May 22nd, Tuesday.

The final day of Tenda’s 515 Gaming Festival.

Pei Qian was in a good mood and arrived at the company early, waiting in his office for Assistant Xin to report on her work.

That building should have found a buyer by now, right?

Logically speaking, the building recently purchased by Sloth Apartments was in a decent location. Combined with the high-quality interior design personally overseen by Liang Qingfan and Sloth Apartments’ reputation, buying it would be a good choice whether for resale or rental purposes.

To expedite the transaction, Pei Qian hadn’t asked for an exorbitant price. The entire asking price remained within a reasonable range, so there should be many companies—especially real estate companies—interested in purchasing it.

However, after waiting in his office for some time, Assistant Xin still hadn’t shown up.

“Huh, what’s going on?”

Pei Qian was slightly puzzled.

Assistant Xin was very reliable. If she had found a suitable buyer, she would definitely report immediately.

No buyer yet? That couldn’t be right.

Pei Qian vaguely felt something was off and immediately called Assistant Xin to inquire about the current situation.

Assistant Xin reported truthfully: “Mr. Pei, yesterday I contacted several real estate companies, and they did express interest in the acquisition.”

“But when I went to confirm this morning, they all said they’d changed their minds after some consideration. They all backed out.”

“We’re currently reaching out to new potential buyers.”

Pei Qian frowned, feeling very confused.

Nobody wanted this building?

That couldn’t be right. The location was decent, and the asking price wasn’t very high.

If only I had enough personal funds—if I had that much money, I’d buy it myself and collect rent.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be a landlord?

But then he realized that although the building was indeed good, various companies might have their own issues, such as insufficient funds or better projects that needed financing. Since the announcement had been out for less than a day, it was normal not to have found a suitable buyer yet.

After all, even normal second-hand housing transactions didn’t close in a single day—it usually took at least a few days.

With this in mind, Pei Qian said: “All right, keep looking for buyers then.”

After hanging up, Pei Qian felt a bit lost.

He had originally thought he would hear the good news about the building being sold when he came to work today, allowing him to plan the next round of money-burning schemes. But his expectations had fallen through.

Now he wasn’t sure what to do.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to browse the web to see players’ reactions.

After all, today was the last day of the 515 Gaming Festival, and all the previous money-burning activities would end today.

Pei Qian thought about checking if players had any opinions or suggestions about the 515 Gaming Festival, hoping to find new ways to burn money once the building was sold so he could immediately plan the next phase of his money-burning strategy.

After secretly modifying the probabilities for the 515 Gaming Festival activities over the weekend, players’ enthusiasm had increased even more. Discussions about the 515 Gaming Festival could be seen everywhere.

Most players still felt somewhat unsatisfied, but they were mostly content.

After all, the entire 515 Gaming Festival had lasted a full week. Although taking advantage of the benefits had been enjoyable, doing it continuously was also tiring.

To get rewards, players had to log in and play games, and playing every day could be a bit overwhelming.

In short, this 515 Gaming Festival had received very positive feedback, and players were happy.

Pei Qian was happy too.

Perhaps this was what you’d call a win-win situation!

However, as he continued browsing, the smile on Pei Qian’s face disappeared, replaced by a grave expression.

He had come across some unexpected discussions!

A post titled “Heard Tenda Has Cash Flow Problems and Is Selling Buildings” stood out starkly among the many 515 Gaming Festival posts. Since it was posted yesterday, it had received hundreds of replies in just over ten hours, generating high engagement!

“I heard Tenda seems to be having financial issues recently and is selling buildings! There are multiple sources that can corroborate this—it’s definitely true!”

“How is that possible? Haven’t Tenda’s recent projects all been profitable?”

“They were profitable, but they haven’t received the money yet! The keys for ‘Mission and Choice’ were delayed, and the inventory of Smart Fitness Clothes Racks hasn’t been cleared yet…”

“I’ve heard about this building sale too. What’s more, they’re selling a building that Sloth Apartments just renovated not long ago. This is clearly killing the goose that lays golden eggs! Who would do this unless they were in financial trouble?”

“I have a friend who works at Tenda, and it seems to be true. Many Tenda employees have stopped eating snacks to voluntarily save money for the company.”

“Tenda is in such difficulty and still holding the 515 Gaming Festival? They even increased the activity probabilities themselves?”

“This is bad! We enjoyed all these benefits, but what if the sheep gets fleeced to death?”

“Tenda absolutely cannot fail! This is the hope of domestic gaming. If they really collapse, wouldn’t we return to the dark ages of many years ago?”

“It may not be as bad as the dark ages, but it would definitely be a huge loss for domestic players—no, for players worldwide!”

“It’s not just games. Tenda’s movies, digital products, and physical industries are all industry benchmarks. If something really goes wrong, the loss would be too great! Unimaginable!”

“After taking so many benefits from Tenda, we can’t just stand by and do nothing! I’ve decided to buy a few more games to support them!”

“I’ll buy a Smart Fitness Clothes Rack.”

“I’ll eat Slackin’ Takeout for the next few days!”

“I’ll purchase some skins in GOG to show my support!”

At first, many people didn’t believe Tenda would have financial problems. After all, from the available information, Tenda was developing very well, and various projects were profitable.

But as more and more netizens joined the discussion, including those who knew Tenda’s internal staff and local businesses in Jingzhou, they confirmed that Tenda had indeed encountered some difficulties recently and was selling buildings!

So players couldn’t remain calm anymore.

The 515 Gaming Festival wasn’t over yet, and almost all players had benefited from Tenda’s generosity. Now hearing that Tenda had to sell buildings to raise funds just to give players benefits, how could they accept that?

Netizens decided to contribute money or effort. Even spending a few dollars to buy a skin would be considered doing their part for Tenda.

The G1 phone, which had just stepped up production and restored supply, was trending toward being out of stock again.

Looking at these discussions from silly netizens, Pei Qian was completely stunned.

What was going on?!

Had these players all gone crazy?!

I’m just doing normal business. Selling the building is purely normal fund rotation. Why do these players seem to care more about the company than I do, as if they were shareholders?

Tenda actually has so many emotional shareholders?

Pei Qian had an ominous premonition. He quickly opened Outu Technology’s official website to check the G1 phone’s product page.

Sure enough—sold out!

Actually, the G1 phone had sold out the day after the launch event, but Outu Technology immediately prepared a second batch of inventory and resumed sales recently.

With this approach of restocking while selling, they had finally delivered all the pre-ordered phones and still ensured immediate availability, eliminating the need to “string customers along.”

But now, they were sold out again!

Pei Qian struggled to contain his frustration and found the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack page.

Refreshing once showed 12 units remaining in stock.

Refreshing again—sold out!

Pei Qian felt dizzy.

He collapsed back into his executive chair, feeling completely drained.

“My Smart Fitness Clothes Racks!”

“All that inventory I stockpiled!”

“Where did it all go?!”

Pei Qian was practically beating his chest in frustration.

Previously, he had thought the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack would definitely not sell many units, so to spend more money, Pei Qian had Outu Technology stockpile as much as possible. They had filled several Tenda warehouses in Jingzhou, preparing a total of ten thousand units.

That was ten thousand units!

Pei Qian remembered checking a few days ago—although they were selling quickly, there were still several thousand units left in inventory. How could they be sold out today?!

Were players that aggressive?

Or perhaps… they had been bought by people with ulterior motives?

Scalpers, for instance?

He quickly searched for the keyword “Smart Fitness Clothes Rack” online to check netizens’ discussions.

“Damn! I just wanted to buy a clothes rack for home fitness, and it’s sold out?!”

“For such large items, they probably don’t stock many, so selling out is normal.”

“That’s not normal at all! Didn’t Mr. Chang say at the launch event that they had prepared exactly ten thousand units and definitely wouldn’t sell out?”

“After ‘Fitness Showdown’ came out, this clothes rack became popular too. Many streamers and content creators are featuring it. Ten thousand units distributed nationwide isn’t actually that many.”

“Something seems off. This product doesn’t have a purchase limit. It was probably targeted by scalpers!”

Those netizens who couldn’t buy a Smart Fitness Clothes Rack were very upset and cursing scalpers online.

Pei Qian’s first reaction, like the netizens, was that it must be the work of scalpers!

Unlike the G1 phone, which had purchase limits to prevent scalping, the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack had no purchase restrictions because Pei Qian never imagined this item would sell so many units.

But on second thought, he felt this was unlikely.

What scalper would speculate on such items?

Scalpers typically preferred items like concert tickets or phones—small items with high unit prices that don’t take up much space and offer considerable profits when resold.

The Smart Fitness Clothes Rack was so bulky—wouldn’t it take up too much space?

If scalpers bought several hundred units, where would they put them? They would need to rent a large warehouse just to store them, plus spend extra money on shipping costs.

Of course, this reasoning assumed that reselling Smart Fitness Clothes Racks wouldn’t be very profitable.

If the profits were high enough, scalpers would certainly overcome these difficulties to speculate.

Although Pei Qian deeply hated scalpers, at this moment he secretly hoped it was their doing.

Because if it wasn’t scalpers, it meant the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack was too popular and had sold out legitimately!

He had to investigate—thoroughly investigate!

Pei Qian immediately called Chang You, asking him to check the order records for the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack to see if there were any signs of scalper activity.

After a while, Chang You called back: “Mr. Pei, there are indeed signs of suspected scalping.”

“The records show several large orders.”

“The two largest purchased two thousand Smart Fitness Clothes Racks each.”

“There are more than a dozen smaller orders, some buying dozens of units, others buying two or three hundred.”

“If we rule out the possibility of bulk institutional purchases, it’s most likely the work of scalpers.”

“Comparatively, these orders for dozens of units seem more like scalpers. As for the two orders of two thousand units each… their identity is unclear. Logically, typical scalpers wouldn’t deploy such large amounts of capital.”

“I apologize, Mr. Pei. This was my oversight. I thought with the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack’s high unit price and inconvenient shipping, scalpers wouldn’t target it, so I didn’t implement any purchase restrictions…”

“Mr. Pei, what should we do now?”

“Should we continue with the previous approach and increase inventory further?”