Zhu Xiaocai whispered to Wang Xiaobin: “Mr. Pei is truly amazing. He can actually turn suffering into an industry? Could it be that we wronged Brother Bao? Was Bao Xu genuinely trying to build a legitimate business?”
Wang Xiaobin snorted: “Even if we wronged someone, we wronged Mr. Pei, not Bao! How could someone as petty as Bao Xu conceive of turning the Suffering Journey into an industry? I think that’s giving him too much credit. It’s all thanks to Mr. Pei’s foresight.”
Zhu Xiaocai nodded: “Hmm, that’s a fair point.”
“Looking on the bright side, this is good news for us. After all, we were going to suffer anyway, but now we can also get a Sufferer title and some benefits. Rounding up, it’s like getting something for free!”
“But I’m still confused—where did all these people registering come from? Although the ‘Sufferer’ title and those benefits are quite attractive, fifty thousand yuan is still a substantial amount, and suffering for two months is no joke. There shouldn’t be so many people rushing to sign up, right?”
Wang Xiaobin shook his head slightly: “You’re asking something beyond my knowledge now. If I knew the answer, I’d be at Mr. Pei’s level.”
Zhu Xiaocai thought for a while but couldn’t come up with a particularly convincing reason, so he had to give up for now.
At the same time, he silently marveled that Mr. Pei truly deserved his reputation—his business acumen was unmatched!
…
Meanwhile, in the president’s office at Tenda Group.
“No, where did all these people registering come from?”
“How the hell could it be fully booked? Are these people crazy? Is something wrong with their brains?”
“Fifty thousand yuan for two months of suffering? Too much money to burn?”
“If you think you have too much money, you can transfer it to my personal account! What’s the point of giving it away to Tenda for nothing?”
“Ah, this is really infuriating!”
Pei Qian was absolutely livid.
Everything had been fine in the morning, but just a few hours later, the situation had undergone an earth-shattering change!
Pei Qian had been happily waiting for the Suffering Journey to fail to fill all its spots. That way, he could either arrange for more Tenda Group employees to join, or form smaller groups—either way, it would burn more money.
But he never expected it to be fully booked!
And with the current numbers, not only could they not burn less money, they might even need to consider expanding the scale of the Suffering Journey.
They couldn’t really make people wait a whole year, could they?
“This won’t do. I need to call Bao Xu and ask what’s going on.”
“Has he been doing something shady behind the scenes to cause this outcome?”
Originally, Pei Qian had trusted Bao Xu a lot, since Bao Xu had reported the price increase and the “Sufferer” title in advance. Pei Qian felt that Bao Xu wasn’t like other department heads who always hid things, and that he was trustworthy.
But the problem was, just these few changes shouldn’t be enough to make the Suffering Journey fully booked, right?
There must be some hidden reason—a reason he didn’t know about.
The key question was, was this a coincidence, or did Bao Xu do it deliberately?
If it was the former, then so be it. But if it was the latter, then Bao Xu might appear loyal on the surface but was actually quite devious inside. Pei Qian wouldn’t mind adding more difficulties to the Suffering Journey and letting Bao Xu take the lead as the person in charge.
Soon, the call connected.
Bao Xu’s surprised voice came from the other end: “Oh? Mr. Pei, I was just about to call and report to you.”
“The Suffering Journey here received a big order.”
Pei Qian was taken aback: “Hmm? What big order?”
Bao Xu explained: “It’s like this: Mr. Zhou from Tianhuo Studio said he wanted to arrange a Suffering Journey for his employees, and I offered a friendly price—half off.”
“I originally thought it was just a few people, but then Mr. Zhou said that the entire ‘Bullet Mark 2’ project team would be coming! More than a hundred people, and that’s just the core development members of the project team, not counting the peripheral members.”
“This discount suddenly became a bit too much, so I was just about to report it to you.”
Hearing this, Pei Qian’s face lit up with joy: “Oh? No problem!”
“Mr. Zhou is an old friend of ours, so giving a discount is reasonable!”
“In the future, you can make these discount decisions yourself. No need to report to me.”
After hearing Bao Xu’s explanation, Pei Qian’s mood instantly improved.
No wonder the 200 spots filled up so quickly—Tianhuo Studio had taken more than a hundred in one go!
If it was just a friendly gesture of support, then there was no need to worry too much.
After all, there were only so many companies with close ties to Tenda. Even if there were occasional instances of friendly support, it probably wouldn’t last long.
Zhou Muyan surely wouldn’t keep sending his employees to the Suffering Journey over and over again, right?
That would be too inhumane. Even Pei Qian himself couldn’t do such a heartless thing.
Moreover, these people weren’t paying the full price but a friendly half-price.
At twenty-five thousand per person, the Suffering Journey would definitely be losing money. Although the amount lost might not be significant in the grand scheme of the Suffering Journey, losing money was always a good thing!
Bao Xu continued: “Alright, Mr. Pei. Then I’ll arrange another session for them outside the current list. After all, the current 200 people are already fully booked, so their group can’t join with the current 200.”
Pei Qian was taken aback, with a question mark slowly floating above his head.
?
“Wait a minute.”
“The hundred-plus people from Tianhuo Studio aren’t included in the current 200?”
Bao Xu responded matter-of-factly: “That’s right. By the time Mr. Zhou contacted me to confirm the numbers, the 200 spots were already fully booked.”
“So I was thinking, after this session of the Suffering Journey ends, we must make some adjustments to the entire structure of the Suffering Journey, or else we won’t be able to handle the current high demand.”
“Even if we take forty people per session of the Suffering Journey in the future—ten Tenda employees plus thirty external individuals—it would take more than a dozen sessions, about two years, to accommodate all three hundred plus people. This timeframe is completely unacceptable.”
“I think we should quickly expand the team, dividing each session of the Suffering Journey into three to four classes, or even more. Indoor venues and outdoor sites also need to be prepared promptly…”
“Of course, staff training must keep pace. We can open more classes, but not at the expense of training quality. If it’s called the Suffering Journey, then the suffering must be adequate.”
“There are also advantages after expansion—we can arrange more Tenda employees to join based on the proportion of personnel.”
“With so many Tenda employees, arranging ten people per session would take forever. The efficiency is too low…”
Pei Qian didn’t hear a word of what Bao Xu said afterward.
His mind now had only one huge question mark.
Why? WHY?!
Even with the Suffering Journey in its current state—expensive and punishing—there were still so many people desperate to get in?
The key point was that this was with a 200-person limit. Without a limit, wouldn’t the queue stretch to ten years from now?
Bao Xu finally finished explaining his plans for the future of the Suffering Journey.
Pei Qian was silent for a moment, then asked: “So, do you understand why the Suffering Journey is fully booked?”
Bao Xu was taken aback, then said somewhat shamefully: “I’m sorry, Mr. Pei. I’m slow-witted and don’t understand exactly how you’ve planned the Suffering Journey.”
“Actually, I’m also very puzzled by the current popularity of the Suffering Journey. Or… could you give me some guidance?”
Pei Qian: “…”
You don’t know, I don’t know, then who the hell knows?
How did the Suffering Journey suddenly become so popular?
“Alright, continue with your arrangements.” Pei Qian silently hung up the phone.
Something had gone wrong with the Suffering Journey, but he had no idea exactly which part had gone wrong.
And the problematic aspect was most likely on his end.
What should be done now?
Waiting for answers, quite urgently!
…
Meanwhile, netizens had launched a second round of heated discussions about the Suffering Journey.
“What’s going on? This morning, everyone was saying nobody would sign up for this thing, and by the afternoon it’s already fully booked?”
“I just went to great lengths to stir things up in a livestream, trying to get the streamer to join the Suffering Journey. Others joined in, and the streamer finally had no choice but reluctantly went to register, only to find that the spots were already filled? WTF?”
“The streamer must be really happy to have escaped this ordeal.”
“No, his feelings seem rather complex—partly relieved to have escaped, partly wondering if he missed an extremely valuable opportunity… After all, the Suffering Journey filling up so quickly indicates that many people recognize its value and even think fifty thousand yuan is worth it.”
“Damn, I don’t understand this crazy world anymore…”
“Could it be fake?”
“Impossible. Tenda has always disdained such practices. Tenda’s data is always genuine. If they say it’s fully booked, then it’s truly fully booked, absolutely no discounts.”
“That’s strange then. Are there really so many masochists in this world? Paying fifty thousand yuan to suffer—what’s the point?”
Netizens were all completely puzzled, only able to say that the world of the wealthy was just that magical, and their spending logic was completely different from normal people.
But this puzzlement actually sustained the continuous discussion about the Suffering Journey.
During the first session of the Suffering Journey, although promotional videos and documentaries were released, they didn’t spark much discussion online because everyone viewed them as jokes and anecdotes.
At most, people would make a few teasing comments and then pay no more attention.
But now it was different. This venture had filled all its external registration spots at lightning speed, indicating to some extent that its business model had achieved a certain level of success!
Although it was too early to declare that this popularity would definitely continue, it had at least gotten off to a good start.
This huge contrast sparked netizens’ curiosity and discussion. A strong desire for knowledge drove them to dig into the details and deeper business logic of the Suffering Journey, forming a hot topic online!
Many self-media personalities, opinion leaders, public accounts, content creators, and so on all saw this event and felt it was excellent material that would definitely catch people’s attention!
As a result, analyses of the Suffering Journey began to gradually increase.
These analyses might be one-sided or even contradictory, but this was clearly not a bad thing—it would further enhance the discussion of the Suffering Journey across the entire network!
Everyone was curious: how had Mr. Pei managed to turn “suffering” into a business model?