Afternoon.

Pei Qian sat in his office, his face full of worry.

The experience store’s trial operation had been packed on the first day, receiving an enthusiastic response. What’s more, Yao Bo and Zhou Muyan had performed a comedy routine right in front of him, one setting up jokes and the other delivering punchlines, mercilessly stabbing his heart with a thousand holes.

It was too much to bear!

The main reason Pei Qian had gone to all this trouble to open an experience store was to spend more money.

But now, the store’s rent had been significantly reduced, the location was excellent, and even the sales team’s discouraging service approach had backfired completely…

This was completely missing the effect Pei Qian had been hoping for!

Pei Qian was even considering completely abandoning his plan to build a massive sales team to spend money.

But after reviewing the experience store’s report, he hesitated again.

Because the store’s revenue wasn’t as terrible as he had imagined.

He had originally thought this experience store would make enormous profits, but based on rough estimates from the first day’s revenue, it seemed… not that profitable after all?

The entire experience store covered about 7,000 square meters. Sales had fluctuated somewhat over these two days—although they had broken one million on the first day, the average had been around 800,000 yuan so far.

This was pure sales revenue. The actual profit would need to subtract the cost of goods, mall rent, electricity, staff salaries, and other expenses.

Although they had received a six-month rent exemption and a 40% discount on the rent itself, Tenda’s experience store was located in the most prime area of Jinsheng Plaza, so the original rent was quite high—even after the discount, it was still around 8 yuan/square meter/day (with different rates for core and normal areas).

Calculating this way, the daily rent cost alone was nearly 60,000 yuan. Add to that the high salaries of dozens of salespeople, restaurant chefs, and other staff, plus other expenses, and the daily cost came to over 200,000 yuan.

In contrast, Pineapple Phone’s retail stores had daily sales of more than 1,000 yuan per square meter.

This was an enormous gap—Tenda’s experience store had less than one-tenth the sales per square meter compared to Pineapple Phone’s retail stores.

Moreover, while Tenda’s experience store sold high-profit-margin items like the G1 phone, it also carried low-profit-margin items like partnership furniture, smart fitness clothes drying racks, and fully automated smart weight machines.

So this sales figure was quite misleading. It looked much higher than the costs, but when operating, it wouldn’t necessarily make much profit at all.

Even without comparing to behemoths like Pineapple, just comparing with some domestic phone brands, these numbers still weren’t impressive.

Many domestic phone brand stores were no more than 300-400 square meters but could achieve sales of over one million yuan—making more than Tenda’s high-end experience store.

These figures were so encouraging that Pei Qian could hardly believe them.

But after calming down and thinking carefully, he felt this situation had occurred due to several factors.

First, most of Tenda’s products were first sold online, and with the existence of Headwind Logistics, Tenda’s customers still preferred shopping online.

So when regular customers came to Tenda’s experience store, they were mostly in a “browse but don’t buy” state.

Second, although the discouraging service approach that Pei Qian had instructed Tian Mo and others to implement hadn’t had the obvious deterrent effect he’d hoped for, it did have a positive impact on reducing sales.

Many people came and browsed enthusiastically, but since they couldn’t see salespeople, they didn’t think about buying anything. They could look around at whatever they wanted without buying anything, and without feeling any guilt.

Moreover, since the salespeople didn’t earn commissions—they were all on fixed salaries—they naturally followed Pei Qian’s instructions strictly and provided “transparent service.”

Finally, and most crucially, the entire experience store truly was focused on experiences.

Pineapple Phone and other domestic phone brand stores were primarily retail stores. Customers went there to buy things, and these brands had very broad user bases, so their sales figures were naturally high.

But Tenda’s store wasn’t a retail store. The vast majority of the space was for experiencing products, whether playing games or watching movies, with no need to spend money.

Most people came with the mindset of having fun, with no intention of buying anything.

This meant that although Tenda’s experience store was large, it couldn’t make much money.

Of course, Tenda’s experience store was in its trial operation phase and hadn’t formally started promotional campaigns, which was also one reason for the lower sales.

But even so, after thinking it through, Pei Qian found the situation was still quite encouraging.

If he hired more sales staff so they could work in more shifts, raised overall salary levels, or came up with other expense items for the experience store…

Wouldn’t that allow him to spend even more money?

Besides, this was after all the first large-scale experience store, and it was located in Jingzhou, Tenda’s headquarters, which explained the enormous foot traffic.

If they opened more experience stores with worse locations, less cool decorations, and fewer interested visitors, while maintaining expenses at the current level…

Wouldn’t that mean there was still hope of losing money?

Thinking about it this way, Pei Qian felt he should still open more of these experience stores.

He shouldn’t quickly reject his own ideas just because of a temporary setback!

He could open a few more stores in other cities and more expensive locations to verify his theory.

Surely not every mall would be like Jinsheng Plaza, offering both discounts and rent exemptions?

If they opened in a place with particularly expensive rent and land prices, but without a significant increase in revenue, wouldn’t that mean they could lose money?

After careful consideration, Pei Qian decided to wait and see rather than give up so easily.

Setting aside the experience store matter for now, Pei Qian opened a webpage and casually browsed recent news.

“Hmm? FV Team’s championship skins are out?”

“And Dragon Yu Group has even launched a promotion for these championship skins?”

“Great! President Ai, President Zhao, you’ve been quiet for so long, and finally you’re taking action!”

Seeing the news released on Dragon Yu Group’s official website, Pei Qian couldn’t help but be overjoyed.

He had been waiting for Finger Company and Dragon Yu Group to burn money ever since the May 15th Game Festival, but no matter how long he waited, nothing happened, which had made him quite anxious.

These championship skins weren’t being offered at the usual 20% initial discount like other skins, but directly at 50% off!

The official announcement stated that this discount would match the skin discounts during the summer promotion period, so players could purchase with confidence.

Furthermore, after the ICL league ended, the champions’ heroes would receive an additional 15% discount on top of the summer promotion discount.

However, considering that there was still more than half a month until the ICL League spring season ended, impatient players could directly purchase this set of championship skins.

After all, even with an additional 15% discount on top of the 50% discount, it wouldn’t save much more money—better to buy early and enjoy early.

Moreover, the ICL League spring season champions might not necessarily use the five heroes from the championship skin set, so whether this additional 15% discount would actually exist remained uncertain.

In short, Finger Company and Dragon Yu Group’s promotion for the championship skins could be described as very generous and sincere.

This was all because of pressure from Tenda.

If it weren’t for GOG, that insane competitor that frequently sold skins at dirt-cheap prices, Finger Company and Dragon Yu Group would never have offered such deep discounts.

Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction.

Good! With such competitors, burning money was much more satisfying!

Also… Dragon Yu Group’s promotional plan for the championship skins had also revealed Finger Company’s summer promotion discounts.

If nothing unexpected happened, Finger Company would likely offer 50% discounts on most skins during the summer promotion, and might even release some limited skins.

After anticipating Finger Company’s summer promotion plan, Pei Qian could now stir things up.

He planned to launch the summer promotion on June 22nd, four days earlier than Finger Company, with discounts that would completely surpass Finger Company’s currently planned promotions!

Four days would be enough time for Finger Company to react.

By then, they would be forced to increase their discounts even further, happily burning money together with Tenda!

Just thinking about this, Pei Qian couldn’t help but smile, as if envisioning the beautiful scene of Tenda’s money flowing out like water.

“After seeing all this, I still don’t know what these championship skins actually look like.”

“Logically, the championship skins would share profits with the FV Club, but fortunately most of that goes to the players. The club only takes a small portion, which is used for the club’s daily operations. Even if they make money, it shouldn’t have much impact on Tenda.”

The FV Team’s championship skins weren’t officially on sale yet, but Finger Company and Dragon Yu Group’s official websites had already released promotional materials, including the original artwork and in-game models for the championship skins.

This set of championship skins was called “Black Gold Technology,” with an overall black and gold color scheme that looked understated and profound while still having a touch of luxury.

All heroes had two states depending on whether their ultimate abilities were ready or not, with different armor coverage.

When the ultimate wasn’t ready, there was less armor coverage and fewer gold effects. When the ultimate was ready, high-tech black armor would cover the entire body, with flowing gold light effects that were very eye-catching.

Beyond this, the championship skin set had many details, such as green code effects and the FV Team logo when recalling to base, and gold light burst effects for area-of-effect abilities.

It was clear that Finger Company had invested heavily in these skins, and the final effect was quite impressive.

But after looking at them, Pei Qian couldn’t shake a strange sense of familiarity.

“Why does this feel so familiar? Especially this burst of golden light effect…”

“Why does it look so much like a money-throwing hedgehog?”

“And it’s not just one or two issues—all five have similarities…”

At first, Pei Qian hadn’t noticed, but the more he looked, the more similar they seemed.

Although Modistre didn’t have black armor or green character effects resembling program code or scientific formulas, the overall feeling, especially the effect when the golden light burst open, was remarkably similar.

Moreover, the actions and expressions of these models also seemed somewhat similar, though he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination.

Even if Modistre were placed among these five heroes, one would wonder if they were skins from the same series…

Pei Qian scratched his head.

“What’s going on here? Is this a coincidence or what?”