“It’s fine, just tell me the truth. How many customers have come in these two days, how many dined, and how many made reservations for future meals?” Pei Qian asked patiently.
Lin Canrong answered truthfully: “In the past two days, a total of 8 customers have come, 3 customers dined, and 1 customer has made a reservation for dinner tomorrow.”
“Hmm… hmm?”
Pei Qian was very satisfied with the first two numbers.
Just a few people—hardly worth mentioning.
In a few days, when Zhang Zuting posted a new Weibo and this one got pushed down, there definitely wouldn’t even be these few new customers.
But, there was one customer who made a reservation for tomorrow’s dinner?
There are a lot of rich people out there.
Pei Qian thought for a moment and asked, “What dishes did he reserve?”
Lin Canrong listed several rare dishes, including tomahawk steak, caviar, matsutake mushrooms, and so on. The quantity wasn’t large, appearing to be just enough for two to three people, but the price reached more than ten thousand yuan.
Moreover, this customer had already paid a 20% deposit.
Pei Qian fell silent.
The world of the wealthy was truly incomprehensible.
Although Pei Qian himself would eat these things without restraint, and even invite his employees to join in, that was all to spend money!
Spending all the money allowed him to get benefits from the system, and the system would also replenish the money, so Pei Qian could spend without feeling any pain.
But if Pei Qian had to pay out of his pocket to eat these things, even a home-style dish costing three to four hundred yuan would seem expensive to him!
Yet look at this customer, casually ordering more than ten thousand yuan worth of food.
Pei Qian had originally been optimistic. Mingyun Private Kitchen had attracted fewer than ten customers so far, so the situation had seemed very promising.
What he never expected was that among these fewer than ten customers, there was a wealthy tycoon hidden among them???
For a moment, Pei Qian felt confused about the current situation.
Seeing Mr. Pei fall silent, Lin Canrong also couldn’t understand what Mr. Pei was thinking.
Logically, this should be good news, right? But why was there not even a hint of a smile on Mr. Pei’s face?
Pei Qian thought for a moment and asked, “Could you tell where this person was from based on his accent?”
Lin Canrong thought about it: “He was speaking Mandarin, but still had a bit of an accent. He’s probably not a local from Jingzhou, sounds a bit like someone from the Pingcheng area.”
A coal baron?
That was Pei Qian’s first reaction.
But looking on the bright side, since he wasn’t a local from Jingzhou, perhaps he was just in Jingzhou recently for business or a trip, and most likely wouldn’t be a permanent resident in Jingzhou.
Since he wasn’t a permanent resident, that made things easier.
Even a wealthy person couldn’t eat here for every meal; at most, he would come when entertaining guests or for business dinners.
Thinking about it this way, it should… not allow Mingyun Private Kitchen to make too much money, right?
With this in mind, Pei Qian felt a bit more at ease, thinking that he might have been overly cautious lately.
Since this private kitchen was established to entertain company employees, how could news not leak out at all?
Having a few wealthy customers come to dine was part of the plan; looking at the long term, this private kitchen would still operate at a loss.
So, there was no need to be so nervous.
Upon hearing that this wealthy customer wasn’t a local from Jingzhou, Pei Qian felt much more relieved.
The two chatted casually about the daily operations of the private kitchen, and then Young Sun returned with the car.
“Let’s leave it at that for now. Remember our service principle: even for wealthy customers, the rules cannot be broken. Have the waiters serve them with their usual mindset.”
“Also, our restaurant’s name cannot be disclosed.”
Pei Qian gave a few more instructions and then left in the car.
After seeing Mr. Pei off, Lin Canrong carefully contemplated the deeper meaning in his words.
“Mr. Pei means that even when encountering wealthy customers, we shouldn’t be too nervous, because Mingyun Private Kitchen will have many, many wealthy customers in the future?”
“If we break the rules for one wealthy person now, then when there are many wealthy customers later, the rules will become meaningless.”
“That makes a lot of sense!”
“Mr. Pei indeed has a long-term vision. When setting the rules, he already envisioned how popular Mingyun Private Kitchen would become in the future. He’s truly preparing in advance.”
“So Mr. Pei is also hinting that I shouldn’t be easily satisfied. How can I get so excited just because one wealthy customer came? I am the manager of this restaurant after all; I need to stay calm.”
“In the future, wealthy people coming to dine will probably become the norm.”
“I’ll go convey Mr. Pei’s spirit to the staff right away.”
Lin Canrong felt that Mingyun Private Kitchen had a bright future ahead and happily went to share this good news with others.
…
…
August 21st, Saturday.
At Mingyun Private Kitchen, they were preparing for the evening’s dinner.
Qiao Liang planned to tour around Jingzhou in the morning, have some casual fun, and then work overtime in the afternoon to continue playing “Turn Back to Shore.”
Since Mr. Pei was so considerate, the task must be completed with quality and quantity.
Meanwhile, at Shangyang Games, the development of “Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition” had been completed. They were just waiting for final testing, and then they could officially advertise, promote, and launch it.
Today was Saturday, and according to Mr. Pei’s consistent requirements, overtime work on holidays was not allowed.
As the director, Lin Wan initially also wanted to persuade everyone to go home, but with the game’s launch date getting closer and closer, Wang Xiaobin, Ye Zhizhou, and others couldn’t sit still at home. They strongly requested to come back for overtime, so Lin Wan had to approve.
Of course, Lin Wan herself couldn’t sit idly either.
Thinking about the game they had poured their hearts into officially launching and meeting players in a week, everyone’s mood was both excited and anxious.
The micro-client for “Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition” was ultimately controlled at 370MB, which completely exceeded everyone’s initial expectations.
The original “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” was a browser game, playable instantly.
Most browser games kept their micro-clients under 5MB;
A small number of browser games had micro-clients between 30 and 50 MB.
Any larger, and it wouldn’t be called a micro-client anymore, because by browser game standards, the time to download 370MB of data was too long, and players might as well play a client game directly.
Most browser game players would find it difficult to tolerate downloading 370MB of data.
But Lin Wan had no better solution, because according to previous standards, “Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition” had changed from 2D to 3D, with art resources being remade. No matter how much these resources were compressed or optimized, it would be difficult to reduce them further.
Even 370MB was the result of significant optimization efforts.
The risk was high, but at this point, there was no turning back.
Looking on the bright side, perhaps they could forcibly change the tastes of some traditional browser game players with game quality far exceeding ordinary browser games and fair gameplay?
Moreover, there were also advertisements personally directed by Mr. Pei.
Lin Wan wasn’t confident, but she believed that Mr. Pei had arrangements in place.
Wang Xiaobin gently knocked on the door: “Director Lin, the preliminary promotion work is all ready.”
“Currently, we’re mainly placing advertisements on various websites, including novel sites, video sites, game sites, animation sites, website navigation portals, and so on.”
“As agreed earlier, our promotional videos won’t use forced pop-ups or webpage ‘skin disease’ ads. Only after players click will they be redirected to the game’s registration and download page.”
Although they were still advertising conventionally, under Lin Wan’s insistence, some of the more annoying advertising methods had been abolished.
Browser game advertisements were still full of chaos, with inexplicably popping webpages and ‘skin disease’ ads in the bottom right corner being commonplace, giving many internet users an extremely poor experience.
But it had to be said that these shameless pop-up methods were also the most effective.
Rejecting these pop-up methods would reduce the promotional effect of advertisements and might not necessarily gain a good reputation, because internet users might not even realize this point.
But after the discussion, Lin Wan and the team still decided to adopt this approach.
After all, Shangyang Games was no longer the Shangyang Games of the past; they needed to completely differentiate themselves from those browser game manufacturers with no bottom line.
Lin Wan listened to Wang Xiaobin’s report and was satisfied: “Thank you for your hard work. The next task is to further polish the game. Although it might be difficult to change players’ tastes, we have tried our best.”
Wang Xiaobin nodded, deeply agreeing with Lin Wan’s words.
Although Director Lin didn’t manage every detail during the development period, this kind of optimistic and uplifting spirit was indeed in line with Mr. Pei’s, which was very rare.
“So, everyone, be prepared. We have one more week for final testing, letting some old players in to experience and provide feedback.”
“In one week, the game will officially launch, and the promotional work will fully begin!”
…
…
Evening, Mingyun Private Kitchen.
“See? I told you there was a great restaurant here, but you wouldn’t believe me. Do you believe now? Those promoters you hired, their professional skills are lacking!”
Xue Zhebin sat with his legs crossed, his face beaming with a smile, feeling extremely proud.
This dinner reservation from yesterday was worth it!
As soon as he entered, Xue Zhebin felt the difference.
All the decorations in the private room, as well as the dining table and tableware, had been changed!
When he came for lunch yesterday, since Mingyun Private Kitchen had no other customers, Xue Zhebin had also chosen this private room, but at that time, he hadn’t made a reservation, so the room still had the regular decorations. Although the environment was good, it had no special features.
Today was different. Since Xue Zhebin had reserved in advance, the decoration of the private room, the dining table, and the tableware were all determined according to the dishes. The entire style was highly unified, including the tablecloth and the arrangement on the dining table, which showed careful preparation.
In short, as soon as they entered, it was visually striking!
The young man sitting across from Xue Zhebin looked slightly older than him, but was not yet thirty.
Completely different from Xue Zhebin’s nouveau riche aura, this young man was wearing formal attire, completely business-like, giving the first impression of a workplace elite.
At this moment, he was tasting the delicious food while looking confusedly at the review app on his phone.
“Jingzhou has such a high-quality private kitchen, and our promoters couldn’t find it. How did you find it?”
On the map of the review app, this location was just ordinary empty land, with nothing shown.
Xue Zhebin smiled very proudly: “Why should I tell you how I found it? You lost the bet, so you’re paying for this meal!”
The young man sitting across from him was named Wang Peng, one of the co-founders of Quanmin Review.
As a survivor after the fierce competition among group-buying websites, Quanmin Review had been rapidly expanding from first-tier cities to second and third-tier cities in recent years, with Jingzhou being one of the key target cities.
To expand the market more quickly and attract merchants, Wang Peng proposed setting up “promoters” in each city. The daily work of these promoters was to find undiscovered shops and persuade them to become cooperative merchants with Quanmin Review.
The promoter system indeed had a good effect, with Quanmin Review rapidly expanding in Jingzhou, currently covering the vast majority of merchants.
Especially for restaurants with excellent dishes and high standards, promoters would receive substantial performance bonuses after successfully establishing cooperation relationships, so Quanmin Review’s promoters were sparing no effort to discover such establishments.
Even if a business was unwilling to establish a cooperation relationship, Quanmin Review’s website would at least mark this shop; there shouldn’t be a situation where the map showed nothing.
It was precisely for this reason that Wang Peng didn’t believe what Xue Zhebin said, and felt somewhat unconvinced.
He believed it impossible for Jingzhou to have such a high-end restaurant in all aspects that hadn’t been discovered by Quanmin Review.
The waiter stood smiling nearby, waiting to serve.
Wang Peng asked, “How long has your restaurant been open?”
The waiter smiled and replied, “For more than half a month now.”
Wang Peng was even more confused.
He really couldn’t understand what was going on. Quanmin Review had so many promoters in Jingzhou, who spent every day looking for undiscovered businesses, yet this restaurant had been open for more than half a month, and none of the promoters had discovered it, but Xue Zhebin had.
This was too absurd.
Wang Peng asked again, “What’s the name of your restaurant?”
He was considering taking the opportunity to win over this restaurant’s owner and establish a cooperative relationship with Quanmin Review.
The waiter smiled and replied, “Sir, our restaurant doesn’t have a name.”
“We hope what you remember is the excellent dining environment here, the meticulous service, and the unforgettable delicious food, rather than an empty name.”