164: Chapter 164 Let's first lay out a list of the future.

Seven days later.

Beining City, Chengbei Industrial New District, the temporary exhibition center for Guanghui Technology.

This place had originally been a semi-abandoned logistics distribution warehouse, with a dusty exterior that would shed old paint flakes whenever the wind blew.

But now, the interior and exterior of the warehouse had been completely renovated.

Huge glass curtain walls had replaced the original rolling iron doors, cold white light strips traced the outlines of the building, and even the uneven concrete ground at the entrance had been repoured into a smooth, expansive exhibition plaza.

Quite a few people from Beining City had come today.

Several officials in charge of investment promotion and urban renewal, bosses from leading local catering, retail, logistics, and transportation companies, and even a few expert consultants holding notebooks who were clearly here to observe, were all in attendance.

To put it bluntly.

Today's event was just a "model show for investment attraction."

And the organizer—was none other than Lu Li.

"Is he here yet?"

A vice mayor stood at the entrance and asked the staff member beside him in a low voice.

"He has arrived."

The staff member nodded quickly, "He just got out of the car, with Su Qingxue."

The words had barely left his lips.

Several black business cars slowly pulled up to the entrance.

The car doors opened.

Su Qingxue stepped out first, wearing a sharply tailored white suit, her expression cold and aloof, her aura so intense it felt like she brought a sub-zero temperature with her.

Behind her, Lu Li was dressed in an extremely ordinary black shirt and trousers, even carrying an iced coffee in his hand, looking so lazy that it seemed as if he had been dragged out of bed at the last minute for the meeting.

One cold, one lazy.

Yet, standing together, they looked inexplicably harmonious.

A local catering business owner nearby stole a couple of glances and whispered:

"Is this Lu Li?"

"He looks... not quite like what I imagined."

The person next to him also lowered his voice: "Nonsense, have you ever seen a truly capable person who walks around with 'I am capable' written all over their face?"

While they were talking, Lu Li had already walked to the entrance.

The executive vice mayor of Beining City took the initiative to greet him, smiling very politely.

"Lu Li, I've heard so much about you."

"I've finally met you in person today."

Lu Li didn't put on airs and shook the other person's hand.

"You're too kind."

"I actually don't really like going out for social engagements."

"The main reason I came today was to avoid having to attend a few more meetings."

The executive vice mayor: "..."

The local business owners nearby were also taken aback, then they all laughed.

This sounded absurd.

But somehow, coming from him, it sounded very sincere.

Yet, hearing his tone, it felt like he was joking.

Su Qingxue added calmly from the side:

"He is telling the truth."

The atmosphere at the scene immediately became much more relaxed.

After everyone entered, the doors of the exhibition center officially opened.

And then—

Everyone who caught a first glimpse of the interior subconsciously stopped in their tracks.

Because this place didn't look at all like a temporary exhibition hall converted from a warehouse.

It looked more like a small piece of a future city that had been cut out in advance.

The first thing that caught their eyes was a fully transparent automated pizza shop.

There were no chefs.

No cashiers.

Nor were there any sweating kitchen staff in the back.

There were only a few customized service units, which were clearly Robots by design, operating methodically inside the glass room.

One robotic arm was responsible for kneading the dough and stretching it into a crust.

One was responsible for adding toppings and sprinkling cheese.

Another was responsible for baking and slicing.

The entire process was clean, transparent, and precise; even the spread of the cheese was controlled as if it had been measured with a ruler.

Beside it stood an electronic board.

[Order to Serving: 4 minutes and 20 seconds]

[Production Error Rate: Below 0.3%]

[Peak Capacity per Store: 3.8 times that of traditional stores]

The catering bosses only took one look, and their expressions changed.

"This... is it 24/7 fully automated?"

"Yes."

Su Qingxue answered calmly, "The kitchen and front desk are entirely handled by customized service Robots; human employees are only retained for inspection, restocking, and exception handling positions."

"Initial labor costs can be cut by over sixty percent."

"And the standardization is higher."

A manager from a chain pizza brand nearby couldn't help but ask:

"What about the taste?"

Lu Li finally spoke, his tone still that lazy, casual way.

"Try it first."

"If it tastes bad, I'll give you the store on the spot."

Everyone: "..."

That was bold.

But it was also convincing enough.

The manager was stunned for a moment, then actually stepped forward and ordered the most basic signature item.

A few minutes later, a hot pizza was steadily delivered by the robotic arm.

He took the first bite, and his expression, which had been scrutinizing, suddenly changed slightly.

"The taste..."

"It's actually quite good?"

Lu Li glanced at him and said calmly.

"Did you think that Robots cooking would necessarily be worse than humans?"

"Repetitive tasks like this shouldn't be piled onto human brains in the first place."

With one sentence, he pierced through the entire logic of it.

The people nearby listened, and their expressions shifted accordingly.

Before they could fully digest it, Lu Li had already led the group to the next area.

The second area was a Chinese fast-food model store.

Unlike the pizza shop, this one was clearly more down-to-earth.

Fried rice, rice bowls, simple meals, stir-fries, soups, steaming cabinets, and heat-insulated delivery were all broken down into individual standard modules.

The robotic arm's wok-tossing motion was absurdly smooth, and the heat control was so precise it was as if every second had been dissected.

A local catering boss who did group meals nearby stared with wide eyes.

"This 'wok hei'... can a Robot actually replicate it?"

"Yes."

Lu Li nodded, "Wok hei is essentially a heat curve and a stir-frying rhythm, not metaphysics."

"It couldn't be done before because the control precision wasn't high enough."

"Now it is."

The boss swallowed hard as he listened.

He had been in the group catering business for over a decade and knew all too well how much of a headache human management was.

Chefs with big tempers, unstable kitchens, difficulty in unifying standards, trouble hiring in peak seasons, and inability to shoulder costs in off-seasons.

But if this system could really be implemented...

Then it wouldn't just be optimization.

It would be a complete redo, redefining the standardization process of the catering system.

Next was the third area.

An automated public transport prototype vehicle.

It was a silver-white vehicle with a sleek exterior, somewhere between a traditional bus and a future city shuttle. The sides of the vehicle lacked the obvious structure of a traditional driver's seat, and the front windshield was almost an entire continuous curved screen.

When the doors opened, the seat layout, display system, station interaction, and passenger recognition interface inside all carried a strong sense of the future.

"This is..."

The official in charge of transportation for Beining City stepped forward, his eyes already completely different.

"The basic prototype for the first batch of unmanned shuttle buses in Chengbei District."

Su Qingxue replied.

"It can link with the Guanghui Technology Skynet system, city road sensing nodes, and real-time passenger flow models."

"To put it simply—"

Lu Li chimed in, "It can judge for itself which road is congested, which station has more people, and when to add more vehicles; it even understands when to brake better than most human drivers."

The transportation official's breathing grew heavier as he listened.

"Can it go on the road?"

"On closed roads and in demonstration zones, it can be done at any time."

Lu Li took a sip of iced coffee, his tone calm, "Rolling it out citywide will take time, but the demonstration lines can be done very quickly."

Everyone had walked through the tour, originally holding the mindset of "let's see what big move Guanghui Technology is planning to make again."

But having seen this far, their thoughts had completely changed.