Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

"Senior, the DGE Club seems to be taking part in a Performance Competition organized by ZZ Live-Stream at the moment. It's said that the biggest prize for winning a match goes up to a hundred thousand yuan, and that amount would be split between the members and the club."

"Senior, Fei Huang Workspace has received a project from the Sloth Apartments. They're editing the advertisement for Sloth Apartments right now. Apparently, they also asked Chen Lei to sing a theme song for the advertisement."

There were huge threats everywhere that made Pei Qian cautious at once!

The DGE Club was already dancing along the boundaries. Just before this, they had received two million yuan. That had already served as a red flag for Pei Qian. Now, not even a few days had passed, and they were up to something else!

They would win a hundred thousand yuan per match?

It didn't sound like much, but a 'Performance Competition' could bring a whole lot of exposure!

If DGE Club got too much exposure, they would likely be approached by many more sponsors. Then, the situation would be dire…

As for the partnership between Fei Huang Workspace and the Sloth Apartments… Pei Qian was even more helpless. What's more, he would never have thought that even Chen Lei would sneakily return to Jingzhou to assassinate him!

Pei Qian was absolutely speechless. Good, Chen Lei. You call yourself a good friend of mine, but the first thing you did when you returned wasn't to meet me. Instead, you went looking for Huang Sibo and plotted against me!

Both of those matters were extremely dangerous.

However, it was too late to try and stop them now. All he could do was to think of a way to salvage the situation.

Pei Qian had thought about something for Sloth Apartments: he could get Liang Qingfan to upload the requirements for renting the Sloth Apartments onto its official website and Tengda Life app!

There were many regulations tenants would have to follow. In particular, storage spaces were lacking, and tenants were prohibited from buying their own furniture or changing the house layout. Those alone would probably dissuade a big group of people.

If Pei Qian made all of those things clear upfront, he would probably be able to deal with most potential tenants!

Pei Qian was indeed worried about online exposure through the advertisement. However, he was also very certain that he could not avoid exposure.

Tengda's every move was now extremely eye-catching. It was impossible to hope that the Sloth Apartments would be hidden forever. What worried Pei Qian even more was that the potential customers would arrive at the apartments, see them, and decide to rent them on impulse!

After all, Liang Qingfan had designed the apartments. The extreme minimalism would be very pleasing to the eye, so that many would not even pause to think about the flaws of such a design. They might act on their impulse and move in.

Thus, Pei Qian had to make sure that Liang Qingfan wrote all of its flaws on the website and dissuade potential customers even before they came down to view the apartments.

That way, he could greatly reduce the number of people who would rent the apartments on impulse. Even if people did rent the apartments, the daily inconvenience would work to dissuade them from extending their lease in the long term.

As for the DGE Club, Pei Qian had not thought of a good solution. He could only try to think of something in the coming days.

Soon, the Management Trainees finished reporting.

Pei Qian was very happy with the first post-examinations Management Trainee Meeting. "Good job, everyone. Please continue to work hard!"

…

In the afternoon, on ZZ Live-Stream…

The 'Performance Competition' was about to begin!

Before it officially started, huge groups of viewers were already entering the live-streaming room. That was mainly because of the excessive advertising ZZ had engaged in to boost attendance at this competition.

What's more, the title 'Performance Competition' caused people to instinctively want to find out about the rules of the competition.

The competition schedule was already out. ZZ Live-Stream had invited all the first-tier teams in the country. Even the 'invincible DGE' marketed for a long time by Waiwai was taking part in the competition!

Thus, many people came to ZZ, wanting to find out whether the legendary 'invincible team' was really invincible or the live-streaming platform had just made it up.

The attention that Waiwai Live-Streaming Platform had fought so hard to attract had now been diverted to ZZ.

Yet, Waiwai was not losing out.

Who says I can't do the same back to you?

ZZ had invested a lot of effort and money into marketing this time, and Waiwai already knew that it would be extremely difficult to fight it. Thus, it didn't bother to. Instead, it prepared to reap rewards from ZZ's hard work as well.

That was because Huang Wang was streaming the first person's view of the game on Waiwai!

ZZ Live-Stream would indeed be hosting the competition on its platform, but would viewers be able to see Huang Wang's first-person view? Sorry, that would only be available on Waiwai.

What's more, DGE's members were not the only ones taking part in the competition this time. H4's members were taking part as well, including Pang Ling. All of them had contracts with Waiwai.

Thus, although both platforms were competitors that did not wish for anything more than for the other to drop dead, they amazingly had common interests in the 'Performance Competition'.

You're riding on my hard work, and so I'll ride on yours. We can depend on our own skills to fight for more fame, and we won't have to resort to dirty tricks.

The fact that both live-streaming giants had engaged in widespread publicity for the competition resulted in that many people waiting in the rooms before it even started!

Most viewers were already familiar with the rules of the Performance Competition. Simply put, the Performance Competition was just for entertainment. The audience would be able to rate each team based on their 'performance index'. However, the team would have to win to qualify.

It did not matter how good they were at performing if they lost.

The rules were set this way, mainly to ensure that the competition would be sufficiently competitive. If it were based on performance alone, all ten team members would pick the top ten best support heroes to mess with each other. Then, the competition would look lame.

The biggest advantage of having such rules was this: every team's primary aim would be to win. As long as they could guarantee their victory, they could try as hard as they could to put on a good show.

This way, both teams would take the game seriously, and the competition would be skilled, competitive, and entertaining to watch.

At the same time, the rules would help to close the gap between all teams' skill levels and prevent situations where one team would try to defeat the other as quickly as possible and at all costs.

If they could put on a good show, they would earn twice the reward. Thus, stronger teams would think of various ways to perform with the other team and make the games more entertaining for viewers.

Still, that could backfire. A single mistake could cause the weaker team, who would naturally be more serious, to turn the entire game around.

Whether the stronger team wins while performing or the weaker team turns the tides around, the games would still generate many topics for conversation. That's why those rules resorted to many gimmicks to strike a good balance between entertainment and competition.

Over at the DGE Club, Huang Wang began distributing the program sheet.

If they won without putting on a good show, they would only win fifty thousand yuan. If they won with a good show, they would win a hundred thousand yuan. That was double the reward.

That was why Huang Wang and the others had already prepared a couple of strategies to win while putting on a performance. Once the competition started, they would employ the strategies.

For example:

They would give their lives and never kill a single opponent throughout the game. However, by fighting lanes and stealing resources on the map, they would ensure that both teams had equal resources. During the final stretch, they would split up, lure the opponents in, and go through the backdoor to win the game without killing a single opponent…

The entire team would choose five underdog heroes to win…

One person would not play or even put on headphones throughout the game, so that the team had to play four against five and win…

Four members would protect one throughout the game and win…

They would block off lanes, go back to base, block off all three lanes, and win…

They would make sure that every one of them died at least once and win…

They would invite Coach Ma to join their team and win…

Of course, adding Coach Ma to the team would be too difficult. Thus, everyone decided to play four games and test the waters first. After that, they would decide whether to activate Boss Ma or not.

After all, they could perform all they wanted. However, if they messed up, it would be akin to losing a hundred yuan, and that would be extremely painful.

They had only prepared so many ways to perform with the other party because they were afraid that the audience would get tired of the same old strategy.

Instead, they would intersperse the competition with all kinds of tricks and make the game increasingly interesting as it proceeded. If they could capture the audience's interest, they would give them high ratings, and they would stand higher chances of winning the hundred thousand yuan.

Team Two was going first. Huang Wang gestured to his teammates to follow the first plan—to win without killing a single opponent.

…

The moment the competition began, the live-stream room flooded with bullet screen comments. It was five minutes into the game.

"DGE Team Two's foundation is very solid, and they fill up beautifully! They are good at positioning and strong at both laning and zoning. Those in all three lanes are excellent!"

"Huang Wang's a bit aggressive. The opponent has already been forced home twice. Many soldiers haven't been killed."

"It doesn't seem groundless for Waiwai to praise the DGE Club for being invincible."

Ten minutes into the game…

"What is DGE doing? How did the score become 0-5? The jungler keeps farming without caring about whether his teammates live or die."

"Why are the players on all three lanes so bad at ganking? How are they being caught so frequently? Since when was the other team's jungler so strong?"

"That's alright. DGE's team always dies only after they push through. They're not lagging behind on developments, and they've gotten all the resources on the map. Both sides still have equal resources."

"Are they performing at all? Why do both teams look so serious? Neither one of them looks like they're fooling around."

"Is this the invincible DGE? What a joke!"

Twenty minutes into the game…

"How is DGE at 0-12 now? Can't they kill a single person?"

"Why does the other team always manage to get away while critically injured? They're so lucky…"

"Wait, is DGE doing it on purpose? Look! They always die one by one, and their team is never extinguished at any given time. Yet, each time both teams battle, all five members of the other team would become critically injured. They would have no choice but to go home. On the other hand, DGE would be able to collect resources from the map."

"DGE even got the Baron Nashor? If I weren't looking at the kill ratio, I would think that DGE had the upper hand!"

"The other team got so many kills, but each of their members has fewer resources than DGE's members. Isn't that strange?"

Thirty minutes into the game, DGE won by going through the back door.

"Sh*t! They won?!"

"They could win by making zero kills? What did I just watch?!"

"I understand now. DGE has been putting on a show from the beginning! Their goal was to win without killing a single person! I knew that Huang Wang seemed to have given up every time he had the opportunity to kill one or a couple of members. I thought he was just being foolish. Now, I know it was intentional!"

"Holy sh*t, so that's the case. DGE is too good at acting! Not only did they manage to fool their opponents, but they even managed to fool the audience!"

"Awesome! They could actually win like that? Now I believe that DGE is invincible!"

Many members of the audience were only starting to realize DGE's plan now. At once, they began to vote maniacally, so that DGE's performance index shot through the roof!