Liang Qingfan was stunned, and only after a moment did he say: “Mr. Pei, this matter seems a bit sudden. I need to give it some careful thought…”
Pei Qian smiled and nodded: “Of course.”
He turned to look at Driver Xiao Sun: “Find some time in the next few days to take Mr. Liang around Jingzhou, let him experience the local culture. On the weekend, take Mr. Liang to Mingyun Private Kitchen for a meal, and entertain him well on my behalf.”
Xiao Sun hurriedly said: “Yes, Mr. Pei.”
Pei Qian looked at Liang Qingfan again: “Mr. Liang, please take some time to rest and tour around Jingzhou to gather inspiration. Tenda will cover all your expenses in Jingzhou during this period.”
“By the end of the month, I plan to open more Sloth Apartments, and I’ll need your expertise then.”
Liang Qingfan was somewhat flattered: “No problem, Mr. Pei!”
Being highly regarded, Liang Qingfan felt like he had met a true talent scout.
As a young designer, what did he need most?
A stage, an opportunity!
Although the Gaoling Architectural Engineering Design Co., Ltd., where he worked, was a top-tier design company in China, with industry leader Zhou Nanling at the helm, providing many opportunities to participate in large projects, as a designer under thirty, the major projects he could truly take charge of were few and far between.
A good project was an opportunity for a designer, a chance for recognition, a stage to prove oneself. Without good projects, where could one showcase their talent? Who would know about it?
And here with Mr. Pei, there were opportunities, many opportunities!
Moreover, Liang Qingfan vaguely felt that Mr. Pei’s vision aligned highly with his own in certain aspects.
For example, Mr. Pei was someone who pursued perfection.
As an architect, Liang Qingfan was proficient in many styles and skilled at designing according to clients’ needs and local conditions. However, the problem was that while listening to the requirements, Liang Qingfan also had very profound thoughts about art.
Yet many times, these artistic thoughts were not understood by others.
But Mr. Pei was so satisfied with his design that he immediately tried to poach him, which was enough to show that Mr. Pei’s understanding of artistic achievement was consistent with his own.
We both have this character that pursues perfection!
It was precisely because of this that Liang Qingfan nearly blurted out, “I’m willing.”
Of course, agreeing on the spot seemed a bit too eager and hasty, so Liang Qingfan still needed to symbolically consider for a few days and handle matters at his original company before formally joining Tenda.
Pei Qian walked around the room, very satisfied with everything.
The reason he wanted to recruit Liang Qingfan was because he saw his comprehension ability, which exceeded that of most Tenda employees.
Pei Qian felt that one of the important criteria for screening good employees now was to see the extent of their over-interpretation.
Employees like Lü Mingliang, who rarely over-interpreted and just did exactly what Mr. Pei instructed, were becoming increasingly rare!
In this, designer Liang Qingfan, Pei Qian seemed to see the shadow of Lü Mingliang.
To satisfy the extremely minimalist style at all costs, he was willing to cut out storage spaces that normal people would consider essential;
To spend the budget down to the last penny, he spent over 200,000 yuan on a limited-edition national TV.
All this meant that he would do everything possible to fulfill Mr. Pei’s requirements without over-interpreting too much.
At the same time, he wasn’t famous, so he wouldn’t attract too much attention; yet he had sufficient ability to ensure he could complete the tasks assigned by Mr. Pei.
In short, a perfect candidate!
…
Three hours later, Pei Qian completed his move.
He directly terminated the lease on his original apartment, packed his clothes and shoes into the new place, and left all other unused items in the original rental.
Simply put, it was a move-in with just luggage.
Xiao Sun ran back and forth, helping Pei Qian move all his limited luggage to the new home, quickly finishing the arrangements.
Pei Qian didn’t plan to pile up a bunch of miscellaneous things in the house. He would only do three things here.
Sleep, play games, and eat snacks.
Every day, he would sleep until he naturally woke up, go to Slackin’ Internet Café Handong University branch for meals, then visit the company for a while, and finally return home to play games while eating snacks and drinking beverages—a truly dreamlike life.
Of course, this building also needed a housekeeper and two cleaners.
The housekeeper would be responsible for personnel management and help handle some miscellaneous affairs, while the cleaners would regularly clean, do laundry, throw out trash, and keep the large refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks, just like hotel service.
Finally, there was the issue of promotion.
Ordinary rental properties would immediately be bombarded with calls from various real estate agents as soon as they were listed online, all trying to persuade you to hand over your property to them.
They would make extravagant claims about helping to find tenants, but in reality, they just wanted to monopolize housing resources, making it impossible for tenants to find individual properties or contact landlords directly, forcing them to pay agency fees.
Pei Qian didn’t plan to do any promotion for Sloth Apartments. For such good housing, it would naturally go to those with whom there was a fateful connection. If you couldn’t find it, it meant there was no fate, so how could he rent it to you?
Of course, a lack of promotion didn’t guarantee safety.
When Pei Qian first started making games, he didn’t promote them either, but they were still discovered.
To be safe, Pei Qian planned to observe for a month.
If, after a month, nobody inquired about this apartment, it would prove his strategy was working, and then he could confidently continue buying buildings, transforming them into Sloth Apartments, and using some of the empty rooms as dormitories for employees!
…
…
May 6th, Friday.
Slackin’ Delivery’s first independent store, which was also Slackin’ Delivery’s food research lab, officially opened.
Rui Yuchen stood at the entrance of the store, looking at the bustling crowd on the street, with only one feeling.
I’m finally going to make a grand career move!
A month ago, Mr. Pei personally instructed that Slackin’ Delivery should no longer be attached to Slackin’ Internet Café, but should become completely independent and begin expanding to major cities.
At the same time, a food laboratory was to be established to enrich the menu.
Rui Yuchen immediately began preparations and planned twenty stores.
Of these twenty stores, five were in Jingzhou, one of which was this Slackin’ Delivery Store No. 1, also the food research lab; another five were in other cities in Handong Province, such as Lincheng and Lüzhou; the remaining ten were opened in first-tier cities like the Capital, Magic City, Yangcheng, and Pengcheng.
Opening stores in these unfamiliar cities presented a major problem: it was difficult to manage from afar, and without absolutely trustworthy people, the stores certainly couldn’t be opened.
Fortunately, after nearly a year of development, Slackin’ Delivery had many very loyal veteran employees. Rui Yuchen selected reliable new store managers from these veteran employees, and with the addition of business trip allowances, many people eagerly signed up.
After selecting store managers for each branch, a series of operations for opening stores followed, including finding commercial properties, design and construction, soft furnishings, handling certificates, recruiting local employees, and so on.
These steps were very complex. Slackin’ Delivery Store No. 1 was in Jingzhou, where they were familiar with all aspects of the work, so it opened in just one month.
Slackin’ Delivery in other cities would certainly be slower, but they should be ready in about another month.
The initial investment for these 20 stores totaled more than 3 million yuan, and the monthly rent and labor costs together would require 600,000 to 700,000 yuan.
Rui Yuchen had carefully considered aspects such as location, decoration, store design, and in-store tables, chairs, and equipment. To avoid embarrassing Tenda, high-quality options were chosen for everything.
But even so, the investment didn’t seem like much, mainly because all the store spaces were very small.
Mr. Pei had emphasized that Slackin’ Delivery would always be a delivery brand, so there was no need for such large storefronts; just five or six dine-in seats would be enough.
These 20 stores were just initial tests, and Rui Yuchen had bigger ambitions.
After all, Mr. Pei had said he would cover all costs regardless of the amount, so what was there to fear?
Go all out!
Rui Yuchen had analyzed that the Slackin’ Delivery brand had never made a profit, yet Mr. Pei never cared, showing that Mr. Pei didn’t care at all whether it could be profitable, but had other intentions.
What were these intentions?
Everyone’s ultimate goal must be to make money, but some people have a longer-term vision.
Mr. Pei must be aiming to quickly seize the market, burning money first to make money later!
Including why Slackin’ Delivery and Slackin’ Internet Café were being split apart this time? It was because Slackin’ Internet Café had severely limited Slackin’ Delivery’s expansion.
So, Rui Yuchen felt that 20 stores were far from enough; more needed to be opened.
These 20 stores were mainly to observe Slackin’ Delivery’s popularity in different cities, thereby determining the direction and focus of the next investment.
Of course, this observation period might be quite long, and couldn’t be rushed.
At the same time, Rui Yuchen hadn’t forgotten Mr. Pei’s requirement to establish a food research lab.
Mr. Pei hadn’t given clear instructions on how to specifically implement the “food research lab,” only roughly saying that this place would be used to research various new flavors of food items and provide customized fitness meals for managed gyms.
Judging from the name, a laboratory should be an isolated place.
But after consideration, Rui Yuchen felt this was inappropriate.
Ordinary laboratories researched dangerous items or confidential projects, which is why they needed to be isolated.
But a food research laboratory researched food—if it was isolated and far from consumers, how could consumers taste the researched delicacies first-hand?
So, Rui Yuchen decided to simply transform Slackin’ Delivery’s Store No. 1 into a food research laboratory.
This store would completely disregard making money; it would only be used to test the latest foods and collect customer feedback.
Of course, there were dedicated nutritionists and chefs here who, after researching various innovative dishes, would scientifically test the calories and various nutritional elements they contained, or conversely, first determine the nutritional elements needed by diners and then reverse-engineer a set meal.
And now, a new dish was placed before Rui Yuchen.
This was the first product from the food research laboratory, the Fitness Meal 2.0, specially for managed gyms.
Previously, the fitness meals for managed gyms were all provided by Slackin’ Delivery, but those fitness meals weren’t essentially different from market fitness meals; they were merely combinations of various vegetables, brown rice, chicken breast, and other ingredients that provided sufficient nutrition and were healthy, but not tasty.
The food research laboratory’s research on Fitness Meal 2.0 was aimed at solving the biggest pain point of fitness meals—the problem of not tasting good.