September 1st, Thursday.
Pei Qian arrived at Slackin’ Internet Café early in the morning, sipping coffee while organizing mind maps for each department.
With just one month left until settlement, as the saying goes, “the last 10% of a journey is half the effort.” Whether this cycle could successfully end in a loss would depend on this final push!
Pei Qian carefully evaluated his current businesses. Overall, there was still hope for losses.
Of course, this wasn’t because none of Pei Qian’s businesses were making money, but mainly because he had become increasingly skilled at spending money.
As his various businesses expanded, Pei Qian had more and more ways to rapidly spend money. Especially after these departments became profitable, the system seemed to relax restrictions on spending in these businesses. Advertising, opening branch stores, offering customer discounts, and so on, all became more flexible.
Currently, Pei Qian’s two largest sources of income this cycle were the box office receipts from “Beautiful Tomorrow” and the seventy million dollars from IOI. The former was used to purchase buildings for the Sloth Apartments, while the latter was directly burned to promote GOG’s world server. Both funds were almost completely spent, with the final amount reserved for organizing the GOG World Invitational, which should also be spent before settlement.
As for other businesses that suddenly boomed, such as the internet café and food delivery, the money they earned was much less compared to the two previous income sources. After all, these brick-and-mortar businesses generated steady income, and even if they turned profitable, they couldn’t accumulate too much money in just a month or two.
Following the principle of “whoever earns money spends it,” Pei Qian had these physical businesses continue expanding with new branches, which would use up all the money they earned.
Of course, no more branches could be opened in the final week before settlement, but by then, there shouldn’t be much money left anyway.
OTTO Tech wouldn’t be included in this cycle’s settlement. Extra money could be invested in the software lab and imaging lab there, as long as they produced results in the next cycle.
For Pei Qian, the key now was to maintain the status quo and avoid earning more if possible. Every additional profit would make it more difficult to achieve a loss at settlement.
After organizing the current situation of each business using mind maps, Pei Qian felt things looked manageable.
Although this cycle had been full of twists and turns—Slackin’ Delivery made money, Horror Inn became popular, DGE Club made a profit, and Dayark Company somehow worked against him—he was strong enough to withstand it all.
“Next, ‘Struggle’ is about to be released. As long as this game doesn’t make big money—even if it makes a small profit—this cycle will be secure.”
“From all perspectives, the chances of it making a large profit are very low.”
“The investment in ‘Struggle’ is too high, and it’s also very irritating. This kind of game is more suitable for cloud playthroughs, so not many people will buy it. Separating the poor version and rich version with different pricing will further reduce income.”
“Most importantly, single-player game sales happen over a long period. I only need to worry about the first month’s sales. Future sales are a problem for later…”
“Even in the worst case, if it makes a small profit, I can still throw the money at OTTO Tech.”
“Besides, I still have this cycle’s special task to reduce the final system fund amount for settlement. I just don’t know if the system will recognize my learning results…”
This cycle’s settlement had a special rule: Pei Qian could invest in himself, up to 1.6 million. If the system judged it successful, he could reduce up to eight times that amount—12.8 million—from the system funds, not counting toward the final settlement.
If Pei Qian’s system funds at settlement were 22 million, then, according to the original conversion ratio, he would only get 2 million × 0.001, which is 2,000 yuan.
But with this special rule, Pei Qian could get (22 million – 12.8 million – 20 million) × (-0.1) = 1.08 million!
The difference was like heaven and earth.
Of course, this was the ideal scenario, and Pei Qian wasn’t certain whether the knowledge he learned would be recognized by the system.
Although both He An and Qiu Hong were industry leaders who shared valuable insights, and the system acknowledged the value of this tuition, would the system consider that Pei Qian had learned enough useful knowledge? This seemed hard to say.
Pei Qian was alson’t sure whether he could successfully keep the system funds around 20 million at settlement.
If both were possible, this would be his most successful settlement ever!
Though also the most mentally exhausting one, it would all be worth it!
After organizing his thoughts, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.
Just then, his phone rang.
“Ding.”
Pei Qian picked it up and saw a message from Guan Peisheng of Fei Huang Studio.
“Senior, Director Zhu is working with Sloth Apartments to prepare a video exposing Zhujia Group’s formaldehyde-contaminated housing problem.”
Pei Qian was stunned.
The people at Fei Huang Studio had such a strong presence!
They had just ended their one-month shock period and had already made two consecutive videos?
Don’t they need their livers??
Pei Qian was speechless. He hadn’t even recovered from the last Sloth Apartments promotional video, and now there was another one?
Zhujia Group’s formaldehyde-contaminated housing… what was this about?
Pei Qian frowned slightly and texted back: “Tell me more.”
Guan Peisheng quickly replied.
“It’s like this, Senior. Zhujia Group has been smearing our Sloth Apartments online, saying they don’t offer good value for money. But actually, Zhujia Group’s ‘Safe Homes’ have a serious formaldehyde problem. The manager of Sloth Apartments, Director Zhu, and Qiao Laoshi have decided to expose this issue together…”
Reading the detailed information from Guan Peisheng, Pei Qian fell silent.
As they say, there’s nothing new under the sun.
Pei Qian hadn’t cared at all about Zhujia Group badmouthing Sloth Apartments.
Whether they said Sloth Apartments had poor value for money or was uncomfortable to live in, it didn’t matter, because Pei Qian’s original goal was to discourage tenants anyway.
Pei Qian clearly understood that once Fei Huang Studio and Sloth Apartments released this video, it would be a powerful counterattack against Zhujia Group and would likely make Sloth Apartments popular as well.
One could only say that the world was truly absurd.
In some industries, if you operated legally and honestly, even without any breakthroughs, just meeting basic requirements would put you ahead of 99% of your competitors.
Because 99% of competitors had absolutely no bottom line.
After a long silence, Pei Qian texted back: “Tell them, well done!”
What Pei Qian hated most in his life were these bloodsucking garbage companies.
They were even more detestable than scalpers!
Scalpers disrupted market order and were parasites, but they only wanted your money.
Companies making these formaldehyde-contaminated houses not only wanted money but also lives!
How much extra would it cost to use environmentally friendly paint and let the place air out after renovation?
Huh? How much more would it cost?
After renovating a room and renting it out, it could be rented for three, five, or even ten years without needing renovation again. During this period, even if Zhujia Group only made 500 yuan in price difference each month, it would accumulate to tens of thousands of yuan or more!
They could still make money while protecting consumers’ health, just a little less!
Just to save a few thousand yuan in costs per room, they completely disregarded consumers’ health? Did they have to kill people?
Especially since Zhujia Group was a nationwide real estate agency with so many properties. How many people would get sick, be hospitalized, develop cancer, or even die from living in these formaldehyde-contaminated houses?
Previously, Pei Qian didn’t know and thought Zhujia Group was just in normal business competition with Sloth Apartments.
OK, that was fine. They could badmouth him all they wanted, and he wouldn’t mind or might even be happy about it.
But if Zhujia Group was this kind of garbage company, then sorry, even at the risk of making money, he would definitely destroy them!
After replying to Guan Peisheng, Pei Qian was still seething.
Perhaps he would never understand why some companies, just to make a few thousand yuan more per room over several years—averaging just a few dozen yuan more per month—would resort to fraud and murder.
As a normal person, a person with humanity, he couldn’t comprehend it.
While still angry, his phone rang again.
“Ding.”
Pei Qian picked it up and saw a message from Zhang Yuan.
“Mr. Pei, the delegation from other esports clubs has arrived in Jingzhou! They want to discuss buying our players! Would you like to come over? If not, I can sign the contracts with them directly.”
Pei Qian: “What the hell?”
Other esports clubs?
A delegation?
This meant there was more than one club?
They wanted to buy DGE’s players?
Why?! The other players weren’t streaming talents like Huang Wang! You’ll lose money buying them!
Pei Qian was speechless. What he had been worried about was happening.
H4 Club buying Huang Wang wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning!
Pei Qian quickly replied: “I’ll be right there!”
He didn’t trust Zhang Yuan. What if Zhang Yuan drove up the price, selling all nine players for a transfer fee of 30 million? Wouldn’t that be a disaster?
At this point, an unexpected 30 million would put him in a very difficult position!
Pei Qian immediately called for Xiao Sun and took a car to the DGE Club.
…
At the DGE Club.
Several team managers gathered in the conference room, drinking tea and chatting while waiting for Mr. Pei to arrive.
These managers all had their agendas.
They had contacted Zhang Yuan separately. There were seven teams in total, and each team wanted to buy players from DGE Club to strengthen their lineup, with different position needs.
But Zhang Yuan thought that, with managers from seven teams, talking to them one by one would take too long.
Might as well invite them all at once.
Hold an auction directly, with the highest bidder winning, and nobody would have complaints.
As for why these team managers suddenly decided to buy players from DGE Club?
Simple—they had all been destroyed by the H4 Club!
After H4 Club bought Huang Wang and settled down in Jingzhou, they had already played five days of online practice matches with other clubs.
And they had completely crushed all these clubs!