This underground maze, along with the entertainment area setup, was a combination of soft and hard approaches.

The entertainment area was taking the soft approach, finding ways to lure employees into the entertainment area, tripping them up with various fun things, making them so happy they’d forget about returning to work.

Setting up the entertainment area on the side of the transportation hub meant employees would inevitably pass through the entertainment area during their normal commute, facing all kinds of temptations.

But certain special situations couldn’t be ruled out, such as employees driving to work.

As Tenda’s headquarters building, not building a parking garage was certainly impossible.

Pei Qian’s attitude was not only to build a parking garage but to build a very large one!

After all, a parking garage wasn’t office space; the more parking spaces and the larger their size, the more money would be spent.

Moreover, investing in parking spaces was basically spending money for nothing, and he couldn’t miss out on such a good opportunity.

But if employees drove to work and went upstairs directly from the underground parking garage, wouldn’t all this planning be wasted?

And with Tenda’s excellent benefits and ample underground parking spaces, there would definitely be many employees commuting by car.

That’s why Pei Qian came up with this approach.

Liang Qingfan carefully recorded this point as well.

Meanwhile, as Mr. Pei’s requirements increased, a completely new design began to form in his mind.

Pei Qian thought for a moment and added, “There’s one last point: the building should be divided into several different zones, and beyond the existing holidays, each zone should have regular additional vacation days.”

“However…”

“This zoning needs to have a solid rationale, understand what I mean?”

Pei Qian felt that Tenda employees still had too few holidays.

The system was quite strict when it came to giving time off; otherwise, Pei Qian would have already changed Tenda’s working hours to two days of work and five days of rest per week.

But within certain limits, holidays could still be adjusted.

For example, giving employees two more days of paid annual leave, or finding an excuse to take a day or two off for some special holidays wouldn’t be a problem.

Pei Qian was wondering if he could use this building as a pretext to squeeze some more holidays out of the system.

These holidays would ideally be long-term and institutionalized, more valuable than temporary holidays.

Liang Qingfan quickly made a note, remained silent for a moment, and then said, “Mr. Pei, according to your requirements, all three of my previous proposals are completely unsuitable…”

“It’s practically no different from starting over.”

“But don’t worry, Mr. Pei. I just had a general idea!”

“There’s a shape that’s particularly suited to the requirements you’ve outlined.”

Pei Qian was delighted. “Oh? What shape?”

Liang Qingfan said, “The Tai Chi symbol.”

As he spoke, he sketched a simple diagram and explained it to Pei Qian.

“Look, Mr. Pei, the Tai Chi symbol is a circle, with the eight trigrams of the Bagua surrounding it. In terms of land area, a circular shape occupies the maximum space, which perfectly aligns with your earlier requirement to spread out the building.”

“At the same time, the work area and entertainment area are separated, but the two sections should have as much contact as possible, which perfectly matches the black-and-white structure of the Tai Chi symbol. White for yang, which is the work area; black for yin, which is the entertainment area.”

“And the trigrams surrounding the Tai Chi symbol can also correspond to the eight directions of east, south, west, north, and so on, according to their specific meanings.”

“These trigrams can be seen as the eight entrances to the building, four of which correspond to the work area, and four to the entertainment area. The four entrances to the entertainment area happen to be on the side facing the transportation hub, which employees would enter first.”

“This S-shaped arc in the middle can maximize contact between the work area and entertainment area. These two positions of the yin-yang eyes can be designed as elevator areas—regular elevators for the work area and observation elevators for the entertainment area.”

“At the same time, this S-shaped arc can also serve as an atrium, similar to many shopping malls, running from bottom to top. On one hand, you can see different floors; on the other hand, it can increase natural light, making the interior of the building more brightly lit.”

Pei Qian tried to visualize the shape of this building.

Looking down from the air, it should be a giant Tai Chi symbol, with a clear separation at the boundary where yin and yang meet, like a crevice, used to increase the natural light inside the building.

Liang Qingfan continued, “As for what you mentioned, Mr. Pei, about making it convenient to go to the entertainment area but troublesome to return to the work area, that can also be properly resolved.”

“First, at the very center of the Tai Chi symbol, which is the contact point at the waist of the yin-yang fish, the center of the atrium area, we’ll create a landscape waterfall that divides the entire floor.”

“Then, we’ll make the curved areas at the heads of the yin-yang fish into connecting zones between the two sections, arranging all the turnstiles and escalators in this area.”

“But both the turnstiles and the escalators will be one-way: from the work area to the entertainment area, you go through turnstiles to the same floor; from the entertainment area to the work area, you can’t go through turnstiles but must use escalators to go up or down a floor.”

“The escalators connect the yin-yang fish at different levels, also symbolizing the harmony of yin and yang, the endless cycle of creation.”

“This way, it’s very simple to go from the work area to the entertainment area, but to return to your original workstation, you’d need to make some extra effort.”

Pei Qian continued to visualize.

A landscape waterfall in the center would channel people toward the heads of the yin-yang fish, just like a city roundabout directs traffic.

From the work area to the entertainment area, you could just go through the turnstile corridor and directly reach the same floor; but from the entertainment area to the work area, you’d have to take the escalator, which would only take you to the floor above or below.

In other words, it would be easy to get to the entertainment area, but you couldn’t return by the same route.

Hmm, that sounded pretty good.

Liang Qingfan then focused on the underground area of the building: “As for the parking garage… according to the previous plan, the transportation hub and main road are close to the entertainment area side, so there’s a normal parking garage beneath the entertainment area. After parking here, you can take the elevator directly to the entertainment area, which is more convenient.”

“The area beneath the work area, however, is converted into an underground maze. After parking, if employees want to find the elevator to the work area, they need to enter the maze and search.”

Pei Qian nodded slightly as he listened. This point also corresponded perfectly with his previous expectations.

Liang Qingfan continued, “Regarding your point about dividing the building into several areas, I also have a preliminary idea.”

“According to the positions of the Bagua, we can define the twenty-four solar terms.”

“These twenty-four solar terms can divide the entire Tai Chi symbol into twenty-four small sectors.”

“Of course, according to this division, half of the solar terms would fall in the entertainment area. These solar terms either wouldn’t have holidays, or the holidays could be transferred to the work area side. The specific arrangement would depend on your preference, Mr. Pei.”

Hearing this, Pei Qian unhesitatingly said, “Of course, we should transfer the solar terms from the entertainment area to the work area as well, so that each person would have two solar term holidays each year, with a half-year interval between them.”

Throughout the year, there are twenty-four solar terms, and during each solar term, one-twelfth of the employees in the building would be on vacation?

That’s fantastic!

Just the number 24 itself made Pei Qian feel delighted, exceeding his expectations.

Most importantly, this setup was connected to traditional solar terms and also tied to the Tai Chi-shaped building.

This way, the possibility of convincing the system would be greatly increased, after all, it was promoting and inheriting traditional culture, allowing every employee to tangibly benefit from traditional culture.

After listening to Liang Qingfan’s new proposal, Pei Qian nodded slightly.

“Hmm, this proposal better meets my requirements.”

“However… I have two small questions, or rather, suggestions.”

“First, regarding the entrances at the eight positions around the building’s perimeter, they should be square when viewed from above, and while they might not reach the height of the main building, they shouldn’t be too short either.”

“If these eight buildings are merely used as entrances, they’d obviously be too empty. We need to think about what else they could be used for besides office purposes.”

“Second… the Tai Chi symbol plus the Eight Trigram formation, while it aligns with traditional cultural concepts, feels like it’s suppressing something…”

“Isn’t that a bit strange?”

Pei Qian would actually prefer if this building could suppress his luck a little, making the entire Tenda’s fortune worse, which would probably make it much easier to lose money.

But he feared what Liang Qingfan mentioned—the harmony of yin and yang, the endless cycle of creation—might directly concentrate luck, causing future projects to be profitable one after another, which would be disastrous!

Although Pei Qian strongly believed in science, sometimes metaphysical factors still needed to be considered.

Liang Qingfan nodded, “Yes, what you say makes sense, Mr. Pei.”

“Regarding the first issue, about the purpose of these auxiliary buildings around the perimeter, I’ll need to go back and think more carefully. But rest assured, given Tenda headquarters’ large scale and the rich functionality it needs to support, once I sort out the functional zones of the entire building, I’ll definitely come up with additional uses for these eight entrances.”

“As for the second issue, there’s even less to worry about.”

“I definitely won’t just plop a Tai Chi symbol there as is. As an architect, while maintaining the overall structure and layout with Tai Chi elements, I’ll try my best to incorporate technological and modern elements in the appearance, blending traditional and modern elements.”

“In other words, this building will absolutely not give people an impression of being old-fashioned or outdated in its appearance. It will be a very beautiful, technologically advanced modern building.”

“Perhaps only when viewed from above would one realize that it’s actually a standard Tai Chi symbol.”

“I think this can also demonstrate Tenda’s philosophy to some extent: the fusion of traditional culture and modern technology. Neither sticking rigidly to old ways and refusing to change, nor blindly discarding tradition and losing oneself.”

Pei Qian nodded, “Good, that works. Then let’s refine this proposal further.”

“Focus mainly on how to divide the interior, how many floors the building should have, exactly how much land it will occupy, what the overall cost estimate is… issues like these.”

Liang Qingfan nodded, “Yes, Mr. Pei, I’ll go and elaborate on the plan right away!”