candies. If each sold for 5 yuan, selling a pound’s worth would recover the cost of the machine, making it a profitable business.

Lin Lu and his team were action-oriented. While deciding to collect cardboard for one more day, they also went to investigate the cotton candy market.

On the first evening, Lin Lu and his team set up their stand at the elementary school gate, but sales weren’t ideal. Elementary school students didn’t have much pocket money, and parents picking up their children would think cotton candy was too sweet right before dinner. So, the city park on weekends became their main target.

The Youth Palace was more suitable than the elementary school gate because parents taking their children to extracurricular classes would always agree to some extra requests from their children as rewards.

Not only that, Lin Lu and his team replaced the traditional bamboo sticks with long Kanlego sticks—a type of puffed food. This increased the cost somewhat but eliminated safety risks for young children. It also made them stand out among their cotton candy competitors.

The cotton candy business reached its peak the following day, which happened to be a weekend.

According to Lin Lu, they sold in the park in the morning, moved to the Youth Palace gate around noon when classes were about to end, relocated to the small amusement park entrance in the afternoon, and then moved to another Youth Palace in the evening. After such a busy day, their daily turnover reached the enormous sum of 2,000 yuan.

By the fourth day before Wang Fa’s departure, the student’s cumulative total income had reached 4,134.5 yuan.

Earning a lot of money was a good thing.

But what Lin Wanxing hadn’t expected was that the boys, having earned their own money, had all become penny-pinchers.

Moreover, their greatest daily pleasure was sprawling on the rooftop after evening training to count their money.

The late autumn weather was clear, with a gentle evening breeze floating across the rooftop.

After a hard day’s work, the boys argued and made noise, leaning on each other, huddled in a corner of the rooftop.

Nowadays people used WeChat for payments, so there wasn’t much cash, but even those few bills were all cherished and kept in a small plastic bag.

Everyone was inexhaustibly enthusiastic about counting money. When one person finished counting, another would grab the money to count again.

Soon, the pile of small bills reached Yu Ming’s hands.

Qi Liang, bored with nothing to do, started whining—”Teacher, do you have that kind of drink?”

“What kind of drink?” Lin Wanxing asked.

“You know, that cool, sweet drink that makes you burp after one sip.”

It was rare for Qi Liang to act cute, nagging in hopes of getting free drinks from her refrigerator.

“No, no, why don’t you buy your own?” Lin Wanxing was speechless.

“It’s too expensive! Coca-Cola costs three yuan a can. Only rich people like you, Teacher, can afford it,” Qin Ao chimed in, raising his voice and speaking sweet words.

Lin Wanxing shuddered with goosebumps, went back inside, and brought out an electric kettle.

She carried the kettle, poured a little hot water into each boy’s sports bottle, the scalding water gurgling down…

“Woman, you’re too cruel!”

“You could at least let it cool down before giving it to us!”

The boys started shouting.

“Keep it down, or I’ll get complaints from the old lady downstairs again,” Lin Wanxing quickly said.

“No no no, I’m thirsty and want a cool drink,” Lin Lu continued shouting.

“I don’t have any in my fridge,” Lin Wanxing said helplessly.

As she spoke, she looked toward Wang Fa. If she remembered correctly, she had seen Wang Fa buy many drinks from the small shop downstairs yesterday and put them in the refrigerator.

Following her gaze, all the students looked at Wang Fa together, eyes expectant. Lin Lu even made a pleading gesture.

Wang Fa—”Go get them.”

With a whoosh, the students immediately sprang up, cheering loudly.

Seeing the group squeezing into Wang Fa’s room, Lin Wanxing feared she’d miss out—”Save me a bottle of Coca-Cola!”

She called out.

Qin Ao, after licking the last drop of Sprite, skillfully placed the plastic bottle on the ground, stepped on it to flatten it, and said—”Teacher, do you and Coach have plans tomorrow?”

Tomorrow was Sunday, and Lin Wanxing didn’t have to work, but Qin Ao asking like this meant trouble.

“What are you planning to do?” Lin Wanxing asked cautiously.

“Tomorrow we’re planning to set up a stall at Hongjing Park. Why don’t you and Coach come? You two can be our performers,” Qin Ao said.

“Performers?” Wang Fa asked with interest.