September 21st.
Early this morning, Pei Qian took a car to Jingzhou City’s largest shopping mall, Universal Street.
Pei Qian had been to this place many times before. The earliest was when he bought suits, and later, when organizing employees to urgently spend money, he often came here to consume.
However, during those previous visits, Pei Qian came as a consumer—came to buy, buy, buy. This time, he came as the owner of Slackin’ Internet Café, which was completely different.
Of course, before deciding to open Slackin’ Internet Café here, Pei Qian had done some homework, first confirming that this mall indeed had no connection with Shenhua Real Estate.
Pei Qian certainly didn’t want the internet café to be halfway through construction when suddenly, some Director Lin called, and the rent that was supposed to be paid got exempted.
It wasn’t about the amount of money; it was mainly that such incidents would seriously interfere with Mr. Pei’s plans.
Mr. Pei was a person who disliked changes to his plans. After all, making a million yuan versus losing a million yuan was worlds apart for him.
Even a small hiccup could leave Mr. Pei on the verge of tears.
This time, Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan had identified a space of about 800 square meters on the third floor of Universal Street, and Pei Qian was quite satisfied with this location.
If it were on the ground floor, everyone visiting the mall would pass by, and the foot traffic would be too high.
Plus, the merchants on the ground floor were quite wealthy, and it might not be effective to pay them to move out—vacant spots were hard to find.
And if it were on the top floor, because of the cinema and some bubble tea shops, there was a possibility that some young people might play at the internet café before or after watching a movie.
So, in Pei Qian’s view, this location on the third floor was quite good.
Besides Slackin’ Internet Café, this floor mainly housed various clothing brands, most of which were high-end foreign brands. The only food and beverage brands were a high-end coffee shop and a bubble tea shop next to it.
Overall, this floor was relatively quiet, and most people who browsed this floor were shopping enthusiasts, mostly young women, who probably wouldn’t randomly go to an internet café.
The location selected for Slackin’ Internet Café was in the southeast corner of this floor, a relatively independent area.
This space was originally occupied by a foreign clothing brand, but due to poor management, it was being transferred.
The original clothing and merchandise had all been cleared out in a liquidation sale, leaving the entire area empty, with only shelves remaining, which would also be moved away soon.
The decoration was quite good, tending toward a low-key and minimalist style, which aligned with Pei Qian’s ideas.
Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan were already waiting there.
They could sense that Mr. Pei attached great importance to this Slackin’ Internet Café 2.0!
When they were looking for a location a few days ago, Mr. Pei repeatedly emphasized it, and last night Mr. Pei even made a phone call to urge them—this was quite rare.
Pei Qian did indeed attach great importance to it.
He was anxious!
He needed to quickly spend all the excess money on hand, and there wasn’t much time left.
Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan gave Pei Qian a tour.
“How is it, Brother Qian? This place is okay, right? Mainly, shop spaces at Universal Street are quite scarce and hard to find. So even though this location is average, we’ll have to make do with it,” Ma Yang said.
“The location is quite good. I’m very satisfied. Let’s go to this place!” Pei Qian decided immediately.
Ma Yang was pleased: “Great! Then we can start renovating soon. Shall we follow the previous style of Slackin’ Internet Café?”
Pei Qian thought for a moment: “There’s no need to strictly follow the previous style of Slackin’ Internet Café.”
“After all, this is Slackin’ Internet Café 2.0. Our slogan is ‘Return to the Essence of Internet Cafés.’ As long as we retain the feel of Slackin’ Internet Café, we don’t need to strictly adhere to the previous style.”
“The most important thing is to be quick, understand?”
Although renovation would cost a sum of money, what Pei Qian was most worried about now was time.
If any problems arose during renovation, causing a delay in the opening, it would be counterproductive for Pei Qian.
After all, to urgently spend money within this cycle, opening just one Slackin’ Internet Café wasn’t enough; multiple locations were necessary.
Assuming this internet café would take two weeks to renovate, and then a week to observe its operations after opening, there would be no time to open other internet cafés before the settlement.
Therefore, Pei Qian decided to simplify everything—minimal renovation, quickly bringing in tables, chairs, and computers, striving to complete everything within a week, then observing for another week.
As long as the loss situation met expectations, two weeks later they would directly invest in opening three or four more Slackin’ Internet Café 2.0 locations in other large shopping malls, ensuring that the money was spent urgently before the week prior to settlement.
Although Ma Yang didn’t understand why Pei Qian was in such a hurry, he had long been accustomed to not asking too many questions.
Zhang Yuan was the same, still ordering a batch of computer components to assemble according to the previous Slackin’ Internet Café configuration.
Of course, as the Jingzhou regional manager of Slackin’ Internet Café, he certainly wouldn’t personally assemble over a hundred computers—now he could direct many subordinates to do these tasks.
After arranging the Slackin’ Internet Café matters, Pei Qian took a car back to Tenda.
On the way, Pei Qian opened the TPDb website on his mobile browser to check players’ reviews of “Hot Blood Battle Song: Power-Enhanced Version.”
Before the mobile version was released, the game’s total score was 7.2, with a consumer score of 9.1 and a netizen score of 4.2.
After the mobile version went online, the game’s netizen score and total score showed a continuous upward trend.
Later, after the official platform gave it a recommendation, these two scores rose again.
Now, the total score had increased to 8.4, and the netizen score had risen to 7.2, including some reviews that made Pei Qian’s heart ache when he read them.
“A good game that was ruined by brainwashing advertisements!”
“An unconventional national war web game. I mindlessly gave it 1 point before, but now I’m changing it back.”
“It’s quite interesting. It changed my stereotypical impression of web games. Have to say, this game’s designer has something special.”
Ah, heartbreaking.
Now that the game’s score was rising, the good news for Pei Qian was that more bonuses could be given to Shangyang Games, but the bad news was that, judging by these scores and reputation, the game would likely make considerable profit shortly.
On the mobile end, Shenhua App Store’s recommendations were maxed out;
On the micro-client end, the official platform had also given recommendations, with large numbers of new players flooding in.
The originally estimated monthly revenue of four to five million would likely soon rise to six or seven million, or even more.
This made Pei Qian’s feelings quite complicated…
Pei Qian didn’t quite understand why Shangyang Games had turned out this way.
Wasn’t it just a change of Old Liu???
Could it be that Old Liu was the true talent he needed?
Unfortunately, Old Liu ran away too quickly last time. Before Pei Qian had a chance to discuss the acquisition with Shangyang Games’ owner, Old Liu had already greased his heels and left.
In any case, now Pei Qian could only place his hopes on these physical stores and on “Return to Shore.”
According to the current development progress, “Return to Shore” should be able to go online around October 1st. Pei Qian didn’t dare to relax at all, as his little heart couldn’t bear any heavier blows.
Another piece of bad news recently was that Qiao Laoshi had already completed the second playthrough of “Return to Shore.”
After completing the first playthrough, Qiao Laoshi had basically figured out this game’s gameplay, so the time to complete the second playthrough was much faster.
This time, Pei Qian could only let Qiao Laoshi off.
Because there wasn’t much time left until launch, increasing the game’s difficulty further might make it impossible for Pei Qian himself to complete the game.
Pei Qian had managed to beat the game using “Deliverance” with great difficulty and didn’t want to suffer through that again.
Moreover, Qiao Laoshi was indeed a player with great patience and decent skills. He spent eight hours every day grinding the game, so completion was normal.
Normal players probably wouldn’t be as hardcore as him.
Therefore, even if Qiao Laoshi had completed the game, it wouldn’t affect the game’s deterrent effect on other players.
In other words, if even Qiao Laoshi encountered such great difficulties and setbacks in this game, then the chances of ordinary players surviving in this game would be even lower.
However, now Pei Qian wasn’t so confident anymore. He didn’t expect “Return to Shore” to lose money drastically; he just hoped it would earn a little less.
If it earned a little less, then he could urgently open several Slackin’ Internet Cafés and a batch of Headwind Stations to spend all the money—that would be a blessing.
As Pei Qian browsed, he considered developing a mobile version of TPDb shortly, as it was somewhat inconvenient to always view it through a mobile browser.
While closing the TPDb website on his mobile browser, Pei Qian noticed something else.
Many netizens had found other Tenda industries through the TPDb website.
The TPDb website was accessible to everyone and also excerpted player ratings from other media and websites.
Some players who entered this website also saw some not-so-popular industries, such as Endpoint Chinese Web Novel Network.
The full name of this website was “Tenda Project Database,” which hinted that all the industries on this website were related to Tenda.
So many users marveled in the comments section, expressing surprise that Slackin’ Internet Café and Mingyun Private Kitchen were also industries related to Tenda.
But such comments hadn’t become mainstream and hadn’t provoked much response.
Because the TPDb website was still too small in scale, most people wouldn’t come to see the ratings on it.
Mingyun Private Kitchen, Slackin’ Internet Café, and Headwind Logistics were limited to the Jingzhou area and hadn’t expanded to other regions, so their influence was also very limited.
For a company like Tenda to invest money in some side businesses, this was a standard operation for many companies, nothing surprising.
After closing the mobile browser, Pei Qian prepared to go back and rest well, waiting for “Return to Shore” to officially launch on October 1st.
After that, there would likely be a fierce battle.
However, just as he put down his phone to take a nap, he received a message.
It was from Lin Chang.
He had arrived in Jingzhou and wanted to meet with Pei Qian for a chat.