The waiter gathered his courage: “Rest assured, Mr. Pei, we will not betray Slackin’ Internet Café! I will immediately refuse his offer!”
Another waiter also nodded: “Yes! Mr. Pei’s kindness to us is as heavy as mountains. As long as you don’t abandon us, we will never sell any intelligence about the internet café!”
Looking at these people’s resolute expressions, Pei Qian was a bit confused.
No, don’t!
Just sell whatever you want, I’d be delighted!
What did they want the intelligence for? Wasn’t it to sabotage the Mingyun Manor branch?
That would be perfect! If they could make Mingyun Manor lose even more money, I’d be overjoyed.
Then, the waiters would earn money, and Mr. Pei would lose money—wouldn’t that be a win-win situation?
Pei Qian waved his hand: “No need.”
“Sell the intelligence for whatever price you can get. Don’t be polite to them. Or better yet, negotiate and try to get more than 3,000 yuan.”
The waiters looked completely bewildered.
What did this mean?
Mr. Pei was allowing them to sell intelligence?
One waiter had a sudden realization: “I understand now, Mr. Pei, you’re planning to fight fire with fire! Deliberately feeding them false intelligence?”
Pei Qian smiled without saying a word.
False intelligence?
There’s no false intelligence—everything I say is true intelligence. Just go ahead and sell it.
Pei Qian casually took out his phone and discreetly turned on the recording function.
“Let me tell everyone about the plans for Slackin’ Internet Café.”
“In the coming months, the Mingyun Manor store will become the top priority among all Slackin’ Internet Café operations. At the same time, our internet café business will continue to push forward!”
“Although the Slackin’ Internet Café flagship store is now successful, this is only the success of the alcohol model, not the internet café model.”
He looked at Ma Yang: “Old Ma, you’ve always wanted to transform Slackin’ Internet Café into a bar, but I never agreed because of this point.”
“High-end internet cafés may seem unpopular now, but they are the direction of future development!”
“I predict that within a year, this high-end internet café model will inevitably replace the traditional internet café model and become the mainstream in the market!”
Pei Qian’s speech was a mixture of truth and falsehood.
The transformation from internet bars competing mainly on low prices to high-end internet cafés was indeed the future development trend, but it definitely couldn’t be completed in just a year or two.
In Pei Qian’s memory, the internet café model truly began to take shape around 2012, and it wasn’t until around 2014-2015 that it spread from first-tier cities to second-tier cities and gradually became accepted by most people.
So, in Pei Qian’s concept, he had at least two more years to lose money.
Even if it was the future development direction, so what? As long as he lost money within these two years, that was enough. Future matters could be dealt with later.
Pei Qian continued: “The flagship store’s success can only be considered an unexpected stroke of luck, which wasn’t part of my plan.”
This statement was 100% true.
“Due to the unexpected success of the flagship store, data such as customer flow has been disrupted, making the flagship store no longer suitable for internet café model experiments.”
“Therefore, I’ve chosen the currently least profitable Mingyun Manor store for internet café model testing!”
“Our goal is to focus on the nearby luxury residential area and universities, fully leveraging Slackin’ Internet Café’s advantages as a high-end internet leisure space…”
“Please believe that Mingyun Manor will become Jingzhou City’s next core business district, a leisure place where high-end people gather!”
After hearing Pei Qian’s speech, the waiters exchanged glances.
Was what Mr. Pei said true or false?
Since it was meant for competitors to hear, it must mostly be false, right?
But why couldn’t they detect any falsehood in his words?
No matter how they listened, it sounded like the truth!
Moreover, it seemed to completely align with Mr. Pei’s current actions…
One waiter timidly raised a hand and asked: “So, Mr. Pei, what should we do?”
Pei Qian smiled slightly: “Serve customers well and wait patiently.”
…
After the meeting, Pei Qian sent the recording to Ma Yang.
“Give this recording to any waiter.”
Pei Qian was worried that the waiters might omit parts of his speech when relaying it, so he very thoughtfully recorded it.
With the recording, the other party should be more convinced.
Of course, even with all these efforts, the other party might still suspect this was false intelligence and not take the bait.
But whether they took the bait or not, it would only benefit Pei Qian without causing any loss.
…
…
That evening.
Li Shi received intelligence purchased from three different waiters from his subordinate, along with a recording.
Getting this recording was an unexpected bonus.
This made Li Shi very happy, and he instructed his subordinate to give the person who provided the recording an extra five hundred yuan.
The intelligence and the recording corroborated each other, with the information consistent.
However, since the intelligence was relayed secondhand, Li Shi felt that some information was probably omitted.
The key was Mr. Pei’s exact words in the recording.
In his study, Li Shi sipped tea while carefully analyzing the recording.
“Mr. Pei’s speech can be summarized in two points: First, the high-end internet café model will become the mainstream for future internet bars, with great potential now; Second, Mingyun Manor will be Jingzhou City’s next core business district, a gathering place for high-end people…”
“The first point aligns with my thinking. Indeed, high-end internet cafés will be the future mainstream. As people’s living standards gradually improve and personal computers become more widespread, most people’s visits to internet cafés will change from an essential need to play games to a social need to play together. Naturally, requirements for the environment will become increasingly higher.”
“The second point may be debatable.”
“Mingyun Manor is a widely acknowledged rather unsuccessful high-end villa area, and the nearby East Campus of Jiao Da is much smaller than Handong University’s main campus, with not too many students.”
“Relying on just these two places to make this area popular? That seems too optimistic and idealistic.”
“Moreover, this Slackin’ Internet Café branch is quite far from both places, almost two kilometers away, a 20 to 30-minute walk.”
“This distance is awkward, falling into the dilemma of being too far to walk yet inconvenient to wait for public transportation. Students from the East Campus would prefer internet bars near the school gate, while the wealthy residents of Mingyun Manor wouldn’t specially drive over just to drink a cup of coffee…”
“Trying to cater to both? That seems too ambitious. If it were a high-end restaurant, it might be worth traveling a long distance for, but an internet café doesn’t have that much appeal.”
“But then again, with Mr. Pei’s methods, this isn’t impossible…”
Ever since Pei Qian had used a resident singer to make the Slackin’ Internet Café flagship store popular, Li Shi had been utterly impressed by Mr. Pei’s promotion techniques.
As for Mr. Pei saying in the recording that this was an unexpected stroke of luck, he was being too modest.
How could there be such unexpected good fortune in this world?
So, Li Shi believed about 80% of this speech.
He did have doubts, suspecting it might be false intelligence.
But upon careful consideration, he felt there was no reason for it to be false.