Pei Qian called Assistant Xin over, planning to visit the Slack Internet Café.

On the way, Pei Qian briefly mentioned the matter of Shanyang Games.

“After the holiday, find some time to investigate Shanyang Games and give me a detailed report. You can slightly hint to their boss that we have acquisition intentions.”

Pei Qian was worried that they might disperse during the investigation process, and then it would be troublesome to gather everyone back.

Mending a broken mirror would still leave cracks. To take over, he wanted to do it completely!

So he wanted to reveal his acquisition intentions to Shanyang Games’ boss in advance, giving him some hope and preventing him from hastily dissolving the company.

Assistant Xin drove while nodding, “Yes, Mr. Pei. But from what I know, this seems to be a company with rather poor operating conditions?”

Assistant Xin was putting it very diplomatically.

“I’m not interested in its current state, but its future potential,” Pei Qian said confidently.

“I trust your vision, Mr. Pei,” Assistant Xin asked, “Approximately how long will the investigation take? The longer the time, the more thoroughly we can understand them, and the more advantage we’ll have in merger negotiations.”

She paused, then added, “Besides, they are currently operating at a loss, so we can appropriately delay things a bit, which would help us negotiate a lower price.”

Lower price?

Why lower the price? The higher the price, the better!

Pei Qian immediately shook his head, “No need to deliberately delay. The sooner, the better.”

“In the gaming industry, every second counts. The time wasted negotiating a lower price is better spent on operations. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.”

“Understood.” Assistant Xin then asked, “So for this acquisition, are we acquiring the entire company, or…?”

There were many ways to acquire a company. Some only wanted the shell, dismissing all personnel; some only wanted the game IP owned by the company; others would restructure the company, like parachuting in a new leader or managing with a new HR system.

How to acquire depended on what Pei Qian specifically valued in the other party, making it easier to negotiate the price.

What Pei Qian valued wasn’t Shanyang Games’ people, nor any specific game they had, but rather Shanyang Games’ spirit of creatively losing money!

Therefore, Pei Qian must buy the entire Shanyang Games intact to preserve its original flavor.

Pei Qian immediately replied, “Acquire the entire company, keeping the original corporate structure unchanged.”

“Understood, Mr. Pei.” After understanding her boss’s basic intentions, Assistant Xin didn’t ask further.

This wasn’t a particularly reasonable acquisition.

Because Shanyang Games… had absolutely nothing worth acquiring.

If they wanted certain talented individuals, couldn’t they just poach them directly to Tenda?

If they wanted certain games, they could just buy those, and Shanyang Games would probably be happy to see someone take over their games.

But taking over the whole company?

It seemed a bit illogical.

However, Assistant Xin didn’t question it—this was her professional quality. Whatever task the boss assigned, she would complete it carefully; what shouldn’t be asked, she wouldn’t ask.

Moreover, Mr. Pei must have his profound reasons for such an arrangement. He must have seen some value in Shanyang Games.

With the May Day holiday approaching, Jingzhou City was slightly congested, and it took a bit longer than usual to reach the Slacking Internet Café.

Pei Qian got out of the car and walked straight in.

Hmm, still as deserted as before, that’s reassuring!

By now, the Slacking Internet Café had gained some regular customers—wealthy customers who weren’t sensitive to price and were quite happy to come here to surf the internet, drink coffee, or even use it as a meeting place.

Occasionally, there would be a few friends coming together to play team games.

After all, the environment was nice, the service was good, and there weren’t many people.

Spending a bit more money for a nice environment was very worthwhile for these wealthy customers.

Even so, the Slackin Internet Café still couldn’t recover its costs because there were simply too few wealthy customers nearby!

There was only a relatively remote commercial area nearby, separated by a street, without any large office buildings or high-end residential areas.

The café’s location and price meant that only a small number of people in the vicinity could afford it, far from enough to support the café’s normal operations.

So Pei Qian wasn’t worried at all.

Seeing Pei Qian arrive, Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan quickly came forward to greet him.

“Mr. Pei, what would you like to drink today?” Zhang Yuan asked.

Pei Qian glanced at the menu, “A Margarita.”

Looking around, there were no customers in either the internet area or the coffee area. Today seemed particularly quiet.

“No customers today?” Pei Qian casually asked.

Ma Yang rubbed his hands somewhat embarrassed, “Yes, Qian Ge, I don’t know what’s happening today. Maybe because the holiday is approaching…”

Previously, there had been a few customers to keep up appearances, but this afternoon, there wasn’t a single customer, which was quite unusual…

However, Pei Qian didn’t mind at all; in fact, he was quite pleased.

“That’s fine, just close the door. We’re closing early today.”

“Zhang Yuan, please bring everyone a drink, put it on the company’s tab.”

“Everyone, stop working this afternoon, come sit over here.”

Pei Qian sat down in the coffee area and called everyone over.

The service staff immediately sprang into action—some closed the shop, some arranged tables and chairs, while Zhang Yuan prepared drinks for everyone.

Soon, several servers, including the three chefs from the kitchen (originally there was one, but they hired two more to provide meals for Tenda’s staff), all sat in the coffee area with cocktails in front of them.

Zhang Yuan and Ma Yang sat at the front, one on each side, waiting for Pei Qian to speak.

Pei Qian cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts for a moment.

“Starting next month, Slackin Internet Café will successively open four more branch stores.”

“However, the timing will be staggered, as we can’t secure all the funding at once.”

“Who wants to be a branch manager? Raise your hand.”

The four servers in front immediately raised their hands. One of the chefs at the back hesitated briefly before tentatively raising his hand as well.

Zhang Yuan also raised his hand.

Pei Qian gestured for Zhang Yuan to put his hand down, “You’ll be promoted to management later, overseeing these store managers. No need to raise your hand.”

Zhang Yuan lowered his hand with delight all over his face.

What was going on? He’d somehow gotten promoted!

Pei Qian looked at the five people with raised hands, “Good, it’s you five then. Zhang Yuan, make a note, these five are the new internet café managers.”

The original manager of this store was Ma Yang, but with so many new branches opening, Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan would naturally be promoted to management, leaving the manager position of this store vacant.

So in total, five new people were being promoted to store managers.

Everyone was a bit dumbfounded.

Was it this casual?

Several servers who hadn’t raised their hands were stunned.

Damn it, if only they had known to raise their hands!

They had hesitated, fearing they could not fulfill the manager’s role and might fail the assessment, which would be a bit embarrassing.

But there wasn’t any assessment at all!

The most confused was the chef who had raised his hand.

Logically, since this was an internet café, the manager position shouldn’t have anything to do with chefs; the competition should have been among the servers.

But he had just instinctively raised his hand, and somehow he’d been selected?!

For a moment, he couldn’t quite make the transition from wok-tossing to store management.

Ma Yang gently tugged at Pei Qian’s sleeve and whispered, “Qian Ge, is this okay? Should we maybe have an open recruitment?”

Pei Qian shook his head, “They’re all people you recruited. I don’t trust anyone else, I only trust your judgment.”

Ma Yang smiled awkwardly, “Well, that’s true.”