Chapter 176: Who the Hell Is Trying to Screw Me Over?!
Pei Qian quickly reviewed the current situation:
Several game DLCs had received positive feedback. Although Ocean Fortress got some criticism at launch, a patch had been rushed out over the past couple of days to implement an account credit rating system. Now, newly released epic weapons would be sold via a tiered pre-order system based on this credit rating.
Each month, 500 copies of the new epic weapon would be released, and players were sorted into three credit tiers.
The rating criteria were multifaceted, but to put it simply: a player's activity level, contributions to the game, and other behaviors were quantified into a numerical score, which determined their tier.
The monthly 500 epic weapons were split into three rounds of sales:
Tier 3 players could pre-order first—100 units available.
Tier 2 players came next—another 100 units.
Tier 1 players got the last chance—the remaining 300 units.
Even within the same tier, players with higher credit scores had a slightly better chance of snagging a weapon. Every point added to your score increased your odds just a little bit.
The player population across tiers roughly followed a 1:2:10 ratio. The higher the tier, the better the odds of getting an epic weapon.
As for new players with low credit scores? They weren't completely excluded—just heavily disadvantaged.
Additionally, there was a Tier 0 classification for completely inactive accounts—typically created by resellers or scalpers just to farm weapons. These accounts had no access to the pre-order system whatsoever.
Since the credit rating system was introduced, scalpers' influence had dropped dramatically.
Sure, account reselling couldn't be completely stopped. Some players would sell their Tier 2 or Tier 3 accounts at high prices. But the days of scalpers using pure reflexes to snap up all the weapons and make a killing were over.
The black-market account value would still fluctuate for a while, but it would eventually stabilize.
Players' reactions to this change had been overwhelmingly positive. Many still complained about the limited quantity of weapons, but the complaints were far less intense.
After all, if the cap on purchases couldn't be lifted, then this method of distribution was at least relatively fair.
On the Shangyang Games side of things, the company continued to lose money steadily.
Ye Zhizhou's team had completed Pei Qian's request. As a side effect, they'd restored the game's reputation, but with all the big-spender whales gone, revenue had tanked, and it was now impossible for the game to make a profit in the short term.
As for Moyu Internet Café, despite a small increase in drink sales thanks to the revenue-sharing deal with the singers, it still couldn't cover operational costs. The five branches combined were running at a loss.
Feihuang Studio, meanwhile, was basically a total write-off. They had poured all of their earnings into their latest documentary and even racked up some debt. The hole was eventually covered by Tengda.
Moyu Delivery was also in a very quiet state. Its operations mainly revolved around delivering boxed lunches to Tengda employees. Due to the extremely low volume of orders, the chefs and delivery staff were practically idle, leading to ongoing financial losses.
Despite so many loss-making projects, he was just barely able to offset the profits from several games.
Even though this cycle was only two months long, for Pei Qian, it had been a nerve-wracking experience.
First came Chen Lei's emergence, which nearly turned Moyu Internet Café into a profitable venture—thankfully, he discovered it in time and quickly stopped the bleeding.
Then Lin Wan waived a huge amount of rent for Tengda, dealing him a heavy blow. But fortunately, the loss was still within acceptable limits.
Plus, the incident exposed a mole, which helped prevent worse consequences in the future.
Pei Qian pulled out his little notebook, face serious, scribbling and calculating constantly.
Although the system currently showed a net loss, on the 28th—the final Monday before settlement—several games would still bring in a round of revenue.
Pei Qian couldn't accurately estimate how much money that would be. After all, anything could happen in the final week.
Using backend game data, he made a rough estimate and tried to maximize expenses wherever possible, doing everything he could to manufacture losses.
The situation still wasn't exactly optimistic, but thankfully, it wasn't completely hopeless either.
. . . .
In another corner of the internet café—
Li Shi sipped his coffee while silently observing Pei Qian.
'So, Moyu Internet Café is actually a Tengda business, and the boss is this young?'
'I really didn't expect that.'
As a regular customer of the café, Li Shi often came by and had seen Pei Qian on occasion, but never realized this young man was the boss behind it all.
However, after doing a little digging over the past few days, Li Shi had learned about the relationship between Moyu and Tengda. And from the way Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan interacted with Pei Qian, it was clear this was the mysterious boss of Tengda.
Li Shi had initially been concerned—what if Pei Qian was a rich second-generation heir or someone with powerful connections?
But after investigating, he found no such signs.
Based on what he knew now, he concluded that Pei Qian had likely made his fortune through games, now had more money than he knew what to do with, and had gotten a bit overconfident, deciding to dabble in running an internet café.
And that gave Li Shi even more confidence.
Young people like this are usually easy to fool.
Maybe Pei Qian was an expert at making games, but when it came to real-world business operations, he might not be so sharp.
And at this moment, this very "President Pei" was sitting there with a tiny notebook, scribbling away in a clearly unprofessional manner.
What was he doing?
'Hmm… most likely calculating the café's profit and loss.'
Judging by his grave expression, he was clearly dissatisfied with the café's ongoing losses and hadn't come up with a good solution yet.
'Maybe... it's time to approach him about a potential collaboration.'
Li Shi took another sip of his coffee. His original plan was starting to shift.
He had long been interested in investing in Moyu Internet Café, but worried that the owner behind it might not be open to the idea. So, he wanted to wait a bit longer—let the café lose more money first.
Originally, Li Shi thought that might take a few more weeks, maybe even a month or two. But now, it seemed like he wouldn't have to wait that long.
Since the owner was already showing signs of distress, maybe now was the right time to make a move.
'If I wait too long, someone else might snatch up the deal… and I'd be missing out.'
If that young boss suddenly got impulsive and sold the café to someone else, that would be a huge loss!
With that in mind, Li Shi straightened his collar and stepped outside to make a phone call.
As the boss of an investment firm, Li Shi couldn't just go up and approach Pei Qian directly—that would seem too informal and unprofessional.
Instead, he had his subordinates handle the initial business outreach, to express interest in investing in Moyu Internet Café. Then they could arrange a formal meeting—which is much more appropriate.
In fact, most of Li Shi's investments were the result of entrepreneurs approaching him with detailed pitches. He would filter through them, rejecting most, and only investing in a select few.
Moyu Internet Café, however, was a rare exception—a venture he had discovered himself.
Li Shi stood outside the café, silently lighting a cigarette, waiting for his subordinates to report back.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Back inside the café, Pei Qian stared at the scribbles in his notebook. After some rough calculations, he felt fairly confident that he could create a loss of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.
That is, as long as nothing unexpected happened.
One more surprise deposit, and the whole plan could collapse.
After finishing his calculations, Pei Qian finally allowed himself to relax a little. All the effort hadn't been in vain—he could now see the light at the end of the tunnel!
Just as he was feeling more at ease, his phone rang.
It was Xin Hailu.
"President Pei, Fu Hui Capital reached out. They said they're interested in investing—"
"No." Pei Qian cut her off.
"It's not an investment in Tengda," she clarified. "They want to invest in Moyu Internet Café. And Fu Hui is a pretty reputable investment firm—"
"No."
"...Understood."
Pei Qian hung up immediately.
'Invest in Moyu Internet Café?'
'Are you kidding me?! This is the only reliably money-losing project I have left, and now you want to give me more money to screw it up?!'
'Who the hell is trying to screw me over at such a critical time like this?!'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, outside the café, Li Shi puffed away leisurely on his cigarette, waiting for news from his team.
According to the usual script, the other party should be delighted, arrange a meeting, and during negotiations, Li Shi would leverage his experience to persuade them to accept the investment—
He hadn't even finished the cigarette when his phone rang.
"President Li, they rejected the offer."
Li Shi was stunned. For a moment, he didn't even know how to respond.
'They're not even giving me a chance to meet?'
'They rejected it just like that?'
'I didn't even finish my cigarette!'
'No, no, this isn't how the script is supposed to go!'
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