NOVEL WEB Chapter 20 - Recruitment
The evening’s twists and turns were exhausting. After moving to Qiana Town, Ye Mu settled down and felt particularly tired when she went to bed, sleeping very deeply through the night.
The next morning, she got up intending to take a casual stroll and familiarize herself with the new town. However, as soon as she left the residential area, she spotted a newly constructed building.
This small building was next to the residential area, separated by a street. It was also two stories with a front and back yard. The building’s main color scheme was the dark black and purple of the night sky, sprinkled with irregular white dots that resembled stars.
Surrounding this building were either plain residential areas or the desolate winter mountain views. It stood there somewhat out of place yet inexplicably exuded an artistic vibe.
Ye Mu took a few more glances at this striking building and then noticed a familiar sign hanging at the entrance of the front yard: Nightfall Restaurant.
Only then did she realize that she had forgotten to take the sign with her when she moved, it was newly made by Isaac.
So… she didn’t have to keep her home and restaurant together anymore, she now had a separate workplace.
Ye Mu thought this was quite good, smiled, and walked toward the building, wanting to see if Isaac was inside to thank him.
However, Isaac wasn’t there. Only Chase, whom she had met the night before, was chatting with Jeff, who had just arrived. Jeff saw her and excitedly ran over: “Miss Ye, this new restaurant looks amazing!”
Ye Mu paused. The entire restaurant was already set up. The first floor was divided into two parts: one half was the dining area and the other half was the kitchen. The second floor was presumably all dining space.
The self-service window had expanded from one to two. On either side of the main entrance, there were their own ordering panels and counters for placing food.
Ye Mu quickly estimated that, based on this setup, the number of customers they could accommodate simultaneously would likely increase by at least three times.
…Isaac must be trying to exhaust her!
She silently complained to herself and asked Chase, “Where’s Isaac?”
“He went to promote the town,” Chase replied with a smile. “He asked me to remind you not to forget what you discussed yesterday.”
Referring to the matter of announcing the tax rates.
Ye Mu nodded and immediately headed to the office hall. As soon as she entered, she saw the panel that only she had editing permissions for.
She reached out and clicked on the panel, where the “Taxation” section read: Current tax standards have not been set, please set them as soon as possible!
After clicking the “Set” button in the upper right corner, a pop-up window appeared before Ye Mu:
“The current values on the panel are randomly pulled from other territories for your reference. You can modify them according to your personal needs.”
When Ye Mu saw this pop-up, she originally didn’t think much of it, but was shocked when she closed the window and saw the numbers displayed above.
She then realized that the territory’s taxes were divided into “personal tax” and “business tax.” The “business tax” was for people like her who were doing business, while the personal tax, from the current panel’s perspective, was collected daily per person and could set age brackets for tax exemptions.
However, the model for “personal tax” could also be changed to a proportional charge like the “business tax.”
In addition, she could choose whether the “business tax” could offset the “personal tax.” In this aspect, it seemed that in Dragon Town, it was a deductive model. Therefore, after paying 50% of her gross revenue in taxes, she hadn’t paid any personal tax.
Now, under the current tax rules, which she didn’t know were pulled from which territory, the “business tax” was set at [57.2%] of [total gross revenue for the month], which was 7.2 percentage points higher than Dragon Town.
The personal tax was set at 100 copper coins per person per day, with the tax-exempt age only up to 10 years old.
At the same time, the business tax could not be offset against the personal tax. This meant that regardless of how much business tax one paid, as long as they were over 10 years old, they had to rigidly pay 100 copper coins daily.
Looking at it this way… it seemed that Dragon Town was actually quite a decent place, right?
Ye Mu felt a wave of dizziness.
Scrolling down, she discovered even more sections that could be freely set. As the lord, she could set other types of taxes, with the amounts completely at her discretion.
This meant that as long as she was clever enough to come up with names, she could creatively exploit the residents of the territory.
How should she put it? Ye Mu felt that the tyrants and foolish rulers she had read about in history books probably didn’t have such high authority!
“This is ridiculous,” she sighed and shook her head, starting to tap on the floating keyboard in front of her. Tax laws and rates were blind spots for her in terms of knowledge, so she planned to simply and brutally apply some rules from the real world.
Anyway, no matter how you look at it, that set of rules seemed much more refined than here—these people didn’t even understand tiered tax rates!
Ye Mu first changed the model of personal taxation from “per person” to “based on income,” and also changed the collection frequency from “daily” to monthly.
Then she set the detailed numbers based on her memory.
In the world she originally lived in, no tax was paid on salaries below 5,000. The range for 5,000 to 8,000 had a certain tax rate, but what was it again…?
As someone who disliked math, Ye Mu felt dizzy at the sight of numbers, and recalling them was extremely difficult.
So she quickly fell into a self-defeating mode of giving up.
—
In Falling Sunset Town, Isaac and Jenna stood next to a fountain in the town center, with a sign erected nearby to promote Qiana Town.
“The culinary god arrives in Qiana Town, Nightfall Restaurant’s new store is grandly opening!”
“The town implements super low tax rates, all are welcome to move in!”
He had built it to a high enough level, and the sign was big and beautiful, but the passing crowds rarely stopped.
Many people had heard about Nightfall Restaurant and the culinary god from residents of Dragon Town, but very few would move just for a good restaurant.
As for the super low tax rate, they looked at the wording on the panel and simply did not believe it.
—What super low tax rate is there now? Which territory doesn’t suck the marrow out of its residents? If there really were such a thing, why was the wording so vague? If you’re capable, write out the detailed numbers!
Isaac and Jenna stood there, smiling at everyone, originally confident that people would come to inquire, but after standing there for over an hour, not a single person approached to speak with them.
Jenna gradually stopped smiling, her face stiffening as she leaned closer to Isaac and said, “This strategy isn’t working, is it…?”
Isaac felt a bit awkward and could only respond with silence.
At this moment, a notice popped up in the town.
“Dear residents of [Qiana Town], the town has just announced the tax rules. Please click to view the details!”
Both Isaac and Jenna were momentarily taken aback, then they simultaneously pressed “details.”
“Personal Taxation
Tax Collection Time: Collected monthly, please go to the tax office to pay taxes before the 15th of each month.
Tax Rate Details:
—Monthly income of 1 to 5,000 copper coins: 0% tax rate,
—Monthly income of 5,000 to 8,000 copper coins: 5% tax rate,
—Monthly income of 8,000 to 15,000 copper coins: 10% tax rate,
—Monthly income of 15,000 to 30,000 copper coins: 20% tax rate,
—Monthly income of 30,000 to 50,000 copper coins: 25% tax rate,
—Monthly income of 50,000 to 80,000 copper coins: 35% tax rate,
—Monthly income over 80,000 copper coins: 45% tax rate.
Note: This tax uses a tiered tax rate calculation method. For detailed calculation methods, please consult at the town hall or tax office.”
Further down, the [Business Taxation] section completely mirrored the [Personal Taxation section], except it changed “monthly income” to “net profit.”
This was the result of Ye Mu’s poor approach.
She really couldn’t remember the tax rates and detailed ranges, so she could only write a rough estimate.
Business tax was entirely in her blind spot, so she had to copy and paste for now, and if it didn’t fit, she could adjust it later based on the actual situation.
“…” Isaac and Jenna inhaled sharply, standing still for three seconds, exchanging glances. Jenna couldn’t help but feel excited, “What are we waiting for! Quick! Change the billboard!!!”
—
In Qiana Town, Ye Mu looked at the state of the town and realized that if she operated in the same way as before, there likely wouldn’t be any business for a while.
The current residents here were all brought in from the slums by Isaac. Although she wasn’t sure why there were slums in this world, it was clear that these people didn’t have much money. Even if Isaac temporarily arranged jobs for them at the mines and logging sites, they wouldn’t be able to afford the expensive dishes.
So…
She decided to keep things simple!
Ye Mu started experimenting with the common dishes found in the market, like fried meat slices and boiled mixed vegetables, but with an upgraded version.
For the fried meat slices, her bottom line was to first use cooking wine to remove the fishy smell, and at the very least, she needed to add salt as seasoning. Considering it was cold, she also added a little chili, although the chili here wasn’t cheap, she calculated the cost and figured it wouldn’t lead to a loss.
As for the boiled mixed vegetables, cooking various vegetables in plain water was actually quite good. Salt wasn’t necessary, sometimes, tasting the fresh sweetness of the vegetables themselves was also very nice.
However, in this world, they didn’t consider the types of vegetables when making such dishes. They could throw in carrots, radishes, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, bean sprouts, and eggplants all into one pot.
The resulting mixed flavors were difficult to swallow, to say the least, and just the sight of it made Ye Mu gag every time she saw it.
Thus, she decided to create a “refined version” to refresh her terrifying memories.
She carefully selected carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, along with green peas and corn. The carrots and potatoes were cut into small cubes, the cabbage was shredded, and the peas and corn were simply added to the pot.
These vegetables were all suitable for stewing, and when put together, they didn’t have any strange flavors. Ye Mu stood in front of the pot, meticulously simmering the mixture. As the temperature in the pot rose, the aroma of the vegetables gradually wafted out.
She couldn’t help but take a deep breath when suddenly she heard a series of urgent notification sounds.
“Beep beep beep—”
“Beep beep beep beep—”
“Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep!”
Ye Mu was startled and quickly opened the message panel, astonished to see a long list of applications to join the territory.
But in this world… the mechanism for applying to join a territory was actually quite a “formality.” Mages without territorial affiliation would automatically join a new territory as soon as they arrived. The application submitted to the lord was more like a notification, unless the lord deliberately pressed “reject” to forcefully kick someone out, whether by pressing “agree” or ignoring it, people would belong to the territory the moment they stepped in.
In other words… they had already arrived?!
Ye Mu was shocked and quickly dashed to the restaurant door. When she pushed it open, she was greeted by a crowd of migrating people!