Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

June 4th, Saturday…

At the Management Trainees' regular meeting…

Obviously, the Management Trainees had become used to the work that Boss Pei had assigned them. Everything from gathering information to reporting to Boss Pei came naturally to them. They were practically professionals.

"The three new buildings for Sloth Apartments are being designed. Mr. Liang Qingfan seems to be designing the floor plans while in seclusion."

Pei Qian nodded. He already knew about this, and so he did not pay much attention to this update.

The Management Trainee system's main function was to keep Pei Qian in control of various departments' daily operations and the potential to generate profits. However, it was obviously not a panacea.

For instance, Pei Qian could personally keep an eye on projects that had just started out. That meant the Management Trainees would know even less than Pei Qian himself did.

On top of that, the Management Trainees could only gather information during working hours. They would not know about whatever the department heads did in private.

Pei Qian had no way of dealing with that.

He could not possibly make the Management Trainees follow the department heads around and stare at them 24/7, could he?

Yet, although the system was not perfect, at least it was an improvement from before.

"Fish-Catching Take-Out is still investing huge sums of money into developing fitness meals and releasing different flavors. At the same time, it's planning for the next batch of branches to expand its coverage."

Overall, this sounded like good news to Pei Qian. However, there seemed to be some hidden dangers as well.

He had to admit that Rui Yuchen was daring when it came to spending money. Pei Qian appreciated this a lot. Everything from opening more branches and pouring money into the Gourmet Laboratory made Pei Qian want to clap his hands and cheer. In fact, he wished that Rui Yuchen would ramp up his efforts.

After all, for Fish-Catching Take-Out, opening one more branch meant incurring that much more losses. Where could Pei Qian find anything better than that?

As for developing new flavors for the fitness meals…

That sounded like a hidden danger. However, Pei Qian mainly had two considerations: First, the gym was still incurring losses at the moment. Fancy fitness meals would only encourage those who had already registered at the gym to persevere.

As long as the gym showed no signs of generating profits yet, Pei Qian could afford to keep an eye on the situation.

Second, the Gourmet Laboratory was already open. Something had to come out of pouring research funds into it, right?

If Pei Qian prohibited Rui Yuchen from developing fitness meals, he could work on researching new dishes to improve Fish-Catching Take-Out instead. That seemed far more harmful.

Pei Qian had to choose the lesser of two evils; it would be much more worth the while to let Rui Yuchen continue developing new fitness meals.

"The nameless restaurant is starting its employee training. Employees would be allowed to work out at Deposit Fitness and spend time learning a foreign language. On top of that, the restaurant has hired top students who are proficient in multiple languages directly from Handong University to serve as waiters.

"New requirements have also been implemented for all waiters. They are now required to memorize the ingredients in each dish, how much heat is applied, how they are prepared, and the like."

Eh?

This news piqued Pei Qian's interest. He had stopped paying attention to Ming Yun Private Kitchen a long time ago.

Now, it looked like Branch Manager Lin had learned a thing or two!

Pei Qian fell into deep thought. Compared to setting up new branches, investing in waiters seemed to have a lower price-quality ratio. What's more, he was making his waiters pick up more languages…

How many international friends could find out about Ming Yun Private Kitchen?

Jingzhou was not a cosmopolitan city to begin with. There were very few foreigners in the city, and Ming Yun Private Kitchen was located in a very deserted neighborhood.

Even if a few foreigners went to Ming Yun Private Kitchen for a meal and discovered that the waiters could speak their language, it would only serve to improve their experience. How dramatic could the effects be?

The price-quality ratio was indeed very low!

Wait, was Lin Canrong only investing in something with such a low price-quality ratio to… spite Pei Qian?

He had been watching Fish-Catching Take-Out expand rapidly despite not being able to generate profits. On the other hand, Ming Yun Private Kitchen's request to expand had been decisively rejected.

That's why he's spending all the money that he had earned on something meaningless just to spite me?

If that's true, I can only say 'well done'! Please, work harder!

"The plan for Thriller Hostel's shopping mall is complete. It will be called the Golden Maze. Construction started on an urgent basis. This project will be extremely expensive, and Boss Li had to expend a lot of energy to convince other investors to invest in it."

Eh, they fell for my trick?

Pei Qian was overjoyed. Chen Kangtuo is quite obedient.

I only requested for them to make the shopping mall a luxurious maze to dupe Boss Li and the other investors. I wanted the renovation fees alone to give them a headache. Yet, he's really working on a maze, and it's called the Golden Maze at that. Just the name sounds expensive!

It's no wonder that Boss Li had to expend a lot of energy just to convince other investors to buy-in. They probably didn't think I would go so far as to request that much out of them, right?

Hmm, not bad… the cracks of dissension and discord are already showing. I only have to do this two more times before every single one of them would run away!

"Deposit Fitness's manpower is still largely the same, and there are very few new customers. Old customers are more loyal now, and the number of people who are giving up halfway is falling.

"I've analyzed Deposit Fitness's current data and discovered two main reasons for these trends: first, the improvement in the fitness meals has made it easier for people to persevere. More importantly, there's survivor bias.

"The customers who can persevere have already gotten used to such fitness plans, and that's why they can be increasingly loyal. However, that doesn't mean the gym is doing better.

"After all, we can't attract new customers. No matter how loyal these old customers are, they cannot help the gym to generate profits."

Mm, that's good. This Management Trainee is truly a planner in Deposit Fitness. He could process all the gym's data and analyze the situation so clearly and thoroughly!

After all the Management Trainees had made their reports, Pei Qian nodded in satisfaction.

"Good job, everyone. I want to especially praise Deposit Fitness's Management Trainee. You've analyzed the situation based on objective data, and your entire report was built on the foundation of facts and figures. That's more pragmatic than offering idealistic judgments.

"Everyone else, learn from him and use figures in your observations. After all, numbers will never lie. Alright, our meeting will end here. Thank you for your hard work. Goodbye!"

…

After the meeting, Pei Qian left the office, intending to go to the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe for a while.

When he arrived, he ordered a cup of coffee as usual. Then, he retrieved the laptop that he left at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe and continued working on the mind map of inter-departmental relationships.

Half an hour later, Pei Qian decided to take a break by surfing the web. All of a sudden, he noticed an exciting piece of news.

GOG's new hero—Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan—had been released!

This piece of news had been posted in the games section. The hero was to be released today, almost immediately after the Traveler Bao Xu. Pei Qian had to admit that the team was very efficient.

They were just as fast as IOI's designers in terms of updating the game's content.

Pei Qian scrolled down. This piece of news did more than introduce the Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan's concept art, model, background story, and skills. It also gave readers a preview of the hero's gameplay and commented on the 'arms race' between GOG and IOI.

"Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan is a calligrapher, an artist, and a knight filled with romanticism. The artist's lifelong mission is to inject life in his work and chase after breakthroughs.

"As a lofty and unorthodox genius with painting skills that are way ahead of his times, he is the target of dissatisfaction and exclusion by other painters. Thus, he chooses to wander around the world, letting his paintings remain on tall mountains and in coursing rivers instead of trying to blend in among mediocrities.

"Fortunately, along the way, he became best friends with Modest. They are both lofty, upright, brave, and humble; allowing them to quickly trust each other. Even in battle, they are able to turn their backs to each other and fight side by side!"

Pei Qian: "…"

Why did the hero's introduction look so strange? He and Modest trusted each other and left their backs to each other during battle?

It seems like it's just me turning my back to him while he maniacally stabs me in the back every time, right?

When can I stab him in the back once?!

Pei Qian was filled with resentment.

Ever since he got to know Ruan Guangjian, Pei Qian had carefully plotted his revenge plan a couple of times. He had planned to send Ruan Guangjian to pendulum rides and the Thriller Hostel, and he had even tried playing the unreasonable client.

Yet, each time, Ruan Guangjian would escape from his clutches like a grandmaster, leaving Pei Qian utterly helpless.

Pei Qian kept scrolling down to read the preview of the hero's gameplay and the comments on the 'arms race' between GOG and IOI.

"From the looks of the current mechanism, Yasuo would be a fighter that deals continuous damage, with high mobility and high versatility. Although his damage would be low in the early stages, the longer he survives in battle, the higher his damage would become.

"At the same time, the hero seems to have an extremely high upper limit as well as an extremely low bottom line. His skills don't look that complicated at first glance, but it would take great skill to play this hero well."

Pei Qian missed such retro introductions of heroes' mechanisms.

Obviously, many terms used here were neither standard nor mature, but they were generally correct.

Pei Qian knew very well that this hero had an extremely high upper limit and an extremely low bottom line. In fact, most players would be closer to the bottom line.

"In the past month or so, the 'arms race' between GOG and IOI seems to be intensifying. What's more, neither game is showing signs of stopping. This 'arms race' started with IOI updating its international and local servers at the same time. Its plan to introduce two new heroes each month shocked all players.

"However, GOG followed very closely behind. It even employed an unprecedented 'crowdsourcing' method. In the beginning, the method did not look promising. However, from the looks of the current situation, the strategy has been very successful.

"The event has ignited a passion in players, causing huge numbers of GOG's players to pay close attention to the game. Even when no new heroes were being introduced in GOG, they do not get drawn away by IOI.

"On top of that, the new heroes that were produced from GOG's 'crowdsourcing' have outstanding skills and a variety of gameplay. Both Traveler Bao Xu and Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan have been getting good reviews. Does that prove that gamers know their games better than designers?

"Currently, it looks like GOG has found the perfect counter-attack to maintain—and even increase—its dominance. What challenge would IOI pose to GOG next, then? Let's keep our eyes peeled!"

The words 'maintain—and even increase—its dominance' physically hurt Pei Qian.

He had to admit that Min Jingchao was a genius; he had successfully crowdsourced the game!

Still, Pei Qian could not be bothered about that now. He was more concerned about when he would receive the profits from the sale of the new hero's skins.

Now, Traveler Bao Xu and Literary Genius of the Winds, Ruan only had their default skins. New skins were still being developed.

That was because time was too tight. The production team was already being kept busy with developing new heroes and models. To steal IOI's thunder, the production team had to quickly release the new heroes after testing them.

On the other hand, they could afford to take their time developing skins and balancing the game out.

However, Pei Qian expected new skins to be out in a month or so. In two months, he would probably receive the additional income.

Skins for heroes that had been crowdsourced would be sold at greatly discounted prices, but he could still expect to make a lot from the rapid turnover, right? Pei Qian was not in urgent need of money, but he still felt hopeful about the additional income.

After reading the hero's introduction again, Pei Qian noticed something else. It seemed like… he had found a way to backstab Ruan Guangjian!

He would invite Ruan Guangjian to play GOG. Then, they would each use the character that represented them!

Ruan Guangjian had never played that hero before, and he would probably be bad at it. What's more, the hero had a low bottom line.

For all Pei Qian knew, Ruan Guangjian would be picked on by other players. Then, he would finally experience true 'joy', and Pei Qian would finally get his revenge!

I might not be able to deal with you, but passers-by would be able to deal with your Yasuo!