Zhang Yuan was most satisfied with the first three commercial spaces he had introduced, all of which he believed had a good chance of making money.

After those, from the fourth to the sixth, were average locations that would probably still lose money, but hopefully not as badly.

But the last four had terrible locations, even worse than the current Slackin’ Internet Café flagship store. They were purely added to meet the quota.

After all, Pei Qian had explicitly required them to find ten potential locations.

Zhang Yuan hesitated a bit before saying, “Mr. Pei, these four locations aren’t impossible, but… they might not be as suitable as the first three…”

Zhang Yuan couldn’t directly say these four locations were unsuitable.

After all, these were backup locations that he and Ma Yang had selected. Saying they were unsuitable to Pei Qian’s face would be like slapping himself.

If Mr. Pei were to ask, “If these four locations are unsuitable, why did you select them as backups?” How could he answer that?

So Zhang Yuan could only use this somewhat veiled way to hint to Mr. Pei that the first three locations were better.

Pei Qian stood up and walked toward the projection screen with great interest, carefully examining the locations of these storefronts again.

“I think these four places are quite good.”

“I think Slacking Internet Café should give people a feeling of ‘only in this mountain, where clouds are deep and the place is unknown.’ It should let everyone experience that feeling of searching and finding an unexpected pleasant surprise!”

“Located in a bustling area?”

“No, no, no, that’s too noisy and completely inconsistent with our internet café’s positioning.”

“Our internet café’s tone is quiet and leisurely—this is the tone that was set from the very beginning.”

“Only fifty computers, no smoking, lots of books, and even when singers perform at night, they generally sing folk songs rather than rock… these are all specific manifestations of our café’s fundamental tone!”

“Like other internet cafés, opening in high-traffic areas, making the café smoky and chaotic, like barging into a vegetable market? That won’t do. It’s too tasteless and would seriously damage Tenda’s corporate image.”

Zhang Yuan was somewhat confused.

Damaging Tenda’s corporate image? Really?

Mr. Pei was making such a serious accusation—he couldn’t bear the responsibility!

Pei Qian pointed at the four locations at the back, “These four places are excellent—quiet, leisurely, especially suitable for emptying one’s mind, allowing our customers to contemplate life.”

Zhang Yuan was even more confused.

What was the point of letting customers contemplate life?

Shouldn’t they be thinking about how to spend money?

Pei Qian continued, “Moreover, more importantly, these four locations have very large storefront areas, very spacious, which can give customers more space. This experience is extremely important.”

Zhang Yuan had nothing more to say.

These four locations had large storefront areas?

That was certain—they weren’t in core commercial districts, so the land was cheap, of course the spaces would be more spacious…

Zhang Yuan wanted to explain further, but Pei Qian had already returned to his seat. “You two did well this time. Let’s go with these four locations.”

Zhang Yuan had to swallow the words that were about to come out of his mouth.

“Let the store managers choose among themselves later. Whichever one they like, they can have.”

“Sign the leases for the stores that need more complicated renovations first. For stores that don’t need major renovations, we can delay a bit. When you need money, find Assistant Xin.”

These four stores were in even more remote locations than the original flagship store, so the rent would naturally be lower.

However, Pei Qian didn’t have that much capital on hand right now. At most, he could open two stores first, and after the subsequent income from the games came in, he could open the other two.

But there was no rush—there were still two months left. As long as they could open before the last week of the settlement period, it would be fine.

Zhang Yuan glanced at Ma Yang, giving him a signal that meant, Why don’t you try to persuade Mr. Pei again?

Ma Yang nodded, appearing to understand, and approached Pei Qian, “Alright, Qian Ge, we’ll take care of it right away. No problem!”

Zhang Yuan: “…”

Is that what I meant when I signaled you?!

But since Ma Yang had already spoken, Zhang Yuan could only follow him out of the office sheepishly.

Zhang Yuan hugged his laptop, feeling quite dejected.

He had been very serious about preparing this proposal, conducting on-site investigations, and conducting comprehensive analyses.

The first three locations had been repeatedly validated by him—they would make money!

The last four were purely to make up the numbers; he hadn’t wasted much effort on them.

But Mr. Pei didn’t even look at the first ones and directly appointed the last four locations.

This was truly… maddening.

If it were any other boss doing this, Zhang Yuan might have already cursed this unreliable boss.

Of course, he would only grumble to himself; he wouldn’t resign. After all, he couldn’t earn this kind of salary elsewhere.

But with Mr. Pei doing this, Zhang Yuan wouldn’t complain at all. He could only say that his insight wasn’t sufficient, and he couldn’t guess Mr. Pei’s deeper meaning.

Would Mr. Pei not understand something as simple as location selection?

He understood. The reason he didn’t choose the better locations must be because Mr. Pei had other considerations.

Zhang Yuan felt a bit dejected for a while, but quickly adjusted his mindset and went with Ma Yang to negotiate rents and prepare for opening the branch stores.

……

……

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this location selection.

He estimated that these locations would lose even more money than the flagship store.

This was also reasonable—the flagship store was supposed to have the best business; otherwise, how could it be called a flagship store?

After leisurely drinking tea for a while, Assistant Xin knocked and entered.

“Mr. Pei, I’ve preliminarily collected some information about Shanyang Games. Would you like to take a look?”

Pei Qian immediately became energetic, “Yes!”

This was the matter Pei Qian had been most concerned about recently.

If he could buy Shanyang Games, he would have a second stable loss-making point after the Slacking Internet Café. This would be a permanent solution!

Assistant Xin handed Pei Qian a stack of documents.

As Pei Qian read, Assistant Xin explained.

“Shanyang Games is a private enterprise with a total of 52 employees.”

Currently, Shanyang Games mainly has two games. The first is called ‘Licentious Taoist,’ a cultivation and management game; the second game is called ‘Hot-Blooded War Song,’ a national war-themed web game.”

Hearing these game names, Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh.

Indeed, making flop games was all about talent.

Look at these names: “Licentious Taoist”!

This name just exuded impropriety. If this game could become popular and make it to the bestseller charts, that would truly be the biggest joke of all!

But come to think of it, even knowing this game was clickbait, why did he still want to play it…

“‘Licentious Taoist’ is currently in a state of imminent shutdown, with revenue below 50,000 yuan for a long time. ‘Hot-Blooded War Song’ is Shanyang Games’ economic pillar, but recently, there was an operational accident, and its revenue has also plummeted.”

Pei Qian knew about this incident; Ma Yang had told him about it.

“Hot-Blooded War Song” should be the game where Old Liu priced a knife at 888 yuan, resulting in players condemning it vehemently.

Good.

These were all excellent choices to take over.

Assistant Xin continued, “Roughly estimated, Shanyang Games’ rent is about 150,000 yuan per month, and employee salaries are about 200,000 yuan per month. It’s currently difficult to maintain operations, and I’ve heard they might not even be able to pay this month’s salaries.”

They had many more employees than Tenda, but their workspace was cramped, and the average salary was low, so their monthly rent and wages were much lower than Tenda’s.

Pei Qian didn’t care about this. After all, these things could be gradually improved later.

As long as there were no hidden possibilities of making a profit, it would be fine!