Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Chapter 587: The Queue Problem

After watching the video, Pei Qian only felt one thing.

You’ve spoken so much... are you sure you’re referring to my Thriller Hostel?

‘Thriller Hostel made use of its game design concepts and excellent grasp of the gamer’s psyche, giving it an insurmountable advantage over other haunted houses?’

How would I have known that Chen Kangtuo would incorporate his game design concepts into the project after I put him in charge of the haunted house?!

I purely did that to punish him for working overtime!

‘The haunted house can provide visitors with excitement and help to revive their bodies?’

He had never thought about that. He had only thought about using it for revenge!

The last point was the most ridiculous. I had only adopted this pricing strategy to earn less money. How did it become a finishing touch?

It was ridiculous! It was all so ridiculous!

At that moment, Pei Qian felt Qiao Liang’s praises oozing out of every single pore in his body. Teacher Qiao had practically forced every positive thing he could think of down Boss Pei’s throat!

In fact, Pei Qian had been praised so much that he now felt embarrassed.

No one would believe such a ridiculous video, right? No one would fly to Jingzhou to be tortured over a couple of lines from Teacher Qiao, right?

Don’t gross me out! Gamers, don’t be blinded by him!

Feeling extremely worried, Pei Qian watched the entire video again.

However, the video had only been uploaded a while ago. The comments section only contained comments from people who wanted to be the first. He could not tell much else.

Thus, Pei Qian had no choice but to turn in for the night.

When he woke up in the morning, he would scan the messages and comments under the video and then decide if he needed to take any action.

...

...

At 10 AM the following day...

Once Pei Qian woke up, the first thing he did was pick up his phone and check Qiao Liang’s video. When he saw the number of views, he was shocked.

However, compared to the figures on Qiao Liang’s other videos, it was still not bad.

Obviously, as a well-known UP Master on Aili Island, Qiao Liang had a huge fan base. Even though this was a new video series that had been uploaded a mere few hours ago, it was already getting a lot of attention.

However, it was also clear that the video was not as popular as the ‘Products of the Gods’ series.

Upon clicking on the video, many gamers realized that it was not about games and then did not bother to watch anymore. Instead, they clicked on the ‘x’ button at once.

Thus, until now, Pei Qian was still quite satisfied with the video’s popularity. It had not even made it on the charts for the entire website.

What gave Pei Qian even more comfort was that the comments under the video were very different from the ‘Products of the Gods’ series. It did not look like the entire situation was being turned upside-down. Instead, most people seemed to take Qiao Liang’s words with caution and adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Pei Qian casually scanned the comments with the most likes.

“Well said! I won’t give you my full support yet, but I definitely will once Thriller Hostel becomes popular!”

“We can definitely trust Old Qiao when it comes to games, but for haunted houses... let’s wait and see.”

“You’re right, but I will never go there (sarcasm).”

“Let me be fair! I’m completely on Old Qiao’s side, and I fully believe that this video is not sponsored. Old Qiao always makes it clear when his videos are sponsored, and he never hides it. However—!

“I have reason to believe that Old Qiao has suffered severe mental damage in that haunted house and that he’s now trying to drag us down with him! Don’t fall for his tricks, everyone!”

“Holy sh*t, the commenter above seems to have discovered the truth! Old Qiao is taking revenge on society!”

“Son, we appreciate your goodwill, but we’ll leave you to experience Thriller Hostel on our behalf! Your daddies will not be visiting it!”

After reading those comments, Pei Qian was elated. Although he had just woken up, he was now fully alert. Based on the feedback from the audience, the video had not managed to turn the entire situation upside-down.

Pei Qian had to admit that Qiao Liang’s content was confusing.

However, the biggest problem was the prediction he had made about Thriller Hostel definitely becoming popular in the future. It was too rash.

What if Thriller Hostel never became popular or if it took too long to do so? Wouldn’t it prove that everything Qiao Liang had said was wrong?

All of his arguments would fall apart!

Hear, hear! The audience’s eyes are bright and clear!

Qiao Liang, were you trying to blind our intelligent and wise society? Keep daydreaming!

Still, there were a few dissenting voices among the comments. Take this one for example:

“A real-life Be Quiet? That sounds interesting! I’m going to buy tickets right now! Jingzhou, here I come!”

All of a sudden, Pei Qian noticed a problem. Qiao Liang had many fans who were also players of Tengda’s games, and until now, Be Quiet had already gathered a group of hardcore and loyal gamers.

Given its special nature (tedious prerequisites and complicated gameplay), Be Quiet had not been discussed much online. Moreover, it was less popular compared to the other games by Tengda.

However, every player of Be Quiet was a hardcore fan with high viscosity! In other words, as hardcore players, they would be the most easily motivated by the video!

After some consideration, Pei Qian concluded that this was indeed a hidden danger.

At the moment, everyone at Shang Yang Games was probably eagerly preparing for the competition. Yet, what if they suddenly paid attention to Be Quiet because they felt like it and then decided to run a combined event with Thriller Hostel?

There was a good chance of that happening!

At that thought, Pei Qian quickly called Ye Zhizhou, wanting to ask how preparation for IOI’s competition had been going recently to send him down the wrong path.

If there wasn’t enough work, he would give them other tasks to do just to keep them from thinking about Be Quiet and Thriller Hostel.

Soon, the call went through.

“Hello, Ye Zhizhou? How has work been recently?” Pei Qian acted nonchalantly.

At the other end of the line, Ye Zhizhou paused.

“Boss Pei, everything has been going well! Eh, wait... Boss Pei, did you call... to ask about the combined event between Be Quiet and Thriller Hostel?

“Don’t worry, Boss Pei, it’s all been settled! We’ve already uploaded Teacher Qiao’s video onto the official noticeboard and website for Be Quiet!”

Pei Qian’s mind was filled with question marks.

They had already uploaded the video onto Be Quiet? How the f*ck did they move so quickly?

The video was only released last night. I’m calling you in the morning, and yet you have already uploaded the video?!

You must have worked overtime!

After recovering from the initial shock, Pei Qian felt furious. Good, Ye Zhizhou! I’ve finally caught you red-handed!

“Did you work overtime?” Pei Qian asked in a low voice.

Ye Zhizhou was evidently stunned. “Huh? We didn’t. I clicked the link that Teacher Qiao sent to me last night and only uploaded it when I got to the office this morning.”

Pei Qian was speechless. “That quick? You couldn’t have uploaded the video onto the official website in just one hour, could you?”

Ye Zhizhou laughed and explained, “Boss Pei, you want to check how well we have grasped our company’s battle strategy right? Of course, we made preparations for the event a long time ago!

“Ever since we saw how similar Thriller Hostel’s Desperate Escape was to Be Quiet, we knew that we had to run a combined event! Obviously, you had planned for this to happen, Boss Pei!

“That was why I arranged for a professional to prepare for the combined event while Teacher Qiao was working on his video. Once the video was published, I uploaded everything onto the website!

“Don’t worry, Boss Pei, most people in the office are working on IOI, and progress has been smooth. Work in that regard has not been affected!”

Pei Qian: “...”

He seemed to understand why the Management Trainee had not reported this now.

The Management Trainee had obviously been keeping a close eye on IOI’s competition and nothing else. Comparatively, uploading a video on the games platform seemed negligible. He had probably thought that it was not worth mentioning!

At first, Pei Qian had intended to mislead Ye Zhizhou. Yet, Ye Zhizhou had been one step ahead of him, and work had been completed even before Pei Qian thought about the problem...

Pei Qian wanted to say something else but stopped himself after further thought.

“Alright, that’s all.”

...

At that moment, in Thriller Hostel...

Each day, Chen Kangtuo kept an eye on the figures, including visitor traffic, number of times each person visited each project, and the like.

Hao Qiang was watching Teacher Qiao’s video when he said, “Teacher Qiao has really gone all out this time. He used his own reputation as a UP Master to vouch for Thriller Hostel!

“Although I believe Thriller Hostel would definitely become popular as well, I still think Teacher Qiao’s boldness is commendable.

“Should we give him some... remuneration?”

Chen Kangtuo pondered for a moment and then said, “Logically, we shouldn’t let Teacher Qiao work for free, but... I’m afraid that paying him would taint his pure friendship with Boss Pei.

“I think we should let it go. Money hurts relationships. Let’s think of other ways to help Teacher Qiao out.

“What do you think about... making him a distinguished guest who would be allowed to play at Thriller Hostel and all of its future projects for a lifetime?”

Hao Qiong pondered about it for a moment. “Yes, that sounds good! Since Teacher Qiao likes Thriller Hostel so much, he would surely be pleased if we make him a distinguished guest and allow him to come for free at any time!”

Chen Kangtuo picked up his notebook from the side and then read his notes.

“However, the visitors have given some pretty valid feedback: the queue problem is very serious. Visitors have been gathering at Desperate Escape, and queuing for too long would ruin their moods.”

Hao Qiong looked nonchalant. “Hasn’t Teacher Qiao already explained this? In a few days, most people would disperse to the other two projects. The queue problem will probably improve very soon.”

Chen Kangtuo shook his head. “That’s right, but we can’t sit back and do nothing. What if the day comes when it is no longer the first project with the queue problem, but the third? Hoping that the visitors would sort the problem out on their own would be too passive.

“I think we should do something similar to the shared phone booths and create a queue mechanism in an application. Once visitors arrive, they can take a number and then check their position in the queue using their application.

“In the meantime, they can go to the Golden Maze, eat at the restaurant, or play at other projects. Once it’s almost their turn, they can return.

“That way, visitors would not become frustrated in the queue, and we can direct more traffic to the surrounding facilities!

“Moreover, the shared phone booths have already proven that this model works!”

Hao Qiong nodded. “Yes, that sounds pretty good. Well, should we just use the shared phone booths application, then?”

After some consideration, Hao Qiong said, “It might not fulfill our needs, but we can make some edits. We have to engage a company that’s strong in developing applications.

“Otto Technologies? It can develop applications, but they might just be busy with the algorithm laboratory and might not have time. What’s more, making them develop things like that seems like a waste.”

Chen Kangtuo thought about all the departments in Tengda Corporation that could develop applications. All of a sudden, his eyes lit up. He had found the perfect candidate.

“I know! We can get ‘Top Student, Come Quick’ to do it!”

‘Top Student, Come Quick’ had started out making applications to begin with, and they had good knowledge of how the Internet worked. Most importantly, ‘Top Student, Come Quick’ hadn’t had much work to do lately!

It was all perfect.

At that thought, Chen Kangtuo immediately retrieved his cell phone and contacted the man in charge of ‘Top Student, Come Quick’—Yu Pingan.