After seeing Meng Chang off, it was almost noon.

Pei Qian finished his work meal from “Food Harmony,” wrapped himself in a small blanket in his office for a short nap, and felt that after sorting out the situation of each department a bit more in the afternoon, he could just about slip away.

With only one month left until settlement, the real tough battle was yet to come.

Right now… he needed to conserve his energy a bit. How could he spend money properly without enough energy?

However, shortly after Pei Qian woke up, his phone rang.

It was Zhang Yahui, the person in charge of the food market.

“Mr. Pei, there’s something I need to report to you. As of now, all the preliminary preparations for the food market have finally been completed, and we’re scheduled to officially open the day after tomorrow.”

“I know you’re very busy, so we haven’t consulted you much about things here. Now that we’re about to open, would you like to come and take a look, give us some guidance? Just to avoid any oversights.”

Pei Qian had been planning to leave work promptly at 2 PM, but after hearing Zhang Yahui’s words, he could only silently sigh.

Ah, it looked like he’d have to work overtime today.

For this food market project, Pei Qian had completely taken a hands-off approach shortly after its establishment, not inquiring about it at all.

On one hand, he truly had too many things on his plate and didn’t have the time or energy to pay attention; but more importantly, he believed from the bottom of his heart that this project wasn’t a major concern.

Because the initial purpose of this food market was to poach people from Cold Noodle Girl…

Previously, Qi Yan, the manager of Cold Noodle Girl, had implemented a series of operations in the capital, from organizing street food competitions to hiring excellent stall owners as consultants, seeming about to reignite Cold Noodle Girl’s popularity.

If Cold Noodle Girl became popular, that would be terrible.

Because Cold Noodle Girl operated on a fast-food model and could run as a chain. Once one store became popular, Qi Yan would inevitably continue to open more branches. Once such a model gained momentum, the profits would be enormous!

Pei Qian didn’t want to repeat the tragedies of Slackin’ Internet Café and Slackin’ Delivery.

So, thinking quickly and decisively in the emergency, he created a food market and poached all the excellent stall owners from Cold Noodle Girl.

This way, without these excellent stall owners, Cold Noodle Girl’s flavor improvements would become very slow, while the food market couldn’t operate as a chain model, so he didn’t need to worry too much about making money.

After all, no matter how impressive a stall owner might be, the number of customers they could serve each day was limited. The food market was only so big—how much could it really achieve, even if it became extremely popular?

So, Pei Qian felt this project was stable.

By “stable,” he didn’t mean it wouldn’t become popular, but rather that it would be like the Nameless Restaurant—even if it became popular, it wouldn’t make too much money, staying completely within an acceptable range.

Although he had been taking a hands-off approach, now that it was about to open, he still had to go take a look.

It’s better to be safe than sorry, and it wouldn’t take much time to go check.

If any problems were discovered, he could have Zhang Yahui and his team make urgent corrections before the official opening.

If possible, Pei Qian wouldn’t mind delaying the food market’s opening by a week or two. After all, there was still more than a month until settlement, so a delay wouldn’t have much impact and would even reduce earnings by a week or two.

After agreeing with Zhang Yahui, Pei Qian drank a cup of coffee to refresh himself, then took a car straight to the food market.

…

The journey to the old industrial zone wasn’t very far, but there was a bit of traffic, so it took about forty minutes to arrive.

Although Driver Xiao Sun’s driving skills were excellent, the stop-and-go traffic along the way still left Pei Qian feeling a bit dizzy.

After getting out of the car and breathing in some fresh air, he finally recovered.

“This is why a developed city can’t be without a subway!”

Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh.

As the capital of Handong Province and a second-tier city, Jingzhou currently only had a few subway lines, connecting the high-speed rail station, the core commercial area near Yuanda Tiandi Mall, and other key locations with the highest foot traffic.

But the current subway coverage was far from adequate, with the main public transportation still being buses.

In recent years, the economy of Jingzhou and the entire country had been growing rapidly, with the number of private cars increasing, naturally making cities more congested.

Currently, Jingzhou hadn’t implemented license plate restrictions, but at the current rate of development, it probably wasn’t far off.

To alleviate traffic conditions, Jingzhou was planning and building elevated highways and more subway lines.

More than a year ago, Jingzhou had publicized a batch of subway lines. Although the efficiency from demolition to construction was high, even with such high efficiency, this batch of subway lines was still a long way from completion.

Moreover, these subway lines had basically nothing to do with Pei Qian.

That was because Pei Qian was extremely shrewd. When selecting locations for physical stores and other projects, he had consciously or unconsciously avoided subway lines.

Of course, for the GPL League venue, there wasn’t much choice. The entire Jingzhou had only a few large shopping malls, and only the multipurpose hall in Yuanda Tiandi was suitable for long-term tournaments.

But none of this mattered much. As long as major projects involving property purchases like Sloth Apartments could stay far away from Jingzhou’s current subway line plans, there would be no problem.

Pei Qian was thinking about these random thoughts while walking into the food market.

However, after just a few steps, he was stunned by the scene before him.

This place… was the food market?

Pei Qian hadn’t been here before, only hearing that the food market was located at a farmers’ market in the old industrial zone.

Upon hearing the keywords “old industrial zone” and “farmers’ market,” Pei Qian had felt reassured.

He could imagine what kind of state it would be!

It would definitely be like those vegetable markets in third or fourth-tier cities’ suburbs or small counties—dirty, messy, and poor, probably with vegetable leaves all over the ground.

Of course, to be safe, Pei Qian had specifically searched online for pictures of this farmers’ market.

From the pictures, the place looked slightly better than he had imagined, relatively neat and clean, but it was still just a vegetable market.

So, Pei Qian had completely put his mind at ease.

He thought, even though Liang Qingfan was an architect who could transform something dilapidated into something miraculous, how miraculous could it be?

But when he got out of the car and looked up, Pei Qian almost thought he had come to the wrong place.

Did the current state of the food market bear any resemblance to the previous vegetable market?

It was completely transformed!

A large number of contrasting warm and cool neon lights covered the outer walls, with numerous cyberpunk-style designs making the entire food market seem detached from the rest of Jingzhou. Crossing this street felt like entering another world.

Various advertising boards emitted red and green lights, complex and layered, utilizing the overhead space to the fullest.

However, because it was daytime and the sky was only slightly overcast, not cloudy or rainy, these lights didn’t have a very strong visual impact.

But from the current state, one could imagine what the scene would be like at night.

The cyberpunk feeling would be off the charts!

Moreover, this setting gave Pei Qian a strong sense of déjà vu.

Where did this déjà vu come from…

Pei Qian carefully recalled, and quickly remembered.

It was that feeling from “Beautiful Tomorrow”!

Many of the shop names here, as well as the style of the signboards, were based on the scenes from “Beautiful Tomorrow” where the male and female protagonists came to the surface world to eat. Although the structure wasn’t exactly the same, it still gave people a strange sense of déjà vu, as if they had seen this place before!

And that wasn’t the most outrageous part.

The most outrageous was that at the entrance of the food market, there was even a high-tech sports car model. Who knows where it was customized from, but the craftsmanship was quite meticulous. You could even open the car doors and sit inside for photos.

There are some large electronic toy factories in China that specialize in making these static installations, from sports cars to tanks, supplying various amusement park projects.

For higher requirements, such as strict demands for the model’s design, exterior, and interior materials, one could even customize from overseas.

These large toys aren’t cheap, ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 yuan, especially since overseas customizations need to be air-shipped back.

Although this model couldn’t be driven, its cost would probably exceed that of some entry-level luxury household car brands.

But compared to the overall budget invested in the food market, this sum wasn’t much.

…

Zhang Yahui and Liang Qingfan, hearing that Mr. Pei was coming, were already waiting at the entrance.

Zhang Yahui asked in a low voice, “Hey, why isn’t Brother Bao here today? Wasn’t he always around before?”

During this period, Bao Xu had been bustling about for this food market, working himself to the bone.

The three of them had a very clear division of labor: Liang Qingfan was responsible for the layout and overall style of the entire food market; Zhang Yahui was responsible for liaising with the various stall owners, helping them improve their food flavors, getting them prepared in advance, as well as other communication and coordination work; Bao Xu was responsible for perfecting the operational mechanism of the entire food market and putting forward various requirements.

Both Zhang Yahui and Liang Qingfan agreed that it was Bao Xu who had injected soul into the entire food market with his game design philosophy.

Bao Xu had proposed many very bold ideas, many of which were truly imaginative and creative, allowing customers to enjoy food at the market while also gaining a certain amount of fun.

With Bao Xu’s contributions being so great, it was really a pity that he wasn’t present when Mr. Pei came to inspect.

Liang Qingfan said, “In my view, Bao Xu doesn’t want to compete with us for credit.”

“When I traveled with him before, I noticed that he’s actually a very reserved, very low-key person.”

“He’s not very interested in money, nor in position promotions. His perhaps only two pleasures are playing games and traveling.”

“Although he keeps saying he doesn’t like traveling at all, would someone who doesn’t like traveling run out again and again, still maintaining this enthusiasm and energy?”